Who Is Your Real CompetitionSean DSouza If you design kitchens, is another kitchen designer your competition Most likely not. And the sooner you can position and modify your marketing strategy against your real competition, the sooner you will start to see more business come through the door. So Who Really Is Your Competition The answer to that is always--Never the most obvious. So lets take the example of the kitchen designer. Having decided that another kitchen designer isnt his competition, he now has to decide who is his real competition. His Real Competition Could Be A Car Salesman Is this for real How can a car salesman be a kitchen designers competition Lets analyse this more carefully. A kitchen and a car are both fighting for the same thing-- The householders limited budget. If the kitchen designer, were able to convince a couple that a kitchen is more important than a new car which he could easily do if there was a foodie around, he now has a better chance of them dropping the car in favour of the kitchen. The Advantage Of This Method Of Positioning The most obvious advantage is that youre not losing any current customers. All your past advertising is bringing in the customers that are looking for kitchens anyway. What it does do however, is bring in a new lot of customers that would never have thought about kitchens, if you hadnt implanted it in their minds. Effectively, you have both, customers who are looking for kitchens as well as customers who are forfeiting their new cars in favour of new kitchens. How Your Re-Positioning Can Help You Focus We had a client who ran a laundromat. Her current customers were people who did not have washing machines. Obviously, her business went up and down based on the season and on her customers limited budget. We got her to refocus her marketing strategy on a new target-- Customers who had washing machines. These customers had the money, but no time. By deciding that her real competition was time she decided to target people who had limited time instead. As a result, she was now targeting busy people while other laundromats were targeting people with washing. This positioning actually helped the laundromat stand out from the rest of the competition. How The Laundromat Did A Full 180 This re-positioning did a couple of things for them. One, it helped them focus on their target audience. Consequently, they changed their name from just XYZ Laundromat to Bizzie Buggers. It was catchy and bang on target. It also now meant that busy customers with the money, were more likely to stop over and drop their washing. Plus they had the regular customers walking through the door anyway. What You Need To Do Sit down and write who your immediate competition could be. Then write down what your business is really up against. Here are some examples. These arent necessarily your right targets but they help you see things in a different light and help you determine who your real competition could possibly be. Cartoonist= Photographer Computer Salesman= Filing Cabinet Car Dealer= Expensive Restaurant Meals If you would like to learn more about the way the human brain works, and how customers make buying decisions, go to http://www.5000bc.com Theres a vast library of free articles and information on topics as varied as copywriting, small business ideas, public speaking, sales conversion, psychological tactics, branding and other marketing related subjects. Go to http://www.5000bc.com today. Youll be amazed at what you find there.
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