Know your competition - Home Business Carnival #13 at Start a Side Business

Know your competition - Home Business Carnival #13

Published December 12th, 2006 in Business.

Today’s theme is about competition, and more specifically about finding out who your competitors are, and what they do, what their edge is, and how you can beat them.

Knowing about your competition is key to your business success. Knowing what they do can help you refine your pricing structure. It can help you hone your differentiators so that you can present yourself and your business in the best possible light.

Jim Hart explains how you can perform a professional Analysis of your competition. His recipe is simple:

Play the role of the customer with money
Call competitors outside your area
Do in-field competition analysis by either telemarketing to prospective customers and asking them if they are familiar with your competition, ever done business with them

An other way to find out about your competition is to look online.

Tim Berry develops some of the same ideas, and a few more in Know your Competition. Namely he suggests:

When competitors are local, take a look at the Yellow Pages of your local phone directory.
Purchase credit and background reports
Do a thorough search of the internet, using your favorite search engines

For an other way to look at this subject, and to sum it up, read Laura’s take: You have no competition! That is, if you are small enough, and specialized enough, you can define your own territory in a way that makes you unique, and the competition disappears…

This concludes this 13th edition of the Home Business Carnival. The 14th edition of the Home Business Carnival will be hosted here at Start a Side Business and the theme will be “Wrapping up the business year”. Submit your articles now. I look forward to receiving your contributions!

Be sure to checkout 5 on the 5th, a new monthly serie where I selected last month best but off topic submissions. A very good read!

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