3.Do not place your advertising directly beside any major competition. Doing this will only give you a 50% chance of success; lower if they are already long since established. Satisfied customers rarely use new competitor’s service.

4.Try to market your prices at a better bargain than your competitors with added extra values. Sometimes it is all about appearance of things.

5.Assess your competitor’s success rate. Learn what they are doing that is so great and offer something better or at a more reasonable price. These are just some of things that you can do to present yourself in best light possible when dealing with your competition. Of course nothing beats putting yourself in your consumers’ position. You must think of what you would like in a retail outlet so that you can best compete in market. You should also keep your eye on their marketing and promotional techniques because it will help you to keep up with them better. All of this stuff should be placed directly in your business plan if you want to show that you are prepared for tasks and potential problems that can arise. You will want to know how competition is faring in market also. You do not want to get into a market that is already unsuccessful. You must assume that if your competition is doing badly, that market isn’t as good as you may have hoped. Naturally you should double check your information because it is possible that your competition may just not be meeting current demand properly. If this is case, then you should look for best way to meet need in a better manner.

To use another illustration, businesses are like plants. They take time to grow. You have to water them with an investment of time and money. You have to prune out dead wood, getting rid of things that don’t work (maybe an ineffective ad campaign). The more you understand how to nurture them, healthier they become and eventually produce fruitage you can be proud of.

Runners have coaches to teach them how to utilize their physical strengths wisely over duration of race. Landscapers study attributes of individual plants and trees so as to best know how to cultivate them, and then they are patient as their efforts bear fruit.

As business owners, we can learn from both. We need to get to know our business, what will make it grow, as well as what will drain it until it dies. We need to be coached by others who are willing to share their experience. We need to be able to evaluate our assets, our strengths, and know how to use them wisely. We need to have patience of landscaper and perseverance of long distance runner. And we need to pace ourselves, having reasonable goals and expectations.

If you do all this, your work at home business will grow and like long distance runner you will reach your goal.

But you must remember, along way you will need to work hard while striving real hard to WORK SMART!