You could also check with organizations that can help you showcase your product. What about Weight Watchers, or Ediets.

If you were selling promotional items ask your local Chamber if they would be interested in getting T-shirts or hats imprinted. Catering businesses could offer their services to a local charity or a restaurant could give any left overs to a local food bank.

Giving away prizes, your time and services is something we have discussed in a number of other articles.

For those of you in business whose competition has been around a while and is bigger and more powerful, what do you do? Well, we would ignore them and go about our business. Never, ever bad mouth your competition. When students ask us about other coaches we never bad mouth them. Whatever you think personally of your competition is your business and it should never be shared. Run your business in an honest, and ethical manner and let your customer decide who they want to do business with. Remember, you are smaller so you can offer them more personalized attention, cater to their needs. Many times as businesses grow bigger and more powerful they forget what got them where they are…attention to their customers needs. You don’t have that problem, you have all time in world to give your customers your undivided attention. Your business depends on it.

Always research your competition. Know what products they sell, how they market them, distribute and sell them. Be sure to keep this material and update it periodically. You should have examples of their promotional materials, pricing, their services, products, etc. Update on a quarterly basis. Reading periodicals in your area and joining groups in your area of business give you opportunity to ask questions about how people got started, problems they had. You need to make it your business to learn as much as you can from others in your area. Depending on your business you might also have an industry publication that contains information on your competition. If so, subscribe to it.

We can do a lot that our competition can’t or won’t do. So let’s take advantage of being small, being courteous, offering better service, trying harder and offering our personal attention. Very compelling reasons for customers to do business with us rather than our competition.

Copyright 2004 DeFiore Enterprises