How to Prosper Because of Your CompetitionWritten by Bill Dueease
If you’ve been considering your competitors as roadblocks, or hindrances, you 've been overlooking an important springboard to success. Business owners frequently consider their competition as enemy. Many focus on "beating other guy" because that’s how they measure their success—just like in sports, where one side has to beat other to win. However, by focusing on beating competition, you will divert yourself from your real objectives: increasing profits, gaining more time and gaining more control. Bottom line, you will succeed at these goals only by improving yourself and your business, regardless of competition. You can use your competition to further your own prosperity. Let’s look at how this can be done. Phase 1: Face Your Competition The first step in prospering because of competition is to identify and analyze “Real Competition.” It’s frequently not readily apparent. Sure, your business might have new and unique products or services, but when needs they actually fulfill are defined, you’ll discover that many other types of products and/or services fulfill similar (if not same) ones. The second step is to evaluate your competition thoroughly—to know more about them than they or your potential customers do. You gain considerable knowledge and power by doing this, which you will be able to use during next step. Phase 2: Embrace Your Competition The next step is to embrace your competition. That’s right! In fact, you want and need competition. Here are several of reasons why:•Your potential customers need to compare your business and your products and/or services to someone or something in order to see and feel that your products and/or services provide best deal for them. Everything is relative, and comparison in buying is a very natural thing. •You need your competition as a place to send unwanted customers. That is . . . a.You need to avoid and/or get relief from bad customer experiences. You quite often spend too much time, money and effort on extremely demanding, very price conscious, "unappeasable" customers, who almost always produce no profits and sometimes create losses. Even worse, they distract you from your best customers, who drift away in silence. b.You might as well let your competitors deal with these problem people and thus probably overlook better ones—who might seek you out. c.You show strength to customers when you don’t fear competition. Many potential customers will try to threaten you and your business with "The Competition" as a negotiating tactic. Your confident understanding of your competitors and of your desirable customers will allow you to educate them to real differences. This is how you can position your business favorably. •You need to be pushed to continually improve. Monopolies create terrible consequences. Competition creates a desire to keep getting better. By not improving, a business is not standing still—in reality it’s declining toward its demise.
| | Corporate ShellsWritten by Joseph Quinones
A corporate shell could be liken to a house that had been occupied by a family, prior to family moving out it was a home. But now it is just shell, a skeleton a plain house with nobody in it, but if a family was to purchase house and moves in, it becomes a home.Similar, a corporate shell was once home of an operating company but once operating company ceases to reside there because of adverse circumstances ( bankruptcy or liquidation ) all that remains is shell. Buying and selling corporate shells has become big business, just a couple of years ago a corporate shell sold for approximately $150,000.00 today they go for upward of $500.000.00. Talk about inflation! The increase in price is due to increase scrutiny by Securities and exchange commission and demand for shell by Chinese companies seeking to become listed in United States. As usual when there is money to be made vultures appear with their unscrupulous practices. In most cases shells are own by same operators who are also acting as consultants to companies they are helping to become public. This may be a conflict of interest but they are able to hide their ownership well with help of securities lawyer who may also have a piece of shell. The situation described above creates a huge conflict of interest that regulators have yet to figure out because of intricacy of many participant who work in harmony and are able to conceal their actions from regulators. If consultant indirectly own a shell and is trying to sell it to company that they are advising, how well is he going to represent client when it comes to price and amount of shares that they are to Retain? And how about with assisting company in performing proper research on shareholder list and history of shell.
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