Startup: How to compete in business (Easy Solid Strategy)

So first it was fear of starting your own business, different worries of failure, of not being able to do it effectively and now once you have launched you don’t know how to beat your competitors? How to increase your market share...

Daymmm! You think it is really, really hard to compete!!, right!

I know, I know but hey I can help you because been there, done that!

I will give you one solid strategy that will give you the desired results in 3-12 months time period.

I won’t beat around the bush like those so called business gurus, talking in riddles, I am gonna give you an approach (a strategy) that you can follow with ease even if you are novice in all this business thingy.

WAKE UP!, Pay close absolute attention to what I am about to discuss!

So without further ado let’s get to it (winks!)

Super Easy Four Step Strategy for Startups to Compete! 

Remember: Don’t skim, read full article else you may not get the benefits I intended to give, so DON’T SKIM, don’t be dozy, full attention, let’s go!

Step 1 Target Market Survey

When you launch your business, second thing after that you should do is to conduct target market survey, for instance if you are going to put your product/service in market via middlemen like retailers, wholesalers, distributors then you should find total number of such dealers in the target region you want to target.

For instance if I want to target customers in New York state and I have to use retailers, wholesalers in the process, then what I need to do is to find total number of retailers, wholesalers in New York State.

Now let’s assume total number of retailers, wholesalers in New York State are 20 thousand.

I will talk about this step more in step three, because it is relevant to that step.

Step 2 Product Analysis

By product analysis (conducting survey) I mean, to analyze where your competitors products stands in terms of TOMA.

TOMA stands for Top Of the Mind Awareness which means: top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) is a brand or specific product coming first in customers' minds when thinking of a particular industry.

For instance if I conduct survey by asking a simple question “Name any Five cold drinks in five second” and let’s assume I get the following response (from survey of 5 thousand potential customers).
 

	Cold Drink Mentioned 1st in 5 secs	Cold Drink Mentioned 2nd in 5 secs	Cold Drink Mentioned 3rd in 5 secs	Cold Drink Mentioned 4th in 5 secs	Cold Drink Mentioned 5th in 5 secs
% of potential customers plus cold drink name	50% mentioned Coca Cola	15% mentioned Pepsi	15% mentioned 7up	10% mentioned Mountain Dew	10% mentioned Sprite

The above table shows that TOMA is stronger for Coca Cola and is relatively weaker for Pepsi, 7up but still there is TOMA for all these drinks.

What this means is, it will be really hard for you to compete with such items, with such brands because even if you succeed in putting your soft drink product on retailers, wholesalers shelves you won’t be able to drive demand for it due to TOMA of these products.

So if that is the case with your business, then you also need to focus on building TOMA by marketing, advertising.

Read the following article and other related articles on this super-duper blog of mine! (No I am not saying this because it’s my blog ;d lol, it is cool! Isn’t it ? I mean just look at it???)

Very Simple Marketing Plan for Any Small Business

Now if there is like little to no TOMA from competitors side when it comes to your product/service then you need to move to Step three and that is …

Remember: Products with high TOMA are really hard to compete with, I mean like really damn hard!

Okay back to step 3!

Step 3 Product Shelf Life

What I mean by product shelf life is, to find out via survey, for how long yours or your competitors product stay on shelves with retailers, wholesalers before being consumed by target market.

Why you need to know that? Because once you know that, then you will be able to know how much sales staff you need.

Let me explain, for instance the shelf life of my product is 10 days, that would mean I would need to replenish my product supplies with retailers, wholesalers, distributors after every 10 days.

Now for instance as we learned from step one that there are 20 thousand retailers and we all know you can’t just snatch the whole target market from your competitors overnight rather you can do it bit by bit, slowly and steadily.

So I have to initially aim for 2-5% market share, snatching 2-5% market share in New York State from my competitors would mean getting my product on shelves of 400-1000 retailers, wholesalers out of that 20 thousand.

Don’t Skim because your whole business success depends on it!

Okay coming back to 400-1000 retailers, wholesalers I would need sales staff that can achieve deals with these many retailers, wholesaler, can cover these many retailers, wholesalers in span of 10 days, replenish their shelves every 10 days.

Now this is where you need to calculate how many sales guys you would need, if for instance a sales person can cover 80 dealers each day, then you may need 2 to 4 sales guys in the beginning.

Once you get 2-5% market share (which may take from anywhere 3-12 months) and want to expand further, you would need more sales guys…

If you have been facing problems in hiring effective sales guys that can deliver then read this little article with full, 100% attention.

New Business Hiring Problems: How to hire sales Guys who won’t quit ever!

Step 4 Developing Route Plan

This is the final step that you need to take to beat those awful competitors you despise!

Once you hire experienced sales guys (read the above article if you don’t know how, even without paying them huge salaries) then you need is to develop route plans that these sales guys should follow to get your product to those retailers, wholesalers everyday.

Since you don’t know how to do that, that is the reason instead of experimenting for over an year and then getting things right, why not hire experienced sales guys and get things right from the beginning?!

Lastly make sure that you follow route plan a day or two earlier then your key competitors, this will really help you in getting more sales because due to little to no TOMA your target dealers (retailers, wholesalers) would just fill in their shelves on first come first serve basis.

Because they know, with little to no TOMA would mean customers really don’t care about brand, all they want is a product that can satisfy their needs.

That’s it.

Follow this super-duper, no beating around the bush strategy and you will quash your competitors in no time!

Yeah absolutely!!!

And yeah subscribe if you want some more real objective practical stuff to help your business, not some cool stupid beating around the bush stories!

(winks), don’t you think I wink a lot, like really really a lot ? ;d lol

In case you have utilized this approach and still want more growth, more market share, more penetration then read part two of this approach, check the following link.


How to compete in business Strategy PART TWO

YEAH DON’T FORGET TO SUBSCRIBE for more actionable handy tips!

References:

1.      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-of-mind_awareness