In business, one of your key roles is to spot opportunities that can give you the advantage and help you stay ahead of the competition. Sometimes, it can be hard to tell what these opportunities are as they’re not always obvious, but it’s important that you’re aware of them rather than letting them pass you by. 

Here are my top five ways of spotting the opportunities that are all around you in business: 

1.    Pay attention to what other people do.In order to make sure I stay ahead in my business, I subscribe to many newsletters and audio recordings of people who could be counted as my competitors. You’d be amazed how many ideas I’ve come up with just as a result of doing this – let’s face it, there is no point in reinventing the wheel. If you pay attention to what other people do, then you’ll be able to spot some great opportunities for your business. 

2.    Ask, ask, ask. A few months ago, one of my competitors seemed to be doing loads of speaking events with Business Link. My reaction to this was “If she can do it, why can’t I?” So, we made some enquiries and send an email off to Business Link West Midlands and Business Link South West. Business Link West Midlands replied almost instantly saying that they were looking for a speaker on exactly that subject and could I give them more details. Long story short, we’re now running several workshops on networking made easy – all from just asking the question. 

3.    Volunteering is one of the ways in which I got established in business all those years ago. I volunteered for anything and everything that was even remotely related to the business such as mentoring for Business Link and sitting on panels for Gloucestershire Development Loan Fund. The great thing about volunteering is that you get to know the key people in an organisation and then of course if a paid job comes up, guess who is likely to get it? 

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I try not to write too much on market research and understanding your customers and your competitors – while it’s important, it’s not what most of you want to hear. Most small business owners simply want to know how to get more customers and don’t necessarily care how this comes about.

But what if I told you that having an understanding of what goes on around you can literally double or triple how many customers you actually get? Understanding your customers and competitors isn’t just important for your own knowledge, but it can really shape how you communicate with people. And if people feel you’re speaking their language, they’ll be much more likely to come and do business with you. So when was the last time you actually sat down and thought about who your customers are? If you haven’t done this for a while, just take five minutes out and check that you know the answer to this question. I must admit that a couple of months ago I did this exercise for my own business. I felt things were generally ok but that we were a little bit off track in how we communicated with our customers. Just taking five minutes out to reconfirm who our customers were made me refocus. It also served as some reassurance that we were doing the right things, but refocusing would make that communication even stronger.

Once you’ve done this for your customers, take another five minutes and refocus on what you know about your competitors. Which competitor leads the market? Who do you admire and want to be like? Is this still the same as it was, say a year ago? Again, five minutes after doing this for my business I realised that one of our competitors that I really admired and strived to be like them had completely changed – I now admired different companies which is going to make us even better in the long run.So, that all it takes – 10 minutes out of your life.

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Larry Sharpe of Neo-Sage states that when two companies are similar, it’s the little things that differentiate them. If your company is similar to your competitors, things such as smiles, warm greetings, or eye contact might just tip the balance in your favor. If each “little thing” is represented by a marble, and you compare the weight of your marbles with your competitions’ marbles, you will find that the difference in those “little things” add up. They tip the scale in one direction or the other.

Here’s an example that contrasts three different situations and their levels of service. Notice how many “marbles” each situation is worth:

Jack eats out for lunch every day. He likes to try new restaurants, and returns often to the restaurants that he likes. This week, Jack has decided to try three new restaurants in his neighborhood.

On Monday, Jack visits the first new restaurant – the food is great, but when the server spills a glass of iced tea on Jack’s lap, he is obviously upset. The server gets Jack a towel and apologizes for the inconvenience, but the server seems to be annoyed by what happened – almost like it was Jack’s fault. After cleaning up the mess, the server doesn’t say anything else to Jack.

On Tuesday, Jack eats lunch at the second new neighborhood restaurant. The food is also excellent.  But when one of the servers accidentally dumps a tray of drinks into his lap, Jack’s lunch experience is ruined. The server apologizes, provides Jack with some towels to clean up the mess, and offers to buy Jack his lunch. The server apologizes again as Jack leaves the restaurant and invites Jack to come back soon.

On Wednesday, Jack eats lunch at the third new restaurant. The food is very good, but not quite as delicious as the other two restaurants. But it’s not Jack’s week.

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This week is part 2 of my guide on getting your marketing basics in place. Last week, we covered why it was important to know who your customers are; decide on what you actually do and know why your customers buy from you. But, there are three other things that you need to get in place before you’ll be sorted on the marketing basics. They are:

How are you different?

Time and time again I hear small businesses being asked how they’re different from their competition and then responses of “we’re cheaper”, “we give better service”, “we’ve been established longer” and so on. To be honest with you, I would expect you to offer great service, to know what you’re doing and to offer me the best rate – that to me is a given. What I really want to know is why I should use your products or services as opposed to your competitors.

Have a really good think about your ‘niche’. It’s often difficult to come up with what this is so I’d advise you to think about an area of your business that you’re really passionate about and would happily get out of bed for without pay in a morning.

My passion for instance is working with small business owners and helping them to realise that they don’t have to spend a fortune on marketing. So, what’s your passion?

Getting your literature in place

Another one of the marketing basics is having all your literature and website etc in place so that you can send it out immediately if potential customers ask for it. But, it’s really important that your business doesn’t stop while you’re putting this into place.

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At one point during one of the workshops I facilitated in Ireland two weeks ago, a CEO said, matter-of-factly, “… and you know what the half-life of sales training is…” He was discussing how his company took a more formal approach to sales effectiveness than just sales training, and the benefits that structure and process was delivering to his company. I had never heard the term “half-life” applied to sales training. Brilliant!

Just the other day I finally got around to googling, “half-life of sales training.” Most of the hits I got back were related to an original article in the January 2004 issue of American Salesman.

The subject of the article was a study commissioned by SPI (Sales Performance International) which found, among other things, that the half-life of sales training is just 5.1 weeks without post-program reinforcement. For 44% of the participants in the study the half-life is less than a month.

In the article, SPI Senior Consultant Bob McGarrah said, “According to our findings, without immediate reinforcement the greatest loss in the training investment occurs almost as soon as the training is over.”

Although this research was done more than four years ago, I couldn’t agree more. ESR has found that post-program reinforcement is the single factor with the most impact on long-term value of a sales training intervention. There are certainly others, such as management support and matching training to an accurate assessment of needs. But it’s post-program reinforcement—coaching, follow-up materials, tools, refreshers, etc.—that extends the value of training.

There is a vicious cycle taking place here:

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If you have arrived at the conclusion that selling your business is in your best interests and ultimately what you want to do then you should begin advertising that fact. You should use a non-disclosure agreement and consult an attorney to protect your business interests. You may then receive bids from a number of interested parties, and they may be from budding entrepreneurs, friends, employees, large chains or even your competitors. Selling your business could be difficult for you no matter who you sell it to but it may be even more of a bitter pill to swallow if you sold it to your competitor. However, this is one case of resentment that you should put to one side because selling your business to a competitor can often be in your best interests.

Why Sell To A Competitor?

Personal feelings aside, selling your business to a competitor can result in the best possible financial deal for you. Although competitors have traditionally waited until the best possible time to purchase business competitors in the local area, the local economy is important to them and enhancing their market share will often result in a great deal for you.

During the process of due diligence, a key issue in determining the value of the business is the potential growth. If an external company or individual were to place a bid then the price would likely be less because of your local competitor and its market share. As such, it is feasible that the potential growth would not be as great. However, if your competitor were taking over then it would simply be expanding his or her market share and so would enhance the potential for growth and profitability.

However, it may be an international competitor that wants to purchase your business instead of a local one.

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