The 5 W’s to Outshining your Competition: (Part 2) ~ Team Pure Intent

What needs do we fulfill for them?
So you've gone through all this trouble to bring your products and services to the world marketplace. Most of you have toiled over them with long nights and endless days making sure your potential customers would love them as much as you do. But are our products and services really addressing the needs and challenges that your customers may have? Do your products and services bring an awareness to a problem and ultimately fix the problem?

With the added exposure brought on by social media, multi-television channels, and the internet, help our products and services close the gap to finding out who are customers are and how we can better serve them with our business.

The greatest effect
There are ever changing conditions that will affect your sell-ability:

The Economy
Geographical Location
Customers Current Financial Status (compared to when they 1st purchased product/service from you and where they may be now)

Being one step ahead of the game means that you may need to answer so serious questions of your business on a monthly or yearly basis so that you are always in tune to your customers needs. Having a better understanding of what your potential or current customer desires before giving your sales pitch can help you better fulfill a particular need and ultimately gain your business consistent sales. Here are some questions you can use to help you stay relevant to your customers needs and desires.

What is your potential customer’s current situation?
What factors are driving their decisions? Are they looking for a higher or lower quality product/service?
What is their determining price point? (What is the reason behind this?)
Will your product/service fulfill a specific need or solve a particular problem?

It needs more Salt
I can’t get enough of the television show Restaurant: Impossible that broadcasts on the Food Network Channel. In a two day mission, Chef Irvine has the impossible task to address why a restaurant is failing and how he will get them back on the track to success. He is outfitted with a $10,000 budget, a contractor, an interior designer, and over 20 years of restaurant knowledge. 85% of the episodes I've seen had business owners that loved the idea of owning their own restaurant but had no clue about the daily operations and sacrifices that go along with running one.

I have viewed over 20 shows and the common message is get to know your clientele. The owner may have an idea of who they are cooking for but more than often those clients are not coming in to eat because of the atmosphere, the service, or simply the food doesn't get seasoned right, “It needs more salt.” In this video, Chef Irvine goes out to the community to ask their opinion about the restaurant and brings the video footage back to the owner to show him how he needs to be open to a potential customers wants and needs. Quite simply, listen to your potential and existing customers. Ask them, “if this doesn't interest you, what products and/or services would?”

If you listen and observe, you can quickly make a connection with a prospect and begin to build trust.

Who is our competition?

Every business has competitors. If you do not know who your competitors are, it is likely that someone else can offer a competitive advantage. Be that business that can offer a potential customer something that the competition can’t. You can transform your business into the “go-to” business by being more aware of what the competition is doing, how they are marketing themselves, and identifying what is working for them and what is not. Watching and learning from competitors will give you an insight into how they run their businesses and maybe even some fresh ideas.

Competition is fierce out there requiring the “smaller-size” business to come up with ways to stay in the game and beat out the bigger business. Learning your competitors tactics and implementing better business strategies helps your business to stay in that game.

Onward and Upward!