Categories: Business, Marketing

The words “business” and “competition” are usually considered closely linked. After all, don’t businesses compete with one another?

In reality, businesses are always trying to avoid competition. In competitive situations, prices drop to steal each other’s customers – and profits disappear.

The only way to avoid competition is to sufficiently differentiate your products/services from the other alternatives available to your potential customers.

You need to come up with a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) – the thing that differentiates your business idea from the rest. You should always be able to sum up your USP in under 30 seconds – preferably ten – and it should roll off your tongue. It should ultimately answer the question, “what makes you different from the others?”

There are an almost infinite number of things that people want right now – things that they are willing to pay good money for. If you’ve not got a very good imagination, you may look at what people are buying – then try to sell the same things to them. That just puts you in competition with everyone else. You have to find a group of customers whose needs have so-far been ignored – then provide what they need.

Ideally, you want to find a Niche that no other companies have noticed, or aren’t exploiting to the full. You need to find a demand that no-one is satisfying, then give those customers what they want. Once you find your niche, you should be able to sit there relatively comfortably for a long time – making reasonable profits.