How do you outsmart your competitors?

One thing I’ve used with business owners and entrepreneurs is to discuss what is meaningfully unique to their business, and to really tell the story of why they are in business.

The first step to outsmarting any of your competitors is to know your own strengths. What are you uniquely good at? What value do you bring to the table? Once you know your strengths, you can use them to your advantage and create a strong value proposition that will attract customers and clients. Here's a unique suggestion that I often make to my product leaders, A) Identify your core values. B) What is most important to you and your business? C) What do you stand for? Your core values define you, help guide your decision-making, and create a strong brand identity.

To outsmart competitors, start by identifying and leveraging your strengths to create a compelling value proposition. Understand your unique capabilities, resources, and skills that differentiate you in the market. By showcasing your competitive advantage, you can appeal to your target audience and stay ahead of the competition. #CompetitiveStrategy #BusinessSuccess

I love this but want to take it a step further. Knowing your strengths is important and for sure this is how you can discover it but think about how you hone in on your strengths against where the market is going. You can harp on your strengths all day long but if the market is signaling a shift and your strengths are in the past how does that help your customer or product for the now or future? Pair this with a market analysis or an economic report to truly take those strengths to the next level.

Thanks - I'd add to "Know your strengths", Know your weaknesses! Many Entrepreneurs - as well as creative marketing and sales professionals - struggle based of their hubris and invulnerability! In many cases our successes of the past blind us to the causes of set backs and failures. Know thyself!

When you think about your competitors, you have to see the world as it really is, not how you’d like it to operate. Too many competitor analyses don’t give your competition the respect they deserve. Treat your competition as worthy alternatives and avoid thinking of them as you’d like them or need them to be.

Sometimes doing a SWOT analysis kills your valuable time, and it may even push you off the grid and lose your path to develop a unique value for your product. Outsmarting competitors is often considered as creating a superior product or feature than competitors, but I believe that you are your first competitor. Be ready to beat yourself daily and outsmart your innovative and creative thinking in helping your customers in the best way possible.

KYC "Know Your Customer" and being customer obsessed will keep you on the frontline. Encourage and motivate your consumers to share feedback.

Absolutely. In my experience, I'd advise organizations to clearly define their scope, as well as criteria for the businesses they'd like to pursue. Sometimes the vision isn't narrow enough and organizations find themselves pursuing everything that looks like its ideal position, without carefully deciding before hand what does(n't) fit in the picture. It wears employees thin and inadvertently creates confusion to external audiences because the organization says one thing, but does another.

“Is there profit in the gap?” You might see a gap in the market, but is it profitable? Avoid being a busy fool running after customers who will demand a high level of service but not pay for it. If you can provide a better service and the customer will pay more for that service then you have a added value

This is all brand marketing and telling the right story that keeps your customers at the heart but positions your brand to that customer. Invest in a good creative director to help you hone in on what that story is.

The best book that I can recommend for this is Measure What Matters by John Doerr. You need OKRs for this section to work effectively so that you can measure and or benchmark against. Don’t forget to communicate the why during this stage. It’s going to be very important for your audience.

I'd add to this one thing - speed. When the organization identifies an area of improvement, it should implement it expeditiously, if possible during the lifecycle of the transaction where the improvement or adaptation was identified. I believe this speed happens more often in young organizations, but the wheels of change move a lot slower in companies that are in the mature stage of company growth.

A smart strategy to stay ahead of your competitors is to focus on strategic foresight. This is similar to driving; if you only concentrate on the road right in front of you, you may miss the fact that a bridge is out further down the road. Keep an eye out for any signs of disruptive technologies, changes in laws, or shifts in consumer behavior. Then, figure out how to prepare your organization to respond proactively rather than simply reacting to any sudden changes.

Follow and track the trends. Markets shift everyday and so does consumer behavior so pay attention to that so that you can have the agility needed to pivot when you discover a change in the trends.