It is a race, and your customers are fully aware. The market today is as competitive in terms of profit as never before. Moreover, things are expected to get even more fired-up in the coming months and years.
By abiding by the following four awesome concepts, you will increase your profits without having to consume yourself in hard work for endless years. These are game-changing pieces of advice when it comes to your business success.
1) Give your Business a Clear Mission
If you want your business and your associates to display superior performance, you need to have a clear vision regarding your company’s place in the world and its destination. When you are off to define a mission, you should really try to answer this question: What is the reason for your existence? Are you solving any problems?
When defining your purpose, you should always view it from the perspective of how other people are served and benefited through your business. An effective mission statement will include the way to follow in order to achieve the mission. Moreover, it will include a point of reference so that an objective assessor can evaluate whether the company fulfills its self-defined mission.
2) Define your Business Segment with Accuracy
It is almost unbelievable that massive numbers of people have no idea what business segment they belong to, although they spend all day working in it. Make sure you pinpoint your business according to how your customer views it. This means that your business’s definition will be dictated by what your services or products offer to your customer. How do they affect the personal and professional lives of your customers? How do your customers specifically benefit from what you have to offer?
So, what’s your business in the eyes of your customer? What’s more, where do you find yourself the day after, taking into account the current trends in your field? Alternatively, what business are you in today, from your customer’s point of view? Also, what business will you be in tomorrow with the way things are going in your industry? More importantly, do you need to switch to a different business in order to survive and succeed in the fluidity of today’s competitive environment?
And ultimately, provided that you are able to do what’s necessary to become a leader in your field, what business is best suited for you? After all, there is no better way to predict the future than creating it. To the words of strategic planner Michael Kami, “The future is there for those who plan for it.”
It doesn’t really matter what is your current business since things are going to change drastically in the following years. What you have to do is to command this change, not be objectified by it. Defining your business segment accurately and be ready to make changes in order to lead this business is crucial to increasing your profits.
3) Define your Customer with Accuracy
This is what marketing, sales and profit potential is all about. To be able to accurately define your customer is the most important factor of succeeding in business.
Be as precise and accurate as you can when defining your customer. This includes extended demographics (age, income, education, company position, philosophy, background, baseline value), geographic location, and position on the market landscape.
More importantly what is your customer’s perception of value? Where does he or she prefer to invest his or her money? What are their needs and wants that aren’t met by anyone else at the moment? What makes your prospective customer trust your competitors with their money? What will it take to persuade your potential (but not actual) customers to switch their preference towards your own offerings? How would they be benefited from doing so?
Employ “zero-based thinking,” with your client base and with your market segment. Assuming you weren’t offering your services or products in your current market, would you consider it a good opportunity to start today? Also, who do you see as your customer in the near or distant future? What if you decided to switch your services or products? What would be the best customer base if your goal is to make a substantial profit in the future?
Finally, what do you need to change in your business so that your company becomes more attractive to the high-profit customer of the future? This is probably the most important riddle to solve on a daily basis when you are set to build and maintain high profitability.
4) Gain the Edge over Your Competition Or Don’t Compete at all
This is crucial. The existence itself of your business success depends on your capacity to create and keep some sort of significant competitive advantage. Is there something that your company excels at? At what field are you considered to be high level? How do your main products and services stand out?
Your competitive advantage is the particular feature of your service or product that gives you a significant edge over your competition. The area where your competitive edge lies strictly depends on your customer’s wants, needs, and budget
The existence of a competitive advantage, which is recognized and appreciated by customers, is the single common feature of every surviving and thriving company. On the contrary, all companies that face problems have either lost their competitive advantage in the market, or they never had one in, to begin with.
How able you are to build, keep and safeguard your competitive advantage is a feature that no company that aspires to achieve high growth and profitability can do without. Because the modern marketplace evolves at such a rapid pace, you should always try to keep your competitive advantage one step ahead. If you want to be the leader of the pack, what should that advantage be? Provided you can change your offering as needed, what competitive advantage would you go for?
Today, the primary competitive advantages are speed, lower price, or higher convenience; or a combination of all three, along with stellar customer service. Every successful and profitable company out there offer products and services of high quality and fast. Also, they provide impeccable customer service, and they continue to improve it further. All these allow them to be the fastest growing and most profitable companies in their respective fields and this is where you should be as well.
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