Even If You Work At Home, You Have Competitors So Seek Them Out

A free article on Market Research

By: David Mclauchlan

Just because you have decided that you want to start making money from home and that having a home based business has been a life long dream that is now reality, this does not mean that you do not have competitors. Competitors in business are a part of life so instead of denying it you must seek them out. How do I do this you ask?

The best way to seek out your competitors is to try and buy whatever product or service it is you’re planning to sell. Enter the market as a customer, and find out what options you would have.

Where does one look to find his competitors? It might be tempting to just use a search engine and go by the results that turn up, but you have to remember that plenty of business still takes place outside the Internet. You should also make sure that you pay attention to more traditional methods of advertising, such as the yellow pages, or your local newspaper. Its worth cutting out and keeping any ads you find, as they can be good to refer to when it’s time to start your own marketing.

Once you’ve found your competitors and you know what they do, you must learn to do what they do, but differently. Notice that I said ‘differently’, not necessarily ‘better’. Don’t assume that you’ll be able to improve on established businesses if you’re doing the exact same thing as they are - they have years of experience, after all. What you’re trying to do is distinguish yourself in the marketplace, so that people who are looking for something specific in your chosen industry will come to you.

There are a number of tried-and-true ways of altering existing products to make them succeed in the market.

The Price-Quality Line. You may find other businesses that only offer a very high-quality service, and accordingly charge a premium price - or you might find ones that only offer heavily-discounted rubbish. Consider taking their products to the opposite end of the market. If you can offer a product of only slightly worse quality at half the price, then people will jump at it - and, likewise, there are always people willing to pay the most to get the best.

Provide a Service. It is perfectly possible to sell products of the exact same physical quality while providing a better service - to the customer, quality and service are almost the same thing. There are companies out there who can sell computer software that their customers could get almost for free, simply because the customers like to have the support services that they get with their purchase.

Likewise, if service is all you do, then it should be pretty simple to provide a more attentive and personal service than your competitors. ‘One-on-one business’ gives you a great opportunity to become friendly with your customers, and that’s often worth its weight in gold to them. So by doing the same differently you will win...