What is your plan to be successful in business? Simply offering a service or product that is the same as others in your market are offering will not work, despite this being the business plan of many entrepreneurs. Those who think they can just offer something, without being able to articulate a reason for a customer to switch from an existing provider or to use something that is new and innovative is self-destroying. Instead of beating your competition, you are beating yourself.

To find true success, here are four thing you should consider:

1.           Identify what current competitors do well.

Look at as many aspects of your competition as you possibly can. What do they do extremely well? Why do customers most appreciate them? Make sure that as you do this evaluation you think like a consumer, not a competitor.

2.           Ask yourself if you can do better. 

After you identify the strengths of your competitors, look at what you can do better. Is it customer service, marketing, product assortment, service, refund policy, after-purchase follow-through, friendliness, cleanliness, pricing, quality, or some other aspect of business? Pick one or two areas and go after it with the vigor of the fighting dog.

One word of warning, when you select the area you in which you can excel make sure it is an area the customers care about. For example, it wouldn’t matter if you had the most cleaver website if your customers are in a demographic that prefers printed ads.

3.           Allow your competitor to be successful.

After determining those areas that you can beat your competition, forget about the rest. Walmart is not concerned about providing consumers with a wide assortment in a single product category. If they did decide to go after the customers looking for wider assortments, they would lose their price advantage. Since the customer is told the price advantage is critical, Walmart is better off walking away from this less-profitable business. Likewise, do what you know you can do best and forget the rest.

4.           Tell the consumer why you are better. 

In the late 1980s Toys "R" Us had a reputation for the lowest prices on diapers. At Kmart we knew our prices were lower, but the consumer wouldn't give us a shot at that business as long as they incorrectly believed Toys "R" Us had the best deals on diapers. How could we compete against another retailer that already blinded the consumer to reality?

It is a wise businessman that never underestimates the intelligence of the consumer. Kmart had falsely assumed customers would compare prices. Have a plan to tell consumers why they should give you their business instead of going to your competitor. 

So, remember, it's not the size of the dog in the fight that matters as much as it is the size of the fight in the small-business owner.

This is an excerpt from “Life’s Leadership Lessons” a collection of 53 anecdotal leadership lessons, each with an anecdote and the application of the topic in your everyday life. It is designed for use in weekly staff meetings or for personal development.

About the author:

Rick Weaver has half a century’s experience in leadership development in retailing. He founded Max Impact Corporation, a leadership and business development consultancy company in 2002. His major accomplishments include working himself from stock clerk to director at a Fortune 50 retail chain and building a $40MM+ construction company in under 5 years. Today Max Impact offers staffing services as a franchisee of Patrice & Associates providing Executive Search, Management Recruiting, and Contract Staffing services.