Do you spend as much time researching and understanding your business as you do that of your competitors? Do you have a strategic marketing and business development strategy or just goals you set and hope for the best? Wyatt Earp, who knew a little bit about market domination said that you must take the time to aim, before shooting from the hip.
The first step toward dominating your marketplace, your industry in fact, is understanding your business and then establishing clearly defined strategic objectives. These strategic objectives are a lot more than just vague goals that you mention on your web site, were part of your incorporation papers, or are in the never ever read by anybody since they were written corporate minutes.
Strategic objectives focus your actions toward specific quantifiable results. When one strategic objective is met others are met as well. You know about the principle of unintended consequences - the things that happen that you did not expect to happen when you made a decision or took a particular action. When you rely on vague wishful goals those unintended consequences, because of your untested assumptions - are usually bad.
But when you are running your organization around well considered strategic objectives, unintended consequences diminish. What you are left with are multiple steps forward toward the results you are seeking. Nothing takes place in a vacuum, so spin-off consequences move you forward rather than backwards.
With your business, your strengths and weaknesses - your unique selling proposition in mind, analyze the market. Consider the buyers and potential buyers of your products and services until you know the marketplace inside out. By anticipating the way your market is moving you can more accurately predict its future acceptance of what you offer and the price they are willing to pay for it.
Remember, the price you put on your goods and services is simply your opinion of what it is worth. The marketplace will tell you whether or not that's an accurate figure. The more you understand about your market and what it values, the better you will be able to create a value proposition they will accept.
When you then analyze the competition, its strengths and weaknesses, you will do so with a more accurate picture of what the market wants. You will be less likely to add products lines, drop products from your catalogue, and make changes in your prices - just because your competitors are doing so.
You must know more about your competitors than they know themselves - and knowing your own strengths and the desires of the marketplace will put the actions of your competitors in context. You will see whether or not their innovations are likely to resonate with the market, before investing in them yourself.
Self knowledge, combined with market knowledge, and competitive analysis will help you identify those areas that will effect your marketing and strategic growth agenda.
This up to date knowledge will help you develop the critical path your organization must take, which things must be done first second third and so on, and it will help you identify immediate specific actions to take.
This is the principle strategy for positioning and repositioning your company and its products and services in such a way that your ideal customers will see yours as the company of choice. Do these things today and do them continually and your customers will come to see you as the supplier of products for which there is no reasonable substitute.
Marketing is often described by traditionalists as "attracting customers thru the appropriate adaptation of product, price, packaging, and promotion."
That's true as far as it goes. Strategic marketing is putting your products, and services in front of the right people in the right way - based on a clear understanding of your company, your competitors, and what your marketplace values.
Author Resource:-
Wayne Messick reports on how Main St. businesses are poised to succeed in the 21st Century on his blog
www.WayneMessick.com His updated peer-to-peer collaboration report can be found at
www.SelfDirecterPeerGroups.com
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