While most businesses thrive on the idea of creating their own company message and following their own ideals, the reality is that most companies will eventually have to listen to the consumer and try to arrange their business in a way that appeals to their audience. Eventually, you and your competitors will be doing the same thing; monitoring each other and waiting for opportunities to expand your influence.
Competition is unavoidable in business. Even if you’re dead set on just doing your own thing and not bowing down to the whims of your audience, you’ll eventually be competing with another company. So how closely should you really be monitoring your competition? Is it a bad idea to constantly look at what they’re doing, or should you always have an eye on them?
Decide who your biggest competitors are
Make sure you identify who the big fish are. Many businesses try to compete with too many different companies, and this can turn into a huge mess when you’re trying to offer similar or better services than multiple different businesses. Focus on larger companies instead of those smaller ones. Try to figure out who your biggest competition is and then keep tabs on them with a brand tracking company or your personal research metrics and statistics. If you spend too much time looking at smaller companies that aren’t considered direct competition to you, then you might find yourself making bad decisions that will be taken advantage of by other businesses.
But don’t completely neglect the smaller ones
One of the perks of being a smaller business is that you can often try out new ideas without facing too many drawbacks. Smaller businesses are often encouraged to try new things, and this is usually something that can work in their favour because it leads to new product ideas that customers can end up falling in love with. In fact, we’d go as far as to say that small businesses are extremely important in the ecosystem of an industry because they’re usually the ones that introduce innovative ideas that eventually take over the industry, forcing even the larger companies to adapt or else they risk losing their position. In short, always make sure you keep an eye on smaller businesses to see what new innovative ideas they’re testing.
Always be prepared to grow your company
Lastly, try to position yourself so that you’re always prepared to grow your company and scale up when needed. For instance, expanding your business internationally can be a huge boon to your business and overall popularity, but it needs to be something that you prepare for over a long period of time. If your competition decides to expand overseas, then you should be able to follow up with an equally effective plan so that you can appeal to a similar audience. If you don’t prepare for this, then your competitors will have a huge head start when it comes to growing their business overseas, potentially leaving you in the dust and dominating an entirely new sector of the industry.