Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Learn from Your Competition

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Watching your competitors can give you clues about what you can do to grow your business. Seeing what works for others (and what doesn’t work) will give you the knowledge you need to make changes that will make your business more profitable.

Although you should never copy exactly what your competitors are doing, you can certainly learn from it and adapt some of their good ideas to fit your business. Here are some of the things to look at:

What are their keywords? What keywords are they ranking for? What keywords do they target? Research your competitors’ keywords and use that information to review your own keywords. You may want to target some of the same keywords, or look for keywords that are less competitive that will be easier for you to rank with.

How do they engage? Watching how your competition engages with their audience can teach you ways in which to improve your own engagement. Read their blog. Sign up for their email list. Follow them on social media. What do they do well? Where is their engagement lacking? Identify mistakes and successes in your competition to ensure that you’re covering all bases.

What topics get their audience engaged? Are there topics of discussion on social media and blog posts that get more comments and shares than others? Are there topics that lead to negative engagement, where they anger the audience?

How can you differentiate yourself? You do not want to be exactly like your competition. By seeing how you and your competition are the same, you can identify more ways to make your business stand out. The more ways that you can differentiate your business from theirs, the more successful you can be.

What are their weaknesses? Do they have a limited number of products? Do they only offer one format (e.g., ebooks or video) and not give customers a choice in how to consume information? By studying what your competition has to offer, you can identify gaps in their product line that you can fill. This is yet another way to make your business stand out over theirs.

What influencers do they work with? Do they promote affiliates and others within your niche that you can promote too? Have they interviewed (or been interviewed by) thought leaders in the niche? How can you use this information to build your reputation and increase your profits?

How much do they charge? You don’t have to charge less to get more customers, but you should know how your prices compare to the competition. (It is much more likely that you should consider raising your prices than lowering them.) Also look at things like what type of ordering system they use and the payment methods they accept.

What software and systems do they use to run their businesses? Get into their funnel and see how it works. What do they use for their email list? Order taking and shopping cart? Product delivery? Affiliate program? Do their systems seem to work better than yours?

You may discover something unexpected in this process: Your competitors are not the enemy. One or more of them may turn out to be potential joint venture partners, especially if you do not compete head-to-head. Look for opportunities to work together to jointly serve your customers. That might mean that you promote each other’s products, create a product together, or interview each other on your podcasts or blogs. You might even get customer referrals from your competitors.

Once you have done your research, start implementing what you have learned. Some changes will be simple and can be done in minutes. Others will take more time, and perhaps a financial investment. You don’t have to change everything overnight, but start making changes to make your business more profitable and keep tweaking to improve your results.

Get Referrals from Competitors

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I recently got this comment on my article about borrowing customers:

I sell an event planning service in upstate NY. I’m not sure any event planner I know would let me borrow some customers. Suggestions?

Although my original idea about borrowing customers was not to get your competitors to send you business, it is certainly possible to get business from your competition. Many businesses and professionals refer clients to their competitors on occasion.

Why would someone send business to you instead of working with the customer themselves? They may have more work than they can handle. Or the client may not be a good fit for them. The client may need services they do not offer, be in an industry your competitor does not specialize in, not have the budget for their services, or not fit their client profile in some other way. Instead of simply turning the customer away, they want to be able to refer them to someone capable. That could be you.

Here are a few suggestions on how to make it happen.

Network with others in your industry. Get to know the people who are successful. More importantly, help them get to know you. If they are aware of what you do and the types of clients with whom you best work, they may be in a position to refer business to you. Join your industry associations and go to local meetings. Attend conferences. Join other groups to which people in your business belong. Be active and get to know the people who can help you.

Show your expertise. Demonstrate what you know and generate awareness by teaching classes, speaking to professional and industry groups, presenting a session at a conference, writing for industry publications, etc. This will get you on the radar of people who can refer clients to you—not only your competitors, but others.

Watch and listen for opportunities. Look for ways to create a win-win with anyone who could refer business to you, including your competitors. This means you need to recognize an opportunity when it presents itself. Someone else’s problem may be an opportunity for you. The idea behind getting your competition to refer customers to you is not just about them doing something for you. It is about you helping them in some way, too.

Stay visible. You want to be on your competitor’s mind when they have a situation where they might refer a client to you. To do that, make sure you have a high profile. Be active in your professional association and other groups to which your competitors belong. Do you send a print newsletter to clients and prospects? Add some of your professional colleagues to your list. (Note: Adding someone to your email list without their permission is spam, so do not send bulk emails without explicit permission.) Be the one who comes to mind when they need you.

Getting customer referrals from your competitors is just one of the strategies you can use to build your business. And many of the things you will do to get the attention of others in your industry will also make you visible to other influencers who can help build your business.