If you are a person who has slight knowledge regarding business, you would know that one of the driving forces behind business is competition. We are well aware of how competition goes, we practically competed since birth.

Since you were young, you’ve been competing with your siblings for attention, competing for your high school crush, or even competing with other people for that high-paying position.

Competition can be healthy not just for you take the lead, but to inspire you from other successful individuals or businesses that drive you to exert more effort and develop your own craft.
To get that upper hand, you must also know how to identify your competitors.

There are three kinds of competitors as enumerated below:

Head-to-Head Competitors. Head to head competitors are your direct counterparts. Basically, their product is the same as yours. Customers usually compare and evaluate you to them in terms of service, quality and price.

First-Tier Competitors .These are the type of competitors that may compete with you for some services or products but not entirely everything. They may try to entice a specific type of client from you, or they may have some similarities to your service or products in a certain aspects.

Take note that although they may be not as threatening as head-to-head competitors, you still have to keep an eye on them because they may expand and compete with your completely.
Circuitous Competitors. These competitors offer the least trouble for you. They tend to operate in the background so they really don’t matter to you much. Usually, the services or goods they sell work as alternative to your own products. Make sure you take note of these businesses because you may never know what trick they may have in mind.

How to Identify Your Competitors?

You can acquire clues to identify where your competitors are from advertising, flyers, business directories, press releases, exhibits, posters, questionnaires and of course by browsing the internet.

What you need to know about your competitors

  • • What products and services they offer?
  • • What are their prices?
  • • Where are they strong at? Where are they weakest?
  • • How do they market, distribute and deliver their services?
  • • What are they capable of doing? Is there recent influx of customers?
  • • Do they have a customer base?
  • • How much do they earn? Is there growth in their profit margins?
  • • What are their marketing strategies?
  • • What do they offer that you don’t have?
  • • Where do they get their financial resources?
  • • What are the tools they utilize to increase consumer loyalty?
  • • What are back up service plans and business methods they apply?
  • • How effective are their designs and brand packaging?
  • • How many staff they have? Are they effective?
  • • What media advertising or online presence they incorporate to boost sales?

Once you have a list of your competitors and have all the necessary information as mentioned above, everything will just be a matter of adaptation. If a certain business is faring better than you, try to figure out your differences.

It may be your marketing strategies or some other factors. If you have all the necessary details, it will be a lot easier for you to figure out what could be wrong with your business that would inspire you to make it better.

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