How,Hit,The,Competition,Withou DIY How To Hit The Competition Without Losing The Customer

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and

Get over it! If you run any type of business, you're going tohave competitors.Even if your product or service is a unique one, soon you'll havecopycat products start surfacing. Competition is therefore justa fact of business life and one of the 'virtues' of living in acapitalistic society.Now that you are over it, let's examine some ways in which youcan hit your competition without marginalizing your prospects.Your choices are about the same as a politician's with regard tobeating his or her opponent.So you can:1. Drag your competitor's name through the mud.You can try and discourage your prospect from dealing with yourcompetition by slandering their name and claiming their productsto be inferior. Only problem is that in the majority such casesthis has the opposite effect and brings more attention to yourrival in business. What happens is that people who knew nothingabout your competitor now go to investigate for themselves thevalidity of your claims.I'm sure you've seen this phenomenon where unknown books arebanned, only to make unto the bestsellers list.This approach can also backfire since you'll appear as a jealousand vindictive business owner. Your arguments will appear moredriven by feelings rather than hard facts. This is thereforenot the best approach to take.2. Making a recommendation with a major reservation.This strategy is a little more ethical than the first but notanymore rewarding. In this case you make a recommendation suchas: "You are welcome to buy your widgets from the XYZ company ifyour construction is needed only for a few months, becausethat's how long they last." Here you are really giving acompliment and then undoing everything you said before. This maybe a neat psychological tactic but your business still appearsin a negative light.3. Invite an apple-for-apple comparison.When you invite your prospect to compare your product side byside with that of your competition, you are showing confidence inyour product without putting your competition down. So you cansay: "I invite you to compare our vacuum cleaner to any leadingbrand and see the results for yourself. We are sure that you'llbe pleased by the results that you get from our latest model."The interesting thing about this approach is that most peoplewouldn't bother to do the field test. Simply because you werenot afraid to acknowledge your competitor's product will instillthe confidence in your prospect to get your product. It will beassumed that you already did the comparison and know the resultsotherwise you wouldn't make such a claim. Even if someone didmake the comparison then you have a new testimonial to add toyour file.There are several ways in which you can invite this comparisonwithout making a statement as I did above. You can use a tablethat juxtaposes the features of your product against yourcompetitor's. Such tables can simplify the process of carryingout a test and 'help' the prospect towards choosing yourproduct.Another effective way is to quote credible sources such asConsumer Report magazine. Such organizations are not supportedby advertisers and so their results carry real weight with theconsumer. There are other such third-party organization that areconsidered neutral and their conclusions credible.Outside of such organization you can point to reviews done byusers of your products where the reviews are not used as anaffiliate advertising tool. You are looking to erase all bias inthese comparisons.You may also be wondering how to address the case where yourproduct is obviously inferior to that of your competitor's. Insuch a situation, you simply admit your faults openly. There aretimes when extra features can be a useless luxury. For somepeople, a car is just a convenience to take them from point A topoint B. They may not need the luxuries of a Porsche or havethe money to pay for such an expensive vehicle.So let's say you were selling an autoresponder script that isdefinitely not as feature-rich as another script. You can state:"If you are looking for high-end script capable of emailing to amillion-strong list and having all the fancy features thatyou'll never even bother to use, then this script is NOT for you.However, if you are looking for a small but rugged program thatwill deliver your emails, without all the bells and whistles(and accompanying high price) then the Maxemailer is for you."Right away you see that you are showing the customer that yourscript will do the main thing that a product like yours shoulddo, without having to invest a large amount of money in itspurchase. You are admitting that your script is lacking in manyfeatures, but in the end these components may not be necessaryto get the job done.In addition, by admitting to your products 'weak side' you buildinstant credibility with the customer. Many marketers thinkthat they have to hype their products in order to get sales. Butmany marketing tests have shown that if you admit to thedisadvantages of using your product, sales increase!Here is how I hit the competition on my copywriting servicewebsite:"In fact, I insist that you make a side-by-side comparison of mycopywriting results with that of any other copywriter. Thenafter doing a 'split test' (i.e. run my copy against theirs) youcan judge for yourself the selling power of my copy."For an online business, your competitors are just one click away.Challenge your website visitors to shop around and compare.Most will not.They'll buy from you instead! Article Tags: Competition Without