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Give Your Small Business A Competitive Edge
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Article 1: Add Value
When you get right down to it, the key to gaining a competitive advantage is simple: You must add value to the relationships your customers have with your business.
“When I hear the term ‘competitive advantage,’ the first thing I think of is ‘adding value,’” says Jim Blasingame, the award-winning creator and host of the nationally syndicated weekday radio/Internet talk show, The Small Business Advocate.
“Adding value to customer relationships today means finding out what customers want — how they want to do business with you and how they want you to serve them — and then giving them that,” says Blasingame.
Here’s a simple example from Blasingame of an inexpensive tactic that, when executed properly, can deliver the kind of added value that will build customer loyalty, repeat business and lifetime customer value:
Consider a small, locally-owned tire store that competes against the big chain stores and big box retailers, who can sell tires cheaper than the little guy can buy them. What if this store asked each customer who bought a set of tires how many miles they drive a year and then entered this into a database?
Based on this, the store would then send each customer an e-mail or postcard reminder when they were approaching the time for a tire rotation, inviting them to come in for their free rotation and safety inspection. If the store doesn’t hear back in a week or two, then the owner would call the customer and ask when is a good time for the owner to come pick up the car to bring it in and handle the rotation for the customer.
“Think about the value most customers would place on service like this,” says Blasingame. “You can’t put a price tag on it.”
And better yet, this is a service that small businesses are uniquely qualified to provide, a service that can help them compete against much larger competitors who can beat them on price all day long.
While tactics like this are important, it isn’t necessarily about tactics, “because other businesses may be able to do the same tactical things you can do, and maybe even do them better,” says Blasingame. “What it’s really about is giving it to customers their way, like Burger King does.
“It’s a lot of work, but if you execute strategies like this properly, your customers will never leave you.”
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Give Your Small Business A Competitive Edge
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