In Sun Tze’s Art of War, he preaches that we should always assume that there is an enemy force waiting to attack even though the General is fully aware that there is none lurking at the moment. This assumption will keep his troops on the alert 24 hours a day so even if there is an unexpected attack, they are well prepared.
In business, even if we know that we are monopolising the field that we are in, we should also always assume that there is a competitor out there. In believing this assumption, we will always be on our toes. Business can only improve if we are on our toes.
Price reasonably – In assuming that there is a competitor, we will be forced to price our good reasonably. Imagine that we have to compete for customers. An item priced at cut throat price is definitely not good for business.
Friendly Service< – We will always maintain a friendly smile for our customers if we believe that they will run to our competitor if we don’t treat them courteously. </b>
Good After Sales Services- Imagining that your competitor will serve your customers more diligently than you will make you want to give value added services like after sales services.
Pleasant Display; In our bid to attract more customers we will always display our goods pleasantly.
These are the few things that we do if there are competitors present and we don’t want to loose out to them. However, many a times, arrogance sets into the mind of a businessmen who monopolizes some trades. They developed a “take it of leave it” attitude because they know that their customers have no other places to go. That is a very dangerous path to thread in the world of business. For all they know, they might wake up tomorrow and see a different shop selling that same items as them. Then it will be too late to wrest all those disgruntled customers back.
Related posts:
- Relationships with your Competitors. Many small time businessmen feels it is not wise to keep a good relationship with their competitor. They fear revealing too much about their business secrets to them. Keep in mind that, in a small retail business like a hardware store, there are not many secrets that you can keep....
- Changing Strategy To Match The Times Times change and along with the time, buying patterns and habits of shoppers will also change. With rising cost of daily living standards, consumers are not what they were before. They tend to be more prudent and calculative of how they spend and what they buy. The end result will...
- Improve Your Customer Relationship Management For any business, the relationship between the company and their customers have to be a very amicable one. If the company keeps loosing customers business will suffer in the long run. However if your company is so well diversified and customers runs into the thousands, keep each and everyone happy...
- Dealing with Difficult Customers. Now what I am going to say is going to be against the norm and the very basic business principal that says, “Your Customer is Always Right” Your customers is NOT always right. There are times when you can actually tell off some customers and ask them to go and...
- Retail – Slashing prices but still making a profit. It’s an open secret that non consumer items sold at large and medium sizes retail stores have a marked up price of at least 100%. That means if the cost of a pair of shoes is $10, it will have a price tag of $20. Other items like sunglasses and...
Comments on this entry are closed.