Find your edge.
Do you know where you stand among your competitors? What’s your plan for gaining an edge? With Owner Actions, you can form the strategies you need to compete in your market. Sign up today for a step-by-step guide, articles, and resources that will help you improve your positioning.
Articles That Drive Action
What Do You Want Your Business to Be Known For?
How can I help my business stand out? New and seasoned business owners alike struggle with this question. To find …
Conduct Your Own Competitive Analysis in Ten Simple Steps
Competitive analysis can help you identify your competitors, find out what and how they’re selling to their customer base, and …
Your Go-to Guide to Creating a Business Strategy
No matter where you are in your ownership journey, you must create a business strategy. Your strategy should do more …
How Buying a Business Can Give You a Competitive Edge
As a business owner, you know the importance of growth. You may already be growing organically through increased awareness, by …
Expand Your Business into a New Region
Want to expand your business (or overcome stalls in growth)? You might look to new markets to extend your reach …
Consider Licensing Your Product or Process
Have you developed a product or process that’s innovative, patentable, and useful to other businesses? Think about licensing it—especially if …
Keys to Capture Better Information about Your Customers
Are you using customer information to drive sales? If you aren't doing it today, consider starting. This move can help …
Considering New Product Lines? Start Here.
It might be a great idea for your business to add new product lines. This move can help you enter …
How to Create a Customer Loyalty Program
You’ve likely heard the statistics: It’s far more cost-effective to keep past customers on your roster than pursue new ones. …
Know who you are.
Your business has strengths and competencies that help set it apart from its competitors. It's vital to keep those elements front of mind so you can talk about them with customers and prospects in conversations and marketing materials.
It's just as important to know your business's limitations. Awareness of these elements can help you stay focused on opportunities to improve and hedge your risks.
How do you conduct a strengths assessment? Read our guide to master this task.
Know where you stand.
Self-assessment is crucial, but you should also know how your business stands in relation to its competition. Are you the volume leader? The low-price operation? The entity with the best reviews? The provider with the widest selection?
Finding your corner of the market—and knowing how your competitors are positioning their business in relation to yours—is often the key to competitive success. Learn more in our guide to competitive assessment.
Capture an advantage.
You may find it difficult to build an advantage, especially if you're a player in a saturated market that makes differentiation nearly impossible. One step you could take is to acquire a successful, established business that can help you expand your capacity, offer more products and services, realize (and pass along) cost savings, and create new forms of value for your customers. Acquisition can be costly, but business-friendly financing options, such as SBA loans, asset-backed loans, and seller financing, can make this option attainable.
