Checking out your competition

In every industry, competition exists as there will always be various businesses that will offer similar goods and services. Even for industries where monopoly ensues, there are still indirect competitors that can provide alternatives to consumers. When you run a business, you do not operate in isolation, so you also have to be conscious not only of your market but also of other players in the field.

Some of your plans, strategies and campaigns will also hinge on competition as you have to determine how to position yourself in the market. While you may be selling the same products or doing the same service as several other ventures, you have to make sure that you have your own brand identity that will set you apart from other businesses. The reality is that everyone wants a bigger chunk of the market pie. And that means your competitors might want a share of your market.

It’s better to plan your strategies before you realise it’s too late. Assessing your competition will help you plot your moves along the entrepreneurial path. But how do you check your competitors and establish your brand positioning in the industry where you belong? Here are a few tips that can help you do a competitors’ analysis.

Identify and categorise your competitors

List your competitors and create a chart where you can input their information. How do you find them? Look around your vicinity. Most of your competitors may be sharing the same geographic area as you. You may see their advertisements, collaterals or marketing materials. You may hear them from people around you or the media. You may find them in trade fairs and exhibits or pass by their stores or offices. Know as much as possible about every competitor – direct and indirect. Do your research so you can better categorise the different types of contenders you have.

Check out available materials

There are always available sources and ready materials that can give you a lot of information on your competitors. Read their brochures, check their websites and social media, and update yourself regularly with news articles and press releases pertaining to other players in your area and industry. Know what they post, how they engage with their readers and followers, and how the market reacts to their strategies.

Try your competitors’ products and services

Oftentimes, the best way to know your competitor is to experience yourself their offerings. Visit their stores, order their goods and hire their services. Know who their employees are, as well as their suppliers. Observe how they conduct their business, learn a few tips and note down areas where you can improve in your venture.

Get feedback from customers and suppliers

Your customers and suppliers may share their impression and knowledge of other companies that are providing the same products and services like yours. It’s like hitting two birds in one stone because apart from learning about your competitors, you will also get an idea of what your clientele’s needs, wants and preferences.

Conduct a survey

If you want to know the thoughts of a particular sector, you can do an informal or formal survey and gather the information you need. There are now many platforms and apps that you can use to conduct a survey and interpret the data generated.

Do a SWOT Analysis

When you have the necessary information, you can do a SWOT analysis and competitive analysis to see the bigger picture and the finer details. Chart their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats vis-à-vis yours. There are also available resources online and software that can help you chart the data and put together a competitive analysis.

Of course, all these are for a healthy competition where you are able to provide motivation and positive energy to push you forward toward your goals.

The importance of succession planning in business

It takes a lot of effort to plan, prepare, start, manage, sustain and grow a business. However, most ventures revolve around the business owner. If the entrepreneur does not have any business partner or family members involved and when unexpected things happen on the owner without any backup plan in place, all those hard work may go down the drain.

To ensure the continuity and growth of the business, especially when one wants to, later on, be on the business rather than be in it, putting together a succession plan won’t hurt and may even be beneficial to the entrepreneur. Having one doesn’t necessarily mean that you are leaving the business. Instead, it can help you focus on more important roles rather than taking on several responsibilities.

Ensures continuity and assures stakeholders

Creating a succession plan is a way of securing the continuity and future of your business. Whether you want to take on a different role, expand the business, start new ones or retire from the company, it will assure your investors, board, staff and clients that the company will continue to operate and carry on the vision and legacy it wants to create. It guarantees your stakeholders that there will be no void in the organisation should anything inevitable may happen to you or the business.

Motivates current employees and hones prospective leaders

Succession planning is usually done through internal movements in the organisation. Going that route can encourage your current employees to perform well in the hope that they will someday take on a higher position, which can be one of the positions you hold. You can evaluate members of your team who has the potential to take on bigger responsibilities. It will also hone prospective leaders within your team as you equip them with skills and qualities that are needed to fill in a leadership role in the business.

Fills in the gaps

When you put a succession plan in place, you may be able certain gaps in the organisation that you might not have seen before. It allows you to see things from a different perspective and gives you room to address what you may have missed before. When you look at possible candidates for an important post in your business, you tend to step back and look at things from a bird’s eye view and then you zoom in to the details, giving you the opportunity to think ahead of possible problems and come up with solutions or alternatives.

Provides opportunity for personal and business growth

Although most business leaders come up with a succession plan during the times when they intend to leave the organisation, it is not always the case. You may want to take on a board role rather than handling the day-to-day operations of your business. There may be instances when you want to start new businesses while maintaining the current one. Whatever circumstance you may have as a business owner, having a succession plan gives you more room to grow as an entrepreneur and expand your business.

If this is something that you are wanting to do in the future, it is good to discuss this with your HR and board so you can put a proper structure and system in place to get a succession plan going. But even before you draft a blueprint of your plan, you can first seek advice from mentors or other entrepreneurs who have done it before. Also, know the repercussions that may come with having that plan in your current setup. Nonetheless, it’s something you might have to face later on along your entrepreneurial journey.

Planning your business budget well

Keeping track of one’s finances is a primary concern of every entrepreneur because cash flow is an integral part of any business. A yearly budget needs to be drawn out to forecast and assess the financial aspect of your business more efficiently.

A budget is your plan interpreted into numbers. It is your roadmap that will guide you as you work on your short-term goals. A budget is a business tool for planning, monitoring and evaluating your venture’s progress based on your projected and actual income and expenses.

Even if you hire bookkeepers, accountants, auditors and experts in this field, it pays a lot if you are also knowledgeable about the financial side of your business. Given that, it is best that you work with your team when you draft your annual budget. To make sure that you plan your venture’s budget well, you can consider these few tips that can help you and your team.

Set targets

It starts with identifying your targets for the year. From there, specify the requirements, materials and tasks involved and estimate the equivalent cost. Having those quantifiable figures will help you assess your progress as you work your way towards your goals.

Research on costs and trends

To make your numbers as accurate as possible, research on actual costs that will reflect on your budget. If you have been operating for quite some time, your previous financial statements could be your reference as a benchmark but consider other factors that may change your current cash flow. Talk to your suppliers and partners, familiarise yourself on tax laws, check the market trends, know the industry standards, and adjust your budget accordingly.

Break down per month

Monitoring your cash flow vis-à-vis your budget is easier if they are broken down into months. When you divide your budget this way, you can check the difference between your forecast and the actual income and expenses as you progress throughout the year. Other businesses also apportion their budget per department or per project.

Get into the details

When you put items or entries in your budget, be as detailed as possible. Make everything quantifiable. Remember that time also has an equivalent cost. Review where you can trim down the budget. Be conservative in your sales projections as you overestimate your possible expenses. Include changes in the business cycle during peak and non-peak seasons. Factor in your company’s capability to absorb the workload and count overhead expenditures.

Come up with contingency

Similar to how you plan your life and your business direction, you must always allocate a contingency fund that will cover emergencies and unforeseen circumstances. Have a plan B, C or D when you create your budget. Mark the items that you can easily adjust and those that are non-negotiable.

Nowadays, there are plenty of tools, templates, apps and software that can make budget planning faster and more efficient. Educate yourself about the financial side of your business by reading accounting books, listening to podcasts and attending learning events, such as those held by EO Melbourne. Once you surpass the hurdle of the first few years of your venture, you can approach budget planning with confidence and increased knowledge.

A guide to making New Year’s resolutions for entrepreneurs

With the changing of the calendar and another year approaches, we start putting together our New Year’s resolutions, hoping for another beginning that can help us become better than the previous years. Others may not subscribe to the idea of New Year’s resolutions, but in business, there is a parallel mindset which is more related with goal-setting.

It is about time to assess and evaluate the things that you need to stop, minimise, improve and start doing. Whether you are making a New Year’s resolution or doing your end-year evaluation or annual corporate planning, you have to go back always on your purpose when you started your business. You may have updated your main objective, often articulated in your vision and mission, years after you have established your venture, but it’s nice to bear in mind the “why” behind your enterprise.

If you have been doing this for quite some time, you can review your past resolutions, goals or plans. If not, you can consider assessing and planning the following areas that can help improve yourself and your business. Choose the most urgent that will affect your venture positively and start listing down your resolutions under those items.

Personal development

As the business owner, you lead your team and your entire business. You also have to grow in parallel to your company or enterprise. What new skills do you need to learn or hone? What are the things you should do to improve yourself as a person and as an entrepreneur? It could be joining EO Melbourne and its various learning activities. Analyse your strengths and weaknesses and focus on areas where you need to exert more effort for your personal development.

Family time

Come up with a specific checklist on what you can do consistently to ensure that you still provide quality time and attention to your family. Having a happy environment at home can also extend to other areas of your life. You can start a new habit in the family that everyone will enjoy.

Business goals and targets for the year

If you have a specific picture of what you want to achieve for the year, list down the particular actions you need to do that will bring you towards those targets. The action items must be very specific so that it is easy for you to do them, monitor, and plan accordingly.

Staff development and company culture

Your internal environs are significant to the success of your business. Take a look at how you can attract and retain good people and endeavour on making your company a preferred place of work for your team members. Maybe you need to restructure your organisational chart or come up with programs for staff development.

Client relations and networking

What should you do to strengthen your relations with your existing clients and expand your network? It could be joining a business group like EO, having dinner with a client once or twice a month, or attending four conferences or conventions during the year. You can also renew ties with old friends you have never seen for a long time.

Finances and systems

Are there areas in your financial operations that need to be improved? If there is any, write down what you will do to achieve better results on the financial side of your business. There may be areas in your operations that need to have a more efficient system for faster and better outcomes. You might want to introduce a technology, upgrade your systems, hire an expert, or study finance-related or systems-related short courses. With IT and automated systems now flourishing in various industries, it would be good to include this in your New Year’s resolutions.

Marketing

These days, marketing one’s brand, product or service go beyond the traditional methods. New media platforms have become important tools in executing marketing strategies and tactics. If this is uncharted territory to you, then you have to familiarise yourself with these platforms and start incorporating them in your business.

Social Causes

This is probably one aspect that you want to be involved in the future. You may not have enough resources yet to support a cause, but you can start planting the seeds of good works by checking some charities or social causes that are close to your heart. You can also volunteer your time and expertise in helping out sectors of society that may be in great need.

Are you ready to welcome the coming year? Face the year 2019 aiming for a better version of yourself, and take your business to the next level. Make your New Year’s resolutions work for you. Look at it on a positive light as something that will add value to you, not burden you. Most important of all, whatever you have listed there, enjoy the exercise of fulfilling them and ticking them off.