How to Sell Anything to Anyone

Someone once said that the only certainty in life was death and taxes. If I may, I can say that among the sure certainties of a business life, competition is the one I am dead sure on. In a previous post I spoke on the many ways to recognize a great retail business idea. In this post, I will discuss how to protect your new business in retailing from competitive attacks.

Gurus always talk about making a business competition-proof. I really believe that it’s a marketing gimmick because nothing in this life is immune to competition. In business, you can surely resist moves done by the competition to take customers away from you but they will take some and you may actually find yourself having to let some customers go.

If your retail business idea turns out to be a good venture, competition is going to come out of the blue like mushrooms on a rainy day. You won’t know where the new stores came from but you will notice some customers drifting away.

(Every retail business will face competition from the day it opens its doors. Entrepreneurs who keep that important fact in mind fare better than those who blindly assume that the competition has nothing on them. Photo: tazz)

From my experience in managing my own businesses and advising entrepreneurs on strategy, I have found that the best defense against competition is to gain recognition for the concept and become synonymous with it. Automatically, the competition is perceived as total rip-offs and this could actually make your brand stronger.

I also find that most competition in retail wages price wars, a strategy that may work if the business under attack does not defend its turf. No matter how much your customers love you, if they see another store selling the same merchandise for less, you can rest assured that they will ditch you in a second, especially in these tough economic times!

How should you protect your wonderful retail business idea from price attacks? You can give more value to customers by offering bonuses, you can provide proof how your goods while slightly more expensive actually have better quality and not to fall prey to cheap imitations.

But ultimately, the best way to protect your store from price attacks is to have reasonable prices in the first place making it difficult from the competition to undermine you from that angle.

Gain recognition fast and keep your prices reasonable. That should protect your retail business idea from competitive moves. 

Good luck and if you have stories or questions to ask, please feel free to email them to me.

There’s a popular idiom that really explains why some entrepreneurs set themselves up for failure before even starting their ventures.

I was casually chatting with an early-stage entrepreneur in the entertainment/nightlife industry and he was telling me about the venue that he was opening in the next couple of months. He had all the details worked out from the exact painting on the walls to the brand of big screen televisions.

When I asked him what he would exactly offer to the patrons. He told me that it would depend on the night, it would be depend on the concepts that would work, on the promoters and so on. “The major task is to build a very beautiful, cosy and welcoming venue and then the people will come”, said the strong-willed entrepreneur in a nutshell.

Talk about putting the cart before the horse!

In extremely competitive marketplaces such as the nightlife entertainment sector, early-stage entrepreneurs cannot simply launch a venue and hope for the best. It’s the worst strategic mistake ever that will surely cause business bankruptcy within six months.

Furthermore, I was shocked at his reasoning that because he was in such a busy and crowded area of the most popular street in town, he would automatically get walk-in traffic that would spend money and generate revenue for the venue.

The biggest mantra in retail is “location, location, location”. The biggest problem with that mantra is that every single business person follows it like gospel and sets up shop. Before you know it, there are hundreds of similar retail store on one street and to survive all entrepreneurs fight it out with price wars eventually driving each other out of business.

If you’re in retail or any industry that would benefit from being located on a busy street, be careful.

Unless your retail store or venue does not have more than two direct competitors within a four-kilometer radius, you will do well. If you set shop and there are already established businesses and you have no distinct point of difference, you’re basically self-destructing.

The next time you are on the most popular street in your town, pay close attention to the stores or venue that are going under. Aren’t they surrounded by competitors who seem to be doing well? 

If you plan on opening up a venue in the nightlife entertainment industry, here’s a piece of advice that will save you a great deal of money, time and energy: figure out a concept that will make your venue stand out to the point where people who live a hundred kilometers away will drive to your destination. Your objective is to become an attraction à la Statue of Liberty or Eiffel Tower.

Simply opening up a venue and hoping to cash on the walk-in traffic is mistake that’s killed many entrepreneurs. Please don’t be a victim of such a misconception!

“Are Major Record Companies Becoming Obsolete?  Are they still relevant, do they still serve a purpose? Is the independent route a better way to go, for business and artistic reasons?” Rege Behe for Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

The Big Four are not becoming obsolete. Their traditional way of doing business is becoming obsolete.

Music is still alive and well, it’s the way it’s distributed and consumed that’s changed and ultimately putting the major labels’ future in jeopardy.

The mistake that they’re making is clinging to an old format. The music business changes all the time. It went from vinyl to tape, from tape to CD and the record labels adjusted to the changes. Now, the music really went digital and free and the labels are reluctant to adjust to this new reality.

Objectivity is the most essential attribute that an entrepreneur or anyone selling anything can possess. The day the majors realize that no matter the amount of lawsuits, government laws, digital rights management and other dissuasion tactics will stop the changes that are going on will be the day that they will adapt to the situation to be alive in the long-term.

There’s a new way of doing business in the music industry. Record labels should embrace that new model and create new brands to use as chess pieces. Some people call the Big Four greedy. I call them defensive.

I was once told that AOL went under as an Internet service provider because it was clinging to its dial-up business because of its profitability instead of embracing the new change (broadband) that was going to eat through its profit. What happened is history as far as AOL is concerned.

In business and life in general, nothing ever stays the same. A time comes when tough decisions must be taken. The majors are so far choosing to clinging to the tried, tested but dying format instead of embracing, the new, unproven, unsure but future way of doing business. It’s human to be defensive about changes that directly affect the chequebook. It’s also human to come to a realization that things change and that to avoid obsolesce, one must adapt.