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How Well Do You Know Your Competition?

By Cash Miller

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 09Sep2008 Word count: 546 Viewed: 230 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

It is always important to know your competition. But in business it can be a critical component to your success. If you do not keep track of the moves they are making it can be hard for you to keep up. One second you are neck and neck and the next you're falling behind. Just look at some of the great rivalries in business today. Coke and Pepsi, Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, McDonald's and Burger King plus so many others. These companies are always keeping an eye on each other. Just because your business isn't as large as any of these doesn't mean you won't develop rivalries with other companies. So you had better know who your competition is.

So how can you get a feel for the competition anyway? Check them out of course. You don't need to go walking into their store but there are ways to determine who they are. Your methods will vary depending on whether your business is local or an ecommerce company. But for a local business you can start with the phone book. Just as you are listed so too should they be. Often you can get a feel for who is serious and who is just trying to make a living based on whether they place an ad in the phone book or not. The serious players are spending money on their ads and their first name is usually not a part of the business name.

You can always check out their locations to help determine how big they are. A simple drive by can tell you a lot. Things like how busy they are and how many employees they might have working. Keep an eye out for whether they are running radio or television ads or not. This is also an expensive form of advertising and will tell you what kind of marketing budget they have. All of these things can give you information on the kind of competition you are or will be facing.

And of course there is the internet. If you run some form of ecommerce company or your company also does business online as well as direct then you need to be checking out what kind of a presence your competition has here also. Sometimes they may have nothing but most companies today will have some presence online as well. It may just be a simple website that helps explain what they do or something more advanced that helps to sell their products. Whatever the case may be you need to find out.

There are plenty of online business directories that you can use to try and locate them and of course you can just type their name into a search engine. Another way to find out some background on them is to check your secretary of state website. All businesses incorporated within your state will be listed there. This may provide you with additional information. Needless to say there are plenty of avenues to find out more about your competition as long as you are willing to take some time and look. Because in business you had better know who the other players are. Or you might fall behind the pack without even knowing it.

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