In past postings I have discussed the importance of reviewing your past business mistakes, learning from them and most importantly of all moving on (the part that many business owners seem to struggle with). Well here is an extra option that will hopefully help prevent you from making as many mistakes (and believe me we all do) – and that is learn from the mistakes that your competitors make.

Out of curiosity we all tend to take a keen interest in what our competitors are doing and if you don’t you should. Being aware of what is happening within your own market needs to be an accepted part of your business. As you observe your competitors see what they do well and what they do poorly. Clearly both bits of information provide you with an opportunity.

If your competitor makes a mistake that is obvious – perhaps they have changed their pricing structure and they have out priced themselves, or perhaps their latest advertising is ineffectual or their overall level of customer service has dropped and you find out about it, their mistake can help your business to grow. Especially if you take the time to really think about where they went wrong – what was the main cause of their mistake – did they misread their customers, has there been a change of staff or a change of owners or some other key contributing factor?

Being a successful entrepreneur really does involve being a very good observer of many different things that you can learn from or that can have an impact on your business. Learning from your competitors mistakes is one way to avoid making them yourself.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TODAY? Think about your main competitor. What have they done well in the past few months and what have they done poorly? What lesson have you learned from what they did poorly? Start reviewing your competitors mistakes – they are probably doing the same thing to you.

You’re not finished when you’re defeated,
you’re only finished when you quit.
The most important quality essential to success is perseverance.
It overcomes almost everything, even nature.

Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to is.
Success is connected with continuous action.
It’s largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

You can have a fresh start any time you choose,
for your “failure” is not in the falling down, but in the staying down.
It’s not over until it’s over.

If you’ve got the courage to stick it out, you can win.

From AG – todays Daily Guru is a philosophy that I have lived with all of my life and now, at age 42, it is working big time. Persevere, persist and believe in yourself. Trust me it will work in the long run.

The third edition of NETT magazine has hit the streets. If you are looking for some of the most cutting edge ideas to grow your business this magazine will have them. There is also an excellent article on intellectual property for all of those people who don’t consider themselves to be creative and lots of things to win including the dreaded Crackberry.

Check it out.

This is a comment I hear a lot, all over Australia, from businesses in every kind of industry imaginable. So why should you spend time and money marketing your business when you are already so busy you can barely cope?

Well there are a few answers to this question and I will endeavour to convince you of the importance of marketing all the time, in this article.

Consumers have so much choice now they are being constantly lured away
We live in a world of choice. Never before have there been so many ways for us to spend out money. As consumers we are easily distracted and lured to new businesses, making bigger and bolder offers that are more in line with what we want, or those that simply seem more appealing and fresh. We have to keep reinventing ourselves and putting our company name up in lights to ensure that we don’t wake up one day and find that all of our customers have deserted us for the bright lights of our competitors.

Our competitors are getting smarter and more actives.
There are some very smart, incredibly creative entrepreneurs starting business every minute of the day. They know they are entering highly competitive markets but that doesn’t deter them. Why not? Because they know that if they do it better than the rest and they connect with their targeted customers more effectively, they will win the business and make a lot of money. How do they communicate all of this – with marketing?

We need to do different marketing at different times.
If times are quiet we need to market you get the phone ringing. If we are busy but we want to increase the amount that people are spending we may need to market to our existing customers to tell them more about what we can do for them in an attempt to get them to spend more. Marketing is simply a form of communication and it needs to be varied depending on the message we are sending.

The marketing we do today pays for itself tomorrow.
This is an old saying in the marketing business and it is very true. I look at marketing as the best investment I can make. It has a much greater pay of than shares, property and certainly gambling at the casino! For every dollar I spend on marketing I can get a return of three to four dollars. Now that is an excellent investment in my mind. Market well today and your business will benefit tomorrow.

Out of site out of mind.
Never before has there been so much change in such a short period of time. Everything changes all of the time. For some people this change is challenging, for others it is fantastic. The reality is that with this rate of change, customers expect business owners to keep up and change with the times. If your business hides away in the background, slowly you will be forgotten. We must be constantly energising our business, reinventing ourselves, raising our profile and communicating powerfully with both our existing customers and our potential customers.

Whilst we are experiencing boom times I strongly suggest that any business owner reading this article think long and hard about their marketing. There is never the same urgency in the good times as there is in the bad times, but in my opinion the need is just as significant.

If your business is doing really well, spend the money to make it even stronger. Is it time to come up with a new brand and logo? Do you need some new brochures that are more current and professional? Is your signage a little faded? Maybe you should plan for a refit of your premises? Or perhaps that website finally gets an overhaul?

It is much better to be doing these things when you can afford them and when there isn’t an urgency to get the phone ringing. So when you think marketing, think today. It will be the best investment in the future of your business you can possibly make.