Sharks In The Water: How You Deal With Competition In Business

When it comes to business, you better believe that monsters are real. Greed-driven, avaricious monsters that want nothing more than to eat your company right up. To steal your ideas and your customers. They’re called your competition. They don’t all get nasty, but you need to be prepared for when they do.

Here’s how you keep an eye out on the shark-infested waters that is business:

Protect your idea.

If you’ve come up with an invention that you are sure is bound to take off on the market, you better make sure no-one is stealing it. To be able to protect it as intellectual property, you need to produce it and show exactly how it works. With partners like World Patent Marketing, complaints about your idea being stolen can be solved. It’s all about finding those who can help you turn your idea into a physical concept. Once you’re able to demonstrate how and why it works, you can patent it. Meaning that your competitors are going to have a much harder time stealing it.

The danger of being an employer.

It’s not just your idea that can be stolen. Your business practices and your customers can just as easily be taken. Not just by intrusive competition, either. A lot of businesses face this very real problem from their staff. You want to keep them happy and loyal, but that’s not always going to be the case. In case they turn against you, make sure you have legal provisions to stop them from stealing the success of your business. Learn the difference between non-compete, nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements. Figure out which one should apply to your contracts.

Outmarket the sharks.

Just as you’re protecting your jugular from any idea or method theft, you should be beating them above the board as well. The modern forum of competition is the marketing of a business. Even if you don’t have the budget of your competitors, you can still definitely compete in the marketing arena. You do this by keeping a close eye on the market. Find out what they’re saying and how much of an effect it’s having. Take into account what works. Then combine it with the perks that their business is lacking compared to yours. Set yourself up to juxtapose them and show your customers what they lose by going to the competition.

Focus on the positive.

Of course, you don’t want to directly say it to your customers. Marketing is about incepting ideas. Your communication with current and potential customers should have nothing but a positive vibe to it. It’s all about highlighting the benefits you offer, the convenience of your delivery and the support that follows it. Positive social proof also tends to be a lot more convincing that negative social proof. People respond much better to good news than bad, obviously.

You will be facing danger to your business at some point, so long as you keep succeeding. Keep the above ideas in mind and make sure you’re taking every protection you can afford to.