Since the creation of the internet and social media, hundreds of thousands of businesses have emerged and have added to the already crowded business brick and mortar market.   Of course, you want your business to stand out head and shoulders above the rest. How do you achieve that goal?

There are several ways to make your business stand apart from the competition.

Evaluate Your Own Company

It is often very easy to compare your company to others. The tendency may be to think that they do something better than you. However, it is most important to start from within. Evaluating your own company is where you need to start.

Look at where you have been static – Take a good long look at where you have been static in your own company. Has your company become stale and outdated? Is there room for something new and innovative? Can you improve a product or service? What about your advertising?  Are you advertising where your customers are? When was the last time you updated your website?  Is your website mobile friendly?   Nearly two-thirds of Americans are now smartphone owners, and for many these devices are a key entry point to the online world, according to Pew Research Center.

What can you reuse – Is there a sales letter that you can re-circulate or a product that you can enhance in order to gain new clients and customers?  Can a product be used in a different way?  Maybe new and improved? Can a blog post be updated and reposted?

What needs recreating? – Is there an area of your business such as reorganizing one of your departments? Perhaps management and assistant management need to put better communication policies and procedures into place.  Maybe new advertising needs to be created.

Does your product or service live up to today’s standards? – Look and see if your product or service lives up today’s standards. Once you have evaluated this, take a look and see if your product or service is trending according to today’s standards.  Are you providing online customer care?   If you competition is providing this, you should too!

Where do you stand with social media? – If your website does not incorporate social media, then it is time to include this all-important aspect into your business. Many times a customer will look to share your latest blog post or connect with you through social media, can they do this directly from your website?  As mentioned above, online customer care is important and makes wonderful use of social media.  What about Pinterest and Instagram?  Would pictures of your product or services improve your customer engagement?

How can you reach more clients? – Investigate how you can reach more clients. Perhaps you need to look at who your target market is and what their needs of today are.  Needs change over time, are you keeping up to date with your customers needs and wants?  Do your website and other marketing materials address these specific needs?   With all the noise out there today it’s important that your marketing materials address these needs quickly.  Online you have 8 seconds to reach someone’s attention and they are looking to leave your website.

Today’s business is extremely fast paced and moves at a rapid speed through change. Keeping up with those changes is the only way to stay in the competition.  So don’t sit around comparing yourself to other companies.  Just study and improve your own business.

Taking a look at all these things in your own company is the foundation of a business that is capable of standing out from the competition.  You will be noticed!