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rezzy
08-14-2009, 07:02 AM
I found this article and I think it poses a few good statement.

The one thing I keyed in on, is finding your industry leaders, they are the important people from the industry you compete in.
FreelanceFolder (http://freelancefolder.com/should-you-spy-on-your-competition/)
How are we a small business owners to find those leaders?

KristineS
08-14-2009, 01:11 PM
I like this article, especially the emphasis on healthy and unhealthy monitoring. I've known people who've gotten obsessed with one particular company and ignored other opportunities. I think it pays to know what your competitors are doing, and to maintain a friendly competition. What ultimately matters, though, is the vision you have for your own business. You have to blaze an independent trail.

cbscreative
08-14-2009, 01:46 PM
When I saw the title, my first thought was something like spyfu or one of those services to help people spy on their competitors. The spy services will only tell you limited info, so I chuckle sometimes knowing that real success could never be duplicated with this type of effort. I wasn't sure what to expect with the article, but I enjoyed it.

My attitude is much like what Kristine said, if you focus on being yourself (your own business), then it matters much less what the competition is doing. My only reason for wanting to know would be to make sure I am different. If I am just like someone else, then why should someone choose me? Granted, I will do some of the same things, the smart things that make you good at what you do, but there must be something unique, or at least rare and not shared by the majority of competitors.

huggytree
08-14-2009, 06:12 PM
you should know what your competition is doing

i know the tricks my local competion uses...i warn customers about the tricks

i try to keep track of a few competitors which i want to copy...i have chosen a few competitors who are successful and are similar in service/quality...one's who have been around for a while...i try to be like them.

vangogh
08-17-2009, 08:43 PM
Based on the title of the thread I was thinking the same thing as Steve. I figured this was using one of the tools that claims to know everything your competitor is bidding on or ranking for.

Bryan I don't think it's that hard to figure out who the industry leaders are. If you keep with industry news, it's inevitable that their names will keep showing up. You won't find all of them right away, but in a short amount of time you should know who the big names are. You can also go to your favorite search engine and type away. If you type enough queries the industry leaders tend to keep showing up more often than not.

rezzy
08-18-2009, 04:45 PM
Fair enough.

I see that alot of people have gone the way of do your business, and do it well and dont focus on watching competition.

In my mind, I can make a good argument either way... And would only choose to play devil's advocate.

vangogh
08-18-2009, 05:07 PM
I think you should definitely keep an eye on what your competition is doing. You should also keep up with what your market is saying. In the end I'm still going to make decisions based on what I think is best for my business, but I will use information gathered for keeping an eye on my competition and my market.

I just don't think it's all that difficult to see what your competition is doing on a certain level. Digging deeper might take a lot of work, but at the very least you should be able to figure out who your main competition is and who the big players in the market are. And knowing both you should be able to observe on one level what they're doing.

Boots
08-29-2009, 11:34 PM
One thing which hasn't been mentioned is how to find industry leaders (a question the OP posed). It can be a challenege, especially for small niche players. There are many ways to define market leader (market share is usually used), and several ways to define competition. Without knowing what industry you are in, I usually start looking for the leaders by analyzing first the market niche and who I can easily find on Google. Sometimes you can find market share information. If you find public companies in the same market segment, digging through their annual and quarterly filings (Yahoo Finance has them for free) will give you a wealth of information which you can extrapolate to estimate Market Share.

If there are no players you can find in the same niche, then start looking at other sources of competition like substitutable products or products whose main feature may not be in the same niche, but whose side features are. Rinse and repeat the same search for market leaders to find the big guys.

If you do all that once a year or so, you should have a good grasp on your competitors and their health. Monitoring these over time should also give you some good insight into whether or not their strategies are paying off, which of course is one input into your own strategy planning.

vangogh
08-31-2009, 11:25 AM
I guess I don't think it's all that hard to find the industry leaders. If you simply start taking in information about any industry it's inevitable you're going to run across the names of the industry leaders soon enough. If you search, read some blogs, read some industry news, etc the market leaders are going to reveal themselves to you soon.

That won't tell you everything you may want to know about the market leaders, but it should be hard to figure out who most of them are and once you know you can dig deeper to learn more about them.

orion_joel
08-31-2009, 07:53 PM
I think one of the good ways to start looking for industry leaders especially if it is a retail style product you are selling is to look to the manufactures. Many of the manufactures list the recommended retailers, often these are not so much recommended, as the ones that buy the most product. Excluding some of the big names you often do not want to compete with, you can often find at least some of your more direct competitors this way.

In terms of spying on your competitors it does really come down to two different levels as already mentioned. There is spying, sneaking around trying to get access to information you are not necessarily suppose to have, and find out what ever you can. There there is being aware and knowing what any good business should. Knowing where their business is, what the business has available, what offers they are making. Some of this information may come from not entirely straight forward methods, but it is simple to get.

janiels
09-04-2009, 10:37 AM
monitoring our competitors sometimes leads to obsession, being obsessed that we can overcome them, or just being envy with them on their success, and these are unhealthy habits.

vangogh
09-04-2009, 02:04 PM
That's true. You can become obsessed with your competition to the degree you forget about your own business. I like to focus on me and my business and go with the idea that as long as I take care of my end I'll be fine. I do think it's a good idea to know what your competition is doing, but it shouldn't consume you to the point where you forget about your own business.

jonicode
09-07-2009, 11:23 AM
Great read. In addition, if you are looking at a competitor's strategy, put the pieces you can get and see if you can fill in the blanks and connect the dots to form the strategic plan. Let's look at each competitor as a project and build our intelligence over time.

ELCaD
09-08-2009, 09:20 AM
Sure, why not? At the end of the day, it can be a good way to spot a potential gap in the market, or to avoid making the same mistakes that your competition are.

That being said, don't get too hung up on focussing on your competition and neglect your actual work and developing your own business.

vangogh
09-08-2009, 01:39 PM
on't get too hung up on focussing on your competition and neglect your actual work and developing your own business.

Good point. I do think it's important to know what your competition is doing, but in the end you should focus on your business and not theirs.