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Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 17 February 2005
| Thought
for the week: "Obstacles are those frightful things
that you see when you take your eyes off the goal." Henry Ford |
In
this week's issue:
- how
every small business can find its competitive advantage
- keeping
up with your competitors
- red
tape and red letter days
- more
browser vulnerabilities - but this time not for Microsoft
Small
business answers
If
you have any questions about your business idea, are lacking some
basic data about your target market, or simply need help tracking
down a grant, subsidy or other source of business support in your
local area, then send an e-mail with your query to the EnterQuest
information team and we'll do our best to help.
Send
your question to enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.
Weekly
stir
How
every small business can find its competitive advantage
Research has shown over and over again that most business start
ups - and most established small businesses, for that matter - don't
have a competitive strategy. In fact they operate without any sort
of strategy at all.
This
can be a fantastic opportunity for you to exploit if you can find
and follow a clearly defined competitive strategy in your business,
because it's almost guaranteed that everyone else you're up against
in your sector won't be operating with one.
But
aren't these terms "competitive strategy" and "competitive advantage"
just a load of old management-speak b*llocks, you're thinking? Well,
there is an amusing book - The Little Book of Management B*llocks - which you can check
out as a frivolous diversion for the darker winter evenings.
However,
we're convinced that any small business owner in any sector can
genuinely find or develop some competitive advantage in their enterprise,
and create a strategy that will make a big difference in their market.
Here
are six ways to uncover or develop competitive advantage in your
products and in your business:
| 1) |
Being
more advanced than everyone else - finding ways to be
technically superior, having more know-how, greater expertise
and experience. If you've got this, then let your customers
know and swagger about it.
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| 2)
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Getting
your product to your customers faster - having more convenient
purchasing options, a quicker delivery service, home delivery,
or whatever will make it easier for your customers to get your
product or service exactly when they need it.
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| 3)
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Being
first on the market with something - getting in on the act
before anyone else with a new idea or development. You build
a reputation based on what you do, not what you are going to
do, so find a way to get in there first.
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| 4)
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Finding
a price advantage - without necessarily being the cheapest,
if your costs are lower you can find a way to offer better value
for money compared to everyone else.
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| 5)
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Being
a fast follower - continually looking out for what's hot
and spotting where someone else has found a market niche, but
with great big gaps in the market that you can step into and
fill.
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| 6)
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Finding
ways to be noticeably different - in the way you do your
marketing, offering free bonuses, having the widest range
of choice, offering "members only" benefits, publishing free
educational reports, running local workshops and seminars
in your area of expertise, or airing your views and opinions
in the press. And doing whatever else it takes to get yourself
and your business noticed.
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It's
relatively straightforward for any small business to find and use
at least one of these advantages in their competitive strategy and
begin to steal a lead over their rivals. But by combining two, three,
or even more of these together you will have a great opportunity
to propel yourself into a position where you have a unique competitive
edge that stands out in your market.
The
real secret to any successful competitive strategy is about uncovering
differences in quality that give you an advantage over your rivals.
This is not just about the quality of your product, but about finding
quality differences in yourself, your team, and your business overall,
which add up to a higher-quality experience for your customers.
If
you can find and expose this quality advantage, then your customers
will certainly notice the difference, because it will be a difference
that they want, and it will make them want to do business with you.
The
point to remember is that the most successful small business owners
of all are the ones who quickly realise that the best way to make
a profit, a real profit over the longer term, is not simply by trying
to make money as fast as possible, but by making products and services
that people want to buy. It's simply about recognising and providing
what people want.
Marketing
tip
Keeping
up with your competitors
There's
an easy way that you can use the Internet to check what your competitors
are up to, in terms of new products they're thinking of launching,
where they're appearing in the news and how well known they are
online (ie, how effective their online marketing strategies are).
By
monitoring newsgroups, blogs, discussion forums and keywords for
your sector for any mention of your competitors, you can find out
immediately whether they're doing something you should know about,
without even leaving your desk.
Monitoring
newsgroups and blogs also helps you stay knowledgeable about the
latest news, trends and product developments in your sector.
Here
are a few practical links that you can use to start monitoring your
competitors' activities.
- NetNews Tracker searches
newsgroups for specified words twice daily, delivering results
via e-mail. It can look for personal names, business names, products,
URLs, or any other relevant topic.
- Free Bidding Tools
notifies you via RSS feed whenever specific keywords appear on
the eBay site.
- Amazon Alerts does the
same for the Amazon site.
- PubSub matches your requests
for information against new content as it is published on the
web, in real time. This might include blog posts and press releases
for your sector, giving you instant notification of news relevant
to your business, as well as helping you keep up with trends and
opinions.
- Blogwise offers a list
of blogs on every subject, presented in order of how recently
they have been updated.
- Finally,
try the Small Business Software forum directory for links
to online discussion boards and forums on a diverse range of topics
and sectors.
Find
more online marketing ideas in Chapter 30, 'Internet marketing strategies
for local small businesses', of the UK Small Business Marketing Bible, where you can also find
hundreds of ideas, tips and techniques for increasing sales no matter
what sector you're in.
Legal
tip
Red
tape and red letter days
The number of new laws affecting small firms has become a major
headache for many small business owners. One problem is knowing
what the laws mean in practical terms, and another is working out
when they pass from being proposals to actually coming into force.
- 2004
saw the introduction of something called the 'common commencement
date' for new employment law. This means that instead of bringing
in new laws on random dates throughout the year, all changes come
into force on 6 April or 1 October every year.
- Common
commencement dates are seen as a good way of simplifying the whole
regulatory system, and this year will be extended from employment
law to other areas.
- This
means that 6 April will see the introduction of new laws and regulations
in health and safety. Fortunately, most of the ones due to come
into force on 6 April this year are specialised and only apply
to specific industries - you can find out what they are from the
Health and Safety Executive.
- Common
commencement will also apply this year to a number of other areas,
including competition and consumer law. The DTI has
published a PDF guide with basic information about new laws
coming into force in April and October.
The
DTI claims that common commencement dates are supposed to make life
a bit easier for small businesses - they provide a clear timetable
for new laws and make it simpler to follow the progress of new legislation
and predict when it will be introduced. Their logic is that businesses
affected should be able to prepare themselves better and find out
what they need to do to comply in good time.
But
small business representatives have dubbed the new commencement
dates "red tape days". They argue that the new system means that
a wealth of confusing new legal requirements that are difficult
to manage all at once come into force on just two days every year.
Of
course, many new laws are accompanied by guidelines issued by the
relevant Government departments, local authorities, and by the European
Commission, and these explain how the laws are actually put into
practice. Our UK Red Tape BUSTER
can alert you to new developments, as well as offering hundreds
of factsheets, scenarios and the answers to frequently asked questions.
IT tip
More
browser vulnerabilities - but this time not for Microsoft
Several times last year, we reported that it would only be a matter
of time before other Internet browsers came under attack by hackers,
viruses and scammers, despite the fact that Microsoft's Internet
Explorer has traditionally been the target for such criminal activity.
So
the news that some dishonest scammer has found a way to take advantage
of people using Firefox, Opera, Netscape or almost any other web
browser except Internet Explorer, is hardly a surprise.
The
scam they've developed makes you think you're visiting one website
when in fact you've landed on a completely different one. It works
like this:
- You
might receive an e-mail asking you to click on a link to your
bank's website and add to or change some of your account details.
- The
link - www.yourchosenbank.com, for example - takes you to a website
which looks exactly like your usual bank website, but has been
set up by a scammer.
- This
is an old phishing trick, but the crucial difference here is that
the URL address is exactly the same as the genuine bank's address.
With other phishing scams, the URL is subtly different - .uk.com,
for example, instead of .co.uk - so eagle-eyed users can spot
that they're not being taken to the real site.
- If
you're not sure whether you might be affected, computer security
company Secunia has devised a test for your browser.
For
the time being, there's no solution or patch you can download to
solve this problem. Instead, the developers of the affected browsers
have announced they will provide updates in the coming months, and
you should check the website of your browser maker for news every
week.
And
for once, you're in the clear if you have Internet Explorer. But
don't forget to carry on watching out for Microsoft patches - 12 were released recently.
And
of course the golden rule is always to be suspicious, particularly
of e-mails asking you for personal or financial information, login
or password details.
New business
idea
Each week
we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business
ideas in the UK.
Here
is this week's idea:
Just one
word
Regularly
improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word
and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make
you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.
Do you know what 'iniquitous' means?
a)
a class of shares in a company without any voting rights
b) something that is unfair, immoral or improper
c) an inexplicable accounting discrepancy on your balance sheet
d) an inability to repay your long-term financial liabilities
Answer
at the end of the Bulletin.
Did
you know?
The
average cost of a flood
The
Environment Agency says that 175,000 businesses in the UK are at
risk from flooding. What's more, almost half of those affected experience
costs in excess of £50,000. So the Agency has published a new online guide to help small businesses protect themselves:
it contains practical information about writing a flood plan, doing
a risk assessment, monitoring flood warnings, and protecting your
property, staff and visitors.
Scams
cost £1 billion a year
Accountants PKF have produced a practical guide to avoiding scams to coincide with the Office of Fair
Trading's (OFT) Scams Awareness Month. The OFT's research identifies the top ten scams doing the rounds
at the moment and suggests tips on avoiding falling prey to the
swindles.
Worth
a visit
Information
on every topic
Power
Reporting is a vast online resource aimed primarily at journalists,
but also extremely valuable for businesses carrying out market or
competitive intelligence research. Information is displayed in a
grid that is organised by sector, business name and person's name,
and cross referenced to relevant books, articles, news services,
training courses, government agencies and so on.
It's
American, but is worth a visit no matter where you're based: searching
under 'Computers', for example, brings you to a wealth of practical
links and tools for any computer user.
E-mail
marketing explained
E-mail Labs
can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about e-mail marketing,
from what day it's best to e-mail on to fascinating articles and
statistics on e-mail open rates. Best of all are the practical tools
on offer: you can view how your messages display in different e-mail
programs, and benefit from a range of other tips and tricks that
work for e-marketers in any sector.
Worth
a read
Useful
for everyone from small businesses to students, this book focuses
on effective money management and provides real examples and practical
tips on handling your finances and dealing with debt. It's packed
full of useful contacts and gives its advice in the form of a series
of tips which can immediately be put into practice. Check out:
Just
one word answer
The answer is b).
'Iniquitous'
refers to something that is unfair, immoral or improper.
The
scam currently affecting several Internet browsers is an example
of the iniquitous and illegal practice of phishing.
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that we guarantee never to sell or give your e-mail address to anyone
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Good
luck
The
EnterQuest Team
This
information is meant as a starting point only. Whilst all reasonable
efforts have been made, the publisher makes no warranties that the
information is accurate and up-to-date and will not be responsible
for any errors or omissions in the information nor any consequences
of any errors or omissions. Professional advice should be sought
where appropriate.
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