To stay ahead of the competition, you need to carve out an innovative niche, a strategy that will position you to stand out so well that people will only want your product or service. Imagine offering your clients something your competition never thought of. Now you’re the only game in town!
I am talking about strategically positioning your business by restructuring it to appeal to a new clientele. This strategic positioning situates you for domination. Your innovative idea should be so unique that the competition has difficulty replicating it.
The Starbucks’ business model took ordinary coffee and catapulted it into a global extraordinary brand through strategic positioning. And that is where you want to be.
If you’ve listened to my training nuggets, my radio show, or my talks you will find a recurring theme and that is strategic positioning. What this means is simply strategically positioning yourself as the “go to” person in your expertise: solving problems through innovative ideas that change people’s lives.
So how did Starbucks do this? They created ambiance, they created a meeting place, they were the first to offer Wi-Fi, and they targeted yuppies and college students. Their small coffee-house business all the sudden boomed. They expanded to both urban and suburban communities, they monopolize airports and interstates and today they have bolstered into a global enterprise.
How they did this:
- They solved a need
- Found an untapped market
- Gave their clientele what they wanted (exclusivity)
- Understood the changing trends and demands
This strategic positioning postured them to dominate their industry. Thus, they separated themselves within their industry and became the brand their clientele wanted. Never was there a coffee house with think kind of rank and exclusivity.
Stay ahead of the competition with an uncontested market
Researches have found that companies that lead in their industry have achieved their success not battling with competitors but by creating an uncontested market space. An uncontested market space is the art of finding customers that don’t even know they want you, but they need you. You identify their need (pain point) and you solve their problem.
An uncontested market space means finding a clientele that would not typically have your product or service. It is by discovering those customers that have a need for a solution even when they don’t know they need it. Starbuck identified individuals between 25 – 40 who were career oriented and they created an upscale environment for them to socialize, meet, work, and drink coffee. The first coffee bar of its kind.
What you want is to create this kind of solution in your business. This is what will make you distinguished. With this strategy, you do two things:
- Give high value
- At low cost
And this strategic positioning is the only way to make the competition irrelevant. Researchers argue that it is impossible to have notable growth without this kind of game plan. When you strategically position yourself in an uncontested market, your business will be prepared for fail proof growth.
