You vs Them

Work at home opportunities offer business owners an advantage over the big companies. Here are 5 secrets to help work at home businesses gain the upper hand over the competition – every time.

It doesn’t matter what you sell, what market you are in, or how much you have to invest. Everyone has competition. Even the local farmer’s market must compete against the big box conglomerate which owns the local grocery store chain.

Any business who wants to survive and thrive in today’s market needs to manage the competition and outperform their competitors. You can get caught up in the scams, writing long pages of testimonials that are suppose to separate ‘fools from their money.’ Or, you can follow the tried and true, marketing strategies that were used to help the international franchises grow.

Building the X factor - You

Customers are always looking for something different. Shopping is just the primal urge to find items the ‘clan’ needs for survival, and look for something new and better that will give your family the edge.

Ebook marketers may all sell the same ebook as one thousand other resellers, but one will emerge and profit while 900 fail to make money, and quit. The successful retailers knew what made their customers buy. They were not interested in hits, they only wanted sales.

In most cases, they created a brand, an image for their company and promoted that – not the product. People are tired of having advertisements shove down the ‘over-inflated’ advantages of a product or service.

The first step is to create an image that will speak to your ‘target audience.’ Do they want professionalism, a helping hand, a friend, or to feel that they are receiving something for nothing?

Customer service is still the #1 sales tool. In fact, most companies are now branding the company owner – not the product. This is called the X factor. No competitor can undermined this, reproduce it, or steal it.

A marketer, John Colanzi, says "stop promoting products and start promoting you"

Become Friends

People buy from someone they trust. The #1 reason why those long pages of testimonials do not work is because there is no ‘face’ to attach to the product.

However, you can also form a Joint Venture with another company. Two companies can work together cheaper than one can. The important factor when hunting down a Joint Venture is to look for a company with the same target market, the same strengths.

A great principal is to find your closest competitor and learn to work together. Joint Ventures can be as simple as sharing links, content exchange, ezine swaps, affiliate selling, endorsements, interviews, joint authorship of books, sharing the cost of promotional products – the scope is limitless.

The ‘You and Them’ marketing principal can work in any market. The product is no longer important, because you are branding yourself, selling yourself, and then working with other like minded people so that you can both secure a larger segment of the market.