Monday, February 02, 2009

What are you doing to stay ahead?

Small Businesses 1Image by Angela Radulescu via Flickr


One of the things we talk about to small business owners is finding you niche. Once you find your niche, does that mean you can sit back and relax? Of course not, because we live in a constantly changing world, and your business needs to evolve on a regular basis or your business will find itself behind the eight ball pretty quickly.


An advantage you have as a small business owner is that you can respond to changing trends faster than the big corporations. Take a look at lodging facilities, some smaller lodging facilities were far ahead of everyone else when it came to offering their customers Wi-Fi service. In fact some of the big chain hotels are still behind the curve when getting an effective Wi-Fi network set up in their facilities.


However, what are these smaller lodging facilities doing now? After all, the big companies are quickly catching up so the smaller places need move the bar up even farther to improve their customer’s experience.

It is no different no matter what business you are running. If you’re small owner you can move faster than the bigger competition but you must be ready for your next move when they start catching up.


So how do you stay up with the latest trends? Research, Research, Research, and when you have done lots of research you need to do more of it. Does not sound like a lot of fun but it is the only way to see what is happening out in the marketplace and to implement new ideas before the big boys catch on.


There are many places where you can research what is happening in the marketplace. Your chamber of commerce is a good source, SCORE, magazines, Google searches, and many others.

The question is, what are you doing to stay ahead?

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