Adam Corbally - Stay the right side of business's Smoke and Mirrors !

Well, I’m sure that the gorgeous weather has brought out the customers and with it some unwelcome competition.

I personally like competition, it makes you up your game and brings out the best in businesses, although the best person to compete against is yourself by asking yourself the simple question: ‘Can anyone else be doing something to threaten my business?’

If the answer is ‘yes’, then why aren’t you doing it instead?

I saw the new movie about a criminal gang of illusionists, Now You See Me, recently where the ‘magic’ is keeping the victim close and thinking they are looking at the trick when the trick is happening elsewhere. It’s the same in business, you have to keep the competition close and focused on what you are doing while all the time working on a new plan to develop the business further, without them knowing until it is too late. In this way you get to use your existing brand and overheads you already have in place to launch a new product or service, while the competition would have to start from scratch and take a much bigger risk.

Now take the tragic example of Blockbuster, who must be wishing they had remained one step ahead of the competition in the shape of LoveFilm or Netflix, who have cornered the online presence for film rentals. The key is never to let your business get complacent no matter how big you get. This is a technology driven fast changing business world we live in today, so we all have to be thinking ‘what next, where’s the next big thing I can tap into that is in line with my existing business?’ Comet, too, would have wished they had established a strong online presence in their heydays before all the competition got a head start on them.

It may be a cliché, but if we do what we have always done, we only get what we always have and, these days, that’s just not good enough. Another good example of creating you own competition to stay ahead of you rivals is the Independent newspaper, which set up the cheaper tabloid form of itself, the ‘i’. This new product has largely made up for flagging sales with the parent broadsheet offering. The Daily Mail, too, was quick to exploit the growth of online content provision by getting in early and investing heavily to become a major global player in this sector while other UK newspapers, which sold more hard copies than the Mail, are lagging behind in the digital market.

Online continues to grow apace and I find myself doing more transactions through my mobile phone than any other way and consumers are increasingly doing this. By exploring the chinks in your armour you can head off potential threats to your business before the rivals spot the potential. We all need to sit down and take a hard look at what would pose the biggest challenge to our businesses, both today and looking to the future.

So whether its introducing a new line to our stalls? delivery service? putting together that well overdue website? or maybe even bringing in that direct debit machine you have always talked about? it’s vital for us traders to keep exploring ways to raise the bar before someone else raises the bar for us!

The question is, what is stopping us from trying something new?

The answer, Ourselves.

You can catch up with my own brand at www.Adamcorbally.co.uk Twitter @TheAdamCorbally

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