Page 36 - Flathead Beacon // 7.15.15

Live Music JULY 16
5:00 to 8:00 pm
2nd Ave East between 1st and 2nd Streets East in front of The
Museum at Central School
Live music, food, vendors, arts and crafts and a beer & wine garden.
ENJOY THE CLASSic ROCK OF
BILLY ANGEL AND FRESH INK
SPONSORED BY:
36
JULY 15, 2015 | FLATHEADBEACON.COM
THURSDAY FEST
BUSINESS IS PERSONAL MARK RIFFEY
WHAT DO YOU DO ABOUT IBAD COMPETITORS?
DON’T TALK MUCH ABOUT Don’t take it.
competitors. Are you willing to let your competi-
I avoid it for a couple of reasons. tion destroy the reputation of the market
DISCOVER
First, because you have far more to gain by investing time and effort into improv- ing your own business. Second, worrying about what someone else is doing is usu- ally a waste of time since you have no con- trol over their behavior.
There are a couple of exceptions:
1) When a competitor does something smart.
2) When a competitor repeatedly dam- ages the reputation of your market.
We’re going to spend most of today focused on the worst of these.
When a competitor does something smart
When you do something smart, a com- petitor will copy what you did – perhaps. Other times, competitors will watch what you did and fail to see value in it, fail to understand it, or decide that it’s not a good fit for their business.
Sometimes, you’re the one watch- ing that happen. You owe it to yourself to pay enough attention so that when a competitor does something smart, you can analyze what your action would be. For example, if you run a high end hotel and the other high end hotel in town adds valet parking, you’re going to need to think about how to respond.
The key here is not usually the thing being done. It’s seeing the move for what it is. Deciding why it was done and what it accomplishes isn’t always obvious. Con- sider it carefully.
Competition damaging the market
Usually a competitor who can’t get out of their own way will find a way to go out of business. This allows us to ignore them and let them flame out on their own.
Sometimes we aren’t that lucky. When that happens, what we’ll find is a business (and owner) who damages their own busi- ness, but not bad enough to make it fail. You’ll see this in markets with enough demand that even a poorly run business can find a way to make enough to survive.
The problem is that a business run this poorly creates a reputation that can dam- age every business in the sector. If there’s more than one of them, it’s a matter of time before their combined reputation stains an entire market full of businesses.
Including yours.
you’re in? Of the business you’ve worked so hard to build?
Think about the effort you invest to market and sell what you’ve worked so hard on. What would it take to accom- plish the same thing if your reputation wasn’t what it is right now?
How many times have you heard peo- ple discuss putting off a transaction with a vendor because of prior experience with another vendor? You know of markets that already have this problem.
How would you cope with a business or group of businesses that do things to cause the public to think less of the rest of the businesses in your market?
Are you sure they don’t already exist? If not, how do you find them?
Finding bad eggs
Whether these reputation-damaging competition exists or not, you’re likely to find the scoop on the social review net- works where your clients report their experiences.
In general, Yelp is the best place to start since their reviews aren’t limited to any single type of business. They do have more restaurants (for example) than many other types of businesses, but their coverage is quite broad.
In some cases, you’ll find more indus- try focused social review services, such as TripAdvisor. Finally, if your client com- munity includes students, their school / university may have a review service, ombudsman or similar.
You should be reviewing and respond- ing to comments on these services on a regular basis, but in this case, you’re looking for your competition.
If you find consistent patterns of client abuse and reputation damage that span a number of your competitors, you have a decision to make.
What to do
If you can take the guilt-by-associ- ation reputation damage, or you don’t think it will affect you, stick to working on your business - but keep an eye on it.
If it’s more than you can take or it gets worse, you have a few choices:
Buy them out.
Turn up the competitive heat.
Decide what you’re willing to do to
save your business. Remember, your business and its jobs are at stake.
DOWNTOWN
KALISPELL
#downtownkalispell
www.downtownkalispell.com
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a strategic, operations or marketing problem? Email him at [email protected].