My father sells lumber to local wood shops in his area. There are only about four shops that are actually located within his town and he sells to all of them. Last time that I visited him, I went with him to one of the shops. He mentioned to the owner of that shop that he should consider labeling the wood in the same way that one of the other shops does. The shop owner’s response was, “how do they label it?” It turned out that this shop owner had never been to check out the competition.

It shocked me that the guy hadn’t thought to go see how the other businesses in the area were running things. How else are you going to compete with people in your industry? But then I realized that I don’t check out the competition much in my field either. I blame it on the fact that I work on the Internet but that’s not really a good excuse.

Of course, some types of businesses are going to be easier than others to review. If you offer FTP service via the Internet, then you’re probably not going to get much opportunity to go to every other business ftp site that you compete with. Still, you could check out their websites and brochures to see how yours compare. It’s wise to know what your customers see when they look at who you’re competing with. It’s the only real way to know if you can truly compete with them.

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