Its growth time in the UK and businesses small and large are celebrating the end of austerity and time to expand and gain market share.
But wait, have you forgotten something, many have.
Competition is back. Competition died during the recession since they went out of business but now easy pickings have returned so has the competition.
Here’s some reminders of what we all should be doing:
- Sharpen your value proposition, your story, become more of an expert, niche your expertise even more. That way you’ll be seen amongst the herd.
- Keep tabs on your competition to see what they’re up to. Google alert them, Twitter search them, RSS feed their website. Learn to stay ahead of them.
- On the subject of staying ahead, study the work of futurists. These guys study future trends and can apply them to your industry sector and can spookily predict what’s going to happen in your sector. Stay ahead of the curve.
- Learn new things, unlearn old and re-learn the new. The world in 5 years’ time will be totally different I guarantee.
- Master the industry, read widely, consume podcasts whilst driving/gym.
- Learn to incubate potential customers one by one and ditch the mass advertising that predominated in the last growth cycle.
- Learn to advertise in a different way. I’m sorry but advertising on the internet is actually annoying consumers and not attracting them. Wait for the backlash it will happen, people won’t tolerate traditional push advertising on their smartphones and tablets. Learn to advertise differently, I don’t know what this looks like yet, maybe it’s more pull based and tailored to individuals but we haven’t got it right yet.
And let’s all celebrate the growth cycle here in the UK; it’s been a 6 year long wait.
