Ten Ways to Know Your Competition
- Tips for Taking Charge of Change
- Tips for Working with Bullies
- Tips for Building Teamwork
- Tips for Dealing With Difficult People
- Tips for Improving Communication
- Tips for Improving Leadership Communication
- Tips for Resolving Conflict
- Tips for Avoiding the Ten Mistakes CEOs Make
- Seven Tips for Getting Referrals
- Ways the Board of Directors Can Improve Evaluations
- More Ways the CEO Can Work More Effectively With the Board of Directors
- Tips for Handling Crisis
- Tips for Improving Customer Service
- Tips for Making Better Decisions
- Tips To Handle Your First Ninety Days on the Job
- Tips for Better Meetings
- Tips for Female Bosses
- Tips for More Effective Delegation
- Tips for Time Mastery
- Ten Ways to Improve Motivation
- Ten Tips for Identifying Top Strategists
- Tips for Executing the Strategy
- Tips for Improving Strategy
- Tips for Implementing Strategy
- Ten Ways to Know Your Competition
- Tips for Launching a Strategy Initiative
- How to Fend Off Mission Drift
- Tips for Thriving, Not Just Surviving, During a Recession
- Tips for Succession Planning
- Tips for Better Performance Reviews
- Tip for Developing High Potentials
- Tips for Mentoring Clever People
- Tips for Identifying Top Talent
- Tips for Using Data for Pre-Employment Screening
- Ten Ways to Improve Hiring
- Tips for Improving Accountability on Teams
- Tips for Improving Collaboration
- Tips for Improving Goal Clarity
- Tips for Improving Group Decision Making
- Tips for Building Trust
- Tips for Female Leaders to Reduce Workplace Stress
- Tips for Making Your Company a Talent Magnet
- Start with the critical list of questions you need to have answered. What about the competitor should you know to avoid being blindsided by their best move?
- Go to the internet first. Find out through websites, trading information, annual reports, advertisements, and blogs what the competition has been up to. Google the company name, the names of their major talent, and the names of their best customers. What is being written about them? What are their mission, vision, goals, and guarantees? What kinds of people are they trying to hire? How do they advertise for openings?
- Set up a “Google Alert” that will notify you when any of the aforementioned are in the news or on the web. (Be sure to put quotation marks around the name to avoid irrelevant hits).
- Shop them. Either in person or on the phone, find out what it’s like to buy from this company. How do they connect you with a decision maker? What is their pricing? Value proposition? What about their process is superior to yours? How is it inferior?
- Who is the top talent in your competitor’s company? Who has the largest sales volume? Who is the most respected in the industry because of particular expertise? What do customers value about the people who work for the competition?
- Attend industry conferences. Through networking, find out who the major players are and get to know people who know your competitors.
- Read industry journals. Who’s being interviewed for the articles? Why?
- Talk to competitors’ suppliers and distributors. (Talk to your own too).
- Stay on top of any news of competitors’ mergers and acquisitions.
- If you can’t find what you need on your own, hire a research firm that specializes in competitive intelligence in your industry. You can start by going to www.scip.org to read about the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals.
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