Chapter 4
Sizing Up Competitors and Staking Out Market Share
In This Chapter
Getting a handle on the competition
Growing your slice of the market pie
Figuring out your market share
Making improvements to boost your market share
N o matter how unique your offering, no matter how much you think you play on a “field of one,” and even if you’re the only hitching post in a one-horse town, you have competition.
When Alexander Graham Bell called to Mr. Watson through his newfangled invention in 1876, he had competition already. He held in his hand the one and only such device in the whole world, yet from its moment of inception, the telephone had to fight for market share. It had to compete with all the existing and more familiar means of message delivery, and it was certain to spawn a crop of copycat products to vie for message delivery in the future.
Competition may not be obvious or direct, but it is always present. The sooner you face it and plan for it, the better. Use the information in this chapter to gauge and grow your “share” of business.
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