Marketing & Brand Growth
Your customers are comparing you with someone. Do you know who, and on what?
Competitor analysis is not spying or copying. It is looking, carefully and fairly, at what customers can choose instead of you, so you can decide where to be better, where to be different and where not to bother. This session gives owners a one-page method they can repeat each quarter.
Explore this page6 sections
Many owners either ignore competitors or obsess over them. Both waste effort.
Ignoring competitors leaves you guessing why customers choose elsewhere. Copying them leaves you as one more similar option. A calm look at what is on offer, and how customers talk about it, shows where you stand and where there is room.
All of this can be done from public information, in a few hours, with no need to deceive anyone.
What the session covers
37 topics across 7 areas. Seven parts, from who competes to how to keep track.
Who Your Competitors Really AreA wider list than you think.5
- Direct competitors selling the same thing nearby or online
- Indirect ones solving the same problem differently
- Doing it themselves, or asking someone they know
- Doing nothing, which is often the biggest competitor
- The ones customers actually mention, not the ones you fear
Ask recent customers who else they considered. Their list is the one that counts.
Gathering Information FairlyPublic sources, honestly used.6
If a method would feel wrong if a competitor did it to you, do not use it.
- Their website, social pages, listings and price lists
- Public ad libraries from major platforms, which show ads that are running
- Marketplace listings, menus and catalogues
- Public reviews
- Visiting or buying as an ordinary customer, without pretending to be someone you are not
- Not copying their content, not accessing private systems, and not seeking confidential information
What to CompareA table of a dozen rows.6
- What they offer, and what they leave out
- Prices and how they present them
- Location, coverage, hours and delivery
- How fast and how well they reply
- What they promise and what proof they show
- Channels they use and how active they are
Reading Their ReviewsFree customer research.5
- What customers praise most, in their own words
- What they complain about repeatedly
- What the business says in reply, and how
- Patterns by month: a recent drop or improvement
- Treating a handful of reviews as clues, not conclusions
Complaints about a competitor are opportunities only if you can do the thing better, reliably.
Finding a Gap That MattersDifferent and important.5
- Where competitors are weak on something customers care about
- Where you are already stronger, and can show it
- Gaps customers do not care about, which are not worth filling
- Whether the gap is something you can keep delivering
- Writing the gap as one plain sentence
Price Comparison Without a Price WarCompare value, not only rupees.5
- Comparing like with like: what is included at each price
- When being cheaper is a strategy and when it is a trap
- Making your value visible instead of lowering your price
- Never agreeing or hinting prices with competitors, even informally; competition law restricts it, so ask an adviser if unsure
- Reviewing prices on facts, not fear
Keeping an Eye On Them, LightlyQuarterly, not daily.5
- A one-page competitor sheet with the date
- What changed since last time
- What, if anything, you should do about it
- Why checking every day wastes time
- Not changing your plan in response to every move
Exercises owners can do the same week
- List five competitors, including one indirect one, and ask three customers who else they considered
- Build the comparison table for three of them from public sources
- Read twenty of their public reviews and note the three most common themes
- Write your gap as a single sentence
- Set a quarterly reminder for the competitor sheet
What this session is not
- A guide to copying someone else's business
- Advice on obtaining confidential information, which we do not support
- Legal advice on competition law
- A recommendation to cut prices
How the session runs
A workshop of about two hours with a phone or laptop for each participant. After a short introduction, owners build a comparison table from public information, read competitor reviews and look for a gap, using their own business as the example. The practitioner helps with where to look and pushes owners to describe gaps in terms customers would recognise. Owners in the same trade and area are seated apart so they are not asked to reveal plans to their closest rivals.
What your students leave with
- A list of their real competitors, including the less obvious ones
- A comparison table filled in from public sources
- What customers like and dislike about alternatives, from their own words
- One or two gaps that matter to customers and that they can fill
- A clear view on when to compete on value rather than price
- A one-page quarterly competitor check
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
Know the alternatives, then decide where you stand.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.