Customers for our goods and services are getting more comfortable purchasing both from the Internet. Every day we discover new competitive challenges to our offerings, whether we sell business to business (B2B), business to consumer (B2C), in one-on-one meetings (121), in one to many (12M), or in some other alphabetic method. Understand, you are in competition with the world, and if someone sells what you sell, you have competition that can originate from next door, across the nation, or from overseas. After all, you are out there where everyone can see you, and your prices are definitely not a secret—especially if you advertise on the Internet!

When one of your competitors is out there making, distributing, or selling essentially the same product as you, they can gain share in your market at your expense by telling customers they are "different" from you. What should you do? What recourse do you have when this happens? How do you make your offering “different”?

QUESTION YOUR APPROACH
If you are at the point where you ask yourself the above questions, you are probably too late to do much about anything except preside over the dissolution of your firm. The question you should be asking is: "How can I change my firm from a sales-oriented firm to a marketing-oriented firm?" Your sales oriented firm is ancient history. You have focused on getting customers to buy and pay for products you and your competitor both already offer, and your competitor is now eating your lunch! What you must do, and right now, is change to a marketing orientated firm. Focus first on what current and potential customers want or need, and then focus on providing these needs along with your products and services at competitive prices.

The four interrelated steps to accomplish the transition from a sales firm to a marketing firm include researching your customer base, determining your distinctive competitive advantages, modifying your products and services where necessary, and communicating the distinctions to your present and potential customer base.

CUSTOMER RESEARCH
It's amazing what you can learn from your customers if you only ask. In one-on-one interviews, ask your customers what benefits they get from your products or services. Listen for key words such as faster, cheaper, larger, smaller, better storage, more attractive, and other "buy" words. If you don't seem to be getting many words of praise, try asking your customer what benefits they would like to get from your products or services, what they either want or need that they are not presently getting from you.

COMPARE
Make two side-by-side lists. The first list should contain all of the distinctive "buy" or “success” words identified in your customer survey. Compose the second list from the information you gather on customer “wants” or “needs”. This second list is actually more critical than the first. It is designed to identify features of your products and services that the customer is willing to pay for, features they may not be getting from either you or your competition.

MODIFY
So what do you do next? Fix things! Get busy and correct the deficiencies that cause your customers to buy from the competition. Your immediate choices for product or service additions and expansions may be limited; but in the long run you are going to have to supply what is wanted and needed or forever lose your customers to competition. Is all this expensive? Of course it is, but it is your business’ existence we are talking about! It is entirely possible to fail at this point, especially if you refuse to make the changes your customer has identified as critical, but that is your decision.

TAKE ACTION
Don’t wait till you have everything “fixed” to take action. Begin by telling your customers and prospects about your proposed fixes as you begin working on them. You still have a jump on the competition at this point, so exploit that jump. Tell customers about your survey and what you are doing to meet their needs. Develop an action plan to communicate this information to your present and prospective customer base. An excellent vehicle for this might be an industry or customer-targeted feature-benefit brochure or newsletter. Remember that features are not benefits unless your customer feels they are benefits.

(NOTE TO EDITORS: PLEASE INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING.)
Paul Tulenko is a Small Business Success Consultant based in New Mexico. Additional tips and suggestions are available at www.tulenko.com or call (toll-free) 1-866-TULENKO.