Every remodeling business owner will attest to the fact that staying afloat is already tough enough. To succeed on top of only surviving and actually increasing is a whole different ballgame altogether. It doesn’t matter what your company sells or how good its products or services are; you’ll always be competing against other similar businesses in your sector.
You must outdo your competition in order to survive. How do you maintain your competitive edge over time? By understanding what your unique selling proposition is and keeping it.
What Is Competitive Advantage?
A competitive advantage is a distinct set of morals or characteristics that your remodeling company possesses that distinguishes you from competitors in the same industry. Having the best quality product, for example, or offering the lowest price are two separate potential advantages. Your competitive advantage is the reason why many homeowners would select your product or service over those of your rivals.
Homeowners won’t have a compelling reason to stick with your company if they don’t perceive you to have an edge, which is why defining what constitutes a competitive advantage is so crucial. It’s not just about how you’ll continue to operate as a company in the long run; it’s also about positioning yourself as the industry leader.
How Does Competitive Advantage Work?
You can’t just make a competitive advantage out of thin air, as convenient as it would be. You can’t just reduce the prices of your goods to become the most inexpensive among all of your rivals. It may damage not only your earnings but also jeopardize your chances for growth, not to mention survival. The strategy isn’t to simply create a competitive edge; it’s to build a long-term one. The next question is not only how you can explain your competitive advantage but also how to keep it going forward. The following illustration should give you an overview of how your competitive advantage is defined and maintained:
The illustration above outlines how a competitive advantage arises. Let’s dig deeper, though, to see how each stage leads up to the generation of competitive advantage and how that advantage may be further developed to help your remodeling business succeed:
Resources
Your company’s resources are its physical assets, people, and organizational capital. It is your resources that determine what your company may accomplish in terms of operations and commercial activities. Let’s assume you run a countertop business. Your countertop sources,your showroom personal, and the money in your coffers are all parts of your resources together.
Capabilities
Your company’s capabilities are defined by how you deploy your resources to meet market demands. Your company’s capabilities will be determined by the number of countertops and showroom personal you have, as well as the capital you have. The number of people you can serve in a given area and within a certain period will be determined by your resource management.
Strategy
A well-run business will build a plan based on the resources it has and the capabilities it derives from those resources. A method might look something like this: using the countertop company example, a strategy may be focused on the area you serve, how big an area you service, how you manage your designers, how much money you charge per project, and when and where you offer your service.
What if you’re unable to charge the most inexpensive fares in comparison to other countertop services near you, or you don’t have enough designers or countertops available to provide services?
Competitive Advantage
When a plan is properly planned and implemented, it should succeed. When a business strategy succeeds, a competitive advantage should emerge. Your competitive advantage in the taxi cab scenario would be that you provide a service in an area with a required and when other competitors aren’t able to do so.
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Your remodeling business’s unique and distinctive traits may allow it to gain a competitive edge if it continues to be effective. For example, as people rely more on your countertop service from that one location, your company will become known by everyone as the choice for homeowners. Your competitive advantage will become a part of your brand. McDonald’s, for example, is an excellent real-world example. They were one of the first restaurants to provide “drive-through,” allowing customers to pick up their food on the go — a service that until then had never existed. As a result, the brand “McDonald’s” came to represent “quick food,” and it quickly became a competitive advantage over other restaurants.
Core Competence
With the preceding countertop company example, if another countertop business copycats what you’re doing, you could lose your edge. But by identifying and recognizing this particular competitive advantage as a source of strength before anyone else, you may take steps to enhance it.
It will be difficult for other businesses to compete on the same level if your competitive advantage is well-established and sustainable. If your competitive advantage is valuable, unique, and tough to imitate, it will become a core competence.
Primary Competitive Advantages That Will Help You Develop a Long-Term Competitive Edge
1. Quality of Products or Services
The basic goal of running a company is to offer a product or service. Regardless of what it is you’re selling, you’ll have to compete with others for consumers. Providing high-quality products and services is one of the simplest methods to gain customers’ trust with cost leadership.
2. Standing Out
It is not necessary to have the greatest product on the competitive landscape in order to stand out amongst the competition. You may run up against difficulties such as restricted resources, bandwidth, or expertise while trying to create the best product or service as a small company owner. However, that does not indicate you should write yourself off. Consider the following: You have a fantastic product, but no one understands or appreciates its value.
When it comes to attracting people’s attention, there are no rules. With a well-planned approach, you may distinguish yourself from the competition. You might discover that establishing a unique social-media presence, getting involved with and assisting your community, or staging social events may pique the interest of potential consumers.
3. Affordable Prices
When it comes to pricing, there are several factors to consider. Being aware of the prices you’ll be competing against might give you a competitive advantage. When homeowners choose which products or services to purchase, pricing is one of their top concerns. When purchasing a product or service for the first time, pricing is always a factor since homeowners are unaware of the quality. After making a purchase, customers can only assess the quality of their purchase after it has been delivered. If you can provide higher pricing without reducing quality, you will have an edge in attracting and retaining first-time and referral customers.
4. Customer Service
People will always remember how you made them feel. Regardless of what you’re selling, you must greet clients with warmth, charisma, and respect. Every encounter is a chance to develop strong connections with your customers, which can eventually lead to brand devotion. Shoppers are more inclined to return and recommend a company that provides exceptional customer service. They are also more likely to suggest that company to their friends and relatives, which is especially crucial in today’s economy. Customer service is directly linked to attracting clients; therefore, investing time and resources into improving it may help you stand out from the competition.
5. Pivoting and Responding to Customer Behavior
When you understand customer behaviors and trends, you can provide a better customer experience. The world we live in is ever-changing, and it’s changing even more now than it has in the past. Being able to identify and react to both client’s wants and requirements can help you distinguish yourself from rivals.
While you should aim to excel in as many areas as possible while running your kitchen and bath business, identifying and focusing on your competitive advantage can help you get a leg up on the competition.
There are three primary competitive advantages to concentrate on. These include cost advantage, distinctiveness advantage, and focus advantage. All three may help you develop a long-term competitive edge.
Cost Advantage
A cost advantage refers to the price at which you sell your goods or services. You charge your clients a lower price than competing businesses of similar (or comparable) quality do for their products or services.
How is it possible to do this without sacrificing the quality of your product or service? Some businesses will reduce employee pay to offset the costs and lower their merchandise or service prices. To make up for their reduced salaries, they may provide other non-financial perks, such as stock options. As a company grows, the savings that can be achieved by purchasing in bulk to reduce material expenses allow it to lower its prices. It’s why big businesses like Walmart can provide lower prices on a lot of their goods than smaller, family-owned companies are able to.
Differentiation Advantage
The differentiation advantage is a term used to describe the distinct benefit your brand can give to its customers outside of price. Perhaps you provide the most feature-packed product on the market or are one of the few (if not only) businesses in your market to use only sustainable and environmentally conscious materials. The higher quality of your product may help you charge a premium price. The difference between you and other businesses in your industry not only distinguishes you from them, but it also allows you to charge a premium rate. Product quality and inventiveness, as well as customer service and branding, are all examples of differentiation advantages.
Focus Advantage
Obtaining a concentrated benefit entails identifying a highly specialized audience and ensuring that you deliver them better than anyone else. The goal is to concentrate on a niche that larger businesses are unable to serve. Local banks, for example, will frequently target local remodeling and offer them with more tailored services and benefits that large banks are unable to (or do not bother) provide.
Defining Your Competitive Advantage Is Crucial for K&B Business Success
You need to know what it is that sets you apart from other organizations and how you plan to maintain your competitive advantage over time if you want your company to thrive. The three major reasons why defining your competitive advantage is so crucial follow:
Distinguishes Company From Other Competitors
The more distinctive your company is from the competition, the more new homeowners it will attract and keep loyal to your brand. If there’s nothing that sets you apart, you’re not providing clients a reason to select your firm above others who offer comparable services or products (in fact, their own competitive advantages will be enhanced as a result of you not having one).
Provides Distinct Quality
With a competitive edge, you demonstrate one particular aspect of your product or service that will catch the attention of customers. If your competitive advantage is sustained, it will be linked to the quality of your product or service.
Contributes To Brand Loyalty And Image Recognition
Even if clients select to utilize your product or service, they will have no incentive to continue using it if you don’t offer a competitive edge. They may simply try out the competitor’s product or service since they don’t know what makes yours unique. They may not even remember your local businesses after they’ve purchased your goods or service since nothing distinguished it from the crowd. You’ll improve brand loyalty and brand image recognition with a competitive advantage.
Ensure Your Marketing Strategy Supports Your Competitive Advantage
The competitive edge of your company is based on the effectiveness of its business methods. This includes the marketing approach you use. Your marketing business strategies must be in line with the principles of your competitive advantage. This can be accomplished by looking for these components:
User Benefits
It’s not a competitive advantage unless it helps your customers. Determine how your product or service benefits your clients. Your client benefits should be directly related to your competitive advantage. Throughout the course of your marketing campaign, you’ll want to highlight your user advantages.
Target Market
Determine who your target competitive market is. Your competitive advantage should cater to your target market, and your marketing efforts should assist in the recruitment of users from this group. You won’t have much of an edge if you’re targeting the wrong audience.
Competitors
If you don’t know who your rivals are, you won’t be able to say what advantage your product or service has over theirs. Identify exactly who your competition is. Remodeling companies have shown themselves to be unstoppable during the last two years by discovering a competitive edge. That is why I’m sharing a method for determining what your competitive advantage may be.