Shop Your Competition

So you read the title of this article.  Got it?  Great.  Now do it.

It is that simple, but a little guidance may be of help.

What I mean when I say, “Shop Your Competition….”  You, or someone you highly trust, go into your competitions place of business, checks things out, from an owners perspective, take a lot of notes, maybe let them sell you something, then scrutinize their product or service, and learn, learn, learn.  How deep you take this depends on you, your industry, and your budget.

Shopping Your Competition can fit into any number of buckets for funding.  I tend to place it into marketing mostly, but sometimes, when I purchase an item from the competition, it may fall into research or operations. This too may depend on your industry.

Some Tips From The Command Post

I use a checklist of items to seek out and observe.  This checklist tends to have the same major items on it, but if I am curious abound trends or a specific area, I will include these into the checklist.  I also have an after action review sheet that is built from the checklist.  I have my Shoppers memorize this list, review it immediately before engaging the competition, and then when they are done they do an immediate mind dump as part of the after action review.  I then have my Shoppers do a follow-up review the next day, to allow them to include anything they may have forgotten to mention.  Also, because I know my Shoppers fairly well, I encourage them to include their own subjective thoughts as well as facts.  I have varying types of Shoppers, so if one who is known to be more sentimental says one thing, I can have a more practical Shopper engage the same competitor and get their take on the matter, rounding out the perspective.

Be sure your Shoppers have infallible cover stories.

Include Shopping Your Competition as part of your regularly scheduled activities to get the best understanding of your competition, and how to defeat them.