Tips for staying ahead and beating your big competitors

Are you tired of having a lot of contacts and promising words like "I'll call You" but still, have no sales coming in? If you are currently experiencing this in your sales strategy, then it's time for you to learn how you can generate leads for your business.

Wikipedia defines leads generation as the

"Initiation of consumer interest or enquiry into a product or services of a business".

Small business certainly fell the pressure to stay competitive with larger companies and always wanted to attract customers to grow the business. These businesses are finding it harder and harder to compete and stay profitable against such big powerhouse stores like Wal-Mart and Amazon if we talk about the Ecommerce scenario. Although it is true that small businesses can have a hard time matching these big business prices, there are plenty of other features that a small business offers that the big companies simply cannot compete with.

The key to beating out big competitors is to offer new surprise features with extra benefits that larger companies cannot offer. Now question arises How can this information help you make your business more profitable from the beginning? First, discover your strengths and weaknesses and use them as a marketing tool. Once you discover your strengths and weaknesses, you can easily implement further activities.

---

In addition, if we take here a simple example of Reliance Jio's 4G service, company claimed that they are the fastest to gain 16 million active users within a month. Reliance Jio make all this possible by offering the best possible services with extra benefits.

The main 6 things that Jio focus on and most other big companies did not

1. Welcome offer

2. Cheap Tariff plans

3. Student Plans

4. Affordable Jio devices

5. Free Voice Calls

6. Offers for the enterprise users

Here are the top tips to help your business not just stay afloat, but actually beat the competitors in a strategic way. Select the correct one for your business to stay ahead of the curve.

These 9 steps will help you to learn how you can create leads for your business, and turn those numbers into buyers!

1. Think website

The importance of a website cannot be overemphasized, a well-designed and easy to navigate website is the one of the best ways to turn visitors to customers. Ensure that you have quality contents good enough to keep the visitor on your website for a minimum time of 10 minutes. Make good use of your optin forms to offer your visitor; a free ebook, or a special invitation to your next sales meeting, or a special promo code for a certain percentage off what he or she is interested in, for an email exchange. By doing this, you have gained access to turn visitors into customers.

2. Be consistent on social media

Do not take this lightly! Your competitors are already using the social media to generate massive leads for their business. Coca-Cola led the train about 4-5 years ago with her worldwide "share a Coke campaign". Even though Coca-Cola is a top brand in the world, they still recognized that they had to be consistent, and keep their competitors at Bay, we know the results at the end, " Massive sales of Coca-Cola worldwide".

Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter; are good social media platforms you can use to generate leads for your business. Understand which social media platform works best for your business. Be consistent, be fun, and engage more with your online community. When your community finds value in what you do, they will tell others about your business.

3. Advertise

To generate leads for your business, people have to know that your business exists. A business cannot thrive in isolation. In advertising your business, choose the right platform that will get you more engagements with your target audience; the social media platforms do that we'll. Ensure your website is good looking, full of valuable information, and easy to navigate; ensure that your optin forms pop up at the right time with something that will make them sign up for your newsletter.

4. Be a guest writer or blogger

Decide to share your knowledge and expertise with others by writing in a local newspaper, or a blog. If the audience finds your messages valuable, it helps them to solve a problem, or challenges them to start something, they will trust and like you, and when they do; they will be receptive to whatever product or service you have to sell to them.

5. Attend networking events

This remains one of the most powerful ways of meeting directly with people and making new friends. The best businesses are those done in a friendly atmosphere. Networking events open the doors to endless opportunities for your business. When planning on attending a networking event, ensure you have the following;

• A Wonderful Website

• An Active Social Media Platform

• Your Beautifully Designed Product or Service Catalogue

• Good Dressence

• Your Complementary Card.

6. Superior Customer Service

Lack of customer service is one of the major complaints that customers have about big companies. Use this to your advantage because, as a small businesses owner, you have direct control of the customer service in your establishment. Get to know your customers on a personal and professional level. This will help you understand what they want in a company and what their shopping needs are. Always go above and beyond to make the customer happy and instantly resolve any customer complaints. It is also crucial that you train your staff to provide the same excellent services, which makes your customers happy and keeps your staff working as a team.

7. Make Use of Social Media

Social media is a must for small businesses and is a great way to reach a large audience in a short period of time. Encourage customers to follow your social media pages and use this medium to promote sales, market new items or new changes to your store. As a small business owner, you also have the advantage of knowing your local community and the happening within the community. This can help you cater your social media posts to talk directly to your local customers. For example, a hardware store owner may want to advertise on social media a big sale on snow shovels, the day before a big snowstorm is in the forecast. This first-hand knowledge of the local community is an aspect the big companies just cannot compete against.

8. Inventory Control

Keeping track of your inventory is a difficult task no matter what size your business is. You certainly want to keep enough items on the shelf for your customers to purchase, but if you overstock, it will cut into your profits. Small businesses can now compete with the larger stores by using a point-of-sale software system. This software will provide you with real time sales and inventory data, current inventory in stock, how much inventory was sold, and customer purchasing history. This will make it easier to make the tough inventory decisions that are right for your business.

9. Personalized Attention

As a small business, you also have the opportunity to offer your customers personalized attention, which is something that big businesses just can handle. This may mean ordering special goods for your client or helping them determine what product will work best for them. For example, if you own a local hardware store, you can help your customers determine what products they need to complete a special project. This can quickly make you the go-to person for help with repair or home improvement questions, which in turn can draw more customers into the store. This can also help build a trust between you and your customers, not to mention get the work out about your store.

Building a relationship with the customers is the key to running any good business. You must have a firm understanding of what the customer needs and what they want in a business. A point-of-sales software system can help you keep all of your customer data in one location and allow you to easily track past and current spending habits. This type of system provides great retail solutions for hardware stores, as well as, all other small businesses. These systems allow you to control your inventory and get a better understanding of your customers and their needs.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the importance of creating leads for your business rebrands the prospect your business requires. Areas of concentration towards the business. Approach people you wish to meet with a smile, connect first with them by knowing what they do; after knowing about what they do, tell them about your business, handover your beautiful designed catalogue to your prospect. Be social savvy; take a selfie with them, ask for their social media I.D and tag them. Never forget to exchange contacts, and also remind them that you'll be in touch.

These methods will help you generate active leads for your business. All you need is commitment and Consistency!

Choose to start today, and have a great turn around in your business.

This Blog is contributed by Ashok Sharma. Ashok Sharma is a writer, professional blogger, Digital marketer and social media enthusiast. Ashok currently hold the position of Digital Marketing Manager at GrayCell Technologies. He spends time in developing online marketing strategies for clients of GCT.Follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn