Oh my gosh, that gorilla weighs 800 pounds!
If it hasn’t happened to your industry yet, rest assured that it will. The 800 pound gorilla will come for you. It will sit anywhere you want, perhaps next to your business, and will try to get you off the bench.
It happened to toy stores and the gorilla was named Toys R Us. And now, a new and bigger gorilla is working hard to take Toys R Us off the market. It happened to the local pharmacy and the gorilla was named Walgreen’s or CVS. It happened to the local restaurant, local bookstore, video rental, local department store, employment agency, tax preparer, and just about every type of business imaginable. It’s only a matter of time until that gorilla comes after your industry and after you!
Sure, there are still some local toy stores, bookstores, diners, etc., but to survive they must be very good at what they do and must market aggressively because the gorilla is good at what you do, and has a large department of marketing with an advertising budget much larger than yours. It also has a large headquarters and regional staff of experts trained in all its business functions: purchasing, production, human resources, accounting, design, inventory control, logistics and administration.
How can you compete, survive and prosper against that gorilla? You can’t keep doing business the way you have for years – that’s for sure!
It does so by leveraging its local knowledge, getting to know its clients and their industry. You build on your strengths by making them stronger and minimizing your weaknesses. You do this by working to elevate your company’s skills and better professionalize your staff to please your customers and anticipate their needs. It does this by creating and developing personalized services, programs, and efforts to please them in a way that the gorilla cannot, due to its size and scale.
How do you get more aggressive on a limited budget? Start by thinking carefully about how you market, who you market to, how best to inform and enthuse your prospects, and develop a planned attack to impress your target market. If you do all of that, you can survive and even thrive when that gorilla is chasing your customers, as it certainly will. After all that, you have to work to constantly improve because if you beat that gorilla today, rest assured that he will return.