Few firms that operate in the professional services landscape would argue with the value of developing a competitive strategy. And in this video blog, I’m going to share five steps with you that we at Hinge have found to be particularly effective.
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Few firms that operate in the professional services landscape would argue with the value of developing a competitive strategy. And in this video blog, I’m going to share five steps with you that we at Hinge have found to be particularly effective.
First is to consider your business situation. This is really the first step. Consider whether you are a firm that’s been in the space for a couple of decades and you have a well-known, very visible brand known for particular things. On the other hand, you could be a startup and a relative newcomer to the space.
This is your starting point for figuring out what you’re going to do to develop your competitive strategy. Second, and this is probably the most important thing, is to research your target audience and the firms with whom you compete. It’s important to do this because it helps you understand two things.
One is, how is your target audience learning, buying, and making decisions when they’re looking for a firm like you? And two, what does your target audience experience when they’re out there looking for firms like you? Those are your competitors. Once you’ve done that, then you’re ready for step three. And this is to identify your differentiators.
If you’ve done your research correctly, you’ll come out with a good understanding of not only what you can genuinely own as a differentiator, but what’s going to meaningfully set you apart from the competition. Now, fourth is something that not a lot of firms do and this is to validate your competitive strategy.
So, once you’ve identified your differentiators, which are in fact, your competitive advantage, you want to validate that, and you can do it in a couple of ways. One is to identify or weave in your differentiators into your win themes and start tracking whether you’re winning new business on those. And how are your prospects responding to the competitive strategy that you’ve just put forth?
Another way that you can validate is through formal research. You can have research done where your audience is interviewed and they, in turn, validate what’s meaningful to them. Last, you’re ready to wrap up all of the first four steps into an implementation plan. What of your competitive strategy that you’ve developed?
What does it say about the techniques that you should be using to bring visibility? What tools might you need with what kind of budget, and what kind of skills do you need on board to implement this? Now, if you’d like to find out more about how to develop a competitive strategy and the steps you should take, I encourage you to check out the course we developed in Hinge University called the Visible Firm, hope to see you there.
