Principles, Tools, and Techniques

A. Competition Principles of Competition

- Competition is the quest for achieving superior results, the best results in a specific field, in business, in
sports, or in social activities, the best results compared to others. Competition is the fight for a limited
resource, for a prize or for an award. The fighting around abilities and skills often takes place as a
somehow organized contest with rules that are agreed upon to be followed in order to accurately measure
the results.Other competitions are based on rivalry — two parties are fighting to dominate a market, or
they are fighting for the first place in a race in sports, or in science.

Competition usually involves two or more competitors with the goal of determining a clear winner. It is
the simultaneous demand for a reward or for a resource that causes competition.

Now, what about competing with yourself? You are the winner in every competition you participate in
and still declare yourself the loser. This is where excellence comes into play, success in competition is
about being the best while true excellence is about being your best.

The main difference between being the best and being your best is the lack of competition. You are only
competing with yourself, specifically with your past self.

Competition is about finding out who is the best. But you don’t have to find out. I tell you who is the best.
You are. You wouldn’t participate in any competition if you weren’t sure that you are the best? Would
you participate when you knew you wouldn’t be able to give your best? In order to compete you have to
prepare yourself for the competition. You train and you strive to excel. The goal is to be your very best.
Now, being your best, why do you need to compete with others? You aren’t getting any better anymore,
anyway. And since you trained until achieving personal excellence, you aren’t getting worse than yourself
either.

You are the best. That’s it. There is no competing with others. What is the point in finding out who is
better when the competitors are each at their absolute, personal best? Other than vanity?
Find out your best. Build on top of past successes or, even failures, competing only with yourself. It’s the
most humble form of competition and the hardest one at the same time.
Discover how to be better than yourself. Chase excellence in whatever you do. In pursuing excellence,
creativity is freed from competition and everything is focused on the act of creating. Only then do you
arrive at your very best.

Do not hesitate to help your competitors achieve their best as well. In order to determine the real best, do
everything to have every participant in any competitive situation to excel. Do not celebrate rivalry.
Participate in any competition only for fun.

Excellence beyond competition is not being better than anyone else. Excellence beyond competition is the
necessity of giving your very best in every situation and without competing for an award or profit or
whatever reward you are usually fighting for.
 Excellence beyond competition is boxing without weight limits, it is small business competing with big
business. You are not going to abstractly win but to give all that you are, whatever it takes. Win not
against somebody else, not even against yourself, but win being yourself.
One more thing: Never say I give my best, never use giving your best as an excuse, never mention that
you are in fact and always giving your best. Just do it. And win.

Tools of Competition

- Comparing your business to competitors is a great way of seeing where you are in the market. For
example, who is your biggest competition? Is their customer base growing faster than yours? Do they
have the majority of the market? How does your market share compare?
Typically companies have relied on SWOT methods for competitor analysis – strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities, and threats. It’s a great way of pinpointing internal and external factors that affect your
company. You can find threats, work on weaknesses and promote your strengths, allowing you to get
your market share of the business.Unless you’re the only company doing what you do, or offering a
service, you will never completely resolve threats, which is why you need to keep an eye on your
competition.

 Positioning Comparisons - This is a matter of branding and general positioning. How does your brand
behave, act and present itself in the market? And how does your competitor? By comparing both, you can
tell where are the strongest features of your brand and have insights on how to develop them furthermore.
(Tools: Gartner Magic-Quadrant is the name of a series of market reports. The reports contain a vast
amount of research done on four types of technology providers in fast-growing markets: Leaders,
Visionaries, Niche Players, and Challengers, allowing a broad view of your competitors and market
share.)
 Product Comparisons - Advertising campaigns, discounts, and specials are common knowledge, easily
found on websites, brochures, TV advertising, etc. What are you competitors offering that you aren’t?
What discounts or prices are working for them and how do yours compare? (Tools: What Runs Where- is
a handy tool for monitoring your competitors’ ads. It covers many ad networks and countries, allowing
you to track competitors worldwide.)
 Websites - These days, customers google your business or go directly to your website before you even
know they’re a customer. So, analyzing your competitor’s website is a great place to start. "Is their
website user-friendly?" "How many pages do they have?" "What’s on their home page?" "How does your
site compare?" And most importantly, "how do you know whether their website is successful?". (Tools:
WooRank- helps to better your website based on the results of a project analyzing either your site or your
competitors.)
 SEO - There are numerous tools to help determine how your website performs. There are also ways of
measuring keywords and key terms, all of which drive site visits. If you can measure something, you can
improve it. To get a better view of your market share, you can analyze your competitor’s site traffic too.
"Where do your competitors rank in a Google search?" , "How many more website visits do your
competitors receive?".(Tools: Google Insights- to understand industry trends, consumer insights and
content possibilities. It's a good way to compare yourself to the market and see where your brand is
placed.)
 Social Media - A key factor in this marketing climate is analyzing the integration of social media into
their marketing strategy. "Does their website have social media share buttons?" , "Does your competition
have an Instagram account followed by millions?", "What are they posting and why?" , "Do they engage
with customers through Facebook or Twitter?", "How often do they post, when do they post, and what do
they post?". The above things to monitor aren’t important solely in themselves, but monitoring their social
media followers – and the growth of this following – will give you an insight into whether your
competitor's marketing strategy is working. (Tools: InfiniGraph- keeps you up to date with trends in your
specific industry. It's beneficial for both competitor analysis and improving your own content.)
 Blogging - "Is your competitor driving website traffic by blogging?", "How often do they blog?", "Does
the content represent solely their products or spread industry knowledge?". Subscribe to your
competitors’ blogs. Check out customer engagement through shares and comments. Are your main
competitors' blogs full of dynamic well-written pieces worth sharing, or pictures and fun stories? Find out
what makes their blogs successful. (Tools: SocialMention- focuses on blogs and social media, tracking
keywords and company names, allowing you to keep track of what’s said across social platforms - and
with what sentiment.)

Techniques of Competition -

 Technique #1: Create Utility and Usefulness with your Product - The first marketing technique you can
use to beat your competition is to create utility, usefulness, and satisfy the needs of your customers to
achieve a specific result. This requires that you offer them something they need and can use to accomplish
their other goals. Look at your market today. What will your customers and potential customers want,
need, and be willing to pay for in the months and years ahead? What are the trends in customer demands
in your market? If you can answer this accurately, you can often leapfrog over your competition and
dominate a new market even before it emerges.
 Technique #2: Change Your Pricing - A second approach to sales and marketing is by changing your
pricing. By bringing your goods and services into the price range of your customers, you can open up
entirely new markets that do not today exist. How could you price your products or services so that more
customers could afford to buy them? Many companies have been able to achieve market leadership by
focusing on bringing their prices into the affordability range of more customers. What we have found is
that the greater your market share, and the lower your cost of production, the lower is the price that you
can charge.
 Technique #3: Emphasize Your Product’s Key Benefit to the Customer - adapting to the customer’s
reality, both social and economic. The ultimate aim of your marketing plan is to make selling
unnecessary. But this is seldom achieved. The product almost always needs to be sold to the end
customer. As it turns out, each product offers a “key benefit” that is the primary reason why the customer
would buy. Each product or service also triggers a “key fear,” which is what holds the customer back
from buying the product or service in the first place. Customers are terrified of risk. They are afraid of
paying too much, getting the wrong product, losing their money, and getting stuck with something that is
inappropriate for their purposes. This is the main reason that qualified prospects hold back from buying
any product or service, at any price.
 Technique #4: Deliver True Value of Your Product to Your Customer - The fourth approach to
marketing plan is for you to deliver what represents “true value” to the customer. True value is something
that can only be identified by working closely with your customers. What represents true value to your
customers? How could you structure your product or service offerings in such a way that people would be
more comfortable purchasing them from you rather than from your competitors? B. Customers Principles
of Customers - Performance in any field is guided by a few core principles. Say you want to improve at
swimming. One way would be to go for a daily swim at your local lake. Will you improve? Sure. But
only until you reach a certain plateau. A deep understanding of a field’s core principles sets you up for an
autonomous and continuous path of improvement.
 Speed- Speed or responsiveness shows up in almost all studies as a main determinant for service
quality. According to a Warwick University study, responsiveness has the highest impact on both
customer satisfaction (fast response) and dissatisfaction (slow response).
 Accuracy- Besides being fast, your service answers should, obviously, be correct. Johnston's study
shows that customers regard accuracy as the minimum. It won't raise customer satisfaction, but
inaccuracy definitely causes dissatisfaction.
 Transparency- "What the hell is taking so long!?" We all recognize this feeling. Not knowing what is
happening or why makes us feel uneasy. Which is why transparency is just as critical to service as speed
and accuracy.
 Accessibility- If your customer has a problem, how easy is it for him or her to get in touch? For a long
time, the entire customer service theory focused on delighting the customer — on exceeding expectations.
A research by CEB, however, showed that it pays off more to focus on reducing customer effort instead.
While effort also depends on factors like speed and accuracy, accessibility is its biggest hurdle.
 Empowerment- We all like to feel in control. A good service offers this feeling to its customers.
Flexibility. The reason we hate bureaucracy is because it lacks flexibility. When there's a corner case
issue, and there always is, a bureaucratic machine jams. That's again why empowered employees are
crucial. Ratings/comments. If you've just received the best or worst service of your life, you want to
express that. Besides providing valuable feedback to the company, a service rating gives customers a
sense of control. Self service. There are few things more empowering than taking care of things yourself.
Some people don't like to be assisted at all. For them, well structured self service options are crucial.
Transparency. "Knowledge is power." Not knowing what is happening or why makes you feel powerless,
which makes transparency worth repeating here.
 Friendliness- There's one major downside to eCommerce. It has stripped away most of the human
interactions that used to be commonplace in everyday transactions. Service experiences are one of the few
remaining moments of humanity. Yet plenty of companies manage to ruin that as well by making their
service entirely inhumane. They speak in overly formal language, use service cliches, withhold service
rep identity, etc.
 Efficiency- You can have the world's best service, but what's the use when it's eating up all of your
profits? Efficiency will always be a crucial factor in customer service. What has changed is technology;
some tools let us bypass yesterday's trade offs.Take speed and costs. Back when phone was the only
channel, you couldn't offer fast service at low costs. To offer instant service, you'd have to maintain an
army of idle phone reps to cover for peak times. Queueing was the only way to press costs.

Tools of Customers

- More and more organizations are providing customer service tools to encourage consumers to have
greater interaction with their brand.
1. Online communities - Statistics show that 25% of people choose to engage with brands because they
“want to join the community of brand fans.” Online communities allow customers to engage with other
customers, give direct feedback on products, and share their passion for your product or brand.
Maintaining online communities is the company’s opportunity to monitor customer feedback and improve
brand experience. Online communities can be accessed via social media and there are also several
marketing applications that can help you build your own online community (ahem, like our Community
Cloud).
2. Discussion Forums - A forum is a specific type of online community that creates an opportunity for
crowdsourcing. Here, you can collect and respond to customer feedback. Popular forums will quickly
grow in popularity and become a place where product experts who many not even work for your company
can combine forces with your own customer service agents, creating a community that can chime in about
a products or help to resolve issues in a much more timely matter. You get the benefit of seeing a lot of
customer feedback, and you can see how customers react to the solutions that are provided in the
community.
3. Social Media - Social media is an essential tool for businesses of any size. Maintaining a static social
page is not enough. Nowadays an inactive social media profile is the online version of having an empty
store. Create a social media presence and use it to engage with customers, connectig with them and
responding to their problems or issues on a timely basis.
4. Automatic callback - We’ve all had the unpleasant experience of being put on hold for an annoyingly
long period of time. By the time an operator is able to assist you, you’re already irritated at having had to
wait for X amount of time. If your service system allows a user to enter their phone number for an agent
to call them back without losing their place in the service queue, even better.
5. Live chat - As more people shopping online, there are people are looking for online support. Offering a
live chat option (like the one included in the Salesforce Service Cloud) is another way to foster a good
online experience for your customers. Live chat options can be used for more than just customer service
questions—it’s also a good way to provide information that might encourage a purchase decision. For
example, clothing retailers often offer live chat with a “style consultant”, and department stores
sometimes offer a live chat for help with gift registries.
6. Customer satisfaction surveys - Customer satisfaction surveys are important at various touch points,
such as after a sale or after an issue is resolved. Allowing your customers to give feedback provides you
with valuable information on how to build a better customer journey, and it can help instill trust in your
brand. This trust is important to build, because it can cost five to 15 times more to acquire a new customer
than gain repeat business from an existing one.

Customers Techniques:

1. Engage in active listening- Active listening is essential for effective communication. It allows for a
better understanding of the customers’ needs and shows a willingness to help. Allow the customer to talk
without interruption, reflect back their main question or concern and ask clarifying questions when
necessary.
2. Highlight understanding- Ensure that each customer is aware that you understood their needs. By using
active listening techniques and asking relevant questions, you will communicate that you understand them
and are making an effort to help solve their problem.
3. Be Courteous- Be polite and have respect for your customers. Always use “please” and “thank you”
and create an inviting environment for the customers.
4. Call the customer by his name- Ask the customer their name and pronounce it correctly. This
communicates respect for the customer and lets them know that they are important.
5. Go the extra mile- Demonstrate through actions that the customer is important by giving more than the
minimum effort required. By taking the initiative to provide better service or give the customer something
extra, customers will feel valued and appreciated.
6. Ask, don’t demand- Statements can sound harsh. Asking appropriate questions makes the conversation
more collaborative.
7. Empower- Empower customers with adequate information to make informed decisions. When there are
options, thoroughly describe each available alternative. By offering choices, customers will be more
involved in solving their problems. This results in a higher level of customer satisfaction.
8. Be proactive - Engage in proactive steps to satisfy the customer’s needs. Being proactive will also help
to reduce barriers when problem solving.
9. Highlight pros and cons- When describing a product or service, include both its strengths and
weaknesses relative to alternatives. By providing balanced recommendations, customers will view you as
more credible. This increases trust and customer satisfaction.
10. Explain- Customers are not always familiar with your company’s policies or procedures. Thoroughly
explain to customers what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. A clear understanding tends to decrease
customer frustration.
11. Use plain language- Avoid technical terms, jargon and acronyms. Be professional, concise and clear.

C. Suppliers

Principles of Suppliers:

The media has been dominated by horror stories of supply chain failure over the past several
weeks.Despite an increasing number of organisations embracing supplier relationship management
(SRM) in recent years, most implement programs with insufficient skills and capabilities at their disposal,
and a lack of understanding of the capacity or bandwidth required to assure sustained success.
1. Relationship with applicable laws- In addition to complying with the provisions of these Supplier
Conduct Principles (hereinafter the “Principles“), the Supplier shall comply with all national laws and all
laws applicable to the Supplier and its operations. Where the requirements of such applicable laws and the
Principles differ, or are in conflict, the Supplier shall comply with the highest standard consistent with
applicable laws.
2. Human rights- The Supplier shall respect internationally recognised human rights, including those
expressed in the United Nations International Bill of Human Rights. The Supplier shall conduct its
business consistently with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. 3.
Labour rights and working conditions:
3.1 Fundamental labour principles and rights The Supplier shall respect internationally recognized rights
and principles as set out in the International Labour Organization’s Core Conventions[1] and Declaration
on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
4. Health and Safety- The Supplier shall promote the good health of Workers, and shall provide and
maintain a safe and secure working environment in accordance with applicable laws and internationally
recognised standards.Hazards shall be identified, risk assessed, mitigated and monitored and the
necessary precautionary measures taken to prevent accidents, occupational diseases and foreseeable
emergency situations. The Supplier shall establish and implement appropriate systems for recording,
investigating and implementing learning points from accidents and emergency situations.
5. Environment- The Supplier shall take a precautionary approach towards environmental and climate
challenges, ensure that responsible practices for managing environmental impacts are in place, and
encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.The Supplier shall
comply with applicable laws and internationally recognised standards.
6. Privacy, freedom of expression and data protection: The Supplier shall appropriately recognize and
respect privacy and freedom of expression within the Supplier’s operations.The Supplier shall use due
skill, care and diligence and implement adequate and documented security controls and take necessary
precautions to protect any data against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental loss,
destruction, damage, alteration or disclosure. If the Supplier processes personal data the Supplier shall
ensure the care and awareness which is required according to laws and regulations in order to safeguard
the interests of the data subjects.
7. Prohibited Business Practices :
8.1 Competition The Supplier shall always meet competitors in an honest and professional manner. The
Supplier shall not cause or be part of any breach of applicable competition laws and regulations, such as
illegal cooperation on pricing and illegal market sharing.
8.2 Bribery, Corruption and Fraud :The Supplier shall comply with applicable laws and regulations
concerning bribery, corruption and fraud. The Supplier shall not offer, give, ask for, accept or receive any
form of bribe, facilitation payment or undue or improper advantage, favour or incentive to/from any
public official, international organisation or any other third party (either in private or public sector),
whether directly or through an intermediary. Tools to the Suppliers: A good relationship with suppliers is
a vital part of business success. Suppliers not only provide you with the goods and services you need to
run your business - they can also be an important source of information, advice and trade credit. The
following tips will help you to maintain good relationships.
 Talk to your suppliers regularly.
 Pay your suppliers' accounts promptly.
 Communicate with a supplier before the due date for payment, should you foresee a delay in paying an
account.
 Build good relations with your current suppliers' representatives.
 Be fair but firm with industry sales representatives – they can easily take up a lot of your time.
 Avoid rush orders wherever possible – they can cause significant stress in your business and put a strain
on the relationship with your suppliers.
 Monitor the financial position of your suppliers – talk with industry colleagues and competitors about
the general financial stability of those businesses that supply goods and services to you.
 Address any issues of concern in relationships with your suppliers as they arise.
 Refer damaged or faulty goods to the supplier promptly, with supporting documentation.
 Be prepared to review and renegotiate the terms of trade with your suppliers from time-to-time.
Suppliers are essential to almost every business. Without raw materials to make what you sell or
manufacturers to provide what you resell, you will have a tough time growing. There are also many
supplies and services your business consumes as part of general overhead, from paper clips to Internet
access. Suppliers and vendors-the terms are used interchangeably here-can do much more than merely
supply you with the materials and services you need to do business. They can also be important sources of
information, helping you evaluate the potential of new products, track competitors' actions and identify
promising opportunities. Vendors can turn into partners, helping you cut costs, improve product designs
and even fund new marketing efforts. If you don't make selecting good suppliers and vendors a part of
your growth plan, you're likely to regret it.

Techniques to the Suppliers:

One of the most important aspects of running a business has to do with how you manage your suppliers.
Remember that as supplier isn’t just “a company that you hired to boss around.” A supplier is an entity
that you need to establish a successful and beneficial relationship with in order for both organizations to
achieve all of their goals. As a business owner or manager, there are a few techniques you can use to more
effectively manage your suppliers in the future.

Regular communication - One important quality of managing your suppliers is regular and constant
communication. Remember your suppliers aren’t mind readers. If there is some aspect of your business
relationship you feel they could be doing better, you need to let them know. If your goals for the next
quarter have suddenly changed, you need to make sure they’re aware of that fact as soon as possible.
You’ll also want to regularly get in touch to help keep your supplier on the same page and to make sure
they’re keeping up with your needs, especially if you’re in the type of industry where those needs are
likely to change on a regular basis. One of the cornerstones of any type of relationship is mutual
understanding. The only way you’re going to be able to maintain mutual understanding between your
business and your supplier at all times is through regular communication practices.
Putting objectives in place - Another important step you can take to better manage your relationship with
your supplier has to do with putting objectives in place at the beginning of the production process. If you
have a very specific goal in mind, you need to make sure your supplier is aware of it. Doing so will help
keep them on the same page with regards to exactly what it is that you’re trying to accomplish. If you
decide to update or change those objectives in any way based on recent trends, you’ll also need to make
sure your suppliers have that information as soon as possible. Putting objectives in place will define a
number of factors including minimum threshold requirements you may have, clearly defined measures
you’ll use moving forward and more.
Regular meetings - Regular meetings are another way to insure effective communication between your
business and your supplier. By regularly having an in-person meeting with a representative from your
supplier, you’ll be able to more easily communicate certain goals and objectives that can be difficult to
get across in text. Communicating through a combination of meetings and written correspondence will
help make sure that everybody stays on the same page at all times.
Putting things in writing - One of the most important things you can do when it comes to managing your
relationship with your supplier involves putting things in writing. For the business that operates in
multiple locations there are professional document sharing solutions to help manage your project and
relationships effectively. Doing so is an easy and efficient way to avoid confusion and to make sure
everyone has an idea of what goals you are collectively working towards. If any questions arise, your
supplier will always have a hard copy of a document they can refer back to. They’ll always be able to
clearly know what your objectives are without necessarily getting in direct contact.
Make sure you’re focused on your supplier’s needs, alongside yours - Just as your business has its own
unique requirements which need attending to, so will your supplier. Keep in mind that many suppliers
depend on the prompt payment of invoices to move forward with their own business models. Even one
delayed payment can make things significantly more difficult for that business moving forward.
Always try to see things from the perspective of your supplier and do whatever you can to make things as
easy for them as possible. The supplier, in turn, will likely afford you the same courtesy and it will create
a much better relationship that is mutually beneficial moving forward.

D. Competitors Principles of Competitor's :

Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is
best; it removes all that is base.” — General George S. Patton

It can be hard to compete with the rest of your field, and daunting to see the best performing in it — 
especially if you’re starting at the bottom. Where do you measure up? How do you go after #1?, There are
a lot of angles to consider when looking at a field of competitors — and it begins with you and your
mindset which is the most important part.
1. Race Yourself And Set The Tone (That’s Faster Than Everyone Else) - The most important piece is
this  — how focused you are on your goals, and how enthusiastic you are with your craft. Together —
 they’re a powerful force. You’re driven by a growth mindset that’s in a race with itself to improve. The
finish line never officially comes around, but you’ll know when you’ve arrived, because you’re a master
of your field, and never worry about anything like money or “success” again — because, well, you know
what “success” is and are successful.
2. Don’t Sell To Prospects — Push Boundaries To Fragment And Attract The Right Prospects - Do what
doesn’t feel safe and what others won’t say — the 3 out of 100 people who believe and respect it are who
you’re looking for. Most importantly, they’re the one’s willing to follow and buy from you now. Trying
not to displease or offend will lead to a less than ideal prospect — and talking to the right prospects is
what you want. It’s the three who love what you say, you want to talk to, not ten who just like it. To be a
change agent, don’t be afraid to go against the grain — you’re like a (good) fanatic, looking for other
(good) fanatics of your tribe. Who are in the same way fanatic as you. Great pioneers are based on a
secret or something the masses are unwilling to see, say out loud or acknowledge — until it’s accepted by
the majority. This brings out the prospects. If you’re feeling scared to publish something, you’re
fragmenting your market and finding the right prospects — publish. If you’re scared of a marketing
message, you’re fragmenting your market and finding the right prospects — push it out. Remember,
you’re trying to fragment the market and find the bold 3% who are ready to buy right now, who believe
what you believe. Instead of trying to appeal to every customer, try to force the motivated ones to come
out of the wood work. Remember, markets are an outward manifestation of natural selection — the desires
and fears of the human mind manifested into monetary value of their needs and desires.
3. Make A Plan To Be #1 In Your Segment - If you don’t know how markets work and blindly attacking
one — you’re planning for mediocrity. If you don’t know how often prospects convert — you’re planning
for disappointment, frustration and mediocrity. This often leads to quick discouragement and pivoting too
quickly. Most don’t realize that only about 3% of a market are ready to buy what you have right now.
And that’s assuming they’re the exact right prospects. There’s obviously variability here but you get the
point. So in writing, it takes 100 of the right people, to read your article, to have 3 (or maybe 5 or 10)
subscribe. What does it take to get 100 people to read? 1500 views or followers perhaps? I’m not sure but
you see the point. You need to reach deep into the market and reach lot’s and lot’s of the right people to
convert sales at 3% of the market who are ready to buy right now.
4. Grow Faster Than Everyone Else - Grow faster than everyone else is not asking you to have the the
growth gods come down and make it rain growth. It’s about your approach toward the market and
grabbing every inch to grow a little each day — which compounds over time. Most importantly, it’s the
urgency and activity it produces on a daily basis.

Tools of Competitors:

Getting to know your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses is the foundation on which to base good
strategy. For brands, the growth of online activity has seen competitor analysis methods, metrics and tools
blossom. There is now no shortage of competitor analysis tools on the market, and each can offer insights
relevant to its own particular niche and contribute to competitive benchmarking. We’ve compiled a list of
tools that cover a range of areas, from paid adverts to email marketing. You just need to decide which part
of your competitor’s business you want to spy on.
1. SimilarWeb — Widely used as a traffic estimation tool, SimilarWeb has loads of cool features that let
you peek behind the scenes at your competitor’s strategy. Find out which channels are driving traffic to
your competition — with stats for traffic distribution, top organic & paid search keywords, top ad
networks, audience interests, and competing websites.
2. Audiense — This service will help you analyze your competitors’ audience based on their Twitter
followers. See stats on location, gender, interests, and the languages of those who follow your competitor.
3. Builtwith — Dig deep into your competitor’s website technologies and tools with this handy service.
Builtwith can uncover their web server, advertising services they use, analytics technologies, and much
more. You can even find out which email services a given website is using.
4. Simply Measured — A free tool from SimplyMeasured called Facebook Competitive Analysis can
easily compare your Facebook fan page with that of your rival. It will show you general engagement stats
for posts and a valuable metric of ‘Engagements as % of fans.’
5. Rival IQ — Rival IQ will analyze your social media performance across all the major social networks
and compare it to your competition. Add your competitor’s website to your dashboard to compare
audience growth, post engagements, and top posts.

IDENTIFICATION OF BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

To be successful entrepreneurs, we need to be continually innovating and looking for opportunities to

grow our startups.

But how do you find new opportunities to take your startup to new markets and growth levels? Here are
four ways to identify more business opportunities.

1. Listen to your potential clients and past leads

When you’re targeting potential customers listen to their needs, wants, challenges and frustrations with
your industry. Have they used similar products and services before? What did they like and dislike? Why
did they come to you? What are their objections to your products or services?

This will help you to find opportunities to develop more tailored products and services, hone your target
market and identify and overcome common objections.

2. Listen to your customers

When you’re talking to your customers listen to what they saying about your industry, products and
services. What are their frequently asked questions? Experiences? Frustrations? Feedback and
complaints?

This valuable customer information will help you identify key business opportunities to expand and
develop your current products and services.

3. Look at your competitors

Do a little competitive analysis (don’t let it lead to competitive paralysis though) to see what other
startups are doing, and more importantly, not doing? Where are they falling down? What are they doing
right? What makes customers go to them over you?

Analysing your competitors will help you identify key business opportunities to expand your market
reach and develop your products and services.

4. Look at industry trends and insights

Subscribe to industry publications, join relevant associations, set Google alerts for key industry terms and
news and follow other industry experts on social media.

Absorb yourself in your industry and continually educate yourself on the latest techniques and trends.

INVESTMENT: A DETERMINANT OF INCOME❑Investment–is a process of building up capital

stock, or the expenditure which determines the income and production in the economy. –also refers to the
value of machinery, plants, and buildings that are bought by firms for production purposes–investment is
the capital expenditure on the purchase of physical assets such as plant, machinery, and equipment (also
known as fixed investment) and stocks (also known as inventory investments)❑Investment Expenditure–
investment expenditure means capital spending. –it is mainly derived from accumulated savings and other
sources external to the circular flow; it does not come from current income and consumption.

WHY IS INVESTMENT ESSENTIAL TO THE ECONOMY?❑Why is investment essential to the

economy?–Current business income serves current business needs. –The surplus may not be sufficient to
finance even a fraction of investment spending. Instead, a business may borrow the savings of the
economy, which households likewise do, e.g., for housing construction. –Investment, therefore, requires
that a portion of current consumption be forgone (i.e., saved) to free up resources which can be used to
finance investment.

INVESTMENT IS CLASSIFIED INTO TWO TYPES:1.FIXED INCOME INVESTMENT–Investors are

aware that there are risky investment options. For investors who are averse to risk fixed income
investments are the best option since these investments are guaranteed to have a lower risk of losses.–
Fixed income investments (FIIs) are investments that provide fixed periodic sources of income over a
certain period of time–examples: 1.government securities like treasury bonds, treasury bills and notes
2.corporate bonds (which have higher interests compared to government securities) 3.special deposit
accounts offered by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP)4.foreign currency time deposits
2.VARIABLE INCOME INVESTMENT–are forms of investment that are suitable for risk tolerant
individuals.–in VIIs, returns are not fully guaranteed and money or resources invested may also not be
fully recovered. The reason for this is that the returns from variable income investments are strongly
influenced by economic situations and the behavior of financial markets. –examples: 1.business
ownerships in the form of equities 2.company stocks3.investment fund shares that have a high level of
liquidity since they can be easily converted to cash