In the article “5 Proven Tips To Beat The Competition” on www.forbes.com, contributor Adam Cronenberg claims that the secret to business growth can be found in a strategy from Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” — subdue the enemy without fighting. To do so, Cronenberg explains, you must position your business, capture the market and get ahead, taking the competition unaware. Cronenberg offers these five tips for doing so:

• Stay one step ahead. Have a complete view of your industry. Investigate your local area where you are working, including all the players — yourself and the competition. Know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. For instance, if your competition is longstanding in the market and relies on customers’ familiarity with them, try investing heavily in your digital presence and reputation to grab your share of the market.
• Prepare a strategy. Your knowledge of the market will help you map out a battle plan to capture your market. List all the challenges you face, create scenarios for them and come up with detailed plans for how you would overcome each problem. Have not only a Plan A but several backup plans as well. Be thorough and ready for any possibility. Use your competitors’ strengths against them. For instance, if one competitor offers low prices, offer deals on your services, such as free added bonuses and overall excellent customer experience to provide value customers appreciate.
• Seize all possible opportunities. With your knowledge and strategies in place, you will be able to forecast future events, so grab hold of all opportunities that present themselves to you. If there aren’t any, create them. For instance, check out negative reviews about your competitors (as well as your own) and learn from those mistakes. In addition, if a company does not appear to respond to a customer’s complaint for a faulty service, consider private messaging that person and offering him or her your services to redo the job for free to start building a solid customer relationship and show that your business is the better alternative.
• Be creative in your service promotions. You have to fully believe in your own product or service in order to be motivated to fight for it. With this motivation, you’ll be able to work extra hard to find creative ways to lessen the odds against you. Make a list of your strengths. Are you good with technology? Do you have helpful connections? Figure out how your strengths can boost your business, and work that much harder to even out the playing field.
• Pick your battles. You don’t have to face every challenge that comes your way. By knowing your own strengths and weaknesses and knowing your industry, you can choose your battles. Keep on top of your business and monitor how it’s doing. Analyze that data and make tweaks to your business where necessary in order for you to get ahead.

Read the original article here.