If your business is in a growing segment of the economy, and is not growing--it is shrinking. You might think you have established a comfortable niche in the market for your company and you can relax a little and not have to endure any more growing pains. After all, your sales revenue is up in the neighborhood of nice numbers, so why worry? You have arrived at a level where you can just sit back and enjoy your success.

 

Wrong. While you are just sitting there, your competitors are charging ahead, carving out more market share. And that means that in relation to your competitors, your share of the market is shrinking. And we all know the inevitable result of that.

 

So perhaps it is time to dust off your desk, start sitting up straight in your comfortable office chair, flex your fingers and start going after some more of that market share. But how?

 

The first step for you is probably going to mean taking a discerning, analytical look at what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it. Are they missing anything? Particularly at a product or service juncture where you think you could excel?

 

The second step is to take that same kind of discerning, analytical look at what your own company is doing. Has what you are selling aged to the point of becoming conventional? Are all your competitors now doing what made your company successful? When was the last time you introduced something new into the market?

 

The third step is to talk--talk to lots of people: your sales people, your operations people and your suppliers and, not least, your customers. Try to learn from your sales people, suppliers and customers what the ongoing talk in the market is about, what is up and coming and what is down and going. Begin to apply what you learn to your own product and service offerings.

 

The fourth step is to search diligently through every scrap of information you get in the first three steps, for flashes of discernment about how you can enter or re-enter the market with a changed or reinforced presence.

 

Step five is to advertise your new or renewed presence in the market, offering what you have learned about the market from your sales people, operations people, suppliers and customers. Never forget that your prospects and customers are doing virtually the same thing you are doing: searching the Internet for beneficial information. The Internet is where you should be advertising, because the Internet is where your prospects and customers are trying to learn how to move their own companies' market shares upward. The Internet. For good advice on how best to utilize the Internet, call Paperitalo Executive Vice President Helen Roush at 937-403-8602 or email her at helen.roush@taii.com.