Getting back to my concept of the IDEAL business model, we come to “A”, which stands for “advantage”. Your products and/or services must have some sort of advantage over your competition, some of which may already have greater share of business than you do right now. Looking at it another way, there must be some advantage for your customers to do business with you, compared to whichever competitor they’re using now.
An advantage could come through price, features/benefits, having a patent on a new technology, or even just being repeatedly more dependable than any other supplier. Whatever the advantage, try to build one that is sustainable. A price advantage, for example, is mostly temporary — until your competitors drop their prices too. Building and demonstrating a sustainable competitive advantage is the ticket to gaining market share.
What are your thoughts?