It was a steaming hot summer’s day and the motorway I was driving on was seething with holiday traffic. Not my favourite kind of driving.

My two companions and I agreed that we would take a break at the next service area.

Unsurprisingly, this too was packed. In the middle of the car park stood a huge fast food trailer. The queue snaked well beyond the trailer into the car park.

“I fancy a burger,” said Alan, my friend. His girlfriend and I agreed that we’d all partake of the greasy snack and so we promptly joined the queue.

It must have been ten minutes before we were close enough to the serving hatch to see the menu.

Now, this was the mid 1990s when an average burger in any British high street would have cost probably 70 pence. But not in this trailer. The most basic burger – a thin meat patty in a cheap bun with a smattering of fried onion – was four pounds!

“Four pounds for a burger!” I blurted to my companions. Alan was nonplussed.

“That’s what it costs,” he said impassively. “Do you want one or not?”

Of course. The burger seller had the perfect market conditions. A hungry crowd with no competition. He could have charged forty pounds and he’d still have made sales. (Probably).

But, how do you deal with competition in business under more standard conditions?

If you’re selling blue widgets and a blue widget store opens up next door to yours, what should you do?

Absolutely not!

Aside from the clear indication that you’re being bullied into submission, where would a price war end?

One of you will eventually run at a loss and go out of business!

No.

If you want to know how to deal with competition in business, read on because I’m about to make some less conventional suggestions…

1. Compete On Uniqueness.

There’s only one you, so inject some of your personality into your marketing. Think of Sir Richard Branson and his renowned adventurousness. Or the late Steve Jobs with his almost total re-thinking of what were at the time conventional personal computers.

Check out this article from Investopedia to stimulate some “brand personality” ideas…

2. Compete On Bonuses

The “free gift inside” has been around for generations and just because we live in a digital age it doesn’t mean we should abandon it. When I was a child it was often used in comic books and cereal packets resulting, I suspect, in costing my parents a good deal more on expensive brands than they might otherwise have spent!

Find something extra that has at least intrinsic value - as well as monetary, although that can be optional - that you can use to make your offer irresistible. And preferably unique.

3. Compete On Quality

What can you do to your offer to make it “deluxe?” For example, if you have a video, offer a transcript. If you have an article or something printed, offer an audio version.

If you have a physical product or service, is there a tool, a checklist or gadget or app that you can add?

The beauty of competing in these kinds of ways is that when it comes to price, you could even consider pricing your offer higher than your competitors. Think of supermarket brand leaders and how they maintain their position in spite of fierce undercutting by supermarket own brands, purely on their name and brand recognition.

Whilst global reputations such as Heinz or Coca Cola may have taken many years to establish, in today’s digital niche markets, it may well be feasible for you to establish your brand’s reputation in a fraction of that kind of time frame.

Whatever you do, do NOT earn yourself the reputation of being the one who caves on price! That can be a very deep and expensive hole to dig your business into and may well be one from which you’ll never escape.

4. Take the 7 Day Web Conversion Challenge

There are many more simple tweaks you can make to your sales messages. If you currently have a website that’s getting some traffic - even a little - you could convert up to 20% more of those visitors into paying customers with some minor but significant adjustments.

Find out how you can take the Web Conversion Challenge HERE ...