What happened? Your page views on your website dwindled, your new subscribers went from climbing (Yay!), to steady (Hmmm…),  to “nada.” And the most frightening part of all? Your customers have made like lemmings, rushing off a cliff, taking your much-needed income with them.

How could this have happened? You are smart! You invested in PR. You networked like mad. Your stayed on top of industry. You don’t understand why your business is suffering or changing. 

The Change is Your Competition

My question to you is did you keep track of the one thing that takes most entrepreneurs out at their knees? Your competition.

We are in a buyer’s market, and those entrusted with getting the most for the least money make the budgeting decisions. We also grow accustomed to our jobs, lives, and businesses. We frequently ignore the state of the market and our rivals in favor of concentrating on our own advantages and disadvantages. You are leaving yourself exposed for a competitor to take your market share if you are not constantly comparing your offers to the goods and expertise of your rivals.

Even while most won’t admit it, most of us who work for ourselves will claim that this is exactly what has happened in our HR consulting businesses. When you work for yourself, you simply shouldn’t discuss the difficulties, difficulties, or changes because your clients or potential clients might perceive that as a vulnerability. But I believe it’s time for that to change. Being sincere with ourselves, our customers, and working to develop a network of business peers to share with and openly discuss both the good times and the ones that leave you scratching your head and wondering why you decided to build a business are all necessary for us to be the best in our industry.

Understand Your HR Business Competitors

My strongest clients (strong fiscally, a filled inbound pipeline and ) regularly answer these six questions. 

• Who are my top 3 competitors?

• Why are they my competitors?

• What do they do that is similar to me?

• To whom are my competitors marketing?

• What are they marketing and how effectively are they marketing it?

And most importantly…

• How can they “out-service” me?