Why try to be WalMart when you’re a small biz?

“You have the com­pet­i­tive advan­tage of being you.”

Scott Strat­ten in a post recently on his UnMar­ket­ing blog wrote this. It bears repeat­ing. “Why try to be a Wal­Mart when you’re a small biz? You have the com­pet­i­tive advan­tage of being you.”

Now before you run off and read Scott’s blog (which you should do after you read this arti­cle), I must tell you that the UnMar­ket­ing arti­cle had absolutely noth­ing to do with Wal­Mart or small biz. I’ve taken the quote out of con­text because the phrase really jumped off the page at me from my per­spec­tive as both a small busi­ness owner and a con­sul­tant for small biz.

Think about that phrase for a moment. You are a small busi­ness owner or you work-​​from-​​home as a pro­fes­sional — which is largely the same thing. Do you really want your home busi­ness to grow up to be WalMart?

I’m offer­ing an edu­cated guess here that the answer is no. Work from home busi­nesses are at home because the folk run­ning the show want to be at home. We like the mom-​​and-​​pop qual­ity. We like the flu­id­ity and free­doms a home office affords. Our busi­ness lends itself to this form. Our cus­tomers love that we pro­vide great ser­vice and often they don’t even know (or care) that it’s hap­pen­ing from a home office.

Com­pe­ti­tion

So, why would you want to com­pare your small biz with a giant like Wal­Mart? What could you find that your biz has in com­mon with Wal­Mart? How can this com­par­i­son be ben­e­fi­cial to you?

The key to under­stand­ing why Scott’s choice of words res­onated so pow­er­fully with me is in the sec­ond line. My atten­tion riv­eted to the idea that your com­pet­i­tive advan­tage is you. Com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. Yuk. Boor­rinng. Yeah, I know. This is not a sexy sub­ject, it’s not funny, and it’s barely inter­est­ing to most of us. Oh, but it is sooo impor­tant to under­stand exactly what unique com­pet­i­tive advan­tage your busi­ness truly has.

Your Com­pet­i­tive Advan­tage vs WalMart

Gain­ing an edge over com­peti­tors is of course an accepted goal of every busi­ness, whether home based or inter­na­tional mega giant. There are essen­tially two kinds of com­pet­i­tive advan­tages you can strive for:

• Cost advan­tage
• Resource advan­tage

You really can’t expect to go head-​​to-​​head against Wal­Mart and win on cost. But can you do it as a resource? Yes, you can. The advan­tage you have as a small busi­ness is that your ser­vices are a resource that pro­vides a supe­rior value for your customers.

Supe­rior Value

Here is an exam­ple of what I mean. Years ago, I worked as the sin­gle employee for a home-​​based Mar­ket­ing Con­sul­tancy. Under­stand that the small town we lived in prob­a­bly served as the basis of Facebook’s pop­u­lar Far­mville appli­ca­tion. Hav­ing access to pro­fes­sional mar­ket­ing ser­vices alone pro­vided a supe­rior value to most of our clients.

And yet, the firm brought an extra qual­ity; one that our clients could not get out­side of sign­ing with a mega-​​giant ad agency in New York City. The com­pany owner brought the NYC edge to our small town and upstate NY regional mar­ket. She was fresh from the city and on top of trends that our clients des­per­ately wanted but could not find locally.

Our small biz work-​​from-​​home strat­egy com­bined with a unique aspect of the busi­ness (NYC edge) to cre­ate a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage that won awards and put money in our client’s pockets.

What supe­rior value does your busi­ness bring to prospec­tive clients? Take half an hour and brain­storm. List the obvi­ous and be sure that you don’t over­look the spe­cial twist you add. That’s what will boost your com­pet­i­tive advantage.

Should you com­pare your­self to WalMart?

Com­par­isons

In real­ity, no. Apples and Oranges. Stick­ing with this anal­ogy, both busi­nesses are fruits, but each offers a com­pletely dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence to consumers.

What you can and should take away from a com­par­i­son like this is that you are both in busi­ness with a com­mon goal: to pro­vide the best of your type of ser­vice to your customers.

Instead of com­par­ing your busi­ness to Wal­Mart, look around for com­pa­nies of any size that you admire for what they offer to their customers.

Find a way to give that same qual­ity to your clients while adding that spe­cial twist in which your busi­ness deliv­ers a supe­rior com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. That’s a com­par­i­son worth mak­ing and one that ensures that you keep the com­pet­i­tive edge of your small biz sharp and on track.

What is the unique twist your busi­ness brings? Share your expe­ri­ence in the com­ments below. Your story might really help some­one else out!

And of course, if you are not sure about how to find the com­pet­i­tive edge for your home busi­ness life, con­tact CaZ and ask how Home­BizS­marts or Writ­ing­Bytes can help!