Stay Ahead Of The Competition As A Service Based Business In 2025 : It's Time To REINVENT

In today’s crowded market, staying ahead means staying innovative. This episode reveals how to reinvent your small business, outshine the competition, and position yourself as the go-to choice in your industry.

What’s Covered in This Episode:

• The importance of reinvention and why it’s crucial for small business success.
• How to analyze your competition and uncover opportunities to stand out.
• Creative strategies to redefine your offerings and attract ideal customers.
• Mindset shifts to help you embrace innovation and navigate a crowded market.
• Real-world examples of businesses that thrived by reinventing themselves.

Transforming our businesses from just another ordinary (*fill in the blank) to extraordinary: How becoming world-class in one thing can transform your business.

This is a virtual talk to hospitality small businesses that can be applied to any business.

For more information:
https://www.reinventingperspectives.com

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💛 Thank you for listening in! 😀

P.S. Don’t forget to leave a review! Much appreciated.

Transcript

[00:00:00]

what do you do when you're in a market with a low cost to entry? That's the question that we're faced with today, globally. I understand that a lot of you are entrepreneurs with catering companies or you're part of a hospitality industry or in the food industry.

We understand that today any person with a phone and a social media account with a little bit of a passion for food , is our competition. Because the customer doesn't care about the name, , doesn't care so much about where the catering is coming from.

The customer cares about the product, the outcome. So in a marketplace where there's a low cost to entry and anybody essentially can Enter into that marketplace and believe me, I humbly say this because as a writer, any person with a passion for writing can enter into the marketplace and that person competes with you for the attention of customers, everything from a high school student.

Even though I'm in a different market, I understand the dynamics of [00:01:00] being in such a situation. So the customer doesn't care who's selling. The customer cares about the outcome. And so it becomes a marketplace where all the power, the bargaining power to speak of is with the customer.

And a lot of times we begin as business owners, as entrepreneurs to compete on price it becomes what they call a race to the bottom. Everybody's cutting prices lower. to attract customers and you literally discount yourself out of business if that makes sense. , we continue going low because the competition has gone low and then the competition goes lower and at the end of it there's no profit or very little profit in doing what we're doing and we discount ourselves out of business so to speak.

I'm going to try and keep this talk a little bit business academic as well as practical. Forgive me if my natural tendency is to be academic. But I'll try to be as practical as possible. 

Now what do we do in such a market? We look at who has the [00:02:00] power. And we've identified that the power in this case in a crowded marketplaces with the customer. That alone determines the direction of our strategy. Where are we looking for answers? If we're looking at what is the competition doing, and then we're trying to do it a little bit better, then our focus is in the wrong place.

Our focus now should be understanding the customer because that is where the power is.

I think it's easy for people to digest information when it comes in point form. So I'll say my point number one is switch the attention from competition to the customer.

Now, how exactly do we do that? First of all, we want to truly understand our existing customer. We want to understand their lifestyle and how they make buying decisions., we're looking at the data. It's interesting because a lot of times the people we think are really our customer.

Tend not to be our customer in some cases. And it's not always easy to see that unless we're tracking the data. We're tracking who is buying, [00:03:00] when are they buying, how are they buying, and doing the research on what are the commonalities in these customers. we look at Pareto's principle, we understand that 80 percent of our revenue will come from 20 percent of our customers. Where is that 20%? Who is that 20%? Why? So that we do more of what's working and less of what's not working. Because a lot of times when our focus has always been on the competition, we end up with a wide variety of offerings because we're matching all the things that we think the competitor is getting our customer based and we end up with a whole bunch of offerings, which pull our attention and energy in so many different areas. and don't allow us to focus on the reason why people are coming 

we believe our brand is created when our concept for our business is validated.

By our customers. [00:04:00] So what do I mean by that? I mean that we have a concept of who we are and we put it out into the world. This is who Priscilla's catering company is. This is my vision. This is my idea of what I believe my company is about. That it's only when customers come in and they experience the vision that I've created.

And form their own opinion of what they think I'm about, that a brand is created. There's got to be an alignment, but the alignment truly comes from the customer syncing with what I've put out there. And then that becomes the brand. It may not be what I thought the brand was going to be, but whatever the customer validates, that becomes the brand 

but back to the idea that we end up creating all these things because our focus is on the competition and things that pull us in different directions, energy wise, resource wise, time wise. And we don't become experts of what customers are coming to us for, the customer has really identified [00:05:00] why we are different from the competition.

When we go shopping for just about anything. If you go down a street, there are shoes in every shop. If you go down a certain street, there's bread in just about every single supermarket of almost about the same price. But there's a reason that you choose a specific kind of bread.

As a customer, you have identified or differentiate that particular bread from all the other types of bread that are being offered in every single shop, even at the same price. And that differentiation is what we need to understand. Why is the customer coming to us? What do they want? And we need to give them more of what they want.

Point two is we want to understand our ideal customer. This may or may not be the same thing. So our existing customers, the customers that we already have, we're understanding what they're about, how they live, what they want more of.

. So you're going to be going out there to look for a separate group of customers which is [00:06:00] fine, but being aware of that and being aware of what it's going to require to bring in a customer that currently isn't your customer is what is important when you're planning and strategizing.

Who would value what you offer the most? That is the person that we want to be our ideal customer. So for example, we can look at the kind of customer that perhaps is very big on birthdays or celebrates birthdays in a big way. If that is our ideal that we are looking after.

, if our strategy is to go after the birthday. market and to do everything that is associated with providing an amazing, unforgettable, life changing memory that will be talked about for the rest of a person's life around birthdays. Our ideal client is someone who would absolutely appreciate that kind of thing.

And who is that person? How do they live their life? How will we find them? [00:07:00] Where will we find them? How will they get to know about what we provide? And how can we make sure that what we are offering is exactly what that person values very highly?

I think we begin to see that having a birthday offering and taking it to a client that doesn't value birthdays is a waste of time, is a waste of resources, is a waste of energy. Because the amount of energy it will take you to try to even convince that person to come and purchase the smallest aspect of your offer is wasted time.

It's more important to go to people who highly value your offer that you have created and perfected and pitch your offer to those particular people. That's the best use of an entrepreneur's time. I think we, as entrepreneurs, we've all experienced this, where you create something and you take it to the wrong market, you take it to the wrong customer.

And then you spend a lot of time trying to convince this customer that this is what they want. And maybe you [00:08:00] succeed, but they're not going to be very happy because you almost have to strong arm them. , which is never the experience you want for your customer, because that customer will never be a raving customer.

A customer who says, I'm very satisfied. And what you want is a raving customer who goes around and tells every person that they know about their experience with your brand.

Even if your service is a million dollar service, they will not really value it because they didn't want it to begin with. Now point three, I've already. alluded to a little bit, but the idea that It's important to niche down to have an area of focus that you become a master Every industry is finding an influx of entrepreneurs who are going into it.

So it becomes difficult to compete in a broad space. It's easier, especially when you're of a certain size. There are certain companies because of their size, they have built up over time the kind of customer base and loyalty and brand awareness [00:09:00] and brand equity that allows them to be more general. And because of who they are and people identifying who they are, they can be broad.

For example, if we talked about Nike, everybody knows Nike. And the quality that is associated with their brand. So if Nike went from selling sneakers and decided to sell don't know. Fluffy toys. Because it's Nike, they can be that broad and people would actually buy because 

they know the brand. But when you're a business that doesn't have that kind of reach and that kind of being known, It's better to focus on a niche market, a small area of focus where you can be known, where you can build brand equity, , where people can say in one sentence, if I'm looking for a person who does Italian bread, that's the company that does Italian bread.

As a small company, That's the starting point. Being a generalist has certain [00:10:00] disadvantages. The obvious of which, as a small business, it takes your time to be focused on so many different aspects. It takes a lot of energy to manage product fulfillment of so many variations of different things. The other thing is that people, when they pay, a company that does everything.

They don't expect to pay a lot. If you think about like Walmart or Target where you enter and you can find just about anything that you want in there. People don't expect to pay a lot because it's just like a mishmash. And that's their strategy. And that's okay. They are big organizations and they can afford to have , low profit margins in order to attract more people and to sell greater volumes. But as a small business, you don't want to have that kind of a strategy where your margins are so low and you're doing everything all the time as the entrepreneur, as a small business team.

It's easy to get burnt out, but I [00:11:00] almost hear your hesitation and I know it because as an entrepreneur I've had it myself. The problem with when we decide to niche down is we're afraid of losing the customers, , if we really look at the data on how many customers are actually coming to buy these things, we'll find that they're very few.

We may be afraid to lose those very few and the income that comes with those very few. But you also don't put your entire focus on providing something that two people very rarely here and there come and purchase. Put your focus on the thing that is bringing in the largest. You put your focus on the niche that you have decided based on the data of what your customer wants from you.

As they say, the riches are in the niches when you enter into a place that's Specializes in something naturally, the customer expects to pay more.

They put more value on whatever it is that they're going to buy because they identify that this company specializes [00:12:00] in this thing. And because they specialize in this thing, the customer expects a high quality product and expects to pay. Fairly to experience a high quality product. The other benefit of niching is it allows you and your team to really become world class at doing something.

Whatever it is.

Back to the question of what do you want to be known for?

If we look at the example of McDonald's. McDonald's is considered the most successful small business in the world. Yes, I say small business. Because the McDonald's model is a small business model. Yes, they've got many franchises and it's now a global business that just about everybody knows about. But the McDonald's is a small business concept that has been franchised.

They are referred to as small business done right. If you want fast food, if you want convenience, this is why you go to McDonald's. You don't go to [00:13:00] McDonald's because you want succulent ribs.

If you want succulent ribs, you go elsewhere.

And because McDonald's is so specific, the niche is so specific, everything they do is around that strategy of being low cost and of being convenient and of being fast. If you look even at their locations are to be convenient. Everywhere where they are in the world , is a location of convenience, 

but back to how important the strategy is. Once you have your strategy, it defines everything that you are going to do. So let's go back to the McDonald's example. Low cost, fast, and convenient. Whatever is going to be on their menu is going to match those three criteria. Wherever their stores are going to be are going to match those three criteria.

However, their processes and systems are going to be, are going to match those three criteria. And because they are so well defined in their strategy, 

The competition is [00:14:00] almost a non issue in the mind of the consumer. Back to where it matters. Because the consumer is what is putting money in your pocket. Because it's so defined, they're not thinking, Oh, now people down the road are making ribs and people seem to really love ribs. So we should probably start making ribs.

Why? Ribs are not low cost. They're not fast and they're not convenient. So they're not going to do that. They're going to stick to what their customer wants. Even as they switch things up within how customers are changing and their tastes are changing and they now want low sugar and low fat and more nutritious, still the strategies remains the same.

Low cost, convenient and fast. That's how well executed their strategy is. It's the direction, it's the driver. It's the thing that qualifies what should be done and what should not be done.

Now point number four is really looking at, you may have the right [00:15:00] idea, but the wrong vehicle for your idea. Think about your customer journey.

Once again, our focus is on the customer. 

It's more important for you to be where your customer is and to try and move your customer from where they are to come to you. Now, applying that to the idea you have, and understanding what is the best vehicle that will put me in front of my customer, rather than waiting for my customer to come to me, , is the question that we want to answer 

for example, if it's a food delivery,

Perhaps people don't necessarily want to be in a restaurant. Perhaps they prefer to enjoy the type of food you provide at a sports game. Then it's important for your services to be provided at the sports game. Even though

As entrepreneurs, sometimes we fall in love with our ideal, with our vision, and we don't really care. Pay attention to what it is that the customer wants. It may be [00:16:00] our vision to own a beautiful restaurant But perhaps your customer who enjoys the kind of food that you provide wants to consume your food at a soccer game then Based on our strategy that looks at what does my customer want?

It's more important for us to be at the soccer game than it is for us to be sitting in a restaurant trying to bring our customer from a soccer game into a restaurant. Because from experience, I think a lot of entrepreneurs will notice how difficult it is to try and move a customer from where they are to where you are.

It's easier to place yourself in front of a customer wherever they are and offer them your service. If they are your ideal client, there's a higher chance of you making the sale in that scenario. So break all the rules, break all the rules, and follow what it is that your customer wants. If your customer prefers pop up where one week you're here, one week you're there, but you're following where your customer is, then do [00:17:00] that.

Because the customer is the one that is putting money in your pocket. It's important to do what the customer wants.

Now point five is the offer. We can't forget the offer when we're looking at our strategy. As an entrepreneur and early in entrepreneurship, I always say if something is not working, go back don't take it as a personal decision. Attack on your ability to do or your ability to sell or your ability as a team leader or as a business leader, but rather take it as an opportunity to solve problems and to understand what is the problem.

Like I said, the first two points we're looking at who is our ideal customer. Maybe we thought it was someone who it was not. So if something isn't working, let's go back and really understand who our customer is. Then maybe our niche is not defined. People don't know who we are and what we stand for.

Okay, let's go and define exactly who it is that we are and what we want people to know us for. Or maybe we have the right idea, [00:18:00] but the wrong model for bringing it to our customer. Let's go back and look at how are we reaching our customer at our customer journey.

And then I would say, in this point, let's look at our offer. How good is our offer? Let's look at it objectively. And if we can't be objective about it, then maybe we need to get outside eyes that come in and look at how good is our offer. Because as people, we fall in love with the things we create.

We think we create amazing things, and yet we need that feedback. It's very important, even the negative feedback. Because it's telling us something that we didn't know. We all have blind areas, things that we don't see. And we need feedback to understand what is it that we're not seeing, that we need to see.

Because as an entrepreneur, the worst thing, the very worst thing is to be surprised. You need to have that feedback that prevents you from being surprised. How good is what we are offering? [00:19:00] Objectively, is this thing that we're offering world class? Why do I say world class?

Because our customer today is online, on a phone, looking at the food created by the top chefs, or the top restaurants, or the top designers, or the top writers, whatever industry it is.

And so in their mind, they're being programmed for that world class. So it doesn't matter where you are. The customer has an expectation and so we have to begin to look at our offer. Not only as local, but as local that can compete globally.

. Where can we improve it? How can we make it better? Where does it need changes? Where do we need to train more, to improve more, so that we produce something that is world class? Something that when a customer pays you, Whatever amount you charge, they happily pay you that because what they receive matches what they've been programmed [00:20:00] as being excellent.

Now my final point is about making the competition. And then issue in the mind of consumer. When we do all these things that are consumer centered and not competition centered, we create what they call a blue ocean. We create solutions that cut across industries and create our own blue ocean where there is no competition

today's consumer expects to receive value before they even exchange their own currency value. And what does that mean? That means we have to prime the customer to buy. We not only have to sell transactional, we have to give them something more, before They gladly exchange their currency.

For those of you who love to read about entrepreneurship and marketing, which I believe every entrepreneur should consider themselves is a marketer first [00:21:00] before even whatever they do, how, whatever they sell, consider yourself a marketer first. And there's a great book by a guy named Gary Vaynerchuk, and it's called Jab, Jab, Uppercut. And the basis of that book is the idea that today's customer expects to receive before they even exchange anything in terms of currency for what you're offering. So you have to think to yourself based on what you do, how can you offer value to your customer?

How can you prime your customer, position yourself in the mind of the customer as the solution to what they need, when they have this specific need? And, this is the beauty of today's world. That's the purpose of social media marketing. The reason people post, it used to be enough to put a picture.

It no longer is enough to just put a picture of what you make [00:22:00] and expects to attract client or customer. People want to engage with your service before they actually even exchange value for your service. Social media, videos of the preparations of an event. People want to see that.

The background of the chef, the training of the chef, people want to see that. And as much as it is additional tasks to what we really do in business, it's important for positioning. Remember our initial question. What do you do when you're in a marketplace that has a low cost to entry? Where any person with a passion and a smartphone is your competition.

This is what you have to do. This is how strategic you have to be in order to make the competition a non issue in the mind of your consumer. People want to see. 

They want to engage with the [00:23:00] place where they shop. They'd love to know the story behind how this came to be, especially if you're an entrepreneur starting out or you're a small business starting out. They want to know the team behind this thing because people do business with people they like.

People buy from people they like. They don't care about company logos anymore or about company names or colors or this. They care about people, which is why the personal brand. has taken off when people know the chef and they know how the chef was trained, where the chef was trained, and they even know the way the chef talks, the way the chef laughs, the way the chef prepares things and their mottos and philosophies and preparing food, and the chef has given them a two minute or one minute tutorial.

And how to improve the way their burgers taste. Already, the next time that person is out, looking for a place to dine, that chef is already top of mind. [00:24:00] Why? Because that content that you've created on social media has positioned your restaurant or your catering business in the mind of that person. Those people will come straight for you without even you looking out for them. Because your content has primed them for that. I hope I've given you some things to think about

and I hope that you begin to craft something that gives you direction on who you are, who you're trying to reach, how you're going to reach them, how you're going to be world class with them, and how you're going to create value for them before you ask for that transactional exchange.

And position yourself in their mind. . Thank you so much for your time. I hope it was well with your time. If you'd like to know a little bit more about me, you can go to my website where I share information for entrepreneurs who are new and early and profile various resources.

That will be of use to [00:25:00] entrepreneurs. Thank you so much. And I wish you the best