How To Spot Opportunities from Your Current Business Birmingham AL

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Expand your niche. As an example, you may be currently involved in renting chairs and tables for parties. But as you look carefully, you see that the customer would like a "one stop" solution and you could move further into comprehensive catering using the same customer base. Or perhaps you decorate party halls, which means you could also do set design or perhaps home or garden decoration. Or because you give advice to those renting party equipment from you, you may be into events planning. Look at your business. If you are in a niche of a larger industry, by expanding your niche, you build on your competencies and your customers. Know your industry andits market. Once you have identified the industry your business is a part of, gather all the information you can about it. Learn the trends emerging in what people look for in the industry. Ask people, observe their behavior, read articles, attend events, hang out in functions for your industry. You don't have to attend those expensive conferences. You can just hang out in the coffee shops where the events are and listen and observe. Most of all, talk to your customers about the problems they have. If expanding your niche could supply a solution, you've just expanded your business. Remember, IBM used to be totally committed to hardware. Today, services, services, services. They listened to their customers and moved sideways.

Know the technology. Often, when new technology starts to be applied in a particular business, it creates new demands that existing businesses are still unable to respond to either because of lack of skills, equipment or drive. Remember what happened when computers were applied to the business card industry. Instant cards ready in every city where your your business took you, in every language you could think of. Change is happening in every niche, in every business and you are either on the wave or under it! Engage your employees to think of possible products and services that will be in demand because of these new knowledge and technology....

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Author: Mary Norton

Small Business Development Center

205-934-6760
901 15th St S
Birmingham, AL
http://www.sba.gov