Addressing Your Competitors
The SFC Team
Tuesday, 1 March 2022
This is part two of What To Do Before You Launch Your Business: Addressing Your Competitors. We are uncovering the Foundations Of A Healthy Business, but before you are ready to grow and thrive, you need to launch successfully!
Easily overlooked, competitive analysis is one of the most critical steps of your business. The main reasons to understand your competitors are to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and find opportunities that you can capitalise on, and ultimately ensure you are not offering the same thing as someone else so you can stand out from the crowd. But how do you even find out who your competitors are? In this Lesson, we provide you with a helpful Competitor Analysis so that you can get into the motions of addressing who your competitors are, followed on with guidance on conducting good market and customer research.
As always, we are joined by industry professionals for expert input and guidance, including Vicki Wallis and Malin Ekengren.
Firstly, watch the introduction video from Charlie Bradley Ross, where she explains the importance of addressing your competitors. Then head into each segment below. Have your What To Do Before You Launch Your Business Checklist handy to make notes and check off what elements of your business you have already completed.
In this Lesson you will learn:
- What competitors are, and why you need to know who yours are
- What you should be looking for when investigating competitors
- How to conduct good market research
- How to identify your customer
- How to stay competitive in a crowded market
- Plus, a handy downloadable Competitor Analysis sheet
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Writing Your Business Plan and Fundraising
with The SFC TeamRead More...Summary
This is part three of What To Do Before You Launch Your Business: Writing Your Business Plan and Fundraising. We are uncovering the Foundations Of A Healthy Business, but before you are ready to grow and thrive, you need to launch successfully!
All businesses should have a business plan. It is used to secure investment, and often convinces customers, suppliers and potential employees to support you. As an entrepreneur, it is also useful to help stay on track of your objectives, strategies, sales, marketing and financial forecasts. So in this Lesson, we guide you through the necessary steps to writing your own business plan: what you need to include, what it should look like, and what parts you maybe would not have thought were relevant - like your strengths and weaknesses.
A business plan isn't all about financial metrics, but they do help when it comes to fundraising, and this is something most businesses will look to at some point. So in this Lesson we also guide you through fundraising options, including crowdfunding and angel investment. Even if you don't think you need it now, becoming savvy to all of this business speak is beneficial to keeping your confidence up, and you never know who you'll meet or inspire.
As always, we are joined by industry professionals for expert input and guidance, including Indre Butkevicute, Nick Howe, Raimonda Jankunaite, Jeroen van der Heide and Elizabeth Pirrie.
Firstly, watch the introduction video from Charlie Bradley Ross, where she explains why a business plan is important, and why fundraising is integral to launching a sustainable business. Then head into each segment below. Have your What To Do Before You Launch Your Business Checklist handy to make notes and check off what elements of your business you have already completed.