The other day on the news there was a story about a girl in Texas who was having problems with her valedictorian speech. What burned me was when it was stated that we should not have valedictorians within our school system because it taught our children competition. I cant believe I just wrote that!
If there was any such thing as a “National Stupid award,” the person who came up with that “don’t teach kids competition” idea should certainly win it!
Why on earth would we not want competition within our school systems?
The truth is plain and simple: the adult world is full of small business competition, personal competition, corporate competition, and so on. In a nutshell, competition makes the world go round.
It is good for small businesses to be competitive. In fact, when small businesses are competitive, it gives the consumer choice.
Just because there are three automotive repair facilities within one section of town never means that there is not room for one more to open its doors and compete with the other shops. Now, if there were one hundred auto repair facilities in that area then that is a different story.
Consumer Choice
Consumers must have choice. However, choice can be good and bad.
When we give the consumer choice, the consumer bases his/her purchase on several factors, mainly price, quality, and customer service. You can have terrific products to sell but if your customer service is rotten, your sales will be rotten.
When you give the consumer too much choice, your products then become commodities. The customer will look at the products on your self, be too embarrassed to ask the differences between them, and then randomly pick a product to purchase, assuming all the while that your store only carries the best products. The customer then gets the product home, uses it, and begins to doubt his/her purchasing decision. “Would the other product have been better?” As the customer doubts their purchasing decision, they begin to invent faults and shortcomings of the product, and finally they blame the store for carrying non quality products.
The internet is another example of too much choice. There are so many people on the internet trying to make a buck that most people are actually not making any bucks. What has been totally ignored over the past few years is non-internet endeavors.
Since the birth of the internet, people have become buyers instead of producers. We make almost nothing in our own country, but yet people are looking for things to purchase which were made in their own country.
Common sense tells us that if you identify and fulfill a hungry market correctly, you can make money. Instead, people keep looking to the internet to make money. Some will make money, some will not. The internet is a very competitive place and you’d better be prepared.
Starting a Small Business on a Small Budget
Many people attempt to make a living on the internet because it is an expensive way to start a business. These people don’t realize that there are many other creative ways to start a small business with almost no money.
My husband makes extra money by restoring headlights on automobiles. The extra money he makes is enough to support his car and motorcycle habits. If he took his small business more seriously, he would probably make more money but for now his business is a fun hobby. My point is that his small business startup costs were less than one hundred dollars. His advertising is by word of mouth only.
We have a friend who replaces windshields. He began his business by placing an ad in the local newspaper. From then on, his customers have only come through word of mouth advertising. Also, when he started his small business, he collected the money to purchase the new windshield from the customer, purchased the new windshield, and then charged the customer for the labor when he installed it. Thus, startup costs for his small business were nothing. For the past four years, his small business has been extremely successful.
Creative Ways to Start a Small Business
My point is that both my husband and our friend used creative ways to start and make money from a small business.
We are now living in the age of creativity and in this age of creativity we must be different and we must be competitive. If we are not creative and competitive we are nothing more than a franchised operation—same store, same products, same prices, different location. And if you haven’t already noticed, franchises are closing their doors like crazy. Creative people who have started small businesses seem to be doing much better.
The average customer desires choice, but not too much choice. They also want a “wow” feeling when they enter a small business, online or off. If you cant “wow” your customer, then you are not any better than your neighbor and you’d better learn more about creativity and competition.
