After spending five years in the optical industry, my elder brother decided to open his shop.
We started to research how the interior would look, what would be the shop rent and what location. Everything was going according to plan except for one thing.
There were already two well-established shops within a radius of 500 meters nearby our new shop.
The first one was (Sandeep optical, seven years old shop) and the Second shop was Bala Ji (which was around three years old).
Both shops had a good amount of sales and a good customer base.
We have only two options left: Either choose a different location for the shop or drop the idea of opening a shop.
Rather than choosing one option among the two, we decided to use completely another approach.
How will you deal with this problem?
Imagine yourself at our place when you don’t have enough location options, and there are already two well-established competitors.
What will you do in this case?
We were also unsure what we should do until one day. I learned the power of personality one day.
After putting personality in our shop, we got 50,000(rupee) sales in the first month.
FYI On average, our competitors were selling around 100,000/m.
Getting 50K in sales for the first month is not bad, primarily if your competitor sells around 1 Lakh?
It’s been 3 months, and We are still selling 50K/m.
So, What causes us to stand out in the crowded market?
I follow two YouTube channels daily to keep updated regarding geopolitics (You see, I love geopolitics, especially after the pandemic).
Both channels teach the same content in the same language (Hindi), create their channel in one year of difference and almost have the same video length.
But, you see the no of subscribers and easily spot the difference.
That’s the power of personality; I am not downplaying any channel. Both are doing good from their side. It just depends on the audience and what they like most.
So, What is personality? And how can it help you beat the competition?
I don’t know the definition, but here is what I understand from this word see: we all have favourite politicians whom we like and don’t like.
Why?
Because we love their way of talking, dressing sense, decision making, etc.
The same goes for even shops or businesses, For example, there are too many pizza shops in our area, but I prefer to go to only one shop because the shop owner always gives me a burger within 8min and the place is not crowded like other pizza shops.
It’s what I like about the shop, so you can say now it’s the personality of that shop in my worldview.
Personality doesn’t come. Naturally, we have to create it!
Let’s find out how to create personality!
Find what you like
When we started to think about things we liked, it was tough to imagine sitting alone in a room.
So, we landed on our competitor’s shop and a few other shops and started to pic things which I like, for example, Interior design, way of talking, educating, giving something to drink and listening to customer problems carefully.
What you don’t like
Similarly, I also noticed things I don’t like, for example, branding, talking rudely with customers, not educating them properly about their problems, hard-selling, etc.
Something special about you
Once you make the list of things you like and don’t like, don’t forget to add something special or unique about you.
For example, our uniqueness is:
- Most optical shops are run by salesmen who don’t know how to treat the eyes properly with the correct lens, so we are experienced and certified.
- We will refund your money if your problem doesn’t go away from our treatment.
- We educated people through flyers and banners.
Once you have created the list of these things mentioned above, you are ready to stand out against your established competition. It’s time to apply the personality to your product or service and see the result.
You have reached the end. Thanks for reading…..
Still, reading?
I procrastinated in writing the article because I am working as a full-time designer and I got time only on Sunday. To beat the procrastination, I set the 1 hour on my stopwatch.
Now there is only 5min left on the stopwatch.
Need any help, email me at [email protected]
Timesup!
Oh, here is an image of my new shop, CARING INSIGHT.
