Creating Competitive Advantages 1. What is a Competitive Advantage? a. What separates your company from your Biggest Competitor? b. How do you compete against the big company in town? c. Why would a school keep renting from your business when they can get it cheaper from the low baller in town? 2. Competitive Advantage – is what separates you from your competitors - a. Do you ever think about what separates you from your competitors? b. Do you ever really sit down and look at your competitive advantages and evaluate how you can use your advantages to market your services? c. One of the biggest marketing flaws of most companies ( Party Rental or otherwise) is the failure to fully reap the benefits of their competitive advantages. Either the company thinks they have an advantage and they don’t or they have an advantage and they fail to realize it. 3. So What is a Competitive Advantage? a. Competitive Advantage is Objective, not Subjective – Other words for something to be a competitive advantage it has to be measurable. For Example – “We offer quality equipment”, “We are on Time with Deliveries”, “We Have great customer service”, “We have the Newest and Best Equipment in Town” – EVERY COMPANY SAY THESE THINGS!!! These are not competitive advantages. So if every company is saying these types of things are they Competitive Advantages??? NO 4. Competitive Advantages are Measurable and they are Deadly Marketing Tools if Used Properly in Your Marketing! a. Low Ballers or Price Cutting is a Competitive Advantage because it's measurable, however, should you fight with price cutters by cutting your price? Case Study: Walmart is the Low-Cost provider of basically everything, but do they have competitors offering the same products for more money and thriving? Yes, they Do – Target, Dicks (Walmart is the largest sporting goods seller in the world), Best Buy – Why are they Thriving? Because they embrace their competitive advantages. Kmart on the other hand made the attempt to compete with Walmart as a low-Cost provider when they offered their famous Blue Light Specials – What happened? Customers came in their store and purchased the blue light specials but nothing else and it drove Kmart into bankruptcy. DO NOT LOWBALL TO TRY AND GAIN A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE! That is a crucial mistake!!! Embrace your companies quantitative competitive advantages. 5. So what are your actual Competitive advantages? a. Create Competitive advantages to market against your competition thereby eliminating their lower price advantage. b. Internal Competitive Advantages vs. External Competitive Advantages- c. Internal advantages - are things you do that your competitors really have no idea about. i. Ex. follow up calls, emails, or texts a day or two after the rental to make sure service and equipment were satisfactory. ii. Ex. Mass emailing your customers an insider’s view of the new equipment you have coming in for the next season. Do this prior to Internet Posting. iii. Ex. Sell the fact that you will always provide your customer with a copy of your insurance policy without asking.. this is an extremely solid selling point when bidding against a low baller who typically will NEVER mention their insurance policy. Especially with schools, churches, organizations, and municipalities. d. External Advantages - are things you market to your customers in the public forum. Say them Loud and Proud – Market them high and Low but make them be objective, not subjective.        i. Cleaning Day – Take Pics of your equipment being cleaned and shout it from every social media platform you have that your equipment is routinely cleaned and sanitized.        ii. Largest Selection - If you have the largest selection of waterslides or bounce houses in your area- say so        iii. Offer Guarantees – On-time deliveries are a huge thing – if you offer a guarantee of on-time delivery within 30 minutes or the customer gets a discount on their order. This provides the customer with a sense of reliability in your company. iv. Value-added- rather than trying to compete on price and cut your rates, offer add ons such as a cotton candy machine for free with a rental of a large bounce. Offer ½ day rentals if your competitor does not, it may give you a serious competitive advantage. v. Promote numbers rather than words- “95% of our business comes from referrals” sounds a lot better than “We have great Customer Service” vi. Promote That you train your employees in the safe setup of all equipment- “All employees go through a ___ week extensive training period in the setup of all equipment because our customer's safety is our main concern” 6. Carefully Evaluate Your Competitors Advantages – Don’t neglect to pay attention to your competitor’s advantages. You may be the big dog now but if neglect you're knowing what your competitors are doing it could quite easy for them to overtake you and you lose what competitive advantages you have. a. Investigate their website b. Look at all their social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram c. Pricing comparison 7. Strengths are important but they are NOT competitive advantages- yet in their eagerness to draw attention to themselves companies will often brag about assets that are commonplace. Example: Family-owned and operated- do you really think customers care if your business is a family operated? Do you think that the average Budweiser drinker cares that Budweiser is a family-run company? a. Strengths but not advantages      i. Good Customer Service      ii. Quality      iii. Reputation      iv. Good Results      v. Our Employees      vi. Knowledgeable Staff      vii. Consistent Management Competitive Advantage WorkSheet 1. What are your company’s most critical competitive advantages? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ 2. What do your employees think your competitive advantages are? _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ 3. What are your competitor's competitive advantages? _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ 4. How do you respond to a customer when they ask “Why should I rent from your company? ____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________ 5. What actions does your company take to create a culture that seeks out competitive advantages? _________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 6. Do your statistics back up what you say are your competitive advantages? ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________ 7. What competitive advantages do you currently have that can disappear quickly if your competition zeros in on you?___________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 8. Have you had someone call your competitor and ask them "Why should I purchase from you over your competition?" to hear their response? _______________

Introduction - 2022