How can a small business stay in afloat in this economy? Competition has gotten brutal.?

Question

I come up with new ideas to expand our services, advertise them and a competitor uses the idea themselves and uses their bigger budget to advertise to a wider audience. This have happened on several occasions. I offer a service that none of my competitors offer, days after I offer it, they take the idea and spam the local papers, and other advertising venues and use my company's ideas to make money. With the economy as it is now, I do not have the budget to advertise and rely mostly on web advertisement. For example, I'll post a service on Craigslist, someone will flag it and post the service as their own. The last time, four different people copied my posting then flagged me. I don't know how much more of this my business can withstand. And no, a micro-loan from the SBA is not an option, and grants no longer exist, even for vets and minorities.

How can I survive this?

Answer 1

Stop giving away your ideas. The key to success in a small business is a good product, excellent service and price. If everyone is selling a similar product then you have to excel at the other two. If your service is good enough you can get away with charging a little more.

Concentrate on developing a customer base, that is really the only answer to long term success in any business. If you have better ideas, use them on your current customers and build from there. Your existing customers are the answer to your problems, use them.

Answer 2

take a look--Free advertising--

5minutesperday.com/wheels031799

Answer 3

you need to find a way to certify or patten your ideas so when someone uses your idea they will be stealing it. also by owning your idea you have the possibility of selling or renting your idea to the major companies.

Answer 4

Competition is fierce, but small businesses definitely have numerous significant advantages to larger competing companies.

Try to leverage these advantages and let the components of your small business that your competition cannot offer YOUR customers help the business grow.

Good luck!

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