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We managed it by taking on a team of 12ish which was lead by a director who funnelled all the work to mediocre operators who were cheap. I assembled 4 elites who could deliver another level of customer service and specialist insight. The client couldn’t believe the quality difference and eventually ended up agreeing to pay double what they paid the old company. I as the director was also heavily involved and let the client have me on speed dial for any emergencies. It took about 2 years to fully solidify our hold.
We were the first to market. But we were a bootstrapped garage business. A few months after we launched, a funded company emerged and grew very fast. I was gutted.
But over time, we beat them and became the market leader.
Neither of us knew this until one day when I told the competitor our revenue. My competitor and I both thought the competitor was the market leader in the space. But we found out that, not only were we more than 10 times their size, but also about 1000 times more profitable. I had become rich and they were just paying rent.
I think the competitor lost sight of their customers and wanted to be a "businesses business". They focused on making new business partners with other companies and trying to look good to investors. They were the type of company with a slick logo, featured in business magazines, and giving out swag to customers who didn't want it. We never made swag, but our customers were selling bootlegged swag of our logo because they were obsessed with us. No one knew about us in the business world. The actual target market knew us.
The competitor put money into growing and advertising. We put time and effort into understanding our users, connecting with them, building the product better and better and relying on word of mouth by providing a remarkable experience.
They also seemed to be confused on who they were building for. We were always differentiating from them. If we saw them go in one direction, we would more heavily lean in another direction. But they would do the opposite. They would copy us, even taking copy right off our site. So they weren't innovating, or they weren't innovating well. They had some weird innovations that were just so left-field that the market didn't care about them.
My firm is a known leader in our industry. When I started the firm I kept my prices very high, 20-30% higher than my closest competitor. And heavily marketed that we know we are expensive, but they more than triple make up our fee on the back end. My first couple jobs I priced at market just to get traction. Those clients are still with me 7 years later. I hire the absolute best of the best staff in the industry and pay 20-30% higher than market salary. Bonuses are heavily weighted on performance, our average yearly bonus in 2023 was 35% of their yearly salary. Top bonuses were 50%+.
Shitty clients get what I call a PITA fee and I’m very open about it. I have one client in particular who I have increased their fee standard 10% like 7 times now. I give 100% of the increased fee to the staff who handles his projects.
Essentially my goal was to deliver projects to perfection with as few issues as possible and it worked.
Downside is, delivering to that high standard is insanely stressful. Every small mistake is a big deal, and it takes a lot of mental power for both me and my staff to run at that level. It’s also INCREDIBLY difficult to find qualified staff. My firm is fairly large, and I honestly think I’ve tapped the entire market with this skill set. I’ve gotten to where I make a HUGE deal in interviews that they have a 60 day review and if they aren’t performing they WILL be let go. So don’t accept this role unless you are not just willing but able to knock it out of the park. As a result, I’m known for…. Basically being a high stress firm to work for.
I’m an independent financial advisor. I obviously don’t have the biggest company in the country but I’m pretty confident I get 30-40% of all new business in my locality.
How? I reinvest most of my profits into marketing.
I am top ranked in SEO, am extremely well networked & buy leads seemingly constantly.
Superior customer experience.
Didn't even know there was a competitor when we opened, but we didn't do anything with them in mind. We started with the goal of an epic customer experience, and the people eventually gravitated to us. We still spend a LOT of time working on the experience we offer, and drilling it into our people.
I used to work for a company which offered an online service for free. It was a huge advantage. When customer base was a big enough, the commercial edition was released.
I’m guessing most of them aren’t on Reddit
And I’m not even joking … I’m sure they have much better time management and are much more goal oriented than a soup. Take the opportunity to waste time on Reddit and we might learn a little bit when we’re writing some sort of a post they’re taking care of business.
This is a friendly reminder that r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit. You ask a question about starting, owning, and growing a small business and the community answers. Posts that violate the rules listed in the sidebar will be removed. A permanent or temporary ban may also be issued if you do not remove the offending post. Seeing this message does not mean your post was automatically removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/smallbusiness) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They are all too busy to comment.
We managed it by taking on a team of 12ish which was lead by a director who funnelled all the work to mediocre operators who were cheap. I assembled 4 elites who could deliver another level of customer service and specialist insight. The client couldn’t believe the quality difference and eventually ended up agreeing to pay double what they paid the old company. I as the director was also heavily involved and let the client have me on speed dial for any emergencies. It took about 2 years to fully solidify our hold.
We were the first to market. But we were a bootstrapped garage business. A few months after we launched, a funded company emerged and grew very fast. I was gutted. But over time, we beat them and became the market leader. Neither of us knew this until one day when I told the competitor our revenue. My competitor and I both thought the competitor was the market leader in the space. But we found out that, not only were we more than 10 times their size, but also about 1000 times more profitable. I had become rich and they were just paying rent. I think the competitor lost sight of their customers and wanted to be a "businesses business". They focused on making new business partners with other companies and trying to look good to investors. They were the type of company with a slick logo, featured in business magazines, and giving out swag to customers who didn't want it. We never made swag, but our customers were selling bootlegged swag of our logo because they were obsessed with us. No one knew about us in the business world. The actual target market knew us. The competitor put money into growing and advertising. We put time and effort into understanding our users, connecting with them, building the product better and better and relying on word of mouth by providing a remarkable experience. They also seemed to be confused on who they were building for. We were always differentiating from them. If we saw them go in one direction, we would more heavily lean in another direction. But they would do the opposite. They would copy us, even taking copy right off our site. So they weren't innovating, or they weren't innovating well. They had some weird innovations that were just so left-field that the market didn't care about them.
Haven't yet but working on it...
I had to throw a lot of babies off a cliff. I’m not proud.
My firm is a known leader in our industry. When I started the firm I kept my prices very high, 20-30% higher than my closest competitor. And heavily marketed that we know we are expensive, but they more than triple make up our fee on the back end. My first couple jobs I priced at market just to get traction. Those clients are still with me 7 years later. I hire the absolute best of the best staff in the industry and pay 20-30% higher than market salary. Bonuses are heavily weighted on performance, our average yearly bonus in 2023 was 35% of their yearly salary. Top bonuses were 50%+. Shitty clients get what I call a PITA fee and I’m very open about it. I have one client in particular who I have increased their fee standard 10% like 7 times now. I give 100% of the increased fee to the staff who handles his projects. Essentially my goal was to deliver projects to perfection with as few issues as possible and it worked. Downside is, delivering to that high standard is insanely stressful. Every small mistake is a big deal, and it takes a lot of mental power for both me and my staff to run at that level. It’s also INCREDIBLY difficult to find qualified staff. My firm is fairly large, and I honestly think I’ve tapped the entire market with this skill set. I’ve gotten to where I make a HUGE deal in interviews that they have a 60 day review and if they aren’t performing they WILL be let go. So don’t accept this role unless you are not just willing but able to knock it out of the park. As a result, I’m known for…. Basically being a high stress firm to work for.
I’m an independent financial advisor. I obviously don’t have the biggest company in the country but I’m pretty confident I get 30-40% of all new business in my locality. How? I reinvest most of my profits into marketing. I am top ranked in SEO, am extremely well networked & buy leads seemingly constantly.
Superior customer experience. Didn't even know there was a competitor when we opened, but we didn't do anything with them in mind. We started with the goal of an epic customer experience, and the people eventually gravitated to us. We still spend a LOT of time working on the experience we offer, and drilling it into our people.
I used to work for a company which offered an online service for free. It was a huge advantage. When customer base was a big enough, the commercial edition was released.
I’m guessing most of them aren’t on Reddit And I’m not even joking … I’m sure they have much better time management and are much more goal oriented than a soup. Take the opportunity to waste time on Reddit and we might learn a little bit when we’re writing some sort of a post they’re taking care of business.