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Intimidated By The Competition? How Your Startup Can Take On The Big Guys.

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Intimidated By The Competition? How Your Startup Can Take On The Big Guys.

When newly formed businesses size up the competition, they may not like what they see.

Often, major players in their industry are already well ahead of them, drawing in the customers or clients they covet, cornering the market on the best employees, and pushing around through their sheer size anyone who dares take them on.

But startups don’t necessarily have to blink in the face of the big guys, says Adam Witty, himself a successful entrepreneur and the ForbesBooks co-author of Authority Marketing: Your Blueprint to Build Thought Leadership That Grows Business, Attracts Opportunity, and Makes Competition Irrelevant.

“Certainly, major corporations have plenty of advantages over startups, from the assets they have available to the years of brand recognition they have worked to achieve,” says Witty, who also is the founder and CEO of Advantage|ForbesBooks (www.advantagefamily.com). “But you can work on creating a few advantages of your own – or at least create a more level playing field – if you approach things in the right way.”

He says some ways for budding entrepreneurs to do that include:

Know that adaptability is a key asset – and possibly an advantage. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of attention to the importance of being able to adapt, but it’s always been critical for businesses to respond to unanticipated changes in the market that threatened their product or business model, Witty says. “Being adaptable doesn’t mean just introducing a new product to your realm of offerings,” he says. “It requires constant attention to what’s going on in the world, analyzing your competitors, and most importantly, not getting too comfortable at the top of the pyramid.” In some cases, a startup can even have an advantage here, Witty says. Established businesses sometimes get stuck in their ways, and when disruptions happen in the economy or with customer habits, they are slow to make the necessary changes. A good example of this was Blockbuster, the video rental company that failed to see the threat that annoying upstarts like Netflix posed.

Turn customers and clients into raving fans. The most profitable companies in the world boast the most fanatical clients and customers, Witty says. “Think about Apple, which does many things very, very well,” he says. “One of them is servicing the customer first. And Apple excels in communicating its mission to its audience. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh once said, ‘Customer service shouldn’t just be a department. It should be the entire company.’ To create loyalty, you must show customers that you not only are grateful for their business but that you value their relationship.”

Establish yourself as the authority in your field. Positioning yourself as the go-to person in your field allows you to create an unfair advantage in the marketplace by immediately positioning you above others in the same field, Witty says. One way to do that is by writing a book because then you are not only an authority on your topic but you “wrote the book on it.” But you can also begin to establish your authority through media interviews and speaking engagements, Witty says.

Finally, Witty says he’s fond of telling his employees, “When it comes to decision making, if we’re going to go with opinions, we’ll go with mine.”

In reality, he doesn’t want to make decisions based on even his opinion; he prefers facts and data.

“For a startup or any business to be successful,” Witty says, “you should let employees know that you are open to their ideas, but you also expect those ideas to be backed up with facts and data that demonstrate why it’s a good idea. That kind of decision making is the best way for your business to grow, prosper and dominate the competition.”

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Adam Witty, co-author with Rusty Shelton of Authority Marketing: Your Blueprint to Build Thought Leadership That Grows Business, Attracts Opportunity, and Makes Competition Irrelevant, is the CEO of Advantage|ForbesBooks (www.advantagefamily.com). Witty started Advantage in 2005 in a spare bedroom of his home. The company helps busy professionals become the authority in their field through publishing and marketing. In 2016, Advantage launched a partnership with Forbes to create ForbesBooks, a business book publisher for top business leaders. Witty is the author of seven books, and is also a sought-after speaker, teacher and consultant on marketing and business growth techniques for entrepreneurs and authors. He has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily and USA Today, and has appeared on ABC and Fox.

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Doing Business in the United States: Challenges and Experiences of European Companies

European companies open branches in the United States for a host of reasons. For starters, the United States gives these businesses a completely new base of customers; a chance to step out from the almost saturated European market and stand out from the crowd. Secondly, there are many government incentives in the U.S., making the business environment incredibly favorable. Last but not least, it gives them more brand recognition and a chance to reinvent their products in a hungry, welcoming market. 

Starting a business or moving an existing business from Europe to the U.S. can, indeed, be an exciting time for an entrepreneur. However, that is not to mean that aren’t any thorny experiences and business-threatening challenges to contend with while there. Nevertheless, before commencing your business transition to the USA, you must be sure to acquire the necessary visa, so that you do not do anything illegally which might cause problems later on. 

Apart from the UK-based businesses, those coming from other parts of Europe may have to hire a translation company to translate their content for localization purposes. That would mean higher initial and overall running costs. Besides that, here are some of the other challenges and experiences that European companies encounter when doing business in the United States:

Strong multicultural influence

The U.S. is a country founded on the pillar of unity in diversity; there are too many ethnic groupings in the country, each with their own unique culture and needs, yet they all expect outsiders to see them as one inseparable people. The multiculturalism in this country is on another level; you will have to contend with it in government offices and in the business setup. 

How you handle the employees is also affected by this cultural influence as there are some historical injustices that plague the labor market up to today. That is not particularly the case in Europe as most countries in the region have a homogenous culture. Your success or failure might be tied on this seemingly inconsequential factor.

Complexity in the taxing system

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)- revenue service of the United States federal government- is very strict with its enforcement of the federal taxes, sometimes to the point of scaring off investors who come from jurisdictions with lenient tax laws. And as if that is not enough, you will also have to deal with tax collection authorities both at the state and local levels. 

Even though the government is in the process of lowering the transition tax to about 8-15% and the corporate tax from 35% to 21%, there still are some vital teething issues that would demand a skeptical approach to America’s taxation framework.

The financial sector’s influence

Wall Street, arguably the most influential financial sector in the world, is keener on short-term profits and high stock values and not the traditional long-term value opportunities. The hedge funds and investment firms on Wall Street have become so powerful that without their blessings, you may be forced to sacrifice your brand’s reputation just to impress them.

High competition from multinational corporations

America is home to some of the biggest multinational corporations. While you will greatly benefit from their existence in terms of benchmarking on their success, sometimes the competition they bring forth can be unbeatable. To make matters worse, these corporations have political connections and friends in the highest places in the demand and supply chain, so they often get the lion’s share of government incentives.

Most multinationals have their planning and thinking inclined to global markets which, apparently, greatly affect the nation’s job market. They will hire the best talents in the country and proceed to outsource and offshore manufacturing jobs to other countries overseas. That means that they will enjoy both the benefits of hiring cheap outsourced labor and highly-qualified American professionals. Also, competing with a country that outsources cheap manufacturing services can be a daunting task. 

Complicated electricity and construction rules

If you wish to acquire property in the U.S., probably your main offices, you will have to pass through more than 10 bureaucratic steps before you get the legal permits to register it under your company name. Environmental inspections and reviews, for example, can take weeks if not months. In big cities such as Los Angeles and New York, you may have to wait for more than 2 months to have your electricity turned on. And if you need additional constructions in the property, that can cost you anywhere between 3,000 to 6,000 USD $ in terms of building plan check and permit.

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George Foster is a marketing manager at Day Translations.