Are you ready to find out exactly where you fit in the ecosystem of your consulting market?
Then buckle up, because we’re about to go down the rabbit hole…
Over the next few posts, we’ll do a deep dive into Home Page analysis and competitor analysis more broadly. This is your guide to how you can analyze your competitors to find exactly how you need to position your business to get more of the consulting and speaking gigs you want.
Now, a couple of posts ago, I had you create a database for your competitor research.
Since then, I’ve had you…
- Begin populating that database with competitors you knew off the top of your head (obvious leaders in your field, other presenters you know from having presented at some of the same conferences, etc.)
- Then, in my last post, I had you do some basic Google research using your initial keyword list to find more consultants in your field and add them to your database.
You can enter as many competitors as you want into this database–and you should probably continue to add other competitors to it as long as you’re in business (you never know when this info will be helpful in the future).
But for our purposes at the moment, we probably only need the best 10 or so that you’ve found so far to do an in depth Home Page analysis with.
So, once you get all the competitor sites you want to list added to your database (for now), identify the top 10 or so to use for this next step…
Home Page Analysis: Researching Your Top Competitors’ Websites
It’s time to start familiarizing yourself with your top competitor group. And we’ll start with a Home Page analysis of their websites, as the Home Page is usually designed to give you the 30,000 foot overview of what that consultant is all about.
So, here’s your action step for today:
Navigate to the Home Pages of each of your top group of competitors and look for these things…
- Identify Their Value Proposition–A “value proposition” is a clear, concise statement that explains why a client should choose to work with a particular consultant. In other words, it’s the “big idea” of their business–the benefits or transformations they’re promising if someone were to work with them. Now, sometimes a website will come right out and say this clearly (it’s wonderful when that happens), but often it’s implied and you have to read their website copy and figure it out for yourself.
- Identify the Ideal Client Avatar They’re Targeting–When you read their Home page copy, what types of clients are they focused on? Are they targeting the same market segment as you are, or are they targeting a slightly different group of people? Again, sometimes they come right out and say this, but other times, you have to “read between the lines.” Just take your best shot at figuring this out for now.
- Capture Anything Else That Catches Your Interest–The information found on different consultants’ websites can vary quite a bit. Figuring out what they do (their value proposition) and who they do it for (their ICA) are the two most important things here, but read through the entire Home Page of each competitor with an open mind to see what jumps out at you. It might be something you really like. It might be something that really turns you off. Or anything in between. But make sure to capture your initial impressions now so you can mine them for insights later.
- Label a column in your database “Homepage Notes” and capture all of this information there. Or make separate columns for “Value Proposition,” “Ideal Client Avatar,” and “Other Homepage Notes.”
That’s it. That’s your “homework” for today.
After you get this information down about your top 10 competitors, you’re going to feel like you’re already getting a better sense of what’s going on in your market.
But that’s just the beginning…
In my next post, I’ll show you how to do a little “stalking” (in a nice, unobtrusive way, I promise) of your competitors to gain even more information about them and their businesses.
Till then…
To Your Success,
Willy
P.S.–One little side note I’d like to add here…
I’ve encouraged you to add some of the “big dogs” in your field into your competitor database. And because they’ve probably been around a while, some of these people probably have built up mature, fully-fleshed out business models. And as a result, when you do a Home Page analysis of their websites, they might look really “slick” and impressive to you.
If it feels like you’re a long way off from getting where these people are, don’t let that discourage you. One of the best pieces of business advice I ever heard was…
“Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle.“
In other words, they didn’t get where they are overnight. They may have had a big headstart on you. But if you take the right steps, you can also get where they are…eventually.
And doing the kind of competitor analysis I’m walking you through is a big step in that journey.
So hang in there, put in the work, and you’ll soon have a plan to get you to the top of that mountain!
