Many years ago I was working for a small business in Eastern Canada.  The company was an authorized training centre for Priority Management a firm that specialized in Time Management, Project Management, Sales Training etc;

The business environment was very competitive.  Many large national training companies had regional offices located in Eastern Canada or authorized representatives working from their home offices  Then there were the independents, dozens of them. So…how does a small business stay competitive in an environment like that?

Every year, usually late winter or early spring the Principles of the company would schedule a two day strategic management session.  The purpose?  Among other things, to chart the course for the coming year.

Each of the sales reps were assigned the task of researching, secret shopping, gathering up sales materials, pricing..any information we could find about the competition  BAMN the President would say…BAMN!!

At the meeting we disected every aspect of the competitor’s offering, materials, content, etc;  By the time the meeting was over, we had learned alot about the competition and re-examined our own portfolio so we had a competitve advantage.

Yes, the two days took time away from other things we would rather be doing. Put sales reps in a strategic management session for two days..Yikes!  But, we hit the road running and it paid off handsomely!!   BAMN!!!