Duration
3 weeksWeekly study
2 hours
Crushing your Competition: Competitive Strategies to Make your Business Stand Out
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Learn how to improve the positioning of your business via competitive strategies
This informative three week course will teach you all that you need to know in order to make sure your business stands out in the modern world.
You’ll find out how to iterate, how to improve your advantage against competitors via competitor research, and how to get ahead with your competitive strategy.
Learn how to do effective competitor research and analysis
A major focus of this course will be finding out where your competitors are weak, therefore accentuating where your business can be strong.
You’ll do this by effectively researching your competition and defining your own competitive landscape.
Create a competitive advantage for your business and learn about positioning your business
You’ll create your own competitive advantage with regards to your own business, and will then be able to create a competitive matrix that will push you into the number one position against all your competitors via competitor analysis.
You’ll do this by learning powerful techniques to gain insight from your competitors, and also by discovering what investors demand you know in order to raise capital for your business.
Learn from Ken Burke, an entrepreneurial expert in the high-tech industry
You’ll be under the guidance of Ken Burke throughout; a serial entrepreneur who founded EntrepreneurNOW! Network in order to bring together entrepreneurs from around the world to learn and grow from each other.
He has over 25 years’ worth of experience, and recently sold his eCommerce software company - which generated 2 billion in online sales per year - for $100 million.
Syllabus
Week 1
Defining and Segmenting Your Competition
Welcome!
Welcome to Crushing the Competition
Define and Segment Your Competition - Overview
Define and segment overview covers the importance of evaluating the strengths, weaknesses and position of your competitors.
Defining and Tracking Your Competition
Let's get started by understanding should be thinking about our competition and how to find as much about each competitor as possible. We will introduce you to a few helpful tools.
Define and Segment Tasks
Time to put pen to paper - or fingers to keyboard. We provide you with a planning worksheet that prepares you to define and segment your competition.
Discuss How to Define and Segment Your Competition
Let's discuss how you can effectively define and segment your competition to gain an advantage over your competitors. Make sure you ask questions about how you are applying this to your business or business idea.
Quiz - Define and Segment Your Competition
Here is your chance to test your knowledge. Take this end-of-week quiz and celebrate your learning so far.
Week 2
Build a Compelling Competitive Matrix
Competitive Matrix - Overview
A competitive matrix is more than a pretty picture. By highlighting your unique strengths vis a vis other players in the space, you gain a greater understanding of your market, and a valuable marketing tool.
Developing Your Competitive Matrix Step by Step
Now let's get down to business by walking you step by step through the process of building a competitive matrix for your business. You will learn the key to always positioning yourself in the best possible way.
Build a Competitive Matrix Tasks
Time to put pen to paper—or fingers to keyboard. We provide you with a worksheet that prepares you to create a competitive positioning matrix for your business plan.
Discuss How to Build a Competitive Matrix for Your Business
Let's discuss building a competitive matrix and how to apply this to your business or business idea. Make sure you ask questions about how you are applying this to your business or business idea.
Quiz - Competitive Matrix
Here is your chance to test your knowledge. Take your end-of-week quiz and celebrate your learning so far.
Week 3
Create a Unique Competitive Advantage for Your Business
Unique Competitive Advantage Overview
Crafting your unique competitive advantage gives customers a reason to buy from you, informs your positioning, and drives your business strategy.
Creating a Unique Competitive Advantage Step-by-Step
Now it is time to develop a unique competitive advantage for your business so let's review each of the steps involved.
Unique Competitive Advantage Tasks
Time to put pen to paper—or fingers to keyboard. Take a look inside the worksheet that prepares you to articulate your unique competitive advantage for your business plan.
Quiz - Unique Competitive Advantage
Here is your chance to test your knowledge. Take the final quiz of this course and celebrate your learning.
Discuss How to Build a Unique Competitive Advantage for Your Business
Let's discuss the best ways to create an incredible unique competitive that makes your business stand out from the crowd.
Congratulations!!!
Celebrate Your Success
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Define and segment your competition
- Develop your competitive advantage
- Present your business idea to potential investors via a competitive matrix
Who is the course for?
This course is designed for entrepreneurs who already own a business or are looking to start one.
You will also find it useful if you’re a business owner or executive wanting to position your business effectively with competitive analysis. Students considering future career prospects in business or marketing will also benefit from this course.
What software or tools do you need?
Excel or Google Sheets would be helpful to use for this course but is not essential. The course contains a significant amount of video content.
Who will you learn with?
Ken Burke, the founder of EntrepreneurNOW, is a serial entrepreneur in the high-tech industry and recently sold his eCommerce software company which generated 2 billion in online sales per year.
Who developed the course?
The EntrepreneurNOW! Network (ENN)
The EntrepreneurNOW! Network (ENN) is dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and corporate business managers on starting, running and growing successful businesses. Our mission is to positively impact the lives of entrepreneurs by allowing them to learn a wide range of business strategies that are key to running a successful business. All of these strategies come directly from very experienced entrepreneurs who have run successful businesses and learned so much in the process.
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn
Get a taste of this course
Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join: