Is your business a trend setter? Or, do you follow the trend?

Is your business a trend setter?  Or, do you follow the trend?

If you are not sure, consider how this plays a role in  your future.

As a trend setter, you are always one step ahead of the game.  What you do, others look up to, but not just this one time.  If you can manage to do this often, setting the trend that is, you can even create the fact that you will have others looking to you to set the next trend.

On the other hand, if you are following the trend, things are not so great.  You will have to make up time for the other product or business that is doing well.  You have lost precious sales time in the process.  In addition, you will always need to watch the other guy for what is going to happen next, instead of being in charge of what that is.  This can be a challenging place to be, actually.

Take a minute now to think about where you are in this equation.

Do you tend to follow the lead of someone else, hoping that there will be enough in the pot for you too?  Or, do you seek out something new and exciting and try to incorporate that into your business?

Depending on where you stand currently should help you to see just how this affects your long term goals and ability to reach the success that you want.

Long Term Trend?

We all know that trends come and go.  You should also realize that not every one of them is the right way to go for each business.  Yet, the trend is something to pay attention to when looking at your long term success.

As we mentioned, the benefits of setting the trend in your market place are not just based on the basics of the sale.  Sure, if you can get a monopoly on a product for a few days, weeks or longer, you are going to have some awesome sales to take advantage of.

Yet, those sales are soon gone.  In the short term, that is all that matters.  But, in this case, we are talking about the long term goals here.

If you are the trend setter, then, your long term benefits of being in this business is that you have more ability and movement to set the next trend too.

Some companies in the market place do not have the ability to fill their customer’s needs perfectly.  Some will only find success once in a while when it comes to trends.  Yet, the company that is able to set a few trends can secure more ability in the future to do the same.

When a company has other companies looking to them for the next trend, guess who is going to make long term success?

Consider Your Reputation

This is the one factor that plays a role in developing your reputation as a company as well.  Not all companies are able to say that they have a good reputation with their consumers on a long term basis.  Yet, those that do can almost count on a monopoly in their market.

Take for example the mom and pop shops that are so frequently around well past their prime. Why are these such great places to go?  It’s because they have a solid reputation for providing success and for doing well with their product.  Even if their product is outdated, it is still something that is wanted and needed for its quality.  That helps to fund true success with the market.

Of course, your reputation comes into play for more reasons or ways than just this.  The fact is that it also happens when you are considering customer service, pricing, good community connections and so on.  These things all play a role in what your reputation is, just to name a few of them!

When you are considering your long term goal of success and having good money in your pocket, how does your reputation play a role?

We talked about how this happens with trend setting, but it can go further than that.  In today’s offline world, it is hard to get a good cup of coffee without begging.  No matter if you are online or offline with your product, though, you can gain many rewards and benefits by just providing good service. 

Building a reputation is essential to continued growth.  Yet, remember that a reputation can go both ways (good and bad!)  Therefore, make sure that you have a solid backing of pleased customers in your marketplace.  It will pay off for you today as well as long into the future.