Watch Closely and Stay Plugged In

The most important way for emerging businesses to have impact on their industry and to increase their profits is to stay plugged into the business environment and be aware of its movements. You have to be a very sharp, objective observer of what is happening in your particular marketplace . What are the trends? What are your customers saying? What is your competition doing? Is there some new technology that is coming down the road which will shift the paradigm around how your customers do business? Its all about collecting and digesting loads of information.

The Internet has made this task much easier. Learning what your competition is doing is now as simple as checking out their website. Hit the search engines to find out more about who your competitors are or what is going on in your industry in other geographic locations. Subscribe to industry specific e-newsletters and alerts. Check out chat rooms where your customers are likely to go and see what they are discussing. After all, the Internet is the great information highway .