 What is a competitive analysis? Basically, it's your document to understand your competitors. What are some of the strengths? What are some of the weaknesses? What are some of your advantage over your competitors and some of the threats that they pose to you? It also allows you to validate your product idea, your food idea in the marketplace amongst all the competitors out there and how you stand out. What makes you different? Now, why is it important for us to understand and do this whole all these kind of research and do this legwork? Well, it allows you to identify what truly makes your food brand different and what makes your food ideas stand out in the marketplace. Why do you need to know that? It is so then that way your marketing message can be aligned. So then that way your customers will remember you and they will only buy from you if they remember you, if they trust you and they understand how you stand out in a marketplace. What makes your food product different? Is it your pricing? Is it your ingredient that you use? Is it the customer experience that you provide that makes you different from your competitors? Now, to give you an example, we're going to have two types of competitors that we're analyzing. First up are the direct competitors. These guys are selling the exact same product as you are. So you want to be able to compare apples with apples. We don't want to compare different types of offerings. So for example, if I have a brand that sells cookies, Wilson's cookies, I want to compare with other brands who are selling cookies within my city and see what they have that they're offering differently. So for KFC, they have Popeyes. They compare themselves with Popeyes. For Wilson's cookies, I'll be comparing with other types of cookie businesses within my area and to see how I can stand out, whether I'll be serving specifically just fruit cookies, you know, something of a twist. We sell strawberry, strawberry white chocolate flavored cookies, blueberry or dark chocolate and all these kind of flavors specifically using fruits. And that is my way of standing out, perhaps not to say that's a really great idea. I'm just sharing with you the principle of what makes someone stand out. Next up are the indirect businesses who are selling substitute product as you are. So same thing with us selling cookies. We will be comparing ourselves with let's say David David that sells croissant, right? Just because the product is different doesn't mean they are not competition of yours because someone who is buying bakery goods, perhaps something like a croissant, they wouldn't buy cookies no more because they are substitutes of each other. So same thing as KFC versus McDonald's. Just think about, hey, you know what, if you're craving for some fried food and all of a sudden there's no KFC around you, you will have to go to McDonald's. And basically they are the indirect competitors of your specific brand. Now the seven things to look for when comparing with your competitors. What are their exact products? So for example, if I'm comparing with direct competitors, I'll be comparing chicken with chicken or even biscuit or fries. We need to describe it. We need to identify the pricing, their menu offering, their full menu offering. What exactly are they offering to their customers? What makes them different? What is their specific advantage over yours? Where are they located at because convenience is also a really key role when it comes to purchasing food item. But if you were to sell online, then this would not be a big problem. What is their Instagram following like? And these are the seven things you would want to look at when comparing with your competitors. As an example, we already created a competitive analysis for our brand that we created just as a case study to showcase to you how this whole process works. So in the link below, download it and then go through all the details. As you can see here, we go in depth about what is it that other brands, other bubble tea kit brands are doing right now. Now it is your turn, go and download and fill out the competitive analysis template in the resource below. Look at our example as a way to showcase to you how to fill it in.