How to Position Your Business for Growth in a Crowded Market

When the market is already saturated with established players, it can feel nearly impossible to stand out—let alone grow. Yet, some businesses not only survive but thrive in crowded spaces. The key? Strategic positioning and consistent execution. If you're building a business in such a market, here’s a practical guide to help you rise above the noise and position yourself for sustainable growth.

1. Assess Your Current Position in the Market:

Before aiming for growth, you need to understand where you currently stand. And I want to emphasize the need to be very intentional about your growth to succeed here;

• Who are your competitors? List your direct and indirect competitors. What are they doing well, and where are they falling short?
• What do your customers say? Ask existing customers what they (would) love about you—and what they don’t.
• What’s your current value proposition? Are you cheaper (yes, sometimes cheap can be a strategy – to enter the market), faster, more convenient, more trustworthy, or more niche than others? You have read ‘$100M Offers’ by Alex Hormozi, right? Tip: Do a quick SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to get clarity. You can even ask loyal customers what makes you stand out—they often see value you might overlook. I have to warn you, though. It’s very boring to do a SWOT analysis.

1. Define Clear, Realistic Growth Goals:

Now that you know where you are, define where you want to go. Are you aiming to increase your market share in your current area? Do you want to move into a new location, serve a new type of customer, or launch a new product line? How will you measure growth—by revenue, customer retention, volume of transactions, or something else? Be specific. Saying "We want to grow" is vague. Try: "We want to grow revenue by 30% in 12 months by acquiring 100 new repeat customers."

1. Craft a Competitive and Focused Growth Strategy:

Once your goals are clear, map out how you’ll get there. In a crowded market, vague strategies won’t cut it—you need to be focused and intentional. I could actually help you out with business growth strategy if you can afford to pay me. It’s my forte. Here are a few practical paths: a). Find a niche: You don’t need to serve everyone. Focus on a specific customer segment that’s being underserved. With Jisort, for example, we’re giving out bus fare loans to commuters in formal employment. And FHA will only serve registered members. b). Offer better customer experience: While your competitors are chasing volume, you can win by being more human, responsive, or flexible. This is especially important in this AI era where everyone is trying to automate systems. Remember to retain the human aspect. Nobody fancies talking to a robot. c). Create a signature feature or offer: What’s the one thing you're known for? Whether it’s delivery time, packaging, loyalty rewards, or how you handle complaints—make it your calling card. d). Leverage existing ecosystems: Can you plug into an existing network or platform to gain access to customers (e.g., marketplaces, communities, platforms)? Remember: Competing on price is rarely sustainable. Compete on value.

1. Build Scalable Systems to Support Growth:

Growth without systems leads to burnout and chaos. It’s actually close to impossible trying to grow without systems as the system helps you to build capacity and sustainability.

• Automate routine tasks: Use tools to automate bookings, invoicing, emails, or inventory tracking. You cannot scale if your business depends on individuals. It must ONLY depend on systems.
• Document your processes: From customer service responses to onboarding workflows, write them down so others can do them exactly like you would. I normally ask friends in printing and branding if they have a standard operation procedure for handling client orders so that they can leverage gig workers when there’s an influx of work.
• Hire or outsource smartly: Focus on high-impact roles that free you up to focus on strategy. Operations and Marketing/Sales are roles that will hardly give you room to indulge in extra activities. And yet they need to be performed meticulously for business continuity. Systems = scalability. Without them, you’ll eventually plateau—or worse, collapse under your own weight.

1. Deliver with Consistency and Reliability:

In a crowded market, customers are skeptical. One bad experience and they’ll go next door. One broken promise and they won’t return. Using my favourite example of mom & pop shops, they normally are setup side by side. If I walk on to the first one and find the shopkeeper is backstage so that I have to knock and wait for THEM to come back, I usually don’t come back to that shop. I have also on several occasions abandoned my favourite barber because they either don’t open in time or are sometimes closed when it’s not a holiday or a Sunday.

• Show up the same way, every time. From product quality to service response time, consistency builds trust.
• Be transparent when things go wrong. People don’t expect perfection, but they expect accountability.
• Create routines and rhythms. Whether it's weekly updates, daily service standards, or fixed delivery timelines—consistency makes your business feel dependable. Word of mouth is a powerful growth engine—but only if customers trust you enough to recommend you.

1. Case Study: JAZA SUPERMARKET:

Back in 2021 I sent a proposal to Naivas Supermarkets. There were many things I included in the proposal but I'll share one for the sake of this article. I wanted Naivas to start a subsidiary that would cater to the low income earners. That is, to partner with the mini-supermarkets in estates and customize their offerings to that audience. I never got the chance to discuss my proposal with the Naivas team as it was during the COVID-19 period and many of them were working from home.

Now there's a new chain of supermarkets that's mostly domiciled in the deeper parts of the various towns in Kenya - Jaza Supermarket. I'm not insinuating that the the owner picked my idea and implemented it, and maybe my opening paragraph is unwarranted. But let's look at this objectively. Jaza is practically in every town in Nairobi and Kiambu Counties. And the locations of those stores tells the story:

• proximity to the customer makes it easy for the customers in the estates to access the shop easily.
• the quantities of the products on offer are those that can easily be afforded by the target market.
• as a result, the prices are competitive and relatively affordable That's an example of a business that has evaluated itself and identified hoe to position itself on the market. Another good example in that category is Magunas Supermarkets. The only problem is that they're focusing on Nairobi and Kiambu. I hope they have plans to go to mashinani soon.

Final Thoughts:

Growth in a crowded market isn’t about shouting louder—it’s about speaking more clearly and consistently to the right people. Assess your position, set intentional goals, build for scale, and become the brand people can count on. Crowded markets aren't dead ends—they're just tougher battlegrounds. And the businesses that rise above them are those that plan smart, deliver well, and keep showing up.

Bonus question: When building software for a saturated market, say the ERP Systems market, should your MVP have all the features that your competitors have while including your unique features and functionalities, or should you just focus on your core differentiating functionalities and features?