Kale Abrahamson | Source | Founder at Nine University

"Most people have never heard of competitive research," Kale Abrahamson of Nine University begins. Competitive research is a part of market research that looks at the area involving your competition - what they're offering, the terms they have, and what their business looks like. It also looks at how popular the product or service is according to Google, and what keywords are the most popular. "This will give you the metrics to tell you if your business will be successful or not," he says. Kale says most new business owners neglect to do a proper competitive analysis. "Why wouldn't you want to know ahead of time if your business was able to make money in today's market?" he asks. That's something that market research can tell you.