Often small business owners are so excited about their product that they forget to consider their competition. If you are planning on opening a local business, you likely know your competitors. But if you are starting an online business or are in a large city, you'll benefit from market research. One way to perform this analysis is to create a side-by-side comparison sheet. Using this type of document, you can compare pricing, product offerings, web presence, user review scores, size of business and market reach, customer profiles and more depending on your business. If it is a restaurant, you could compare menus, pricing, customer loyalty and patron reviews. If it is an online business, you can compare keyword terms, social media presence, subscription pricing models, or customer service responsiveness to find a competitive angle. You may even benefit from hiring someone to do the research for you since they might be more objective than you. Companies with large budgets may even hire a marketing agency to evaluate the market for them. Regardless of your budget, market research is not a step you'll want to skip in the business planning process.