Do you remember when people carried around phones bigger than their head? Now days with phones smaller than two fingers delivering television, news, and the latest music for most people it is sensory overload.  There is so much clammering for our attention we have become excellent at tuning things out. Companies are spending billions to break through the clutter and sell us their product. Thinking about entering over crowded markets and competing against companies flushed with cash can be intimidating for the small guy. But even in the most crowded market there is room for an innovator with something original to offer.

Even this website resides in a crowded industry- making money online. If you search for ways to make high returns on the Internet you will find 45,600,000 results on Google. Actually saying its in a crowded market is quite an understatement. And it is a challenging market for innovation. But for those who create run of the mill products with more of the same ideas it can be deadly to enter a market so crowded. Every company entering a crowded market (and today most markets are crowded) has to ask the same questions, "How do I make a compelling offer to consumers who are already swamped with companies trying to make them compelling offers?"

A great example of this was a story I read about a guy named Bryant Keil. He is the CEO of Potbelly Sandwich Works. Now you want to talk about a crowded market. It would be hard to argue by any objective measure that the world desperately needs another way to get sandwiches. Just Subway alone has over 25,000 franchises in 80 countries.

So how on earth does Keil compete with all this competition. He doesn't: "I'm not looking at what those guys are doing, I'm looking at what we're doing. We have to keep doing more than our customers expect." Now there is a marvel concept. When was the last time you went to pick up a sandwich and got more than you expected? Keil's strategy to make his stores quirky has helped him grow from a single store to over 100 units. Whats impressive is his average sales per unit is $1 million dollars. Subway's average sales per unit are 1/3 that amount.

There is room in every every market for innovation.