There’s No Such Thing as Uncompetitive Marketers
No one can deny that marketers are some of the most competitive business owners on the planet.
At first glance, you may think that there’s really too much competition to even try to make a dent in a niche – but that’s far from the truth!
There’s always a need for multiple people to lead a niche audience. Not everyone is going to like the way another person leads by his or her style, slant or solutions.
When you establish a unique way of guiding people, those who like your style will flock to you.
It’s okay to repel others who aren’t a good fit for you. You don’t want people following you who dislike how you do things because they’ll be a distraction.
This is known as weeding out your audience.
It’s important when establishing your business and your way of helping and guiding others that you stay away from copycatting.
That puts up a red flag to others that you don’t have a new and fresh way of looking at the niche.
Find a way to put your own perspective on the topic and you’ll begin to surge ahead once others know how you operate.
Learn to differentiate your business from the rest so you can stand out and catch the attention of prospective customers.
One way you can stand out from the competition is to know the demographic you’re targeting – something many marketers fail to even research.
Brainstorm to see if you have a unique perspective to offer a certain age-group, gender, or those with specific interests.
For example, maybe you have years of experience in the medical field.
If you can find a way to weave that into the topic, you’ll surge ahead of the others who lack that extra point of view to provide to their customers.
You should also consider what value is contained in what you’re offering.
Something different or above and beyond from the rest will go a long way in helping you dominate over the competition.
Always make sure you try to stay ahead of others in terms of the tools that you use.
For example, some marketers got left behind when video marketing hit because they wanted to stick to text.
And then by the time they got onboard with video recordings, live Facebook feeds hit, and they were left behind again.
Don’t focus so much on your competition. Just be innovative and creative, put your own thumbprint on your business and you will enjoy a successful online career.
Stay aware of how others are leveling up so you can compete, but avoid getting bogged down in a negative mentality about it.
Envying the Competition Should Fuel Your Fire
You’ve heard all your life that envy is bad and that you’re a bad person if you envy another person for what they have.
But envy can be a good thing if you see it as a motivational tool to be used for your own benefit.
So many entrepreneurs simply give up when they see what the competition is doing and how successful they are.
If there’s already someone doing what you want to do and they’re highly successful at it – what’s the point?
Just because there’s already someone teaching a target audience doesn’t mean there’s no room for you.
In fact, if you think about it, you probably enjoy learning from multiple individuals yourself.
That’s because each person has a unique style and point of view. Even an entrepreneur’s personality can attract or deter an audience.
Some leaders are funny, some sarcastic, and some are nurturing.
You might find someone teaching in the niche you want to be in who teaches broad topics, but you have the ability to drill down and teach the issues more thoroughly, with step-by-step detail – which makes your offer more inviting to some people ready to spend their hard-earned money.
You might consider dominating over your competition by consistently over-delivering to your audience.
Many entrepreneurs approach their work from a very greedy perspective, not realizing that those who show up to serve their audience will see more money as a result.
Try various formats that your competition may not be using – such as video, rather than text or audio that caters to an on-the-go audience.
This can be beneficial in your free viral communications as well as your paid products.
Give examples of the issues you’re discussing.
Examples are great teaching tools because they help your audience visualize how your solutions can help them with their problems, and it’s something few people do when trying to convert content into sales.
Lack of knowledge is one reason entrepreneurs fail.
You may envy those who are already successful and appear to have done it with ease rather than spending an abundance of time and effort.
The truth is that successful entrepreneurs didn’t become successful overnight – they spent time educating themselves about their niche audience, the tools they need to succeed, and selling strategies that helped them learn how to earn their readers’ trust.
Customers should always be the focal point of your quest for success.
And just because someone else is already doing it doesn’t mean that you can’t be better at it and create a new spin that will propel you ahead of the competition.
Envy is such a strong power that you can use to spur you on to greater things – or, allow it to be a catastrophic problem in your life that holds you back and allows other people to see their dreams come to fruition instead.
When You Feel Overwhelmed STOP and Take Back Control
When being overwhelmed causes your progress to come to a grinding halt, it’s time to discover new ways to deal with the enormous amount of work you have to accomplish as a solo entrepreneur.
Today you can be particularly overwhelmed by the rapid pace the world is changing and how technology is steaming ahead.
Never before has the world moved at such a fast pace and presented so much to learn and understand.
As an entrepreneur, there is much to do and learn every day. There are also people demanding your time and the competition is always forging ahead.
Somehow, you regain control and stop the downward spiral.
The best step to take when you’re feeling overwhelmed is to stop and analyze what’s happening.
It may be hard to do because your instinct is to keep pressing forward in a panic – even if you’re not accomplishing anything significant.
As a business person, you have to be present every day and be productive if your business is going to succeed.
But there are also demands from other areas of your life – family, friends and taking some time for yourself.
If those needs aren’t met, your life will seem unfulfilling and you may get overwhelmed.
To gain control of your time and efforts, you first need to know what your priorities are.
No one can do everything at once (even those who think multi-tasking is the way to go).
Sometimes it can be difficult to choose those priorities and they may all seem equally important. Of course, your first priority should be your own well-being.
If you don’t take care of yourself both mentally and physically, then you won’t be able to enjoy your success.
Then make sure you focus on your family. If you don’t have their support, relationships may be damaged and everything you’ve worked for will crumble.
The next priority should be your business – and for entrepreneurs, it’s likely to be a higher priority than for most people.
After all, you’re not simply dealing with a 9-5 job. Things are bound to pile up and you may be projecting into the future and not dealing with the present moment.
This can cause confusion and feelings of panic.
When you’re dealing with what you can do right now, you’re practicing mindfulness, which is needed to focus and you’re putting the “what ifs” in the background to address at a later time.
Accept that you’re going to feel overwhelmed sometimes. It’s the nature of the business. But it doesn’t need to cause you to become paralyzed.
Stopping to assess the situation and create a plan of action can put you back on track.
Feeling Frustrated Means You’re About to Have a Breakthrough
Frustration can come on suddenly and last for just a little while – or it may grow until it’s out of control and becomes a long term pattern that can prevent you from reaching your goals and achieving success.
But feelings of frustration can be a catalyst if you let it.
In fact, if you’re not frustrated once in awhile, you may not be pushing yourself and your business to new heights.
Staying in your comfort zone is a good way to avoid frustration, but no one who has reached the pinnacle of success has done it without pushing themselves a bit.
Psychology defines frustration as a “common emotional response to opposition.”
Frustration is similar to feelings of anger and disappointment and can become even more exasperating if your goals and plans seem to be thwarted at every turn.
As you become more frustrated with a situation, your brain works overtime to find a new solution to get you out of the chaos and get you back on track.
Eventually, if you keep trying, you’ll have a breakthrough that erases all the frustration of the past and lets you move forward.
How you view frustration directly affects how you react.
You can change your emotional response to frustration by viewing it as simply a delay in meeting your goals rather than throwing up your hands and giving up.
Know that you will overcome the situation and learn from the experience.
Also, know the triggers that lead to frustration.
For example, many entrepreneurs become frustrated when trying to learn something new, like how to build a website or generate traffic to an offer.
Instead of letting it shut you down permanently, take action!
Find someone new to learn from who may explain it better and implement the course you buy to test out the results.
Taking action will counteract the feeling of frustration and your brain will see it as a success, even if your ultimate goal hasn’t been reached yet.
Taking action will also take your mind off the problem that’s causing the frustration. The action you take doesn’t have to be work-related.
You can bake a cake, exercise on the treadmill for a few minutes or work in your garden.
All of these activities – if you enjoy them – will temporarily change your focus from frustration to accomplishment.
They can also relieve stress that accompanies feelings of frustration.
Another good idea for counteracting frustration is to talk it over with fellow marketers who may have some insight about how to overcome the obstacle.
They may suggest something that switches the light on inside your head and helps you move on.
Frustration can boost your creativity and help you move forward – or it can cause changes to your behavior and thought patterns that compound the problem.
Negative behavior to frustration might include procrastination, thinking negatively or simply doing nothing at all.
The next time you feel frustration creeping into your thought process, think about what it’s trying to tell you.
Frustration can mean a breakthrough is imminent if you understand it and keep hammering away at it.
