#95 – How Competition Hungry Are You

SUMMARY:  Stephen explains how competition is very important to the market, and how you should compete fairly.

 

[00:00:15] Stephen:  Hey guys, Stephen Esketzis here from Marketing on the Move.  I wanted to have a quick chat with you guys.  It’s been a little while since we’ve done a podcast, and I’ve got a bit of a topic, which is a bit of a touchy-feely topic.  I think a lot of people have different ideas and perspectives and different views and things like that of what I want to talk about today.  But I wanted to give you guys a bit of an insight into where we’re at and kind of how I see business.

[0:00:40] So what I want to talk to you guys today about is competition.  Competition is one of the most vital things for not just for your business, but like, as an economy to grow.  We need competition, people need to compete, that way products get better, prices drop, more business come to the market, consumers find that are quality priced, better quality products and services.  It’s kind of everywhere.  So, competition is something you’re going to face as a business owner very quickly.  And I wanted to kind of bring it up as a topic for you guys today.  So the reason I am sharing this with you, number one, is it came up — so one of the websites that I’m working on at the moment, and it’s part of the media property collective, one of the companies I run.  We’ve got a big website in the industry that the website is in.  It’s not in the marketing space.  It’s outside the marketing space, and this website has grown very quickly and it’s kind of made some waves in the industry that it’s in and it started getting picked up by other marketers who run websites in this industry as well.

[0:01:44] And it got picked up specifically in one Facebook group that I was a part of, that still I’m a part of, and it was just really interesting that number one, the people that brought it up had no idea that I ran the website, still don’t, but what I wanted to talk about was they brought it up in conversation, they were like, “Look at this website, they’re doing this, this and this to grow.”  And some of the strategies that we’re doing, I guess, not aggressive, but we use a whole bunch of different strategies to grow and they’re very different to, I guess, what would be considered normal in this industry, but it works like wildfire for us and we’re seeing humongous growth, which is phenomenal.

[0:02:30] So what I wanted to bring up was, I love these guys in this industry.  A lot of these guys start giving feedback about this site and what we’re doing, have their own sites in the same industry, and they just started hating — just silly.  It’s kind of just silly comments of hate, which I thought that it was just kind of unnecessary.  It just showed the type of mentality with some of the people you have to deal with these days.  So one of the comments, for example, was — and I don’t want to make this whole podcast about one threat that I found and just kind of rant, but just over my eyes are the type of people you’re competing with, and the way they see competition.  And this is the way I see it.  I want to kind of get your opinion on this as well.

[0:03:13] I mean, they’re kind of talking about hating and this is one strategy that we’re doing that is working really well for us, and we’ve kind of scaled it up and it’s killing it, which is awesome.  It’s a strategy that was kind of built on — it’s something that everybody is doing.  We just found an angle that works really well for us and it’s killing it.  And all these other people using the same strategy with their own angle of it, obviously they’re not getting the same results.  And instantly, their first thought is to start hating and start thinking, “Oh, this person shouldn’t be doing this because they’re going to ruin this strategy to grow for the rest of us,” and it just really, really surprised me by the type of mentality people have.  And then others would start getting involved and start saying, “Yeah, you’re right.  They shouldn’t be doing this.  We can’t have this growth hack or growth strategy or whatever you want to call it.  Get out there to the public because then it will be saturated.”

[0:04:06] And it’s really funny, Gary Varynerchuck shared this same thought a while back now, and it’s the thought of marketers ruin everything.  And it is so true.  As soon as something starts working for a marketer, it doesn’t matter if you’re the first person to find it.  Let’s say for example, Facebook bots, that’s something that I’m working on right now at the moment.  Facebook bots are killing it for us, absolutely killing it.  This isn’t the same strategy I’m talking about that was in this thread, but they’re killing it for us.  And it’s just saying, “No one else better use Facebook bots.  You don’t want to use them too much because once Facebook catches on –” you know, they’re getting amazing overnight and things like that.  They’re going to start cutting down the rates or they’re going to start cutting down the open rates or whatever it might be.

[0:04:47] Just as an example, so these guys were saying the same thing about what we were doing that they didn’t want it to get out to the public, this should remain in the private forum, blah, blah, blah.  And I was just thinking to myself, geez, how naïve are other people who run businesses to think that a strategy is going to remain around forever and that if someone just doesn’t make the most of it, that it will just stick around and can be used forever and that won’t be a problem.  It just really surprises me because the way I look at business is, this is a dog eat dog world at the end of the day.  Amazon doesn’t care what I do, Walmart doesn’t care what I do.  I don’t care what Amazon does or Walmart does.  I don’t care what the website next-door does.  I don’t care what my biggest competitor does.  Everyone is in business for themselves.  Nobody there is competing and holding back to be a nice guy in business, and that’s just the way it is.

[0:05:39] And I think the sooner people realize that, the sooner people are going to start taking action and actually growing.  So whatever the business is, it doesn’t matter if you’re in digital marketing, it doesn’t matter if you’re in health, it doesn’t matter if you’re in painting, if you’re in construction, whatever it is; at the end of the day, everyone wants that competitive, that unique edge, that unique mechanism that they can bring to the market and market hard and grow with.  It doesn’t matter.  No one is waiting around.  The market waits for nobody.  And it’s something that’s ridiculously important that the market kind of doesn’t have friends.  And people just need to realize that the same way that Uber destroyed the taxi industry, the same way Airbnb is absolutely dominating the hotel industry.

[0:06:22] All of these are different ways and examples that the market waits for nobody.  And it’s something which I think people need to realize, especially in the online world, more than anyone, more than anywhere else, that the market dictates what works and what doesn’t regardless of what’s going on.  So think about that today, guys.  If you’ve got a business that you’re running or a website that you’re running or a funnel that you’re running or whatever it might be, are you really being competitive or are you holding yourself back?  Are you waiting for them to be kind to you?  Are you waiting for something to happen there to make it work?  Or are you just taking advantage in going for that?  Because I know, my team and myself, we’re going full out.  I know a lot of other people that are going full out.  I’m not saying to go negative and start tarnishing other people’s brands or recognition or websites or whatever that might be, I’m just saying, push as far as you can with your marketing and yourselves.  It doesn’t mean be salesy, it doesn’t mean be aggressive and mean, it doesn’t mean being tarnishing and do something negative, all I’m saying is if you’ve got the resources available to you to help grow your business, don’t feel that you need to hold back to wait for the industry to catch up to you.  You’re the one that needs to lead the way if you want to grow your business, and at the end of the day, that’s how you’re going to build a multi-million, multi-billion-dollar business.  It’s something which I think you need to just take advantage of and be confident yourself and back yourself.

[0:07:46] Because I know that we are, and it’s funny because on the flipside, another reason why we came up in this conversation in this community was, obviously, we’re standing out in the crowd.  So it’s obviously a very popular industry, and if we’re standing up, that’s why these guys are talking about us because we’re doing something right, something that no one else is doing.  And that’s the way I see it.  That’s kind of the angle where I say, you know what?  If people coming up and bragging us, they’re talking shit, talking like something is not working and people are coming to do something to us and try to negatively affect us, the first thing that it shows you is, number one, what you’re doing is working, so keep doing it.  Number two, these guys can’t get creative anymore so they just go and bring you down to their level.

[0:08:30] So that same thing happens with everyone; whether you’re a guru and you start getting haters, whether you’re whatever.  At the end of the day, the only way the haters are going to beat you is by you going down to their level, and then they beat you with their stupidity.  And that happens over and over again, not just in one industry, but every industry, not just with one product or service, but every product and service.  So a bit of a takeaway for today is, don’t let the haters overcome you with fears and doubts.  If what you’re doing is working and you’re disrupting an industry, keep doing it.  Back yourself.  Compete.  Ruthlessly compete.

[0:09:05] It’s funny, I had this issue when I played a tennis game the other week. It was a really bad moment for me in terms of my mental strength because I started playing — I agreed to play a tennis match against one of my friends.  We had a great game.  I think it was one set love to him and we’re just playing best of three sets.  I ended up coming back from 5-3 to beat him 7-6 in the tie break.  And that was the second set to me.  In the third set, I just got so tired and I was like, you know what, I’m just going to chill out.  And I got too confident and too cocky and just started hitting all my shots.  Before I knew it, it was like 6-2 or 6-3 in the third set and I was done.  As soon as you take something for granted, you just get lazy and you don’t compete at your best.  You have to go hard from the beginning.  I didn’t go hard in that first set, allowed him to catch up.  Because between you and me, the person I was playing, I’ve beaten multiple times, so I was like, you know what, I kind of just want to have a good hit, kind of go easy on him at the beginning and I’ll just push in the second.  At the end of the day, I didn’t push hard enough, pushed too late.  I should have pushed hard from the beginning.

[0:10:14] It doesn’t matter if you’re playing with friends; it doesn’t matter if you’re in business, whatever, go hard from the start until the end.  There’s no room for error, especially in competitive sports.  If you go easy from the start or you start mocking around, they’re going to take advantage of your weaknesses and they’re going to overcome you straight away.  Everyone is in it to win it.

[0:10:31] So that’s my takeaway for today, guys.  Hopefully it gives you a bit of clarity in what you’re up to in the competitive nature of business.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and hear what you think about this.  If you’re in that same kind of a predicament, if you’ve been in that situation before, I would love to hear your thoughts.  So best way to — also, by the way, if you are listening on the podcast or on the phone or whatever, I’d love a 5-star review on iTunes or whatever it might be.  That would be awesome.  I haven’t actually looked at the reviews recently, but I will start looking at them.  And I’d love to see if actually, people are listening.  I should go into the stats and have a look.  But I’ve been recording these episodes now for a while — for a few years now and I’ve never actually really pushed the podcast.  The only people that started listening hasn’t — started — you know, picking up.  And these have been people that have been listening from the very start.  So I’ll have to jump in the statistics and have a look if you’ve been listening, but I’m pretty sure you’re jumping on, guys.  If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to let me know and we’ll chat soon.  Take care.