But What If They Find Out Your Tricks?
A while back I asked readers of the email list (you’re on that already, right?) what they’d like to see if I created some more in depth material.
Those things are coming, but on the backburner while I tend to more pressing issues and fix my hands.
Anyway, one of the weird things someone said to me was, “Aren’t you worried about people taking your method and copying it?”
We’ll come back to why I found that weird.
But first, let’s fast forward to today.
I was browsing looking for something novel to write about when I went on an entrepreneur forum. I saw a guy explain in detail some hidden business scheme I cooked up a few months back. He even nailed the social media site I use to select prospects and talked about how you could turn this into the business-thing I’ve created.
Weird to the point I’m almost sure the poster has staked my operation out.
Anyway, you might think, oh shit, he’s been found out.
For a minute, I thought that. But then I got my head together. Here’s why.
It’s Not About The TRICKS
Too many people get into online business and think it’s about the sneaky tricks. I guess a lot of that is the marketing and some of it is the fact that people have been conditioned to think that online business is some short-cut to material wealth when compared with working a career for fifty years.
And there are obviously the black hat dudes and the affiliate marketers who ramp up an idea and spam the hell out of it until it doesn’t work anymore.
But actual long-term sustainable online business isn’t like that. It’s not about the tricks and it’s not about keeping everything hush-hush and stowing away secrets. It’s not about staying one step ahead of the curve in that way.
So back to why I’m not concerned with people “stealing my methods.”
The methods I talk about; copywriting, direct response marketing, ecommerce, funnels, etc. have been around for over a hundred years.
They work in every industry.
When I talk about creating a copywriting course, I’m not talking about creating a step-by-step paint-by-numbers sales letter template that’ll be spammed to hell and back within three weeks.
I’m talking about giving you the skill to craft your own copy and create your own templates, as well as give everything a unique flair that only you can produce.
That’s very difficult to “copy.”
The higher level skills aren’t just a case of, “Do this, do that, print money, get a Lambo.”
You can say the same of PPC advertising.
It’s not a case of “create an ad that says this and then target them and you’ll make millions.”
But there’s more…
Most People Aren’t Competition
So today I see the guy who says, “You can make a business doing X and advertising at Y. Do Z and you’ll get success.”
And I’m not worried about this even though it’s exactly what I do.
That’s not because it’s just a side-gig for me, but because I’m not all that concerned that anyone will actually do it.
Most people who read stuff online don’t ever do any of it.
The ones that do split into a couple of groups:
- Ones that put serious effort in
- Ones that don’t
The latter massively outweigh the former. Take writing books for instance: most people who try writing never finish a book. They aren’t serious competition in any sense.
So of the people who try seriously:
- A lot of people aren’t going to “get it”
- Many people are going to give up when they don’t succeed immediately
- Even among those that do, some just aren’t going to be as good as you
So once you’ve taken all of those out, you have a very small minority of people who are ever going to be your competitors in any real sense.
And if you’ve build some barriers, this is effectively zero.
Final Thoughts
A lot of people worry about competition and this causes them to fall in the group that never tries anything or perhaps into the group that tries something without serious effort.
So they make it easier for everyone else who actually gets on with it.
So to summarise; get started, don’t worry about competition until it’s actually a problem, and then it’ll be easily defeated.