The Anatomy Of Low Competition
Let’s talk about internet business, and the adage that I keep repeating about competition in our little sphere of the world.
There is no real competition for what I talk about.
What does exist is the illusion of competition. Everyone talks about copywriting. Everyone talks about niche websites or email marketing or dropshipping or whatever.
But few people do anything.
And very few of those are competent.
For whatever reason this week, I’ve been inundated with guys with stupid questions.
Now, some will say, there’s no such thing as a stupid question.
And they’re wrong. They’ve probably also never had an inbox full of stupid questions, a car crash Twitter DM area and a bunch of notifications that take ages to sift through…
Only to find it’s 90% guys who can’t actually be bothered to read, want to start a fight with you or otherwise want to waste your time.
Now, I’m not one for calling people out, but there’s a guy who I know spammed the same message to multiple people this week. I was one of them.
And he’s given me a few examples of what your average, “I’m going to talk about it but never do it,” guy is all about.
So let’s diagnose whether you’re one of them.
First Off… General Rudeness and Poor Communication
Maybe I’m just a stuck up Brit, (actually, that’s totally me, I won’t deny it,) but for the life of me I cannot understand how anyone thinks it’s appropriate to message someone out of the blue, then sort-of ask, sort-of demand they give you something.
And when you add the fact that these messages often include no basic courtesy, (i.e. no please, no thank you,) it gets worse.
And then you get about five guys this week who will write to me and write in huge, long sentences that have no punctuation, poor spelling and no attention paid to coherence at all and it makes for a stressful read.
Like I say, I was brought up as a polite young gentleman. The idea that I’ll just introduce myself, “Hi, I’m Jamie… you don’t know me but give me stuff…” is alien to me. Completely alien.
The idea that I’m going to come across as illiterate and then seek help is alien to me. Spell check, be polite, and make it easy to read. Jesus Christ.
BONUS POINT: Don’t even think about writing “plz” or “thnx.” What is wrong with you? You want to talk business, then this is a business correspondence. Treat it like one.
NETWORKING THEORY: Some of you might think, “but Jamie… why should I care if you’re a stuck up Brit who demands manners?”
And the answer is… you don’t have to care if you don’t interact with me. But if you want to interact with someone, you do it on their terms.
If you literally can’t go two sentences without asking me for something and you can’t even say please, I will never reply to you. Go bug someone else if you don’t care about manners, because I do.
I’m Just Gonna Skip The Hard Work…
Most people don’t succeed because they just aren’t cut out for hard work, failure or anything remotely approaching what leads to success.
And they think instead of that, they can just piggyback on someone else, accept no risk and get all the answers given to them. (Which makes it all the more absurd that they can’t even be polite about asking for it.)
Man, I’ve been working reeeeally hard. I’ve watched YouTube videos and everything. I even tried something once but it didn’t work.
Hint: If you are going to tell people you’ve tried hard, make sure you’ve actually tried hard.
Remember, some people have worked seven days a week for years, failed countless times, and tried one thing after another before they succeed.
Saying, “I watched some videos man now help me” is just the most retarded thing to say to someone like that.
Here’s my secret method for business success:
Be prepared to fail repeatedly, put aside years of your life to learn skills, put your entire capital on the line and know that you don’t have enough and will need to use your brains to make up for your lack of knowledge and experience.
But most guys run at the first sign of any effort… to the point where I linked some guys to my articles this week using tracking links. Guess how many couldn’t even be bothered to read the articles I gave them on the specific thing they asked for?
This is your competition. People who can’t even read a free blog post about what they want to achieve.
Whatever you do, you don’t get to skip the hard work. And if you’re struggling with that concept, you aren’t even close to understanding what the hard work is yet.
Why Should I Listen To You? Please Tell Me
A big hallmark of people who don’t go anywhere is the people that are obsessive about “proof.”
Now, I’m not saying, “don’t bother researching a guy,” before you approach him for business.
But a lot of guys will say, “Hey man if you really were an expert you’d tell me everything you know and prove to me that you’re not a fake…”
… and they think this is some slick reverse psychology thing. It’s not. It’s just going to piss someone off.
Case in point:
All the same guy, and within the space of a few minutes, he’s gone from tagging a bunch of people he doesn’t know asking for help, saying, “Why would I pay for their advice?” and then asking for specific advice and private access to James Holt’s time and attention.
This is rude and it’s a great example of how to wind someone up.
“Why would I pay you, give me your time and knowledge for free?”
Remember guys, the whole point of this is to show you that what you think is competitive isn’t. It’s just a lot of noise by people who have no manners and no social skills whatsoever… as well as not knowing anything about business stuff and being incapable of doing any research.
Let’s use one more example to bring the point home.
Everyone’s An Immediate Expert
Here’s why online business seems so competitive when it really isn’t.
Everyone thinks they’re a god-damned expert.
People literally read about niche sites, Google “do niche sites still work?” and then email me telling me stupid stuff about how niche sites don’t work anymore.
They’ve never built one. They’ve never even tried.
And they certainly haven’t read through the niche site articles that litter this blog where I discuss the dumb stuff they’re filling my inbox with.
But they’re an expert.
And a million dudes a day seem to be “starting a dropshipping biz” or “building their empire” or soliciting for help growing a social media following or whatever dumb thing they’re doing.
This same guy once again provides us an example:
He’s gone from not knowing what a marketing agency is on August 5th, to starting one on August 7th…
Without knowing whether he should have an email list and with a grand total of 58 followers.
Now, the purpose of this isn’t to rag on the guy.
But you only have to spend 5 minutes on Twitter to know that everyone is mastering FB ads, running multiple businesses, hustling 24/7 and all that other dumb stuff people say…
And most of them are just like this. They have no idea what they’re talking about and they aren’t doing anything.
You should be the opposite.
Let’s Wrap This Up…
I’ve given a list of things that I hope none of you are doing.
If you are, then you need to sort it out.
If by some miracle you’re the guy who I’ve screenshotted in this article and you’ve actually taken my advice and read my blog, then honestly, I’m not going to remotely apologise. You have no business trying to start a business until you’re literate and have basic social skills.
Then you get the business skills.
Then you start a business.
But for most of you readers, this is basically a rant to show that you’re far ahead of the bell curve and you don’t have to worry about the 90% of business ideas that fail because they’re more like this than any serious endeavour.
And finally an announcement… After these years of trying to respond to everyone with reason, I’m finally doing what every other blogger eventually does: no more idiotic questions. I won’t answer them.
Good questions are still as welcome as ever though. It’s just been an irritating week.