We made a very big shift across our businesses this year that has paid off BIG – I wanted to share it with you today because it seems many of you starting and growing online businesses have the same objectives.
That shift was a commitment to “leading” in our respective markets versus “following”
What do I mean by that?
For many people starting out building their online business their mindset is stuck on…
- Finding a system that works
- Asking questions such as “Does this work” or “Will this make me money?”
- Modeling other successful people in their field
- Be “good enough” to take their place in their niche market under the top-tier players
At the same time, we end up building a slow-moving, low-response, low-profit business always chasing the next system, method, guru or tool – yet noticeably always operating a few steps behind the market leaders who are definitely gaining the vast majority of desperate customers and raking in the majority of the profits in their market segment.
So what gives?
I’ve focused on this a LOT this year in our business by getting out of the “follower” mindset where we ask “does it work” much less and actually go out and try things for ourselves.
This has made all the difference in the world, operating our business this way means we have gotten far more accomplished this year so far and have attracted new, very loyal followers and customers.
My conclusion from all of this is that learning from others and “following” has its place – you can certainly learn and speed up your own progress by learning the systems, methods, tools and getting advice from others who have accomplished what you are looking to do, but then you want to go beyond that learning with mindset to start answering the question “does it work” rather than always be asking.
It’s a pretty big mind shift that has very real impact on how you work your business day-in, and day-out. When you make this shift, you are the “pioneer” seeking to lead versus always being a couple steps behind in the follower role.
For example…
- Instead of constantly seeking out past advice or answers, we now spend the majority of our time coming up with new ideas and testing them rapidly to find out which of our 5 new ideas seems to catch on the fastest – we keep the risk low, activity high and proactively find out what else works for us in our markets
- We make it a point to watch the trends and what is coming “next” in our markets – this keeps our ideas fresh on on-point
- We now associate more with that top-tier through mastermind groups, seminars, etc…and see ourselves as one of the top tier rather than one of their followers
- We make sure ACTION is at the center of what we do each day…if we are uncertain, then we take action to test our ideas instead of letting uncertainty paralyze or delay us
- Our guiding principle is that there is still much to be uncovered in our market and we will play a principle role in uncovering this for our marketplace putting us immediately into the top-tier, leaders category
What is your take on this?
Are you operating in a mode of “following” – have you ever thought about what it would take to become a top-tier “leader” in your market?
