Do You Have a Frills and Copycat Business?

The email went something like this…

I have a blog for my business. I have readers who like and share what I write, but I feel like a fraud. I want to tell them what life is really like, that the person behind the website isn’t all ‘sorted’ and together like the articles she produces every week. I want to just be myself and I am scared that people will hate what I say and do online. I’ve tried so hard to be the expert, I follow others and I watch what they do and wish I could be more like them. So, yeah, I’m spinning here.

Can you relate?

I’ve said this before, and I’ll keep saying it: you can only maintain a false impression of yourself for so long before the cracks start to show.

The Expert Thing

I hate the word expert, everyone is a fecking expert these days.

Online I’ve heard marketering teachers say ‘call yourself an expert, then people will believe it to be true’ or at the other end there is ‘you don’t call yourself an expert, you wait for your audience to call you it.’

Which is right? I don’t give an arse really.

Expert, World Renowned, The No 1 – it’s not until you do business with the people that use puff-labels will you be able to make a honest judgement. Because let’s face it everyone is only as good as their word.

• What matters is the results and transformations you get for your clients.

• What matters is you use your expertise to get your clients from Point A to Point wherever the hell you promised you would take them when they paid you. 

Maybe ask yourself if the people you want to be like are really experts or sensational hotshots?

The Feeling Like a Fraud Thing

Here’s a question for you, would sharing the parts of your life add value and transformation to your readers lives or just serve you?

• Your potential clients want to know you are real, the simplest and smartest way is to show them how you solve their problems and more. And if you integrate your real life stories with the solving, yes I recommend it.
  

• Your potential clients want to know you are trustworthy, the easiest and most effective way is to deliver and serve exactly what you said you would, on time, in the manner you both agreed. Trust requires honesty.
  

• Your potential clients want to know who they are doing business with, pay attention to them, listen, respond, communicate, be there, let yourself be reachable. People need to know you are real and with faults, and have solutions.
  

• You want to show potential clients that you are real, honest, and will do the best for them: provide at every opportunity your uniqueness, difference, advantage over everyone else out there in your field of expertise. Fact: you cannot do this if you are copying others and trying to be more like them.

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.” ~Lao Tzu

The Comparison I-Wanna-Be-Like-You-Hoo-Hoo Thing

The ‘rules of life’ state you shouldn’t compare yourself to anyone and be a ‘first class version of yourself’. Yeah well the rules forget that there will be times when you do look upon what others and think ‘I wish I was like that’, because you’re human.

It’s not enough to have a ‘be like them’ or ‘me too’ business. Stop looking, comparing and wanting to be like. Everyone else is doing that.

Mediocre business is doing the same thing as everyone else.

You want to observe what and how others are doing, nothing wrong with watching the competition. But then you have to find your own voice. And that voice has to be comfortable for you.

Frills and copycat businesses are easily spotted.

If you’re faking it, the competition (the one you want to be like) will always be one step ahead of you. While you are playing catch up, they are getting the work done.

Step aside from them, and pay attention to your own house.

What are your values in business? Is everything you’re doing matching these values? If not, change your approach bring your values to the front. You cannot copy another values.

Are those values noticeable to clients and potential customers? If not, tell them, plaster them everywhere, let all systems in your business reflect them. You can’t sustain another’s values.

How does you ‘being real’ benefit your clients and potential customers? How do you really want your business to be spoken about when you aren’t in the room? Are all your current business activities reflecting this?

Is your ‘realness’ the biggest benefit and advantage of your business? Stop comparing and do your business, your way.

How?

Always ask yourself in everything you do ‘is this in my best interest, or the best interests of my clients/readers and potential customers?‘

If it’s the former, ask again.