Enjoy Your Business Journey To Success
By Cheval John
You have ventured out on a new endeavor.
Whether it is launching a business or starting a podcast, etc., you want your endeavors to be a huge success.
You look at your competition and see that they are doing great.
You might even see that your competition is amassing a quick following within weeks and are profitable in the process.
Your first thought is “Why They Are More Successful Than Me?”
From that thought, you start comparing your endeavors to theirs.
You will be thinking along the way that you are not good enough to succeed.
When you fall for the comparison trap, you have already failed.
You have diluted your vision of what you want your business or podcast to be and are trying to copy your competition.
When that happens, you are only following the competition and not creating your unique voice for your business.
In addition, you are failing to provide value that would benefit the people who need it.
What you should do is not focus too much on the competition because you will end up creating their vision of your business and not yours.
Also, you should check out this awesome blog post, “How To Understand Your Competitors Without Falling Into The Jealousy Trap,” by Maria Ross, founder of Red Slice.
She explain the post in depth on my podcast, “What’s The Word?” last night about how she came up with the idea of the post and also falling for the comparison trap.
It is really valid because many of us always compare ourselves to other people who are seemingly more successful than us.
I have struggled with the comparison trap a lot of times.
Even though I have achieved a whole lot of goals like having my own podcast, running my own online media company, writing two books, spending an extended period of time in Mexico and Chile, or obtaining two college degrees, I still find myself at times comparing myself to others.
We have to remember that they will always be someone better than you in a skill like business, etc.
Also, you have to understand that they had to work extremely hard to earn their way to success.
That is really not a bad thing.
It is really awesome because you can always learn from them and see what they did to achieve their success.
I could right now compare myself to Maria because she is experiencing a whole lot of success as an entrepreneur while I am aiming to be successful as an entrepreneur.
I choose not to because I understand the journey that she has experienced to be where she is at today with her business.
So if you see a someone (example celebrities, etc.) who are seemingly achieving success very quickly in their new business or podcast ventures, just remember that they had to put in years of hard work and dedication to be where they are at and establishing their audience.
That alone should make you appreciate their journey and enjoy your own business or podcasting journey to success.
Like the old saying goes, “Rome Was Not Built In A Day.”
Your Competition Is Really Your Best Friend
By Cheval John
Photo Courtesy of Phanlop88
Everyone has heard the mantra that in order to succeed, you must beat your competition.
That mentality has been around for a long time.
If someone has a successful business and are doing well, you will want to know how they did it so that you can do it better.
In this day and age, your competition will be someone different you did not expect.
Facebook became the dominant player in social media for years.
They were keeping their eye out on new technologies that would have tried to compete with them.
Then Twitter came along and gave them a run for their money.
A few years later, Pinterest and Instagram came along and have given many people options to find their customers and communicate with each other.
You should not worry too much about your competition because they will always change.
I am not saying to ignore your competition completely.
What you should do is try to learn from them and even lift them up.
Share their content on your social media channels because they are providing tremendous value for your audience.
When they see that you are willing to share their content and lift them up, they will most likely go out of their way to help you in a lot of ways.
Patty Farmer, who was one of the presenters at the inaugural Social Media Day Houston event, shared a great quote about competition.
“If you feel that you need to crush your competition, then you have a scarcity mindset. There is a customer for everyone who is in business.” #paraphrased.
This quote by Mrs. Farmer is right on the money.
When you think you need to dominate the market, you will go so far to the point that you will cross the line.
They are many examples of companies who try to use illegal means to crush their competition.
British Airways is among those companies.
They were trying to crush Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic in the late 80s because they did not like the fact that he had entered the airline industry.
They felt that Mr. Branson’s fun personality and reputation of running Virgin Records was not great for them or the airline industry.
So they used an illegal method called the “Dirty Tricks” campaign in which they would have representatives pretend to be workers of Virgin to convince passengers that their flights were canceled, or that the airline was insolvent.
The method put Branson’s airline in jeopardy as they were struggling to gain new passengers.
In an attempt to save the airline, Branson did the unthinkable.
He sold his Virgin Record label in order to save his airline, took British Airways to court and won.
As a result, British Airways had to pay for their mistakes and issue a public apology.
When you go to any means to crush your competition, you will end up losing money because of fines that you payed.
In addition, you will end up hurting your reputation which will take years to rebuild.
If you just focus on building your business and not worry too much about your competition, the right customers will come along.
Plus, your competition will end up becoming your ally in the long run because you are willing to lift them up and not tear them down.
Your competition will even push you to be better and make you a better person.
Isn’t that what competition is all about?
What are your thoughts on competition?
College Is Not Worth Your Time
By Cheval John
Everyone grew up hearing that college was the best investment of our lives.
Parents would gear their offspring towards studying hard in school, get good grades and make the honor roll in order to impress the decision makers at major universities.
Major universities would blast their message on television about the benefits of their university programs if you are watching their college football teams or basketball teams playing.
We all believe that if we gain a college degree, we were on the road to job security and not have to worry about the so-call instability of the part-time work.
And who would blame them for believing the hype of going to universities.
Statistics would show that a person who have an bachelor degree or higher will be more likely to remain employable according to the National Center For Educational Statistics (NCES).
Those same statistics shows that a person who only have a high school diploma are less likely to remain employable at a stable workplace.
Everyone believe this message and the number of college attendees are increasing.
The same statistics by the now enrolled in college.
The NCES shows that they are 20.4 million people attending both 2-year and 4-year colleges/universities.
That should be encouraging for everyone because they are taking their education to the next level.
They are enhancing their level of knowledge because of the quality that the professors bring to the classroom.
The professors are recognized for their academic knowledge of their fields and are getting invited to teach or share their knowledge with other universities/conferences around the country and especially around the world.
These qualities alone should make the students more knowledgable and prepared for the real world.
They are paying (I mean their parents) are paying an average of $9,000 dollars a semester which includes books, student fees, etc. if they are at a public universities.
That is just in-state tuition.
It is much higher if you are out-of-state and worse if you are attending a private university or the elite universities like Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
Community colleges (2-yr colleges) are much cheaper.
So that is a bargain to cut the expenses in half if a person is transferring to a university after completing the first two years.
So when the person/s graduates from university, they should have proven that they are ready for the real world and the workforce.
They are aiming to gain great work that will allow them to make great salary in order to pay off the loans that they acquired while gaining their degrees.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
It is true that the economy has rebounded since the “Great Recession of 2008-09.”
Many college graduates are struggling to find work with the fancy degrees that they earned.
They are wondering how they are going to pay off their student loan debts, which is an average of $28,400 according to the U.S. News and World Report in 2014.
My guess is that number has risen tremendously.
And the masses who have graduated from high school this year, are looking forward to entering the next four years of university life.
Don’t get me wrong, college is a unique experience.
I know.
I gained an associate degree in liberal arts and a bachelor’s degree in spanish.
Plus I had years of experience in public relations, journalism, television, and radio at my alma mater while I was a graduate student for most of those.
However, you should look at the alternatives to college.
We are in the age of the internet where anyone can learn about business, science, history, etc. thanks to YouTube, podcasts, and webinars.
A person can form their own business at a less expensive price because they don’t have to worry about setting up a brick and mortar store.
They don’t have to worry about having a hefty marketing budget because they can market themselves by building an online presence through social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
The main thing is if you interact with your potential customers through these social media channels on a daily basis, you will gain new fans.
So if you still feel that you need to go to college to gain knowledge in the arts, business, languages, history, etc., go for it.
Only if you are studying for a degree that you need to be certified in order to practice like a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.
As for the rest, you can learn about history, business, languages, etc. outside of college and save yourself the agony of dealing with debt after gaining a piece of paper that says your are educated.
Don’t Skip Out On Sleep
By Cheval John
If you are a college student, you might get in the habit of studying a lot with little sleep.
You might think that it is the best thing to do because of the amount of work you have to do in order to pass a test.
The same could be applied to someone who is running a business or an employee of a large corporation.
They put in the hours without little sleep while drinking a lot of coffee/caffeine in order to stay awake to get their work done.
They might feel that it is a badge of honor to say that “they got little sleep after putting in a whole lot of hours at their work.”
And the entrepreneur might feel that they can skip sleep because they are wearing many hats in making their business profitable
The truth is that nothing can substitute sleep
According to this article on Health.com, sleep helps to improve your mind and be more creative.
My guess is that the most successful people in the world recognize the importance of sleep and don’t allow the superhero syndrome to take over their life.
I can also guess that Anh Nguyen understands the importance of sleep as well.
So if you feel pressure about working a lot without getting a lot of sleep, stop and think about the benefits of sleep.
Because no paycheck or promotion can replace your health in the long run if you don’t get enough sleep.
A Model Of Inconsistency
By Cheval John
You main goal when you are starting a business or an organization is to grow a loyal following.
When you put out great content on a consistent basis, then you are well on your way to being very successful and profitable.
However, when you are not consistent at putting out content that is really valuable for your audience, you end up losing a great following and miss out on an opportunity to gain new viewers.
And though you are already have a passionate following in a niche though you have an inconsistent model, it will be very hard to establish a footprint in a new market.
An example of this is soccer (football in the rest of the world).
Soccer is really popular all around the world and have a passionate fan base.
Look at all of the matches that takes place especially at the club levels in major leagues around the world like the 20 team English Premier League.
They are lively and excited.
You have the chance to see the best players in the world compete against each other.
You might think that each of the leagues have a set schedule for their season
Like the English Premier League goes from August to May with only 38 matches for each team.
You are expected to see the matches happen every week.
You find out that they is not a match happen at a particular week because each of the national teams are either participating in an friendly, trying to qualify for their respective federation’s competition or the World Cup.
Add on to that, there are other club competitions that are transpiring at the same time (example UEFA Champions League).
You are confused and wondering when there are going to return back to their respective domestic competition.
For the die hard fan, you are used to the changes of world competitions for soccer.
For the casual fan, that is a turnover to some degree.
That is to me the main reason why soccer will never have a strong footprint in the United States because of the constant changes in competition and really so many tournaments in soccer.
Though the Major League Soccer (MLS) is growing steadily and is profitable, they will always have a hard time in getting a footprint in the United States like baseball, basketball and American football (exception is the minority groups who are die-hard soccer fans).
The other major sports here in the U.S. has a set schedule of when their seasons are happening.
While the MLS might have to take some time off from their season due to other competitions like the Gold Cup which is happening at this very moment.
And the only time you will see a strong turnout for soccer in the United States is when the World Cup is happening.
That is every four years.
And the Women’s World Cup which just happened.
So for the casual fan, they have to really pay attention to the schedule of when the different competitions are happening.
In conclusion, if a business or organization follow soccer’s model, they will always have a difficult time growing their organization and being profitable.
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