Dear Rosie, things are so competitive in this day and age, how do I stand out?
IT’S A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD IN 2019
I must admit I am absolutely obsessed with upskilling myself. I consistently read articles, watch videos and listen to podcasts from the Entrepreneurs that had success as I grew up with their Fortune 500 companies. The thing that I have noticed though is that all of them speak from a life gone by and I hear them talk about their competitive advantages in the era of their business and cannot help but think that most of them have been taken away in our modern era of business. Let me explain what I have noticed in common with what I was hearing:
- They read business books.
o Back then if you were an auditory or visual learner, you were out of luck if it came to reading. Now with Audible the game has changed.
o Also to make the commitment to write a book at this time was enormous. Now in the age of self-publishing we really have to decide what is in our best interests to actually read with all the garbage that is available. For example we are even now reading books about ‘Not Giving a Fuck’.
- They paid to go and learn from the best entrepreneurs.
o Now, you don’t need to pay. Any major podcast gets a huge guest each week for FREE and from all different walks of life that you can apply to your business right now.
o TED Talks are some of the most compelling viewing around and you don’t pay a cent for that content.
- They lead their field in a specific area.
o Try being the best ‘coder’ or ‘engineer’ now? Tough ask isn’t it?
o In a world of Digital, to be a technology business you actually have to have some intellectual property or things you can protect to give yourself some hope of lasting the test of time.
So why am I saying all this? Well the reason is blunt. It is just harder to be in business now more than ever. This will go around a lot of people’s perceptions of now is the best time to be in business but I don’t subscribe to all the Pro’s that fall in the column against the Con’s. Take these examples of being a modern business:
Pro’s
- Work from home
- Affordable, simple technology
- Outsourced labour
- Be connected remotely
- Register for trade immediately
- Reach international marketplaces easier with currency trading and enhanced freight and logistics.
Con’s
- Heightened competition
- More intellectual property theft than ever before
- More copywriting plagiarism than ever before
- More ability to assess competitions performance to meticulous detail
- Borrowing conditions for business are lessening again
- Try running a cash business in 2018, good luck!
I have tried to provide an ever number of Pro’s and Con’s here but if you look at the left column and carefully assess each one against the right it truly does show how tough this climate is and that you seriously need to be prepared for what you are getting yourself in for when starting a company.
Even in my short lifespan, I personally have had technologies/processes replicated by other businesses after years of hard work creating them, business concepts completely stolen and my copywriting regularly plagiarised. It really is something you need to consider and having the right team in place can make a huge difference when setting yourself up.
Ultimately though, if you have the right ingredients you can always overcome all of the above. I just want to issue a challenge to the new Entrepreneurs out there and show you what I believe the difference between an ‘Entrepreneur’ is and a ‘Wantrepreneur’.
Entrepreneur:
- Creates a dynamic new business which is unique to the market place.
- Can clearly decipher how it is different from its competition.
- Wants to challenge the industry norms and create disruption for the industry.
- Leads by example and gets their hands dirty in all aspects of the business.
- Doesn’t want to just conquer one business successfully, knows they can test themselves in other spaces.
Wantreprenuer:
- Copies best practice of a leading company in an Industry.
- Plagiarises copy from multiple sources to quickly build out their content library.
- Always will quote others but never yet be quotable themselves.
- Can never surpass number 1 in their space, because they borrowed the ideologies and has to observe best practice to achieve it. Cannot set best practice.
- Will have to tell you themselves, will not be able to let others do their big noting for them.
So to all of you out there reading I put this challenge to you. Set best practice, don’t just follow it!
Love, Rosie xx
Rosie Luik is a Mum of four, a successful Model, a published Author, a sought-after Public Speaker and an accomplished Business Woman. Her brand Mum Network is a dynamic Talent Agency which represents Mums with a social presence, and she partners them with the brands she works with to increase awareness of their products or services.
To find out more about Rosie head to: http://rosieluik.com/