Stop doing the same thing everybody else is doing

Don’t be a copycat – Stop doing the same thing everybody else is doing! If you want to succeed with your future business, you have to differentiate yourself.

What is this UPGRADE series?

My UPGRADE series is here to help you start your project, your future business… It’s easy to recognize which articles are part of this UPGRADE Series as most of them have Smurfs in them! Apart from the Smurfs, my articles’ content is different from what you most commonly find on the internet. There is no “do this and you’ll be rich in 6 months” and no laptop pictures from a dreamy beach because I don’t take my laptop to the beach. You know, sand + water + electronic = disaster in the making.

So what is in this UPGRADE series? Unconventional advise? Yes and no. Unconventional in a way because I do not share the same recommendations as you can most commonly find nowadays. However it doesn’t feel unconventional to me because my recommendations come from my professional experience and include a lot of plain common sense! Plus, I’m not trying to sell you anything. There is no e-book or course on its way.

I’ve had a corporate career & I’ve been an independent consultant for almost 5 years now. I wasn’t forced into this, I chose it. It was the right time and I created the perfect circumstances to do it. I had no debt and I had financial safety net. I had a diversified experience and a first well-paying client at hand. Plus I believe I have the right mindset and/or personality to handle working from home and being alone. Yes being an introvert helps!

Why am I saying this?

Why am I telling you this? Because there is too much bullsh*t going around. Too many marketing gurus who want to make money telling you to quit your job and start your own business and then recommend you to freelance on Fiverr. Seriously?! There are too many courses produced by bloggers with no experience. Too many PLR products repackaged with pretty pictures. Do these people make money? Yes, probably. For a while at least. Is this a sustainable business? Most likely not.

So what shall you do if you still want to live your life differently? If you still want to escape your 9 to 5? Who should you listen to?

First you should think twice about it!

I’ve linked to this previously but it’s worth a read so I’ll link it again: Upwork survey results. You can see for yourself that not everybody wants to be independent despite what the internet tells you. And most importantly, not all independent workers are happy!

Should you listen to me? Maybe a little! But I don’t have a secret recipe for success. Success means a different thing to different people anyway.

The most important thing you can do is listen to yourself and think for yourself.

By all means, do read guides and ‘how to’, you will eventually find some good ones, but read books as well. Do listen to podcast on this or that, but do listen to the ones that completely contradicts them as well. Get confused, get completely lost on what you’re suppose to do and forge your own opinion. Create your own path. Do what feels right for you.

Now that we’ve covered this, let’s get to the core message of this piece.

As the title suggest, I’m urging you to:

Stop doing the same thing everybody else is doing!

So yeah, we’re getting to today’s point: Stop doing the same thing everybody else is doing.

Below I’ll be giving more details in 3 specific areas:

Social media
Your online presence
Your business

Technically, the 3 items listed below should be in reverse order. You should differentiate yourself from your competition first and foremost with your business: your product and/or services. Secondly, you should differentiate your business with the way you present and sell your product / services to the world which is, hopefully, through your own website. And lastly, how your market it to the World, probably using, amongst other things, social media platforms.

I’ll still keep it in the order first indicated above and keep the most important for the end.

Social media

I’ll start hitting you with a big one. Social media. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter… They are for most people just addictive and for entertainment. To your business social media platforms are just tools. And no, these tools are most likely not as vital to your business, as you want to believe.

I hear you scream! I know I know, you have to…

… because people love seeing what you had for breakfast and lunch. You have to show them your latest vacation. Your followers love seeing your outfits…. But think about it. You are not promoting your business. What you are actually doing is promote others’ businesses like the brand that made the dress you are wearing.

Do you really think your latte picture helps your business growth? Do you really believe that the person who liked your picture of Bali is going to become a client? Do you really believe your followers care about your breakfast?! Be serious for a minute. If you’re selling protein mix or a weight loss program, yes ok. If your business is about house plants care or if you’re selling Excel classes for beginners, I seriously doubt.

You are screaming again. Saying that it’s called personal branding and that I just don’t understand. In that case tell me something: What is your conversion rate on your breakfast or latte picture? Likes and comments are just vanity metrics if they don’t translate into actual client paying for your product or services.

Do yourself a favor and instead of posting another selfie with a pretty hat, do these things:

Stop obsessing about your social media presence and instead work on your goals. The truth is that you are probably spending way too much time on social media trying to ‘promote’ yourself than actually working on the things you should be working on.

Be on the social media platform where your target audience is. Not the one that pleases your ego most.

And please, please, please, stop posting the same pictures as every one else. I’m pretty sure I’ve linked this video before but you can also check this article on Bored Panda. You thought it was a cool picture. It is actually just boring and you’ll never differentiate yourself by posting the same thing everyone else is posting.

Focus on your website SEO… yeah, that is so much more important. Because Facebook, Instagram & Co conversion rate is super low.

Your website

So you already agree that you must nurture your own online space. Your little corner of the digital world. If you’re not convinced by how crucial this is, then you should stop reading. No, actually, keep reading! You must have realized that things change fast in the world of social media. A platform that is popular one day can become out of style the next day or even die. Your website is your home. It’s the one place that can remain constant as long as you pay your domain & hosting fees.

Since your website is your home, make it special, make it you. Your real home doesn’t look like an Ikea showroom, does it? Why would you want your website to look like every other pretty blondes’ website? (I got nothing against pretty blondes!)

Treat your website well. Design it well, make it cosy, make people want to stay there a bit longer. Be interesting, show your best side… here are some tips.

Don’t follow trends. At least not too much. Or your content will not be evergreen and you’ll spend way too much time updating it again and again. For example, if you are a woman and your target client is a woman, it doesn’t mean your website needs to be all pink & calligraphy fonts. This is just a trend. It’s a pretty trend but it will pass and you’ll have to redesign.

And now the most important one:

Your business

I started this by asking you to stop doing the same thing than everybody else is doing, in the way you present your business. I just wanted to get it out. But the most important thing here, is about your actual business, not just the way you present it to the World.

When thinking of starting a business, you have to know that there are 2 different paths:

Either you create a product or service that is completely new, something that no one has ever done before.
Either you create a product or service that already exist in which case you have 2 options:
- Create a product or service that is better than what already exist
- Create a product or service that is cheaper than what already exist

That is it. A very basic summary but still very accurate.

Creating a product or a service that is completely new is hard but some manages and then other are like: why did I not think of this?!

Creating a better version of an existing product or a service is probably far easier than creating something completely new. Convincing people, that your product or service is actually better, might not be that easy thought. We’ll discuss soon.

Copying an existing product or service and then selling it cheaper is most likely the easiest but not necessarily the best option. I’m not suggesting actually creating fakes or infringing copyrights. I do mean creating something similar. Is this option viable in the long-term? Maybe, maybe not. You’re probably going to work harder to make this last option work in the long run.

What does this mean?

It means you should not create a product or service that already exist and sell it for the same price. That is a recipe for disaster. That is the worst option.

Additional nuggets of wisdom and summary

In a digital World, creating a new business has never been easier. It is still really hard to make it and to not loose your soul and motivation in the process. To have all chances on your side, you should really just be yourself and stop doing the same thing everybody else is doing. It starts by creating a business around something you love (at least a little) and most importantly, something you are good at. It starts by creating a product or service that you believe in.

In addition, my recommendations here included:

Don’t be a copycat on social media, it won’t do any good to your business in the long run.

Show your personality in your website even if it doesn’t appeal to everybody.

Extreme summary:

If you create a product or service that already exist, sell it for the same price as your competition and market it the same way as your competition, what do you think is going to happen? I got the answer for you: Nothing! Except in case of divine intervention, you’re going to fail.

So, don’t be a copycat!