Stop copying me!
Oh okay, you can if you want.
Hello,
Back when my kids were little and we didn’t want them gorging on a load of chocolate over December, one of us (Mr B) came up with the idea of Christmas book elves. Each night through advent the elves leave a book wrapped and hidden in the house. And each morning the kids have to find it.
It’s a tradition that once started is very difficult to stop. And it’s surprisingly hard to remember to do something each night before going to bed. Some of those books have been very difficult to find on a morning only to be discovered later in a room they definitely checked.
The lesson here is to not start things that you might regret years down the line. However sweet they may seem at the time. And to acknowledge that doing something on a daily basis (like content) can take time to get into the rhythm.
This week in the long read I’m talking about the best ways to direct your energy - which tends to take practise and going against our natural instincts when something rotten happens.
I think this is important at this time of year when we’re pulling in multiple directions all at once.
Stop copying me!
There will come a point in any business when someone creates the same thing as you. Whether this is done on purpose (I.e. copying you) or by coincidence doesn’t really matter. What is important is how you respond when it does happen.
Earlier this year I found out that someone in many of my networking groups was selling a programme eerily similar to my PIMP My Content mentorship. Normally, I’d be like, “well, I’m not the first person to come up with this idea and it’s not going to impact my business”, but this time around the person was using some of the same copy on their sales page and pitching it to the exact same audience as me.
Ouch!
It stung because I’d invested in some awesome support from the wonderful Janine Coombes to come up with this offer and pitch it right. For someone to wander along and simply pick it up and claim it as their own felt off.
Now, when this happens it’s tempting to take action like:
Call the person out online
Disparage them for not coming up with their own ideas
Have a massive rant about it with your network.
But none of these things will change anything and will only serve to make you look a bit unprofessional.
I took a different action. You’re always going to have competition. There will be people who do the same thing as you and might win over that customer you’ve been wooing for some time.
If you sell a product, there will be another version of what you sell. Another option on the market that targets the exact same people. And you never know, they might be sitting in their offices talking about how you copied them!
It never serves you to get all cross and use your energy up on trying to convince your customers that you were the first because, quite honestly, your customers don’t give two hoots. They want to buy from the person or brand that they feel most connected to.
So when I saw this sales page that was very much like my own, I popped it in for SEO tracking to benchmark my own SEO progress and that’s it. I moved on and forgot all about it. You see, it’s neither here nor there if they take inspiration from what I’m doing. It means that people definitely need my services.
And let’s face it - there is no such thing as an original idea.
If you’ve thought of something then someone else will have had a similar idea.
Take the lightbulb for example. We all know that Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb. We’re taught it at school and it’s just one of those facts. Except, he wasn’t the only person to come up with the idea at the time. In England, Joseph Swan patented his version of the lightbulb at around the same time. And in the US, Willian Sawyer and Albon Man were also inventing a very similar incandescent bulb.
“Ah-ha! So if we all know Edison as the inventor, isn’t this proof we should care when someone copies our ideas?”
No. It isn’t.
Do you think if Swan spent his time grumbling about Edison he’d have fitted the first light bulbs into the Savoy? Probably not. He wouldn’t have the time.
Plus, Swan and Edison both ended up working together to create more inventions that have helped shape our history.
Sawyer and Man were a little more litigious and successfully sued Edison. And while not at all related to the lightbulb, Sawyer was convicted of murder after shooting a man in the face following a quarrel between their two wives. Which I think nicely illustrates why it’s better to work with someone and combine your efforts than it is to get angry and react.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t protect your work with trademarks and copyrights. You absolutely should because there is a difference between someone taking your hard work and making lots of money that they don’t deserve. It’s just that there is a time, place and way of going about it.
Direct your energies in a positive way
There’s been a couple of times this year that I’ve seen my hard work taken by others to make sales. But I’d rather direct my energies towards something more positive than worrying about what they are doing.
It’s a bit like cheating on a test. And this is something I tell my kids all the time when they complain about someone copying off them in class. The only thing you can do is try your hardest at your own work. The person copying is only cheating themselves. Cheating themselves out of learning and doing their best. Which seems kind of fruitless and a bit sad.
You could spend your time trying to stop it, checking that no one else is stealing your work or ideas. Or you could direct your energies on growing your business, working on your personal development, and designing your next launch. All of these are a far better use of your energy than wondering about what someone else is doing.
The lovely Tracey Miller gave this wonderful advice earlier this year (and I’m paraphrasing here):
There is no money to be found in complaining about ex-clients and wondering where things have gone wrong or who did you wrong. You need to focus on where the money is and that’s in getting to a place where you’re winning new clients.
Okay, I can’t remember her full quote but it was essentially that you’re wasting your energy on stuff you can’t control. Anything that has happened in the past - stop getting cross about it. That one time when you were right and you need to tell the person “told you so”. Pointless. And when someone copies what you do, you could spend a lot of energy (and time and money) trying to prove it and to take them down.
Or you could concentrate on what you do best. Working on improving your positioning, offer, service and product. You see, we don’t have an unlimited about of time and energy and if you’re not directing it into the right places, the positive places that will grow your business, you are wasting it on something that you can neither control nor change. And that’s a total waste.
Having trouble letting things go?
That’s okay, you’re only human and it’s a perfectly normal reaction. I saw someone else this week use something that I’d created for their own sales purposes and I’m not ashamed to admit that this newsletter had a very different first draft. One that no one will ever see but was important for me to get off my chest.
I was outraged for all of five minutes. I wrote out my feelings and then went back to what my goal is - my yearly plan and all the stuff that I’m aiming for. I had a read-back through and saw that nowhere did it say, “get revenge or take down people who pinch ideas”. Neither does it say: “look to what others are doing to set my path.”
And so I directed my energy back into that goal.
Of course, with everything that may seem negative, there is a positive opportunity to be found. Such as creating the germ of an idea for this newsletter. Or see how well my website is performing next to another one. Or knowing that what I’m creating is genuinely needed to the point that other service providers can recognise it as well.
And that’s the best way to use these experiences - be a bit more Edison and Swan about it.
How I help:
Get your content reviewed with a Content Clinic.
Have me write all your sales content with my Kick-Ass Sales Bundle
Get a whole year of me helping you with content on my PIMP Your Content Programme
That’s it for this week. I’ve got tomorrow off for a teacher training day for the eldest child and we’ll be taking another train adventure to Birmingham because one trip to the Christmas Market wasn’t quite enough for one year.
See you next Thursday!
Fiona