Evan Carmichael says most new businesses fail because they're average and forgettable. He argues you need a distinctive identity rooted in a core value like family or calm, then embed it everywhere: product, design, customer experience. A florist who built her shop around calm became a destination; a forgettable cruise taught him nothing sticks without personality.
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Don't be average. Most businesses fail. 80%+ of new businesses will fail, will shut down, and it's because they were average. You want to have success, you need to be different. You need to stand out. You need to have a secret sauce, something different. And a lot of times that's you. Just pour in more of yourself and your passions into the business to make it special. Don't be average. I just finished a cruise with Carnival, and I went to 9 different cities over 10 days. And on the last day, I'm sitting around, we're sitting at the table having our last dinner, and we tried to think what was the best food that we had on the ship, and none of us could come up with what was the best food. Nothing was terrible, you know, we didn't get food poisoning, nobody died, but nothing was great, nothing was memorable. So we thought, okay, forget about the food. What about the cruise ship was exciting or memorable? And again, nothing came to mind. It was just average. Nothing to complain about, sometimes the high prices of things, the ripoff, but in general, it's just an average cruise ship. This is a problem. This is a problem for Carnival. This is a problem for all the cruise lines. And it's probably a problem for your business. Because I have no reason to tell anybody about the cruise ship that I was on. There was nothing special about it. There's nothing that's going to get me to talk about Carnival. Because it was just average. It was okay. Does okay make me want to come back and buy more? Does okay make me want to tell my friends about it? Does okay make me want to tweet about it and take pictures and post on Facebook and tell everybody, tell the world? No. Okay is average, and average is not good enough. Average is not special. Average does not get you anywhere. Even thinking beyond, we thought about all the stores that we visited, all the entrepreneurs that we met with. Over the 10 days, and nobody really stood out as having anything exceptional. The best was this store in Florence. It was a leather goods store. He sold purses and jackets of great Florentine leather, and he didn't have anything that we liked. The style wasn't great. It just wasn't for us. But he was a great person. I came into the store, he talked to me, he told me what was going on in the city, we had some great conversation. As I left, he blew air kisses with both of his hands and said, "Kisses to you, enjoy your vacation." And I didn't even buy anything from this guy. He was the most memorable business that I met on my whole trip. He's the only one I'm going to think about. This is a huge problem and a huge opportunity for you because most businesses are average. That's the definition of average. Most businesses are average, and it probably means your business is average, but it also means your competitors are average. And it means there's a huge opportunity for you to stand up, to stand out, to be different, to be special, to get noticed, because people want to talk about you. Give them a reason. I was searching for something different to talk about for this video. I'm like, "What am I going to talk about?" For a radio show, "What am I going to talk about?" I was thinking, and I couldn't find anything except that one store in Florence. Who I didn't even buy from. Stand out. Find something that is unique about you. Pour yourself into your business so that people will get excited about what you do. Here are the steps that you need to take, okay? Number 1: Figure out what it is that you stand for. Don't look at every other store, every other company in your industry. What makes you What do you personally believe in? Do you believe in family? Do you believe in service? Do you believe in entrepreneurship? What is it? What do you believe in? And make your whole business about that. And it doesn't even matter what you sell, because now you're talking about values, and marketing is all about values. A couple weeks ago, I did a video about this florist who wanted to start a flower shop, and Flower shops are competitive, right? It's hard to make money as a flower shop. There's tons of flower shops out there. How are you gonna stand out? And he was all about calm. Flowers meant calm to him. When he sat with flowers, they calmed him down. Hey, people live a stressful life. They need calm. Now everything in his store should be about calm. The flowers should be calm, the environment should be calm, the employees should be calm. Everything is trying to create this calm and tranquil environment. Now you're not a flower store. Now you're different than everybody else because you stand for something, you have values, you want people to come who will be calm, who are searching for calm in their lives. Now you become a destination shop where people will come and they'll spend more money with you and you'll find ideal clients because the people coming believe the same thing as you. They're not just coming for flowers anymore, they're coming to seek out calmness. Whatever the word is for you, whatever the belief that you have, that's your first step. You have to figure that out and put it into everything that you do with your business. Don't be average. When you pour yourself into your business, you'll make more money, you'll have more fun, you'll have a lot more success, and you'll have a much greater impact on your family and on your community. I hope you do something today to make your business different and stop being average. Belief. Thank you everybody for watching. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up below. It makes you want to do more. And I'd love to hear what you have to think. If you'll leave a comment underneath, tell me what your business problems are, I'll do a video response. I love seeing your comments come in. Thank you so much. I'll see you soon.
