MBA865 Starting a Business in a Crowded Marketplace

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast that gives you real business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA and webinar Ninja. Many of us, when we get an idea for a business or a product, the first thing we do is Google it to see if it already exists to see if anyone else is doing it. And deep down inside we're hoping no one has. But why? Why do we think novelty is so good in business? Here is the reality of being first to market with a product. It's so very hard. Introducing a new idea in the marketplace is like a 90 degree uphill battle for many reasons and we'll discuss them in today's episode. So if you do Google your business idea or product and you find that you are in a crowded marketplace, you should be happy to. It means people are buying this product, they're buying this solution. You don't need to convince people that this is a problem that needs solving. They're looking for you. Yes, they are also finding the competition because it's a crowded marketplace, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. In today's episode, we'll discuss what strategy you should take when starting a business in A crowded marketplace, a strategy that will help you succeed with confidence. And, hey, we know a thing or two about being in a crowded marketplace. There are literally thousands of business podcasts on itunes. There are several huge webinar softwares out there in the marketplace. We'll be covering what we do to build our business in these crowded marketplaces. And while we're happy there's competition, there's so much we need to cover in today's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Starting a business where no one is looking for your product or service is very hard. And I actually don't recommend it, especially if you're new to business. If this is your first, second, or even third business you're starting. When you need to educate and convince people that what you offer is something that they need, it takes a lot of work. Changing habits is hard work. A good example of this is ride sharing services like Lyft and Uber. It took many years and millions and millions of dollars for both these companies to get to the point where they are right now. Uber started out as a black car limo service only. This is to ease people into riding with an individual that's not associated with the limo company. That was sort of a stepping stone to what Uber is now a replacement to a taxi service. But it was a slow, grueling process that took a lot of time and money, and it's still difficult. I mean, ask anybody who is above 50, 60, 70. Ask your parents. Some of them are just not down with this idea of Uber. They're not used to this idea of getting somebody that is not in a uniform or not in a taxi cab to pick them up and take them to the airport. When it came to Lyft, they started out in college campuses as a digital message board to share rides with others who have cars to get back home to their home cities between semesters. Basically, a digital version to that leaflet that would be, you know, posted on a pegboard saying, hey, I'm going back home to San Francisco. Who needs a ride? Lyft then evolved to a way for people in town to give others rides when they needed one. They had to start with college students, though, and then they eventually started with smaller communities. People don't change habits easily. These guys didn't only have to create a product, they had to create a whole new market for their product. Not easy. But what about those who made it in an already existing marketplace? Well, you don't have to look far. Let's take a look at some of the most successful companies we've seen in the past 10 years. Apple, Facebook, Google. How did these guys do so well? Even though the market had major competitors before they entered it, Apple went against giants like IBM, Compaq, Dell, and Microsoft. Facebook was not the first social media platform. There was Friendster, there was MySpace, there was Second life, Facebook. They all came before Facebook. Google was a latecomer in the search engine world. There was AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, and Yahoo. They all came way before them. So how do these companies dominate in their respective crowded marketplaces? One word implementation. You see, ideas are dime a dozen. Ideas don't really matter unless they are implemented properly. But it's more than that. Within a market crowded place, there are opportunities to create niches for you to speak specifically to a group of people. So for example, with our product webinar Ninja, there are plenty of competitors. There are many other webinar software options out there. But we webinar Ninja focus on solving a particular problem. We have a different approach, a different implementation to solving that problem. And a problem can just be a particular fear of your customers. What fears or what problems are your competitors not addressing this helps you create this niche. For us, the fear or the problem that we are solving in a particular way for our customers in our marketplace is that those who run webinars fear that the tech will be confusing and that their webinar will fail. This is why we emphasize our promise to them over and over again. And that's better webinars, no worries. When you address a particular problem with your audience, you really resonate strongly with them. Your job is to find out how you would like to resonate with them. What particular problem are you going to solve for them so so they can feel like you have the solution and you can help them out. For us, for years we've been studying our customers, asking them questions, finding out what keeps them from doing more webinars. And we ended up learning those who do webinars just want to look great, not stress out about the tech. That's really what they're looking for. Now, there are other things they shared, but we focused on what we heard the most from our users. So we focused on implementing our solution to the webinar market, allowing users to have better webinars with no worries of the tech going wrong. Everything else is secondary. Again, how you implement your solution is key. This is what's going to attract your customers to your particular product. Listen, always remember that competition is always a good thing in the market. It means people are happy to pay for your solution or to pay for a solution, you need to do a whole lot less convincing. You don't need to change habits drastically. You only need to differentiate your product through your implementation. Your goal is to have a slice of the pie of the marketplace. You don't need to take over the whole pie. Often just a sliver is enough for you to make a healthy living to have a great business on your hands. The larger the market, the smaller your piece of the pie needs to be. But remember, you won't get that slice if you don't niche down. If you don't differentiate. If you don't focus on solving a problem or a pain for a specific group. If you're an online yoga instructor, you have tons of competition and it's going to be really hard for you to really stand out or to really be seen or heard through all the noise. But you can speak to a specific group and carve out your own slice of the pie. If you focus on, for example, yoga for those who suffer from back pain or yoga for rock climbers, you get the point. This does wonders for your messaging and product itself. It allows you to focus on particular it allows you to focus on that particular group and to speak directly to them.

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So how do you know what words to use so your customers know that you're solving their problem in a very specific way? It's actually easier than I thought and I was over complicating it in the past, but basically you just ask your customers. Surveying your customers is a good way to get feedback, but it's a great way for knowing the exact language to use to describe the problem you are solving in their Own words. So when you ask somebody, what are you struggling with in this area? Say, for example, you're a yoga instructor. For those who have back pain, you can ask questions like, when during the day, do you feel that pain the most? Where is the pain? Is it lower back pain? Is it upper back pain? You can ask them about their experience in doing yoga. Do they enjoy it? Do they not enjoy it? What are some of the things they don't enjoy, why they don't enjoy it? All these things are going to give you answers in their own words. For example, if you ask the question, why don't you do yoga right now? And the answer is, it hurts too much, it's painful. I'm not good at it. I'm not flexible. So when you're writing your sales copy, it's gonna be super simple for you to use those words, those answers. So, for example, you could say, do you suffer from back pain and want to take up yoga? But doing yoga hurts too much. That's gonna resonate directly with you. Yes, that's me. I wanna do yoga, but it hurts too much. I'm not flexible. It's gonna keep them reading, it's gonna keep them intrigued. They're gonna feel like you have the solution because you're able to describe the problem so precisely in their own words. We have thousands of answers to questions about our customers, their fears or doubts or challenges. This is real talk words that if used on your sales copy or website, it's going to resonate immediately with your ideal customer, the customer you're building a solution for. You see what I'm saying? When you're niching down, when you're creating a solution for people, specifically in this example, yoga for people who have back pain. When you speak their language, when you describe their problem so specifically, it's going to resonate super strong with those who want to buy, those who really want to hear more from you, and those who don't, don't. So if somebody lands on that page and they don't have back pain, then you don't have to waste your time trying to cultivate that customer when they're not for you. Spending money on, trying to get their email address or marketing to them and spending energy and time, you're only serving the customers that you're really resonating with, those who really are interested in what you have. That's how you get a slice of the pie. If you look at most successful businesses, they're in a marketplace that's crowded. Look at any product in any Niche automobiles, for example, if you want reliability and economy, then you are a huge Toyota fan. Yeah, the car doesn't look so great and it doesn't really pick up that fast. But hey, my priorities are economy and reliability. Those are things I crave and therefore I will go to Toyota and buy a car from them. If I'm a huge environmentalist, if I really believe in the future, if I love tech, I'm going to really resonate with Tesla, an all electrical vehicle that has no carbon footprint. Now you're speaking my language. Tesla resonates strongly with those people. You see how they carved out their own slice. I mean, there's so many car manufacturers out there, how could they even survive? And mind you, they have no experience in the automobile industry yet. Elon Musk carved his own slice by getting specific, by niching down, by speaking a specific language to specific people that want a specific thing. They want a specific solution to a problem. Let's get even more specific. I attend a gym that's 24 hours. It's available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Now, I love that convenience that I can go anytime. I don't have to think about if it's open or if it's closed. But the reason why I really love the gym is because I'm not bothered. I can't stand going to a gym to work out, to get into my zone, to listen to my audiobook and then be bothered by somebody who wants to sell me training or tell me about the latest fitness thing or the latest shake. There are so many gyms that really bombard you and there's so many gyms that do this and it's annoying. So I found a gym that doesn't do this and I was like, wow, I'm happy to pay you even more, even though I'm not paying them more because I'm just left alone and allowed just to work out and have my day, to have my moment, because I'm just left alone, allowed to work out and enjoy my workout. So sometimes it's not doing something or adding something, it's removing something. It's simplifying things. So look at your business right now, today, and think about, are you differentiating? Are you niching down? What kind of marketplace are you in? Are you talking to a specific person? Are you solving a specific problem? Answer these questions. It's imperative. It's going to help you stand out. It's going to help you carve out your own slice of the pie in your crowded marketplace. That wraps up Today's lesson, I hope you loved it. If you did, let me know. Drop me an itunes rating and review. It's super simple. Takes two minutes. Just search the hundred dollar MBA show on iTunes and just rate and review us. If you want full Instructions, just go to100nba.net show we love hearing from you, getting feedback and knowing what you love about the show so we can keep on doing it. And don't forget to hit subscribe to get all our episodes automatically so you never miss a beat. All right, that's it for me today. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. This concept about niching down about solving a specific problem took me a very long time to understand. Too long. And the reason why it takes so long is because you tell yourself a lie, you tell yourself a story and that story sounds like this. Well, I don't want to get too specific because then I won't have enough customers. Then I won't appeal to a lot of customers. My business will be, you know, restricted. I don't want to say no to customers. I want to say yes to everybody. Well, here's a fact that is written in stone that you can take it to the bank and you can bet your life on when you say yes to everybody, when you speak to everybody, you're speaking to no one. You're vanilla. You need to speak to a specific person and talk about the specific problem you solve. We resonate with products that speak to us. I mean, I talked about cars. I mean, why doesn't everybody just have the same car? Because everybody has a different taste and different companies speak a different language and speak about different problems and different solutions. And therefore everybody gets their slice. But if you look at history, look at the companies that didn't do this, they fade into the background and people don't remember them. General Motors did this all the time. Ford did this all the time. They created all these different models and makes that were all the same. They're all vanilla and therefore they're gone. Now. What's the difference? In a Ford and a Mercury, there are models that were the same in Chevrolet and Pontiac that they only were able to sustain that for so long and then they were gone. People were like, what's the difference? It doesn't really say anything to me. I'm spending all this money and it doesn't feel like my car. Don't make the same mistake. Niche down. Solve a specific problem. All right, I'll check you in the next episode. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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