Graham Cochrane (00:01.63)
I don't know what my competitors charge. I don't know what they're launching. I don't look at their offers, and I haven't for years. Here's why. Looking at your competition isn't market research. It's a tax on your creativity. Every time you check what someone else is doing, you're not gathering intel. You are quietly trading your original vision for their ceiling. So today,
I'm gonna show you why your business is capped the moment you start comparing and what to do instead.
Graham Cochrane (01:01.24)
So here's what nobody tells you about starting a business or evolving your business or pivoting or growing or expanding or whatever it is. They tell you to do market research. And I understand why, but it's bad advice. There's a couple of things that we need to unpack today, but the number one thing I want to just land from the beginning is that what you think is
Productivity, what you think is due diligence, what you think is responsible business growth. This idea of what is my competition charge? What's the total addressable market? How many people are in this market and what are they paying? And what's the high end of the market with the the bottom of the market? Where do I slot? What do they get when they buy someone else's offer versus mine? Are they unhappy with that offer? All that sounds like really, really wise to do, but all that does.
Is is have you start your business or start the creation of your offer from a place that someone else has already defined. So you're literally being iterative of what someone else is doing. You are being influenced by what someone else has already decided, hopefully freely, but oftentimes not, because everyone's just iterating from everybody else. Very few people are truly original. And we don't know if it's even working for them.
We don't even know if the prices they've set are working for them. We don't even know if the way they fulfill their offer or run their coaching program or do content online is even working for them. This is why it makes zero sense to just look at what's happening in the market and copy it. But it feels good, right? It feels like, okay, I've done my research. I know in my industry, best practices are charge this, do this, whatever. I hate that term best practices. Who decided what is best practice?
Is it even really the best thing for your client? Is it really even the best thing for you? We don't know. And we actually don't care. We're just so insecure and unsure ourselves what to charge, what to deliver, how to fulfill it, how to run our business. That we just want to copy what everyone else is doing so that we can take that responsibility away from ourselves, actually disempower ourselves and give it to somebody who's largely not successful statistically. Most people aren't, and therefore
Graham Cochrane (03:23.32)
We're giving them power over our business so that we're gonna be just like them, largely unsuccessful. I mean, it makes zero sense if you think about it, but this is what we do. it it feels like the right thing to do, but it's a giant distraction at best and it's destructive to your business at worst. So here's what's going on. When you look sideways at what your competitors are doing.
you're missing what you should be looking at. You should be looking at two things. You should be looking at your prospect or your clients, the people you're put on this earth to serve. What do they actually need? What are they actually saying? What are they crying out for? What does success look like for them? What does the dream outcome look like for them? We should be thinking about them more than anybody. Why do we spend so much time looking sideways at our competition and miss the person we're here to serve?
So we need to be looking at our prospect and our clients very, very clearly. Have a deep, long, hard look at them. Second place we need to be looking is right here at ourselves. What do you want out of business? What do you want out of life? How much do you want to charge? How much or how little do you want to work? How do you want to fulfill your offers?
What kind of business model suits your season of life, your personality, your commitments, your dreams, your goals, your limitations, whatever, whatever? Like, why would we build a business and a business model based off of what our competitors are doing when they are totally different people with totally different personalities, goals, desires, dreams, challenges, life circumstances, points of view? Like,
Hopefully they have made decisions that suit them and their clients, but those decisions have nothing to do with or very little to do with what you're gonna do and what your client needs and what you want. Does this make sense? So
Graham Cochrane (05:27.37)
I to me this is so basic. Like we should just be done. Like this episode should just be done. But I want I want to share with you the power of ignoring your competitors. And what I want to invite you to do today is literally create an alternate reality in your mind where nobody else exists in your industry. It's just you. You're the only one. You're the only one. And you know, the reality is you are the only one. You are the only you.
There is no one on this planet who is you. sure, there are other people in your space doing what you do, but there's no one just quite like you. There's no one who has had your experience. There's no one who has had your history, your background, your upbringing. There's no one who thinks quite like you. There's no one who has your exact, and I mean exact worldview, your schema, as the psychologist would say, right? The way you view the world based off of your upbringing and experience.
There's no one like you. Therefore, you're the only one. You are an original. There is no competition. I have no competition. There is no other Graham Cochrane. And we've talked about this in recent episodes, recent weeks, that I can be in the exact same industry as you, but you and I are totally different people. So we're gonna have totally different premises to our solutions to solve the problems that our clients have. Does this make sense? So I want you to ignore your competition and live in a reality where you're the only one.
So if you're the only one, your clients need your help. Who do you want to help? How do you want to help them? How much do you want to charge? How often do you want to work with them? How little do you want to work with them? In what format do you want to work with them? Does this make sense? You get to decide all of this. Now, the reason I want you to ignore ignore your competition is because I want you to win in business. I want you to make more money. So I don't know where you're stuck at. Are you stuck at $5,000 a month, 10,000 a month? A lot of my clients come stuck at 10, 20,000, 30,000 a month.
And you might say, I would love to be stuck there. No, you don't want to be stuck there. You want to be doing $100,000 a month or more in your business. Why? Because more money is better than less money, because there is more need out there, even if it's not for you. Someone else could benefit from it. Why not give you the the joy and pleasure of being able to bless that person by giving it away? So you want to be in a hundred thousand dollar a month land or higher, and you want to be working 20 hours a week or less. That is a magical sweet spot of.
Graham Cochrane (07:54.019)
virtually unlimited money to do almost anything you want in this world and the time with which to do it and the freedom with which to do it. So if you want to make more and work less and have that effortless business that I talk about, I wrote a whole book on it called The Effortless Business. Here's what you need to do. You need to create space. My friend and coach Rich Litvin said it best space is where miracles happen.
Space, space in your calendar, space in your brain, in your mind, your mental load. Space in your business to think, to ideate, to dream, to try things, to build things that don't even see the light of day, just because the act of building it teaches you something and gives you a skill set. Most entrepreneurs only know one thing. They do.
They just do and they execute. They do and they execute. And then the other thing that they're doing that's actually taking away from their ability to do and execute is they watch and compare. They watch and compare. They are scrolling on Instagram. They are scrolling on TikTok. They are watching YouTube video after YouTube video, especially of their competition. They are on the newsletters and email lists for the competitors, everyone in their space. They are giving up their precious time and their precious mental creativity and energy and giving it.
Freely to their competitors. Why? Because you're insecure. You're afraid that you're missing something. You're afraid that they're doing something that you're not doing. You're afraid that they know something you don't know. The reality is if you were to ignore your competitors, you would get back space. You'd get back times, like little space in your calendar, and you get back mental space. And there is nothing more powerful than space to go create what you're meant to create.
I'm gonna give you very specific example. Years ago, I was on an email list of a dear friend of mine who also became a business partner of mine. And at the time, he was a business partner. We both had our own individual business businesses, and then we ran a business together that was a membership site. And I love this guy. And we've been friends for a long time. We still are. But he was doing some really cool things in his business that I was getting jealous of.
Graham Cochrane (10:21.664)
And I was getting a little insecure about myself every time I saw his emails about this cool thing he was doing. And it dawned on me one day, I like, reading his emails is not helping me. He's not doing anything wrong. But I am not in a place where it's helpful or healthy to me to be fully aware of everything he's doing. So I did the unthinkable. I unsubscribed from my friend and business partner. Right. It maybe doesn't sound like a big deal to you, but I unsubscribed from him.
Not because I didn't care to see his emails anymore, but because they weren't serving me. They were only aiding my anxiety, my insecurity, and my indecision. So that became actually a watershed moment where I started to unsubscribe from every email list I was on, unfollow almost everybody that was creating insecurity in my social media feeds, and just put my head down and go and build. And that was that was a critical piece.
A moment in the in the lifespan of that business, the recording revolution, where I was able to go from where I was stuck of five hundred thousand dollars a year, which maybe that's where some of you are or you want to be higher, or maybe you want to be there. But to me, I was stuck there at 500,000 for a couple of years. That helped me be a moment to go from five hundred thousand to one point two million in the next eighteen months, a year. It was a huge part of it. Creating the space to just put my head down and do what I felt called to do.
In 2020, before the pandemic happened, which is so fascinating, this happened, this is a personal decision. I was getting really fatigued by social media. And I found myself just comparing, comparing, comparing. And I remember sitting at a date night with Shay, we were getting Thai food. We were at one of our favorite Thai restaurants. We were getting Thai food. And I was like, I just think I need to get off social media for an entire year. That's how desperate I am. And she said, not.
Exactly this, but basically, I I'll believe it when I see it. Like, I don't think you could do it. And I don't think she really said it that way, but I was ready for the challenge. So I was like, I yeah, I could do it, I could do it. So I just went and deleted Instagram, deleted Facebook, deleted Twitter at the time, got rid of all that, and just disappeared from social media for a whole year. Well, it turned out to be a great year to be off social media. That was just a lucky accident. I missed the political turmoil in the 2020 election year. I missed
Graham Cochrane (12:49.386)
A lot of the well, you call it political as well stuff in in wake of the George Floyd issue and all this the Black Lives Matter, like this if you remember, social media was insanical in 2020. Like you you couldn't say, I love my grandma and not get haters because whatever you said wasn't enough or it was always wrong. And if you said nothing, that was deafening and your silence was deafening. Like you so you couldn't win on social media and I didn't have to participate in that. And I got off of it before any of that happened.
And then, of course, I missed all the insanity around the pandemic and all the anger and hate about whatever, who's lying to us, and conspiracy theories and blah, blah, blah. I missed, I missed it all, y'all. And I'm so happy. That was a lucky accident. But you know what else I missed? I missed paying attention to what anyone else is doing in my industry. And you know what happened in those 12 months that I got off social media? This might blow your mind, but my business, my income, 5X. My business grew by 500%.
In the 12 months that I got off of social media. Is that a coincidence? Hmm. Well, my business didn't grow directly because I deleted social media apps. It's not as simple as that. It this reality points to two things. One, you don't need social media to grow your business. Hmm, interesting. Number two, there was something very subtle that happened when I went dark on social media. I had all kinds of attention back.
I had all kinds of creativity back and insane confidence because I wasn't comparing myself to anybody else. All I saw was me and my clients. That was it. The only people I connected with online were my clients and customers. And so when you have mental space, attention, time, creativity, and confidence, do you think your business is going to grow or shrink? It's going to grow. And you don't realize this, but that is what you're lacking. You are lacking time.
Creativity, attention, mental space, and confidence. And you know what's zapping it? Looking at your competitors. That's what's zapping all five of those things. You are giving your competition your time, your attention, your creativity, your mental space, and your confidence. And you're doing it willingly. And so I'm inviting you to ignore your competition. I don't know what that looks like for you. That might look like unfollowing people in your feed or getting off of certain email lists or newsletters. It might
Graham Cochrane (15:14.784)
look like deleting Instagram or TikTok or social media for a month or a a year like I did. It might mean putting a limit on your social media feeds. My my s all social media apps time out after fifteen minutes a day on my phone. It might mean ignoring YouTube or podcasts like this. Whatever you gotta do, you can unfollow me. I don't care if it helps you, then great. I exist to help you. So if it consuming this doesn't help you, but ignoring this helps you, it's a little sad and meta, but
At least I helped you, and that's the goal. You need to figure out what to do. So the reality is business is not mechanics. It's not just math. It's not just a science. Business is a creative endeavor. And whether you view yourself as a creative person or not, you are creating value in the marketplace by creating solutions to problems. You're creating offers. Everything is a creative.
Act. And the truth is creativity requires a closed room. You need a closed room to be creative. Now, sometimes you need to leave the room and go see something, experience something that awakens something in you, but not your competitors, not your competition. Go to the beach, go to the mountains, go see a show or a movie, go read a book, go sit in a beautiful hotel lobby, go have an expensive dinner.
Drink a $500 bottle of wine. Do something, anything to spark creativity, but don't look at your competitors. And once you get that spark, you come back to a closed room. You close the door, you close the windows, you close off the world through your phone, and you sit with yourself and you sit with your thoughts and you sit with the avatar of who you feel called to serve. And you think about her and her alone. How can I make her life better? How can I make his world better?
What do I need out of this business so that I can stay in this game long enough to serve these incredible people for 10, 20, 30 years? That requires a closed room. And when you do that, when you close yourself off to the world and you do that, you will be blown away by how much creativity just emerges out of nowhere, how much certainty, how much confidence, how many solutions to even your own problems begin to emerge. You cannot.
Graham Cochrane (17:40.825)
Build something original while you're constantly checking out what everyone else is building. And in this world where we're all copying everybody anyway, and then AI is just creating copies of everything else because AI isn't original, it just looks at everything else. Like to be original is going to be more important than ever because you're gonna smell different, look different, sound different. Whatever one else is zigging, you'll be zagging. So if you want to stand out, this you need to be original. And the only way to be original is to ignore what everyone else is doing.
And like I said, functionally you have no competition. It doesn't exist anyway. Nobody else can do what you do, serve the way you serve, say it the way you say it. So the moment you stop comparing yourself to somebody else is the moment you take off the lid of your business, as it were.
Here's what I want you to do. I want you to do two things because they need each other. I want you to analyze your current habits. And maybe it means you just kind of follow yourself around for a day and just look at what did I do all day today? I want you to analyze every time you are looking at a competitor. How much time do you give to looking at your competitor?
And that includes scrolling through TikTok or Instagram, that includes emails, that includes watching videos on YouTube.
I want you to decide today or after today, whatever.
Graham Cochrane (19:07.864)
Where you are going to begin ignoring your competitors. I'd I'd ideally like you to ignore all of them, but pick a platform or a person to unsubscribe from or something specific. You choose. Where are you going to start ignoring your competition? That's step one, and decide what that action looks like for you. Like remember for me, I unsubscribe from my my business partner's email list. And then also in 2020, I
Deleted all my social media for a year. Those are my decisions. What is your decision? Okay. It doesn't have to be as big as mine, just whatever feels meaningful to you. So that's an elimination piece. The reason we eliminate is all the reasons we discuss, but also so it creates space to do something else. So then that's the second part. With that newfound space, whether it's just mental space or even physical space in your calendar, when and how are you going to close the door, as it were, and be in a closed room to go create?
what you need to go create in this next season of your business so that you can be prosperous, for lack of a better term. It's such a great word to prosper, to succeed in all areas of your business and life, to have growth, to have expansion, to reach the next level. The next 12 months of your business and therefore your life are gonna look a lot like how you spend your time. And if you're spending your time comparing yourself,
Your business is going to look a lot like everybody else's, which isn't a good thing. But if the next 12 months you spend that time in a closed room creating original thought leadership, original ideas for your content, original offers, original solutions to the problems. Even if they're just 1% fresher or newer or better, based off of you spending time thinking about your avatar and your own needs, well, then your business is going to look that much better, that much fresher. You're going to have that much more expansion in the next 12 months.
So if you know like I'm gonna unsubscribe from these people or I'm gonna delete this app, then where in your calendar are you gonna go create? Are you gonna do like I do and take Mondays to be my thinking day? I don't do any work. I just think and create and ideate. Is it gonna be taking Fridays off to do it on Fridays? Is it gonna be an extended lunch break on Wednesdays, two hours on Wednesdays, where that's where I close the door, as it were, metaphorically, and I just put my head down and I think and I dream about what I can do better for my clients and myself. I don't care where it is or how long it is or when it is.
Graham Cochrane (21:28.418)
But you need to decide when that creative space is going happen. Otherwise, you're just going to react and react and react and your business isn't going to change. Okay. This is making sense. I want to make sure that you're following. You have no competition. I have no competition. Most people are struggling in their business, so why would we mimic what they're doing? I get it, you're insecure, so am I.
I get it. We don't know if our ideas are going work. How could we know? But I believe that you are more powerful than you admit. You're more creative than you've ever experienced. And that the path forward for you isn't watching what other people are doing and keeping up. It's retreating, getting silent and getting quiet. And as Psalm 46 10 tells you, be still and know.
Stillness is when the knowing comes. Stillness is when the river water in your jar, as it were, can settle. The sediment can settle so that the water becomes clear, right? The only way you're going to get clarity on what to do in your business is to retreat from the busyness of the world, ignore what everyone else is doing, sit still, and think. It'll be the most money-making work you ever do.
In your life. It might be the hardest work you've ever done in your life. We are addicted to activity and not thinking. But if you can develop the superpower of retreating, being still and thinking, it's game over in a good way. Let me know if today's episode connected with you or resonated with you by leaving a comment below on YouTube here, or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your favorite podcast app, message me on Instagram at thegramcochrane and tell me that you're going to ignore.
your competitors. Because guess what? You don't have any. I'll see you in another episode real soon.
