Hey, Dan here, and in this video I want
to go through a really big mistake I see
people making online all the time. And if
you're watching this and you're bit of
an old timer, you know you're an old
businessman or businesswoman who's just
looking at the online way of working and
maybe how it could be different, then
this video might be particularly
valuable for you, because the way
business is done now via the Internet
has had huge changes on how you need to
position your business and basically how
you need to operate. Now with this, I do
not mean technology and I do not mean
the fundamentals. Personally, I think the
fundamentals of business have not
changed and I'm actually quite an old
school guy in terms how I teach my
courses and my views on marketing a
business. But one of the things that has
changed, and yes, this also applies to
dating, all you kids out there on tinder
and you old-timers on tinder, you
shouldn't be on tinder, it's just for you
know, Millennials and whatever the next
people are, but it also applies in all
areas of life, is there are so much change
now, did I say change? I mean opportunity
and choice, that is what I meant, change
is inevitable. There's so much
opportunities and so much choice now,
right? So before, you know, you might be
looking at dating someone and you'd have
a thousand choices maybe in your town,
three choices maybe in your town
depending on how big it was, and business
was the same way, right? So, if someone
needed a, you know, marketing consultant,
they would ask around their town and say,
"Hey Bob, you know a marketing consultant?"
And Bob would be like, "You know, I know
this Dan fella just down the road there,
and he can do some good alright and for
you and your business. I'd be like, "Oh okay,
I'll give Dan a call," and Dan could be one
of the crummiest marketing consultants
in the world, but guess what, Dan got a
call because we lived in a little small
town. Now, this still applies to some
kinds of businesses that if you are the
only plumber in a 2,000 person town, then
first, good on you for watching my videos,
and secondly, you don't need to
necessarily worry about this. But the
thing is, most of us are not competing
in this small environment. Whether you're
in a city of 5 million people or 2 million
people, and you have a local business or
you're working online, you're competing
with the world. So, the way business used to
work is, if you are in a more direct
selling model, so by direct selling I
mean things like door to door or cold
calling, I don't know about you but I had
to pay my way a bit through school and
some, at some point, that involved doing a
bit of door-to-door selling and that was
not the most fun experience. But, it was
positive in in learning, kind of how it
works in terms of that selling, right? So,
traditionally, think of someone selling
vacuum cleaners door-to-door, right? You
got a knock on your door, you open the
door and it's some guy, there were the
vacuums. "Hey, you want to buy this vacuum?"
Now, at that point, you are not thinking
about all the other vacuum options, right?
This guy comes in, he gives you the whole
pitch like, "Oh, see, there's things on the
floor, now there's nothing on the floor."
Now, you're not going and hopping on
Google and checking the 30 alternative,
nor are you sitting down where you're
like, "Actually sir, there's five other
vacuum salespeople in my living room, why
don't you all fight it out for my
business?" No. Probably, you weren't even
looking for a vacuum, but now that you're
sitting down with the salesperson, you
have a choice to make. Do I buy the
vacuum or not buy the vacuum? And these
are your two choices. And so, from the
point of view of the vacuum salesman, and
this is my own experience doing
door-to-door sales as well, which I've
done as a job and also from my own
business, believe it or not, is that if
you knock on enough doors, you will get a
yes. Even if your offer isn't very good,
it's a numbers game. So, if you knock on
20 doors, let's say, one in 20 people will
say, "Yeah, I'll buy that, that sounds good,"
because they're not comparing you to
anything and there's just this one-on-one
decision-making happening, right? And so,
there's a saying in sales of, it's a
numbers game, right? Put in your numbers.
Call a hundred people, you'll get a sale.
Knock on twenty doors, you'll get a sale.
Here's where it really changes online.
Now, this applies especially if you're
applying for jobs on a website like Upwork
or these job posting sites, which I
don't really recommend as a sustainable
way to build a business, but that's a
whole another conversation, but it really
applies anytime you're doing business
online is, you better believe that before
someone hires you they're checking out
their other options. It is now so easy to
hop on Google and get other quotes,
compare people, check reviews, all these
stuff, and everyone is doing that especially
if you're not sitting down face to face
with someone are having kind of a live
meeting, right? So, most people are going
to be checking out the other options. Now,
here's why this is important, is before,
if you talk to 20 people, going say
door-to-door sales, none of those people
were necessarily looking for what you
offered. And so, if you talk to 20, you
ended up with maybe, like let's say one
sale, right? Now, you're going to someone,
and that person is probably doing their
research or soliciting other proposals,
right? So, they might be talking, this
might be a little extreme, but let's
assume they're talking to 20 people. So,
now it's you and 19 other people
competing for this one person. Now, why
that's really important, is at this point,
you need to be the one in 20. So if you
are not the best of those 20, you're not
getting hired. So say you're pretty good,
you're the top twenty percent of people
at what you do. Your proposals? Pretty
good. Your sales technique? Pretty good.
Your actual skill at what you offer?
Pretty good. In general, that would have
been enough. 30 years ago, you live in a
little town, "Hey, call Dan, he's your
guy," right? You didn't have to be one of
the best. But guess what? In the internet
world, you need to stand out as one of
the best if you want to actually get
hired, because the person choosing
whether or not to hire you or buy your
product, they have a lot of choice. And,
because it's not as personal because
they're not talking to you face to face
and faced with rejection, why would they
not shop around, and why would they not
pick the best fit, right? If you're just a
stranger they're talking to online, then
they're going to go with whoever is best
for them, right? There's none of the
social pressure that could come up in
traditional selling. Now, yes, this is one
reason in my other content you will find,
I talk a lot about the personal side,
there's a video I put out called "The
Human Element of a Digital Nomad
Business", check that out, I talked about
how important it is to establish a human
connection and that helps you get around
this a little bit. But ultimately, you
still need to be the best option. Now,
what if you're saying, "Dan, come on, I'm
good, I work hard, but how can I be the
best? If you're saying there's thousands
of choices out there, how can I
be the best of thousands of
people?" Well, get up every day at 5am and
I want you to.. No. You don't have to be
the best in all ways, right? Here's the
cool thing about it. Well, there are
thousands of other people potentially
competing with you, there are also
millions of potential clients and
consumers. And what that means is you
don't have to be the best to everyone.
You just have to be the best for your
audience and this is where being more of
yourself, working your personality in,
focusing on a niche can really come in,
into play, right? Because you can be the
best for that group, so when you look to
specialize, you can be the best for that
specific group you're talking to. Here's
also how you can do it without actually
having to be the best overall. It's just
write the best proposal. And no, this is
not a pitch for my training on writing a
proposal, I don't offer it right now, but
what it is, is really is, if you spend
the most time and you write an
incredible proposal, then for all
intensive purposes, you are the best. I've
hired quite a few people through sites
like Upwork, and one of the things that
happens right away is, I might get 20
applications for a job, but 15 of them
are garbage. Like they're copy and pasted,
they're template and right away, they get
archived, right? So really, it comes down
to those last five people. So, assuming
you're not a moron sending out just mass
templates to everyone, let's put you in
that top 25%. So now, you're in
consideration because you've written me
something personal. So, you're really only
competing with those four other people. So
if you can spend a little more time on
your proposal, you can be a little more
persuasive with your writing, a little
more engaged with me, maybe understanding
what I'm looking for, then your proposal
can be the best, even if you don't have
the most experience or you are more
expensive or you don't have whatever you
know, it is, that would make you
objectively the best. Your proposal can
be the best and that's how you can also
stand out and be hired. Now, I covered a
few solutions to this here, but I want to
be clear, this is not a problem that you
solve, this is just a way of thinking
about business and the realization you
need to have and yes, it affects how you
do business and it should affect how you
do business in many
ways, but it is not something with a
quick fix. It's based on, I would say,
taking a long term and a quality
approach, because this is going to show
up everywhere. I've talked about it in
terms of proposals and getting clients,
but it also is going to come up with
things like Google. So, if you want to
rank on the first page of Google, you're
now competing with the world. If you're
doing business in English, you're
competing with the whole world in many
cases. So, you need to be the best of the
best and really stand out, and when it
comes to something like competing for
rankings on a website like Google or
YouTube, what often happens then is, it's
about long keywords. It's called long
tail keywords. So, you get into really
specific topics and so, let's say you're
becoming a freelance copywriter. You're
probably not going to show up on the
first page of Google when someone looks
for freelance copywriter, but maybe you
could show up on the first page when
someone searches for freelance
copywriter specializing in baby market
or something like that, or freelance
copywriter with local knowledge of
London, things like that, right? And then,
gradually over time, who knows, maybe you
do become the number one ranked
freelance copywriter on all of Google? So,
I hope that makes sense and hope this is
helpful in terms of a way of thinking.
The main takeaway I want you to have
here, is to focus on quality, and quality
over quantity and not worrying about
spending too much time on specific. So,
don't think, "Oh, I got to send 50 proposals
today," think, "I'm going to send three
proposals and they're going to be
amazing and I'm going to get this three
clients," because you can send 50
proposals, and if they're all a
copy-paste garbage template, I guarantee,
almost guarantee, maybe there's an
exception, but I almost guarantee you
that you're not going to get any
business. So, this feeling of, "I've got to do
so much, I got to send so many proposals,
write so many articles," if they're all
garbage, it's not going to help you at all.
So, you're much better off focusing on
doing less and doing it really well. So,
don't hammer out quantity. Don't send out
tons of proposals, try to put up tons of
articles. Focus on doing something really
well, something specific, whether it's one
proposal or one article on a really
specific topic or whatever that is, do it
really well and then you can stand out
and be the best in that moment.
And then, over time, you can become the
best, quote unquote, in more and more
things and that's going to allow you to
really take advantage of this new
business environment, where you have to
be the one in twenty that stands out,
rather than the way it used to be in
many ways, is just knocking on enough
doors, calling enough people, and one in
20 of them would end up saying yes. So, if
you have enjoyed this video and you want
more ways to be the best, then I would
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