can we talk about something a little bit less um friendly today i hope so
what's up guys hi everybody welcome or welcome back if you're new here hello if you're a regular
then thank you so much for your long-term loyalty i love you so much but today i'm going to talk
about something that really really gets on my nerves grinds my gears irritates the hell out of
me and something i've just had to learn to live with and i'm going to talk to you about how you
can learn to live with it as well and we're going to talk today about what to do when people copy
you now i'm not talking about people copy what you say i'm talking about people copying your brand
or your branding or just you know everything from your whole website or your business strategy your
photography style your business practices in your local community basically people who copy
[ __ ] you do and there's no reason for it and that's what i want to talk about because basically
it's really infuriating and i think it needs a discussion let me set the scene for you guys um
i started this youtube channel february of 2020 and we grew reasonably rapidly by summer
people were copying stuff and by autumn people were copying more stuff and by december i was
nearly in tears because it's just like there's nothing i can do because everybody is copying me
people copying you it sounds really petty but it's not it's really frustrating because you
probably worked really hard to come up with these ideas or these strategies or these
brands for example and then someone just comes along goes oh that looks good i'm gonna do that
hold that thought copying is imitation imitation is the sincerest form of flattery as we are all
continually told but i spoke to my dad about this because uh he's like a pretty decent business guy
and he's been copied a lot and he said to me jess i've been doing this for 20 years and
you never get over it you just never get used to it it will always irritate you it's really
annoying to hear that because i thought dad you know give me some advice that will help
me manage my feelings and he was like i can't all i can say is you just gotta keep going keep one
step ahead because they will always be behind you somebody is copying you then they're behind you
so you've already done that if they're copying you and you could have done that one day and then
they've copied it the next day and in those situations honestly if you're in a situation where
somebody is copying you that badly block them just block them i saw on social media uh recently on
instagram a particular photographer who i think is lovely just a really nice person and he does
specific things every week so he does like a monday theme a tuesday theme a wednesday theme
and he writes these posts and they have the same start to them and then they have the same end but
a different middle bit i went scrolling through my uh feed hang on a minute this looks like the
writing that that photographer uses somebody was literally copying the whole of his caption
didn't even change any words just the whole thing and was just doing it as like oh i made this up no
no you didn't i think it's so rude it's really disrespectful and it shows a massive lack of
integrity but what i'm trying to say is don't copy people you can take inspiration from things but
don't copy people because it's not you it's not your stuff so you're always going to be feeling
like a fraud and that's because you kind of are you're probably not watching this um as
a copier you're probably watching this as somebody who has been copied you can if you want to get
really angry with the person who's copied you and just launch an all-out social media war i would
suggest trying other alternative options before doing that because at the end of the day it's very
easy then for them to frame you as the bad guy if the copying has breached intellectual property
law or copyright law then obviously you need to follow the legal channels for that but chances are
it probably hasn't breached any laws so what can you do number one reframe the situation
in your mind so in your mind i want you to think of the situation of somebody copying you
basically as the fact that they feel either so insecure about themselves they feel like they
do not have the talent they feel like you are the only example and role model that they can follow
or they feel like they can't do anything right those four things are the reasons why somebody is
copying you so if it's happening to you you need to i mean to be fair feel sorry for that person
because you know it's kind of sad it's like it's a really sad situation this jumper is so itchy okay
so we kind of know why people copy um basically the copying is damn you did that [ __ ] good you
did it really good and that's why they're copying you so kind of give yourself a bit of a pat on the
back and be like i did good here the more you do good stuff and the more it works the more people
will copy you there is no escaping that that's what happens there is more than one vacuum cleaner
because someone else thought this is a good idea i'm gonna make a vacuum cleaner super important
thing about copying did they actually copy you or did you just have the same idea if somebody's
copying you they will always never be you but they could copy you and do it better and if you're in
a risky situation where that might happen you need to level up i would do it different and i would do
it better you just have to constantly level up and if you're in a situation where you are both the
same you are both fighting against each other for the exact same customers and same customer group
you need to think okay what can i do different because this is not a sustainable situation
long term you make it different and continue up and they will constantly be fighting and also in
these situations where it's an obvious change if they then do the same change and try to level up
it's obvious that they have copied you i want you to remember if somebody is copying
you and you're having to deal with people copying what you do um that you can speak to them you can
send them a message and be like um so i think that you're doing similar stuff to me and i was just
wondering what the situation was because last week i did this and then this week you've done that and
i just think it's a little bit more than a coincidence you will be so shocked about how
quickly copying stops if you bring it straight to the copier i would always use this as option
b if leveling up is not an option and then option c would be to block and remove and option d would
be to just deal with it if you've got someone who's serially copying you i.e everything you do
they just copy and it's getting really difficult to deal with you need to block them remove them
or just you know get away from them because that's not a healthy situation to be in and
i personally think that you can have a better life than dealing with that if you can't cut them off i
would suggest you need to be tactically different in what you're doing so that there is no way that
they can copy you it's important to remember that only you are in control of how you respond to
things like this you can't control what somebody else does but you can control how you respond
so take a deep breath go and make a cup of tea put your hair up and do something better
that was today's tuesday table talk and i will see you all again really really soon