How To Ethically Copy Your Competitors Without Losing Your Edge

Success in business often starts with understanding your competition, but blindly copying others can do more harm than good. In this episode, we’ll explore how to analyze successful competitors the right way! diving deeper than just their front end strategies to uncover what really drives their success, from studying product lines to learning from other fields, like music, we’ll discuss how smart imitation can pave the way for your own breakthroughs.

00:32

I’m Igor Kheifets, and this is The ListBuilding Lifestyle. The podcast is for anyone who wants to build a wildly profitable email list working from home. If you’d like to make six figures, travel the world and help people improve their lives in the process, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to claim a free copy of my best selling book, the list building lifestyle Confessions of an email millionaire at www.igorsbook.com
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many people, what they do, they look at competition in general and what they end up doing, they end up copying bad tactics that don’t work. Oftentimes, they can look at a competitor, they have no idea if the competitor is actually successful, and they copy what makes that competitor unsuccessful, just as much as they copy what makes them, you know, with the things they do well, and what they end up getting, is just a big mess.

01:46

So I’m all for studying successful competitors, and usually what that means is that I would only study the people and the companies and the products that are, first off they’re using paid advertising to promote.

Because if something’s being promoted by paid ads, you know for a fact, it’s successful. Otherwise they wouldn’t be spending money! Now, of course, if they only started running ads yesterday, don’t copy them just yet, you have to watch them over time.

So if you came across, if you’ve been a part of a niche market for any period of time, and you see that there’s ads for this product that’s been running for six months or so, you know, it’s probably working, because they’ve been running the ads for six months!

If it’s been there for two years, for three years, you know, it’s working, because otherwise they wouldn’t have the capital and the budget to do it.

02:44

Now what is also important to note is that they could be running ads at a loss and recouping the money on the back end, which means when you do study a competitor, don’t just study the front end stuff. Don’t just look at their, I don’t know, sales page, their front end website, and conclude, oh, that’s why they’re successful! No, there could be more to the story!

Oftentimes, a competitor’s funnel, or pages or websites are sort of like the tip of the iceberg, where you need to go deeper. You need to go beyond that if you want to truly understand what makes them successful.

03:20
This often requires actually buying their products, which, of course, 99% of people are not willing to do, and that’s fine! 99% of people are not designed to succeed in this world anyway!

So if you are to be truly studying the competitor, you better go through their product line as much as you can. And if you can’t afford their entire product line, at least find out what that product line is.

So if a company is selling a supplement package with three units or a coaching program for 97$ but then once you’ve joined, you’re being pitched and upsell for 1500 bucks or for 2000 bucks. Know that this is all part of the business! There is a product line, not just one product.

And that’s understanding I didn’t have when I used to study competitors when I was starting out, and I would only copy their front end stuff, having no understanding of mathematics whatsoever! which, again, at the time was enough.

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I don’t think I have a process. I don’t think I’ve ever had a process! But I’ve always understood the value of studying the ones that are doing well. And while I did not blatantly copy word for word, I definitely looked for the conceptual stuff.  And if I had to copy, I would copy. I would make it different enough for it not to, you know, a look alike one by one.

So in other words, if I had to copy, and even today, if I have to copy someone, if they figured out the magic formula, and that’s like the only formula to to promote that product, then I will make it similar, but I will not make it identical, and I will not, again. I will not blatantly copy. I would add my own flavor to it. So think of it this way!

05:16
There’s a book by a famous guitar player. His nickname is Slash or stage name. He plays guitar for Guns and Roses. I actually got lucky, and I got to see him in action last year in San not San Diego, Palm Springs. So that, like near Palm Springs, there’s a big building they built, like a big event in three days. They were like Metallica, ACDC, Guns and Roses, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden. So it was a big thing. It’s like 100,000 people.

So I went there with Anastasia, I went there for three days. It was amazing. Unfortunately, we had to leave on day two, like after day two, so I didn’t get to see Metallica, and I’m okay with that. I’ve never been a huge fan of Metallica, although, I mean, they’re great, maybe I’m forgiven too. Nothing else matters, but pretty much it for me.

But I got to see Guns and Roses, and I got to see on day one and ACDC on day two, which is the only reason I want, I really don’t care, like I love Guns and Roses, all the the entire set of four songs that they have, but ACDC was the ultimate experience for me!

Anyway, so Slash, who plays guitar for Guns and Roses, got to see him live amazing! Sweet Child of Mine, live in person, life changing stuff.  So he wrote a book. He’s got a book, and in this book, he talks about how he was, like becoming a guitar player, and he shares that he was just playing other people, like playing famous songs or songs by other guitar players, at first

He didn’t come up with his own stuff right away. He simply practiced and repeated the songs that already exist, and he tried to do them exactly like the artist, the original artist. And that’s how you learn initially, you copy and you imitate!

7:36

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