If you’re wondering why your marketing isn’t working when you’re doing everything your competitors are doing — you’ve just found the problem. Building a six or seven-figure business is not normal. And doing normal, ordinary things will not get you there.
Here’s an honest look at why copying what everyone else does keeps most business owners stuck — and what to do instead.
Why Doing What Everyone Else Does Keeps You Stuck
If you’re thinking “why isn’t this working when I’m doing what my competitors do?” — you’re asking exactly the right question. Because most of your competitors are where you are, not where you want to be. Copying them is copying mediocrity with extra steps.
Real growth comes from looking up, not sideways.
Meet Bob: The Engineer Who Was Copying His Way to Nowhere
Take Bob. Bob runs a small engineering company and has a clear target — he wants to take his three kids to Disney next year before they outgrow it. He’s prepared to work. Late nights, early starts, no problem. He’s even started to delegate so he can work on the business, not just in it. So far, so good.
Then Bob did his “competitor analysis.” He studied how the other engineering firms in his space show up on socials, copied their tone, their offers, their USP format — just with his own message dropped in. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Here’s the problem: most of Bob’s competitors are stuck exactly where Bob is. They spend as little as possible on marketing, hand it to a cheap one-man-band or someone in the office who churns out pretty (crappy) graphics, don’t measure return, and reassure themselves with “gut feel” that it’s working. Give me strength.
Eighty percent of them will be stuck there forever. By copying them, Bob was joining that 80%.
What the Top 20% Do That the Other 80% Don’t
The exceptional businesses in your space aren’t lucky. They aren’t blessed, and they weren’t in the right place at the right time. They do exceptional things — on purpose.
- They measure what matters and know their numbers cold (see the 12 metrics every business owner should track)
- They invest in marketing properly instead of squeezing the cheapest supplier
- They enter awards and win them — because visibility compounds
- They attract the best employees because the best people want to work with the best
- They get first refusal on acquisitions because they’re the obvious buyer
- They build remarkable client experiences that get talked about without being asked
Seek these people out. Study them. They’re the ones quietly eating your lunch.
Five Things to Stop Copying Today
- Copying competitor socials. If most of them are stuck, their content strategy is keeping them stuck.
- Copying the race to the bottom on price. Competing on price rewards the buyer, not you.
- Copying the “gut feel” approach to marketing ROI. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
- Copying the one-man-band marketing hire. Cheap marketing is the most expensive marketing there is.
- Copying “safe” positioning. Safe gets you ignored. Polarising gets you booked.
How to Spot the Right People to Learn From
Forget your immediate competitors. Look at the businesses two or three levels above where you are now. What do they do that you don’t? Who do they hire? What do they say “no” to? Where do they invest that makes your competitors flinch?
That’s your blueprint. Not the firm down the road charging £50 less than you.
John’s View
Most competitor analysis I see is just an excuse to be average with confidence. Owners tell themselves they’re “keeping an eye on the market” when they’re really just giving themselves permission to look like everyone else.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: if your marketing, your pricing, your hiring and your offer all look broadly like your competitors’, you are — by definition — ordinary. And ordinary businesses have ordinary results.
Bob stopped making excuses. He stopped telling himself the top 20% were “lucky.” He started studying them instead. He’s now on track for his numbers and has booked his Disney flights.
What would you need to stop doing this month to start becoming exceptional?
Ready to Stop Being Normal?
If you’d like a second pair of eyes on what’s keeping you stuck — and one specific thing you could stop doing this week — book a free 30-minute call with John here.
No pitch, no pressure. Just an honest conversation about where you’re copying the crowd and where you could break away. If you’re not sure a coach is the right next step, start with what a business coach actually does first.
