If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you know things aren’t fair. You may really have the better product, service, value, integrity, and the bad guy walks off with the business. ?Incumbents in cosy relationships with owners (including government agencies), seem to win contract after contract, despite the assertions there is “fair and open” competition.
Meantime, you struggle, and struggle, trying to pick up the scraps, ending up with the customers from hell, and you find yourself banging your head against the wall in frustration.
Maybe.
Of course, it is quite possible you are on the other side of the fairness equation — or you may be in both places at the same time. Then you assert your relationships, integrity, reliability and “smarts” explain your business success and you radiate your pride in your achievements. Except possibly for that contract you know you should have won, but didn’t.
The insider/outsider issue is a common challenge/explanation for your failure, or you can express more nuanced perceptions.
I wish I could offer a good solution to this challenge, because it in fact relates to the biggest underlying issue explaining why marketing initiatives, no matter how well designed, don’t seem to work very well when you need them the most (because you are truly desperate for business.)
Take internet marketer Frank Kern’s techniques to sell you ebooks and far more expensive services. He’s a master copywriter (or can pay to employ/contract these services). If you read the text, you’ll think he has the answer, if you just send a bit of money. But he’s intelligent enough — and knows the rules and laws regarding misleading marketing — to state this message clearly at the outset and in his disclaimers. (And to his credit, while these words are in the fine print, they are stated elsewhere as well.)
*The sales figures stated above are my personal sales figures. Please understand my results are not typical, I?m not implying you?ll duplicate them (or do anything for that matter). I have the benefit of practicing direct response marketing and advertising for 17 years, and have an established following as a result. The average person who buys any ?how to? information gets little to no results. I?m using these references for example purposes only. Your results will vary and depend on many factors ?including but not limited to your background, experience, and work ethic.? All business entails risk as well as massive and consistent effort and action. If you’re not willing to accept that, please DO NOT GET THIS BOOK.
In other words, experience and proven success means just that — more experience and proven success — for the person selling you the information or consulting services.
Is there a way around this mess, if you are on the outside? You just have to look at the US election and truly try to listen to the angry, frustrated and disenfranchised people screaming for populist solutions to their problems to know that the answers aren’t that at easy to find. ?It is easy for someone in the elite; who has a high paying job or successful business, retirement funds, proper health insurance, and enjoys a warm and loving family life to say: ?”I deserve my success” — but it is equally true that the people struggling to get by often are really no better or worse, morally or intellectually.
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