The Difference in Success

Working as a creative and as a social media marketer, I'm always on the lookout for advice and new strategies. Today, I learned a great quote while watching my current comfort background YouTube channel Gold Shaw Farm:

"It is better to be different than to be better."

What this means is that it's a better business practice to differentiate yourself than it is to improve upon an existing business. The example in the video is that Morgan (the owner of Gold Shaw Farm) explains that they chose to pursue a business in selling duck eggs rather than chicken eggs because nearly everyone else in his area are selling chicken eggs, whereas there isn't currently any competition for duck eggs.

If you want to watch the video that inspired me, click here: Gold Shaw Farm

From a product/marketing point, this is absolutely correct. Filling a gap in the market makes for a much easier lift in terms of building your business. When there is less, or even no, competition, you're able to focus on creating and building your business, rather than having to force yourself to grow and improve to catch up to and exceed your competition.

Of course, being different is a risk. Sometimes there is a gap in the market due to that there is simply no demand for something. For our earlier YouTuber example, perhaps the reason why no one is farming duck eggs is because there isn't demand for duck eggs. Taking the risk of being different means that you might build a business with a product or service that no one wants. And it's important to learn how to recognize the signs of lack of demand before growing your business further.

An example of realizing this gap failure and finding a way to pivot is my Twitch channel. (Watch here!) When I first started livestreaming, I differentiated myself by doing live drawings and telling stories, rather than playing video games. But I soon found that the reason that gap existed is that it has low popularity on the platform. So, I pivoted and began livestreaming video games. However, I still differentiated myself by building my channel around "cute and chill" style gaming, rather than chasing after whatever video game happened to be popular that everyone else was playing that month. I've found success in that strategy and fill the gap in the market of "hype hardcore" gaming livestreams.

One of the main reasons why differentiating your business is that we live in a world of extreme accessibility. It's easier than ever to learn a new skill, start a business, and handle all the aspects of business and marketing yourself. With the advent of the internet, we have access to more information, more selling platforms, more marketing platforms, and the ability to put our ideas out there and make them a reality at the drop of a hat.

This means that with that ability to create and market with ease that everyone else can do. Competition in all sectors is higher than ever and this means that we have to spend more time beating the algorithms and working to make our business better and more visible. The "cheat code" for this problem is to create something different. Differentiation is how you're able to push yourself out of the crowd and gain better visibility and grow your potential customer base faster.

Be sure to do your research and learn more about the sector you're planning on starting your new business in. Find the top sellers and research what they're doing that helps them stand out in such a dense crowd. Then see how you can apply that to your new business. Being different doesn't mean you have to reinvent the wheel. It is good to "steal" strategies because if it works, it works! You only have to be different enough to stand out, not necessarily go completely off the rails.

At the end of the day, there are no guarantees. Even the best plans and most innovative products can flop in the wild west of the internet. Go in with eyes wide open and the possibility of failure. Be bold. Be different.