I recently finished reading a book called NLP about NLP by two NLP experts, Steve Andreas and Charles Faulkner.
I’m interested in somehow patching a few Y2K-sized bugs in my own brain software, and so this kind of neural programming stuff is right up my alley and then through a little door.
Anyways, at one point in the book, Andreas and Faulkner advise the following:
“Find what’s worthy of compliment in your competition. Since you have been encouraging yourself to be complimentary to others, your senses have been opened and relaxed. You will have undoubtedly found yourself acquiring the skills of others without directly concentrating on them.”
Too easy? Who knows. I decided to try it out.
But then right at the start, I hit a snag. I had trouble coming up with my “competition.”
There’s nobody I really think of in that way. That’s the whole point of writing daily emails and creating unique offers like Copy Riddles.
But ok — ultimately, I am competing for people’s attention, for space in their inbox, for their hearts and minds, and possibly for their learning and growth dollars.
So I made a list of 12 such competitors. They all either write daily emails or have something to do with direct marketing.
For each competitor, I listed the first thing that came to mind — stuff they do, which I admire.
It turned out to be a surprisingly fun and eye-opening exercise. I suggest it to you — whether you’re a business owner, marketer, or freelancer.
Perhaps you’re curious about my list. You can find it below, with the names stripped out. After all, my goal today isn’t to name drop in bulk or to call people out.
But perhaps you can still guess who I have in mind — all are people I’ve mentioned previously in my newsletter. And here’s what’s worthy of compliment in each:
1. Willingness to get on camera regularly in spite of having the charisma of a typical copywriter
2. Community management
3. High-priced offers
4. A business built around a single core product that’s been running for years
5. Emotional copy in spite of being very emotionally flat as a person
6. Personality-based emails
7. Writing fast
8. Surprising historical anecdotes
9. List building
10. Self-aggrandizement
11. A deep trove of personal experience and interests
12. A really unique viewpoint
If you’re in the marketing and copywriting space, all these people will probably be familiar to you.
Except perhaps #8. He is well-known, but is not in the marketing space.
And #12. He was once a direct marketer, but is today something… not quite definable. If you’re curious, I’ll tell you more about him, including his name, in my email tomorrow. You can sign up here to read that.