https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGup9yYrOoc

1 00:00:00.000 --\> 00:01:00.000 over the last five years i've had 22
different clients and or employees try and repurpose you know our
licensing material into their own business and um i wanted to make this
video to talk about how to handle that as you inevitably grow in
business this is going to happen to you so it's a matter of when not if
and what i think have been some of the best strategies that i've that
i've used to deal with them so by the way fyi my name's alex from rosie
i own acquisition.com we do about 85 million a year in revenue i have
nothing to sell you so today i want to talk about uh kind of the the
backlash against competition and copycats and things like that so the
biggest problem that most entrepreneurs deal with or at least that i was
dealing with uh each time especially earlier on when this would happen
is that i took it as such a great deep personal affront as in it was a
it was a true um attack on my character i was like how

2 00:01:00.000 --\> 00:02:00.000 could you be this way i thought that
they were scum um and all the many things and thoughts that we you know
would naturally go through but i had a mentor early on in my life and
she shared something with me that i've always it's always stuck with me
and she said you will become astonishingly good at predicting the
behavior of others if you always assume they will act in their own best
interest and that has been incredibly telling and so instead of
listening to what people say and uh and believing them if you just
simply can think what is in this person's own best interest independent
of myself or anything that i am you know basically take yourself out of
the equation and think from their perspective you will become
astonishingly good at predicting what people are going to do right and
so the idea if you want to get people to do what you want them to do is
that you must align what is in their best interest and what is in your
best interest together and if you can do that and accomplish that
effectively then you will be able to harness people's selfish nature
towards a common goal which is

3 00:02:00.000 --\> 00:03:00.000 ultimately what a lot of business
really is right so back to the story 22 different people have tried to
take our stuff repurpose our stuff and it's not just taking and
repurposing it it's typically also uh additionally them talking right
about you um and usually soliciting uh other employees or current
clients of yours to go with them right and so that then creates even
more anger because it feels like someone's taking your stuff etc but
this is what i can tell you has happened in the few instances that i did
earlier on my career where i focused a ton of time and effort on these
people i even one time dramatically changed my business model in
response to somebody who was trying to solicit my best clients and my
current clients to start a business adjacent to me um the only thing
that happened was that i just hurt my own business and the reality is

4 00:03:00.000 --\> 00:04:00.000 the vast majority of my customers had
no idea any of this was happening at all it was all happening in my own
head and i was magnifying it way out of blowing it out way out of
proportion right and so if you're in this situation these are some of
the things that i think through or that i think with to help myself feel
better about it number one they need me i do not need them i am the
source of the thing that they are trying to copy and therefore they will
always be a subset of me which means they cannot be bigger than me if
the source of everything they have is me right if their source of
customers is my customer base if the source of their of their business
model is my business model they need me i do not need them right right
so that's number one number two the type of person who operates in this
way admits that they are a follower and not a leader all right which
means that they cannot lead you it's a different way of saying the first
one but i think it's worth mentioning right number three the type of
person who operates in this

5 00:04:00.000 --\> 00:05:00.000 way will always operate from a place of
scarcity right they will always try and hoard and they will always be
focused on you and not their customers all right so where their focus
goes right where your attention goes uh shoot what is it where attention
goes money flows that's one of my one of my money sayings um if someone
is doing that right then they are purposely telling the marketplace that
you are the focus not them and not their customers all right and so the
thing to do and so these are the actions to take if you're in one of
these situations if they get loud you get louder about yourself you get
louder about your solutions you get louder about your purpose about your
mission you never acknowledge them ever coke never acknowledges pepsi
the classic never acknowledges the inferior there's no point you gain
nothing the only thing that is gained is what they what they should hope
that you do is that you give them credit

6 00:05:00.000 --\> 00:06:00.000 right and as soon as you speak their
name into existence they become more elevated and then they become on
your level and so you can never acknowledge that they even exist all
right but if they are allowed then your course of action is to become
louder about your message and so if you need something to motivate you
use it to motivate you to market harder to sell harder and the saying
that i like to use in our company is beat them in the field all right if
people are talking smack in the stands beat him in the field all right
look at the scoreboard that's all we care about all right and so these
are some of the things that over time i've kind of accumulated in my
little toolkit of you know mental toolkit of of how to deal with the
haters and the people who copycat and steelers and all that kind of
stuff is to understand that they need me i don't need them that when
they focus on me they put more attention my way that the only thing that
i can do in response is to get

7 00:06:00.000 --\> 00:07:00.000 louder about my thing never acknowledge
them right and finally just remember that the person who always gives
the most to your customers wins period and the founder of hubspot said
something that i think is really cool and powerful he said you don't
have a customer until somebody has offered them a cheaper version of
your solution and they have chosen not to take it that is when you have
a customer and so i think that's really telling is that if you if you're
so confident in the value provide then you shouldn't be worried about it
if you are worried about this person then double down on the value that
you're providing to your customers and then it will help you sleep
better channel the nervous energy or the angry energy that you have not
at the competitor but target into the value that you're gonna provide to
your customers all right so i'm not saying you know i'm some saint i'm
saying i've done 22. i've got like i was counting with my my gm the
other day we're talking about every single time somebody has tried to
attack what is ours right has tried to take what is

8 00:07:00.000 --\> 00:08:00.000 yours and uh saying from yellowstone
the show that i like is that anything if you if you want anything if you
have anything worth having people are going to try and take it from you
right the only way to have something that no one will ever take from you
is to have something that no one wants and if you want something that
other people will have if you have something other people will want then
you should expect that people will try and take it from you and you
should take the fact that they are trying to take it from you as a sign
of success that what you were doing is the right thing because they are
trying to take it from me because it's an indicator that what you have
is desirable all right and that's the game and the more desirable the
state that you have is the more people will try and take it from you and
so having these mental things these mental tools in your tool belt is
very useful as an entrepreneur and i'll leave you with one final thing i
think that when i look back on my life when i'm 80 or 90 years old i
will be ashamed of things that i did and actions that i took out of
malice

9 00:08:00.000 --\> 00:09:00.000 and so i think that the truest guide
that we can use for what actions we should take in response to others is
what values do i want my life to exude what values do i want my actions
to stand for and be in alignment with and if you don't think that
inaction will be in alignment with the values that you would have when
you're 80 or 90 years old and you look back on the situation then don't
do it right or do the action that is in alignment with those values and
a lot of times the sad part about taking the high path is that when you
win because right now i'm 22 for 22 in terms of people that i have
defeated who have tried to to take what is ours you don't actually get
you don't get a victory lap you don't get a victory dance because when
people lose to you you can't go stand on their corpse and teabag them
like a like a uh like a video game right it doesn't work that way in the
real world they disappear with a whimper they fade

10 00:09:00.000 --\> 00:10:00.000 into not in into obscurance or into
obscurity they fade into non-existence that's what ends up happening and
when asked about why when they tell their own story they'll just say
they decided to change their mind and didn't want to pursue it anymore
because of xyz reason that they will cite about the industry and never
take uh ownership for why they actually sucked and uh if you're one of
those 22 people and you're watching this video um i remember you but i
will never acknowledge your existence um and so i uh i say that because
because when you win it's not that fulfilling because it's it's very
rare that you actually get into a hot battle with somebody it's all
happening in your mind and most people just don't have the skills to
compete with you if you have a business

11 00:10:00.000 --\> 00:11:00.000 and they'll eventually just disappear
and it just sucks to have to deal with it and the thing is is when they
disappear you'll have forgotten they exist to begin with and so it's not
like you get an envelope in the mail that says the person you know waves
the white flag they'll just move on with their lives and so will you
until eventually you forget they exist and uh and so yeah so that's the
unfulfilling uh path of the victor but the thing you do get to have is
you get the scoreboard and you get the business and you get the clients
and you get the impact and that is really the only reward for continuing
to act in the way that is in alignment with values and providing more
value to your customers is that you'll just continue to win in the long
haul and everyone else will just shrink in comparison to you so anyways
bossy nation i make these videos because a lot of people broke and i
would be one of them i don't want you to take a stupid action as a
result of a competitor or ex-employee or an ex-client trying to siphon
your clients it happens it's part of business the fact that they're
doing it shows you that you're on the right path just don't do anything
that 85 year old you

12 00:11:00.000 --\> 00:12:00.000 wouldn't be proud of all right lots of
love keep being awesome i'll catch you guys next video bye
