Your Obsession With Proving You're “The Best” Is Destroying Your Business Dreams

New Founders often make 1 mistake that, on the surface, seems like the best decision but dooms their business to never reaching the top 10%.

They obsess over perfecting the product or service and assume excellence will sell itself.

This is the most dangerously misleading idea for business owners.

Hear me out: a great product is a must, but that isn’t enough to be a top performer in your niche.

Just like personal genius doesn’t guarantee financial success.

Product/service genius doesn’t guarantee niche dominance.

Everyone knows some remarkable businesses that failed to crack the big leagues and ended up in a ferocious fight for their share of the bloated middle-market.

🎯 The businesses that win big make 1 strategic marketing decision that carries them into rare air.

What’s the 1 bold marketing move that’s going to change your business outcome?

Your marketing strategy should be:

Great product/service + Owning the narrative + Distribution

Let’s break this down with some examples we all know from different niches:

PRODUCT BUSINESS EXAMPLE: TESLA & APPLE

Journalists often refer to Tesla as the company that doesn’t need marketing. Not true!

Yes, Tesla has historically $0 to low ad spend when compared to the billions spent by other brands in the EV space.

Interesting fact: the other EV companies offer comparable-quality products.

The only difference is that they don’t have Elon Musk.

I’m not referring to his genius, but to the celebrity-level personal brand he's built.

Everything he does is a lesson in PR.

Good or bad, I’m not looking at his actions but the level of attention and trust that he holds in the marketplace.

You have to be deliberate to avoid Elon Musk ‘news’.

In the mind of the consumer: Elon Musk = Tesla = EV

🎯The 1 bold move was creating a Founder-led brand.

The narrative: genius-level founder of futuristic products

The distribution: PR

The reality is that there’s a supermarket aisle of EV brands that most people have never heard of.

Are they great products? I’m sure most are.

They just missed a huge opportunity by ignoring the rise of the personal brand.

The late Steve Jobs proved the power of a founder-led brand. To this day, part of the awe of Apple products is their founder’s story.

Again, is Apple the best at everything? Probably not.

What they excel at is being known: MARKETING! Steve Jobs differentiated Apple from every other tech company.

ECOMMERCE BUSINESS EXAMPLE: AMAZON

During the 90s, e-commerce plays were the thing. Everyone was rushing to be online with similar catalogues and logistics. What gave Amazon the edge?

🎯The 1 bold move was dominating Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

I love this one! SEO is not the fun part of marketing. It takes a long time to see results, but if you’re working on your SEO daily, guess who ends up with the lion's share of online traffic in your niche?

Amazon drove online traffic into a strategic flywheel that fueled ever-increasing growth with less effort.

The narrative: Obsessive customer experience flywheel

The distribution: SEO driven website traffic

BEST SELLING AUTHORS & SPEAKERS EXAMPLES:

If you’re not already a celebrity, the path to being a best-selling author and top-rated (and paid) speaker is becoming recognisable to ordinary people with an interest in your specific area of expertise.

• You may already have done a TEDx talk and written some research-backed books like Brené Brown.

• You may have built a business and had a massive exit like Steven Bartlett.

• You may be an ordinary person who chased a dream that didn’t work out like Lewis Howes.

What do they all have in common? Podcasting took their great product (their accomplishments and pursuits) and gave them a space to own their narrative through mass audio distribution.

🎯Their one bold move was doubling down on podcasting.

Gaining visibility and trust, one listener at a time.

This is no small feat.

2.2 million book titles are published globally every year, according to UNESCO. This figure should be adjusted upward now that Amazon has enabled publishing books on its platform in different languages.

If your goal is to be a highly paid speaker and best-selling author, what's your 1 marketing move?

CONSULTANCY BUSINESS EXAMPLES:

Seth Godin is best known for his daily blog that reaches millions.

Can you imagine sitting at your computer every day for years, sending out an email that eventually reaches millions of eager readers?

After selling his business to Yahoo, “Permission Marketing” is the bestseller that made Seth Godin a category-defining voice.

🎯His one bold move was Thought Leadership.

The narrative: Marketing mind.

The distribution: Daily blog.

💭 “Success leaves clues” - Tony Robbins.

The real differentiator is not expertise, but owning disproportionate attention.

They compounded one channel for years.

Marketing = narrative control + consistent distribution (not sporadic promotion)

A long-term strategic marketing play will change everything for your business.

It’s not going to be easy, but if it were, every business would be a top player in their niche.

Consistent, deliberate execution of a marketing strategy is all it takes.

Anyone can do this. You need to be disciplined.

This should be comforting: Every person who decides to build a brand starts from zero.

You may have accomplished a lot, or you may be a beginner, but we all face the exact same thing.

In the beginning, no one knows you, and no one cares.

Your job is to give them a reason to care by adding value to their life.

‘Value’ means different things to different people. So find your unique value proposition, own the narrative, and build distribution.

Start building a brand that people can’t ignore.

Let’s get to work.

Business Communications Strategist

Founder-Led Media

P.S. Take the Founder’s Voice Quiz. It’s the foundation for creating a marketing move that works with your strengths and not against them. It’s free!