“Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.” – Dale Carnegie
I get a lot of e-mails asking if particular niches are good. Usually it goes something like: “Should I launch a Web site/blog/product in a competitive niche? Isn’t it too difficult if there are tons of competitors?”
Competition doesn’t matter. In many cases, the more competition the better. The fear of competition is all in your head.
Get out of your head and take massive action.
Let’s say you wanted to start a new blog in the simplicity niche.
How many blogs are already in that niche? Far too many to count.
How many of those were successful? Quite a few, actually.
Let’s start at the top: ZenHabits.net. Leo Babauta has 170k+ subscribers! And a print book. And eBooks. And a blog coaching program. And 2 other successful blogs! Leo has created a massive movement. That’s scary competition, right?
Or maybe not.
When you find a “competitor” who seems like they have a stranglehold of the marketplace that’s a good thing. It means the niche is thriving and you have a better chance of getting a piece of the pie.
Know this: The pie is not finite!
The pie grows to support new thought leaders. It will feed as many mouths as is necessary. If you provide the new ingredients, it will take care of the rest. Bigger pans, bigger window sills (for cooling, duh!).
Why You Shouldn’t Fear Your Biggest Competitors
The people at the top aren’t usually evil. (And if some of them are, who cares?) The more success more people have in a niche, the more the pie grows and the more everybody succeeds. Again, the pie is not finite.
Successful people understand the abundance mindset. They know the pie is not finite, and they’re happy to share ideas to make the pie bigger.
More than likely if you talk to some of the top dogs in your chosen niche they will be happy to provide you with some advice. That doesn’t mean you should abuse this ability to connect with them. But a short, succinct, e-mail (short e-mail = very important) asking for a bit of specific advice (also very important) will usually be met with kindness.
I’ve e-mailed some people who I never thought would e-mail me back. Much less with quality suggestions/ideas/tips instead of a simple “cool, keep doing what you’re doing!” or whatever.
Destroy Your Fear Of Competition In The Next 7 Minutes This is exactly what you need to do:
- Choose your 3 biggest “competitors.” It doesn’t matter who they are, how famous they are, or how much you look up to them. Get them out of your head. As the guys from The Ren Men Show (<– amazing) would say: “Get off the bench!” Meaning, play the game!
- Come up with a very succinct question that you need help with.
- Send each a personalized e-mail. Your whole e-mail should be no more than 5 sentences. No long diatribes. Brevity is the key. I think you’ll be happily surprised with what happens. :)
Do you still fear competition?
