This is the 17th post, in the Start-up Journey series, click here to read the first one.
Okay, I know I wrote about competition earlier in the series, but frankly you cannot over-cover this topic. Today, competition is everywhere and can pop up out of nowhere, just ask my competitors who were here first. But, it’s their own fault that I am now in the middle of their sandbox. If this base was covered well enough, I would not have tried to enter the space. It’s a race, they had a big head-start, but may have squandered their lead.
The “Fat Cat” syndrome. It can creep up on you, and it obviously has on the existing players in the automated-webinar arena. Not that any of these operators were well-funded techno-glomerates, most are what I call “scheme-weavers”. The first new product to solve a problem, will garner the early adopters. In the internet marketing/”info-prenuer” space, everybody is looking for an edge, so they are all “early-adopters”. Being “First” can be a great position, even if your product is not that great, when there are no other options available. But, if you are lucky enough to get some exposure from some big name early adopters, you better be ready for an attack.
The first attack wave is the copy-cats. They basically duplicate what you are doing with a different name, and a lower price. They will steal a share of the market with the lower price, but unless they are able to leap-frog the first guy by a wide margin, their cheap price usually does them in. That is the case in this space as several of the also-rans have already been abandoned on the side of the information super-highway. If you’re lucky, as the first one, this carnage of copycats may dissuade others. Unless someone like me gets you in their sights. I don’t mean to say that I am some superman, there are a lot of people like me in the world, take the whole country of Japan. China copies, Japan improves. Every single thing you own is an improved version of an original.
In the automated-webinar space there are several contenders. I had looked at them all earlier and lumped them all together as junk and pretty much dismissed them. Now that we are taking this second look at the “Get Rich Quick” crowd, I start hearing one name more than others: “Stealth Seminars“. Seriously? “Stealth”, sounds like an honest operation to me. Why not “Pick-Pocket Seminars”? Clearly their naming was intentional… I get it. So I decide to take a closer look at this platform as it is the one I keep hearing that these “info-marketers” are using. I mean Frank Kern is on their homepage! I listen to their pitch audio on their website. Why do all these guys sound so similar? Is there some book that says speaking in a southern accent makes you more believable? If this is a technology platform, how does hillbilly help? Must be one of those “If an idiot like me can do it, surely you can too” deals. I go ahead and sign up for their demo webinar to check out their platform.
True to their claims, their entire approach centers around lying to your audience. After registration you are taken to a thank you page on a bogus “conferencing” site. The word “Live” is sprinkled throughout. I go ahead and click on the link and I’m taken to an amateur looking landing page with a video placeholder and a plain text countdown that shows the wrong amount of time left. Seriously, this is their own product demo? The webinar does start on time, in spite of the clock, and I am dumbfounded. The guy actually pretends to be answering questions from the audience he sent there who already know this is not live. I dunno… maybe you CAN bullshit, bullshitters… I don’t usually bash competition, but this is blog series is not a marketing effort, so screw ‘em. I don’t want to brag (yes I do), but just look at the side-by-side of our platforms below:
At this point, I am feeling pretty good. The leading player’s product is junk, so it’s just a matter of getting our platform in front of the right faces.
Next Post: Marketing to the Scheme-Weavers
previous post in series: Ain’t no hill for a Climber
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