If You Don’t Have Your Own Back, How Can You Have Anyone Else’s?
July 16th, 2012
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Author: Hi everyone! I saw a picture today online that said something slightly different than what my title here says. It said, “If you don’t have your own back, how can you expect anyone else to?”
I read it and it’s meant to be motivational, but really, it’s the weaker people who lack self esteem and courage who need someone to have their back, so to me, it’s understandable.
I twisted the saying in a way I think it more important for you as LEADERS in your niche.
I see people out there trying to be niche leaders who act as if they are creating an online presence to be there for their target audience’s needs.
Yet…they’re not strong enough to put themselves out there in a way that differentiates themselves from others online. They’re not looking to be different. They want to be ONE OF the leaders. Blend in. Certainly not cause anyone to have a reaction.
Even Tony Freaking Robbins uses cuss words in some of his videos. He’s not afraid to be himself even though he’s an icon of motivation and positive change and all that jazz – he’s HIM. And many people will email him trying to scold him about using bad language.
Being blended in isn’t good enough in my opinion. You need to strive to be THE leader – the only person with the right path to follow. If that means you target a smaller group, fine. It will mean they’re fiercely loyal to you if you were brave enough to believe in yourself.
Someone emailed me yesterday saying they had about 15 websites – none of them monetizing and they couldn’t figure out why.
Well I knew why the second I saw the very first one. It was an AdSense and Article site. Snore.
No one wants to land on an AdSense and Article site. How dry! How boring! How SAFE.
You have to be willing to put some unique opinions and slants out there and then on top of all that, stand up for what you believe! That can be VERY hard to do at first – especially when you feel like a nobody.
Wake People Up!
It’s WHAT WILL SET YOU APART. It’s the whole reason you will develop a loyal fan base to your site. Those sterile article / ad sites are like walking up to a mannequin and trying to have a conversation versus engaging with a real human. No one cares about them!
So before you launch any niche site claiming you have your readers’ best interests at heart, which I’m sure deep down, you do…ask yourself if you’ve been blatantly honest with yourself about what content you TRULY feel needs to be said to that audience.
Speak out against wrong things.
I know for me, a small percentage of my audience can’t stand when I go honey badger about something. But I also know I’d lose half or more of my subscribers if some big boy came along and confronted me about my opinions and I rolled over and apologized for what I believe in!
I don’t say things I don’t believe in. And I’m 100% fine if I am the ONLY one who has my opinion. At the same time, I AM open to reading other people’s input and sometimes they do change my mind. It’s happened on some major life issues, in fact. I’m not afraid to say what I think is right or wrong – and I don’t care if you disagree with me!
Show your audience that you’re PROUD of what you stand for – whether it’s marketing, diet tips that are against the grain, dating advice or whatever. Be different than everybody else and wear that individuality with pride.
I said this in my fiction blog yesterday. The LAST thing I want to be is mediocre. I want you to love me or hate me. I’m happy with either one because it means I took a stance and made you react to what I’m saying.
Tiff 
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Well, the Blended Marketer. Sounds like what you get out of the other end of a garbage disposal. Ha! I like that…I’ll have to work that into an article.
On being unique… I really struggled with how I was going to stand out from the ever growing PLR repositories. Yeah, Yeah, write great articles, but that’s not what sticks with people.
I went down a scary path and put cats into my branding. The domain has no relevance, PLR Pump, but the tag line is “PLR Packs are like cats, you can’t stop with one.”
Of course, people who hate cats will hate this. I even worry that people will think the PLR is about cats…Not.
If anyone cares to comment good or bad, I appreciate your feedback. Good or bad. The PLR site is in the website link on this post.
Tweet me what you think. @katerwrites Of course you’ll have to keep comments short. ;>
I think PLR Pump is a good name – you could angle it like you’re the PLR provider who gets buyers hooked and then pump out plenty of content so they’re not having to go elsewhere.
Tiff – Great insight. It’s hard sometimes to see how you can be different when you have some concrete examples of how successful people are and want to follow them.
But think about why your family loves you? What is it that you do that people always ask you about or for advice about?
For me, it’s fixing their computer or technology. Which is why I finally decided to do an internet marketing blog (Review site) because there are lots of things that I just know because I had to learn them.
So people tell me I am good about telling them what’s next and what’s coming so they can be prepared. That’s how I am going to be different. Cause when I was in their shoes, I wish someone would have told me.
Exactly Mathea! That’s the way to do it.
How refreshing! It is a scary world out there, and frankly, these unoriginal, boring and bulls*it thoughts and sites out there is what made me unsubscribe from all the list last week. (with the exception or yours and one other).
Gone are the days of total replication!!
amen!
While I generally agree with this post, there is one area that I totally disagree with what you said. “(I)t’s the weaker people who lack self esteem and courage who need someone to have their back….”
Unless I am totally misreading your intent, I must disagree. My understanding of that saying comes out of the sixties and seventies when I worked for the U.S. Marine Corps in Washington, D.C., my brother-in-law was a Marine and my brother spent 20+ years in the Air Force. Not to mention the large number of classmates who served in the early years of the Vietnam war – some never coming home.
That saying has to do with people being given the freedom to continue looking and moving forward while looking to the left and right in case of problems, but with the understanding that when someone tells them they have their back, they can proceed with confidence that they also don’t have to worry about their back as well.
It was a positive statement, not ever intended to mean that the person was weak, had low self-esteem or lacked courage.
While I know I have not arrived where I want to be online, I also know that it isn’t the fault of any teacher or guru who has given me plenty of instruction, encouragement, and advice. Much of it has to do with my circumstances, but also my own motivation (or lack thereof). In other words, I have no one to blame except myself for my lack of success.
I’m sure you encounter plenty of people with low self-esteem and fear who do need support and encouragement and an extra helping hand that other more motivated people do not. In the three to four years I’ve been learning about this making-money-online thing, I’ve seen and been proud of the people who I have encountered who have succeeded. I’ve seen them arrive after me and jump way ahead – and I say good for them!
I’ll end my own honey-badger rant with another saying and that is cream always rises to the top. There is a reason some make it to the top, but many don’t. Even though I don’t always agree with everything you say
, I know that you worked hard as you worked your way up to where you are and you are well-worth listening to and learning from.
And for that I thank you for your willingness to openly share as much as you do with the rest of us!
Hey Edie! Yes it can also be construed that way – militaristically speaking or otherwise. But when it comes to a marketing lesson, which is where I’m taking it, it can mean the person is fragile and feels weak and needs someone to have their back.
I don’t disagree with anything you said. lol
Hi Tiffany
Your post today gave me some food for thought. I am a kindle author and have books in about eight unrelated niches – would you suggest that I concentrate on building followers on my personal blog, or if I should build blogs for all of my niches along with new books in the same niche?
I do publish some short fiction under a pen name on Kindle – I don’t feel right in putting my name on them because I outsourced the writing and just edited myself, but I saw in another recent post you had that you were going to put your fiction books in your name too? Or were you still debating that one? I do plan to write my own fiction and bought the Kindling course yesterday, but I am still a bit chicken about it
Thanks Tiffany, have a great day
Lisa
I think Geoff recommends a Blogger blog per niche/pen name. One thing I’ve read is that the successful Kindlers are blogging, but not a lot – like once a month. That’ll be hard for me to shut up! lol
I’m actually writing my own fiction books – decided not to go with outsourcing because the bids weren’t what I wanted. The portfolios weren’t good, the ideas weren’t Me (fairies, etc), and I came up with something on my own and just went with it. I’m going to do the fiction series in my name. I had debated it but I figure why not? lol
After editing so much of the fiction work I did outsource I am taking the plunge and writing it myself – might take a bit longer but at least I will be proud of what I have done
Thank you Tiffany
Lisa
Hi Tiff,
Off subject but did I see somewhere that you were reading “How I Sold a Million eBooks in 5 Months”? Also, downloaded and read your book “How to Become an Entrepreneur” the other day, in one sitting. I liked it!
Thanks
Yes I just finished John Locke’s book – it was a good read! Thanks for reading the Entrepreneur one! Glad you liked it:)
In my opinion, part of the problem is that if you choose a niche you don’t care about, it’s very difficult to be original because you really have nothing to say about the topic.
And probably the first advice most folks are going to stumble upon when they start learning about im is that you should have plenty of exact-domain-name niche sites that are monetized with Adsense (or affiliate products). (Sorry for the horrible mega sentence!)
My very first site was supposed to be about facial masks, which I couldn’t care less of. Needless to say I don’t own that domain anymore and never even got to really develop the site. Good riddance!
It took me months and months to unlearn all that bad advice I learned in my first 6-9 months of im.
Been there done that!
Tiffany there are a bucket load of adjective’s I can use to describe you and not one of them is mediocre!