Marketing Mysteries: Why Losers Get Ahead

Have you ever been frustrated by the fact that your competitor or colleague seems to get ahead no matter how much he or she screws up?

It happens all the time.

In fact, just the other day a client of mine was bemoaning the fact that one of his competitors seemed to be doing so well, “Just look at their website,” he said, “it’s awful, but they’re getting way more traffic than me!”

Marketing Lessons from Losers

How can this be?

You’ve worked hard, studied your craft, refined your skills, only to discover that no good, come from behind goofball at your heels….again!

It’s one of the greatest marketing mysteries: you’re doing everything right, but sometimes right just isn’t what works. Here are a few reasons losers win, and what you can learn from them:

  1. Losers have no fear of failureOnce you’ve failed the first time, the prospect is much less intimidating. For losers, failure is a common occurrence, and it’s one they face without fear.

    Not being afraid to fail opens up a whole new world of risk taking opportunities, and sometimes, those risks pay off in a big way.

  2. They don’t care about the rulesRules, schmules. Losers have spent a lifetime breaking rules. They live by the adage that rules are made to be broken. For them, rules are guidelines to be adhered to only when it’s convenient.

    A good loser never let a silly little rule like “we’ve always done it that way” get in the way of success.

  3. Their reputation is irrelevantOrdinary people are constrained by the little voice in their heads saying,
    but what will people think if….

    Do losers care? Of course not.

    They do their own thing, march to their own drummers and don’t waste time worrying about what others think of them. It’s a lot easier to forge ahead with an unconventional idea when you don’t worry about the naysayers.

  4. There’s nothing to loseWhen you start from the bottom, there’s no pace to go but up.

    For losers, the ability to set aside any concerns about potential losses and embrace the philosophy “nothing ventured, nothing gained” makes the upside a lot brighter than the downside.

  5. Losers are OK with flying under the radarLosers are accustomed to going unnoticed. They don’t routinely win awards, get media attention or earn accolades from their peers.

    Since no one is paying attention, it’s really easy for a loser with a good idea to turn it into an astounding success before the competition has a clue what they are doing.

    Flying under the radar is a potent loser tool for getting ahead in stealth mode.

  6. They are comfortable taking a different pathMost of us tend to follow the well-trod pathways, whether it’s the same route to work every day, always stopping at the corner Starbucks, or simply sticking to comfortable habits that have served us well over the years. After are, that’s what made us so successful, right?

    Losers don’t mind wandering off the beaten path. Sometimes they find a new way because it’s too crowded in the mainstream, other times they might be chased down a path they’ve never explored before.

    Losers discover routes some of us never thought possible because they aren’t afraid to go there.

  7. Losers have no boundariesFrom making polite conversation to following proper business etiquette, losers have trouble coloring inside the lines. Their sense of boundaries is different from the rest of the world.

    When you see life as limitless, there’s little to hold you back.

    Losers jump fences, speak their mind, ask tough questions and generally shake things up as they move seamlessly over the perceived boundaries that keep the rest of us safely out of their way.

  8. They don’t know what “they shouldn’t do”Being oblivious to the differences between the right way and the wrong way of doing things makes it possible to explore the world in new ways, unencumbered by truisms that no one ever bothered to challenge.

    Instead of wasting time getting things just right, losers just wing it.

    If something doesn’t work the first time, losers will try a different way. Sometimes, they discover that “the wrong way” is really right.

    “Whatever works” is a common loser mantra.

  9. Appearances don’t matterWhy waste time on spit and polish? Looking good is highly over-rated for losers.

    That’s why some of those really ugly, hard to read websites are out there generating gobs of cash while your highly refined, elegantly designed work of art languishes without any hits.

    For losers, life isn’t about looking pretty, it’s about getting stuff done.

  10. Losers like to have funWhat’s life if not a little fun? Why be tied down, buttoned up and restrained? Losers like to have fun, and it shows.

    Funny thing is, a little fun and games can be pretty appealing, so the rest of us notice when a loser throws caution to the wind and really, truly enjoys what he’s doing.

    When you start with joy, money often follows. We all want some of that, don’t we?

P.S. This post was not meant to offend anyone. So if you consider yourself a loser, take heart, we’ve all got something to learn from you.

Image by Cameron Gaut on scx.hu.

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