"Everybody who makes a lot of money defies industry norms. Everybody who makes average money conforms to them."
Now think about this:
What do most people do?
They all follow in some random gurus footsteps, almost blindly copying whatever he and the rest of the market does. Always doing the thing that seems right and playing the game as most would expect. They follow the rules without knowing why the rules are there in the first place, let alone questioning whether those rules are actual rules you should be following.
They’ll say stuff such as:
"Oh everyone attaches a random picture of themself to their LinkedIn post (one that has nothing to do with the post whatsoever). Let's do the same!"
"Oh everyone is praising "value" (even though most don't know what it means) and giving everything away for free (i.e. not getting paid). Let's do the same!"
"Oh everyone is using ChatGPT to come up with topics to talk about and writing awful hooks that ooze 'emotionless and templates writing'. Let's do the same!"
I hope you can see how that’s a problem.
A problem that’s easily solved if you simply think for yourself one second.
Think about what (and why) you’re doing something. Then stop merely copying other people just because they're doing it. They might be successful with it, even because of it, but that still doesn't mean anything. You won't become successful merely by being a copycat of someone else.
How often has that worked out for someone in history?
So what do you do instead?
You defy the norms.
Here's the exercise Dan Kennedy recommended:
Take out a piece of paper (or whatever you use to write on) and make a list of everything that's an industry norm in your business — how things are prices, how things are sold, how they are deliverd, how they are advertised, how they are marketed, what kind of content gets created, how contracts are made up.
Idenfity and isolate every single thing you can think about that's an industry norm people in your business conform to. (This should be a list of over 100 different items).
Then try and figure out how you can defy as many of them as humanly possible.
"You will transform your income in direct proportion to the number you manage to violate," Dan Kennedy adds.
I've been doing this slowly but surely from the start with how I approach social media, how I write my emails, and how I create and sell my courses. And I call tell you that my income increased in direct proportion with the norms I defied.
I urge you to try it yourself.
Don't delay.
Pick up a piece of paper today and do the exercise.
Then send me a message in a few days sharing how much results you're already seeing that quickly.
On another note.
The best and easiest way to define the norms is to build an email list of your own so you can define the rules of how you work and what happens in your domain.
There where where nobody has any power but you.
This allows you to defy—even define—your own norms.
To learn more about how to grow and monetize your email list, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla
