Question for Successful Spiritual Entrepreneurs

[electroBeam]

Do you guys do traditional competitor analysis, and if you do what value does it serve?

In traditional competitor analysis, you may make a SWOT table, compare features of your product with others, and show how your product fits the pain points or needs of your customer more than the other products etc.

Does this happen in products produced for markets that are above stage orange (or even green)?

For example, did Leo do a SWOT analysis of Rupert Spira, Mooji, etc? Seems a bit silly to be honest hahaha. 

I'm currently making a small business on the side of my normal job, and am up to the competitor analysis part. I can't help but think in a higher consciousness business collaboration works better than competition. But may be wrong. 

[Average Investor]

It all comes down to the market you are trying to enter. Steve Jobs was pretty spiritual and yet Apple needed to make sure it would stand out from IBM, Commodore, Xerox, etc. It is hard to make a balance. Because most of the most effective marketing is lower conscious. You will have to come up with a balance that best suits you. I would not just allow yourself to just not sell your product. You have to play to some of things the industry is doing. Take a look at Eckhart Tolle's thumbnails on YouTube for example. He does a lot of current marketing with that kind of stuff and keeps up with other channels, but the content is much high conscious once you click into the video. You can't really reach anyone lower on the spiral without effectively doing that. Now if you plan to sell products that are not really raising consciousness at all, then you will have a much harder time trying to avoid that kind of marketing. You have to remember that a very small portion of the population is even at stage yellow. If you want to attract stage orange investors, then you probably are going to have to meet them on that level in some regard.

[electroBeam]

@Average Investor yeah I don't think investors are a good idea for this side gig. A non for profit, charity or for profit for purpose are better options, with an emphasis on the first. It would be hard, but the closest thing to getting money (not from customers) would be grants and donations. Investors wouldn't invest in this because its not an investible business. 

My 'product' is similar to Resonance Science Foundation and this foundation would be the closest competitor. Another indirect competitor would be Ken Wilber's Integral institute. The markets I'm trying to enter would be covered by these guys. Basically technical, but green or above people. The content I would be sharing is technical studies (similar to scientific studies but it does not follow the scientific establishment. Studies like the ones found in resonance science foundation). For example, mathematical models of emotional intelligence in relation to artificial intelligence, or mathematical frameworks for interpreting psychedelic phenomena. 

The value I would be giving is, giving people positive emotions such as curiosity, fascination and wonder, with a technical/mathematical flavour to it. So they would pay and in return get those emotions.

Usually in business, to find value you find a 'pain point' or problem. Unfortunately I don't think I can apply such a paradigm to this business, because increasing more consciousness is not a 'pain point' or problem, like how poverty is. Pain point or problem relies on a materialist paradigm, which this business will not be using. However, at its essence, people pay money for positive experiences or emotions, and so this is what I'm aiming to try and do.  

I still need to figure out what the market wants, and how to position this thing, and I'm currently looking at competitors to help with this. 

Edited March 5, 2020 by electroBeam

[Emerald]

2 hours ago, electroBeam said:

Do you guys do traditional competitor analysis, and if you do what value does it serve?

In traditional competitor analysis, you may make a SWOT table, compare features of your product with others, and show how your product fits the pain points or needs of your customer more than the other products etc.

Does this happen in products produced for markets that are above stage orange (or even green)?

For example, did Leo do a SWOT analysis of Rupert Spira, Mooji, etc? Seems a bit silly to be honest hahaha. 

I'm currently making a small business on the side of my normal job, and am up to the competitor analysis part. I can't help but think in a higher consciousness business collaboration works better than competition. But may be wrong. 

I personally don't. I don't see others in my niche as competitors. I see them as collaborators and networkers. 

 

[Average Investor]

@electroBeam I see what you mean now. I mean something like that I don't really think is that big of a deal. I would just see how you can make your service more unique or more deserving. If there is really only a couple other options for that service in that area the people giving the grants are already going to be familiar with how they conduct their service. What I would try to do is win over smaller grants that they might not be as after to help establish your non-profit more. Once you have more funding it will be easier to show the value of yours. Also, when you look at it you all want to help in the same way. So really no one is losing by you just doing your thing. I feel as if there is enough demand for more of that service, then there will be more money for grants towards it over time. 

[Robert Leavitt]

13 hours ago, Average Investor said:

effective marketing is lower conscious

Man, if that's not the truth I can't tell you what is.

I have a couple of businesses I run on the side.  One is email marketing strictly to the personal development / law of attraction niche.

I also own a small plant nursery which ships to California residents, and also has a website and email marketing situation going on.

I look at the competition and I copy them a lot.

I don't even consider "Competition" because I could care less, I'm trying to get a REALLY small piece of the marketshare.  That's all I'm doing.

They aren't competition anyway, they are all friends and collaborators.  I only look at the relationships with others as opportunities, because as it turns out..if you ask someone who is successful at something 99 out of 100 times they will be more than willing to tell you what they did.  I find that they will tell you EXACTLY what they did (Sometimes for a price) and it will be COMPLETELY different than my ideas.  I act on those completely different ideas now, because..if you think about it, it has to be that way.  They have to be "completely different" than what I Am doing otherwise I would already be a huge success now wouldn't I?

Being successful to me involved OTHER PEOPLE'S IDEAS, not my own.  I knew NOTHING about running a business, and what I thought would work, and what actually works are completely different things.

This whole "Cut throat" dog eat dog world thing that people portray is NOT what is really going on.  Sure it happens between huge companies at big levels, of course it does, but it's really not what is happening in my world.  I approach everyone with a good attitude and I listen and try very hard to execute on the advice they give.

Anyway here's a great rule I have learned over time...

Whatever I think is going to sell, and whatever I really like and I am super happy about is typically NOT what people are going to buy.  You have to listen to your customers needs and desires and adapt to them.  That's my best advice to you is that "my great idea" never made me any $$ at all.  Maybe one day they will, but until then I provide things to people that THEY really want, not what I want or care about.

In fact..I play right into other people's need to "make an impact" ... or "change the world" .. to me I am not trying to change the world. I simply copy what has worked for other people and my net worth increases every month.

I don't know if any of that was helpful.  Just some food for thought.  I spent a lot of wasted years trying to change the world because I was passionate about things that no one cared about (I'm not saying no one cares about your idea...please don't take this personally it's just my experience).

Robert

[Average Investor]

@Robert Leavitt  I would be curious to see some of your work. If you want to show me it.  Yeah, I agree with you in the fact there is not really a need to reinvent the wheel. There is a lot of working things out there that can work for anyone. It is good to add your own touch and personality to it of course though. 

I have just had some product ideas come to mind and I think that last part of what you talked about would be useful for me to think more about while doing it. Not sure if you directed it at OP or myself. If myself I have not fully went to where I am going for sure. I am more or less just getting the ground work to build up some larger ideas of what I want to do. I have thought about doing a lot more business stuff. But I enjoy personal development stuff as a whole and I notice if I teach and share things my knowledge and retention of them skyrockets. 

 

[Robert Leavitt]

@Average Investor I sent you a message.