Originally aired Thursday, February 12, 2026. Businessing is now a weekly show with a new episode every Monday.
Short answer: Write down who in your business life drags you down, who treats you like their therapist, and which groups stopped giving you results. Then list who pushes you forward, who tells you the hard truth, and who has done what you're trying to do. Spend less time with the first list and more with the second.
Today we did a relationship audit together. I asked you to grab a notebook and write down names as I asked questions. Who drags you down? Who treats you like their therapist? Which rooms stopped working, and who tells you the truth even when it hurts? Then I gave you permission to vote some people off the island. I started with a stat that says solopreneurs earning around $100,000 are in the top 20%. Then we looked at a housing slowdown where only the premium end is growing. In the Idea Slam I took two questions. How do I tell a big company I don't work for exposure? And is it okay to copy a competitor?
Businessing is the weekly show where small business owners figure out what to do next, with a new episode every Monday. Hosted by Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community: owners only, nobody pitching, $19 a month.
Key takeaways
- List the people in your business life who are always negative or only call to unload their problems on you.
- Name the networking groups and meetups that used to get results but don't anymore, and cut back or leave.
- Make more time for the people and rooms that give you energy, ideas, referrals and honest feedback.
- Find someone who has already done what you're trying to do, and be as valuable to them as you can.
- When asked to work for exposure, offer other ways they can pay, like a paying sponsor, attendee contacts or selling on site.
Questions this episode answers
How do I know if a networking group is worth my time?
Ask whether it still gets you leads, ideas or energy. If it's the same complaints every month and you never get a referral, it's not working. Sunk cost isn't a reason to stay, so cut back or leave.
How do I say no to working for exposure without burning a bridge?
Don't just say no. Offer ways it could work, like having a paying sponsor cover you or getting paid for their next event. You could also ask for the attendee list and permission to sell on site. Advocate for yourself, and keep any angry reply out of the email.
Is it okay to copy a competitor?
Copying their work word for word is wrong, so don't do it. Studying what they offer and putting your own spin on it is fair. Figure out the result they give customers and how they deliver it, then solve that problem your own way.
Who should a small business owner have in their network?
You need people who push you forward and someone who will tell you the hard truth. You also need someone who has already done what you're trying to do. Without them, it's easy to keep making the same mistakes.
Worth quoting
Your success as a business owner relies on who is around you. If you're surrounding yourself with people that are not helping you grow, you are in trouble.
Pat Miller on Businessing
Exposure doesn't pay the mortgage. We don't work for exposure around here.
Pat Miller on Businessing
while there's an infinite amount of stuff we can go do, there is not an infinite amount of stuff that your customers actually wanna buy.
Pat Miller on Businessing
You need to have someone that's a couple chapters ahead of you in the book, maybe a couple of books ahead of you.
Pat Miller on Businessing
On the show
- Idea Slam question: Two questions: a big company wants me to work for exposure, so how do I respond without burning a bridge; and is it okay to copy a competitor?
In this episode
- Show open
- Solopreneurs earning $100K are in the top 20%
- Housing slowdown and why you need a premium product
- The relationship audit: who drags you down?
- Who tells you the truth and who's done it before
- Permission to vote people off the island
- Idea Slam: how to say no to working for exposure
- Idea Slam: is it okay to copy a competitor?
Watch, listen and join
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Apple Podcasts
- Listen anywhere
- Small Business Owners Community
- The Small Business Library (add it to your AI tool)
More on this topic: Getting clients answers from the Small Business Owners Community
Full transcript
And good morning. It is Thursday, February 12th, and today. We are Businessing. This is Small Business' weekly show. I'm your host, pat Miller, founder of the small business owners community, sponsored this morning by our friends at Gen Head and Eng G. And I was thinking about this show today as I got ready and I like, you know what?
We really need to underscore that this is not your standard business show. This is a show for people who own a business. That's a big difference from a business show. So if you're expecting like a 45 minute MBA, I mean, yeah, you might learn something and yeah, we'll talk about business, but it's really about what's going on up here and there's a lot of that on today's show.
We are gonna get deep today. Our lead story is all about auditing the people in your life. Yep. You and I are gonna go through all the people in your business network and vote some people off the island. It's a good thing. It's just you and me talking here because if everyone else, you know, heard who you were voting off the island, they might, you know, chitter chat.
But it's just you and me talking here. We're also going to go deep today because our idea slam questions are, they're a little emotional. A big company wants me to work for exposure. How should I tell them to go pound sand and not burn the relationship? We've all been there. Hey, it'd be great. You're a small business.
I can get you in front of a lot of people. That doesn't make the mortgage friend, so how do you tell them to raise a finger without, you know, burning the bridge? The other idea slam question is, you know, some scruples going on. Is it okay to copy a competitor? We'll talk about that in today's show as well.
Good morning, Barbara. It's great to see you and Michael. Hey man, good to see you as well. Thanks for tuning in. I really appreciate it. Uh, and let's say good morning to Barbara here as well. See, Barbara's doing it right? She's got her business link in the chat. Make sure you do that so we can let everybody know all about you and your business.
That is part of the fun of doing this together because like I say. This is for a show. This is a show for people that are running a business. So you're doing stuff. I hope that you've kind of got me on an alternate screen or in the background, so you're just a part of the daily meeting. 'cause that's what we're doing around here.
We always start by checking the news. So how do you think you're doing as a solopreneur? I was reading through all of the new stuff this morning and there was a tiny little stat, just a little, little stat. I thought, whoa, we gotta, we gotta whip that out. We gotta talk about this one because this stat reminds you that you probably are ahead of the pack and you don't even realize it.
So let's start with that. There's a study out that says there are 29.8 million solopreneurs in the United States, and together we contribute $1.7 trillion to the economy. Basically, if all the solopreneurs packed it up and went home, the country breaks we're kind of a big deal, even though we're a little deal.
But United we're kind of a big deal. But here's the stat that I found and I thought, Ooh, I gotta get that on the air. 'cause this. This is good. The stat is of the 29.8 million, 5.6 million are earning over a hundred thousand dollars annually. Now, earning a hundred thousand dollars is nothing to sneeze at.
That's really, really good. But I bet many of you, and I bet you are either at that or above it. Earning a hundred thousand dollars a year annually as a solo preneur. It's one of those milestone numbers that makes you feel like, okay, I'm stable. Things are good. It's not like I'm saying, are you making a million dollars a year?
A hundred thousand dollars a year? Now, the reason why I share that is if you do make a hundred thousand dollars or around that every year, you are in the top 20% of all small business owners. So if you woke up today and you thought, man. I don't feel like businessing today, although you came to the show, which I appreciate.
I don't wanna do this stuff, you know, like I, I'm just not doing as good as I could. I, if I don't make $250,000, I'm a failure. No, no, no, no, no, no. If you're making a hundred K or around that, you're in the top 20% of all solopreneurs. So yeah, we all wanna make more money and we wanna go further, but I found that number kind of reassuring.
If I asked you, like if you didn't know that number, and I said, what do you think it takes to be in the top 20% of all the solopreneurs in the country? What would you say? I bet your number would've been higher than a hundred thousand dollars. So if you're at it, you're above it. You're near it. I see you.
Congratulations and know that you're doing just fine. One other news story, we should talk about home sales. They tanked. January. The story from the National Realtors Association is reported by CNBC. Their quote was, sales fell off a cliff. I don't like when realtors talk about cliffs. That ain't good.
Sales dropped from December. It was down 8.4% in January. The biggest monthly decline since February of 22. Year over year, like last January to this January, it was down 4.4%. That's a lot of percent. Their top economist at the NAR called it a new housing crisis. He said that Americans are kind of stuck, that potential buyers are struggling and renters are not building any housing wealth and inventory's really low.
The inventory, meaning how many houses are out there to buy. There were 1.2 million homes on the market. That sounds like a lot of bathrooms. It's not. It's only a 3.7 month supply, and according to the NAR, we need to have a six month supply to have a balanced market. So not enough houses, everybody's renting, falling off cliffs.
We don't like these things. These not, not, not good, not good. And prices hit a record. The median home sale in January, $396,000 up 0.9% year over year. So more expensive than ever. Not enough homes on the market. People are stuck, houses are falling off cliffs. This is not a good thing. So why, like what are we gonna do about it?
But we can look to the parts that are working and this can be kind of instructed to you as a small business owner, the only segment of the market that's growing. Is the 1 million and more range. So the people that have a little bit of cash, they can buy higher things. The luxury or near luxury market, they're doing great.
They're doing great. But the really affordable homes under $250,000, not so good. So what do we do when things get bumpy? What are you selling that's premium? What do you have in your arsenal that is more expensive? Not less expensive, which is so counterintuitive when things get weird. We always think, well, I gotta have an affordable budget product because the economy and you know, things are, things are going sideways and yeah, you, you might have to have a budget item, but the upper part of the economy is still going strong.
The other thing to keep an eye on is interest rates. They're blaming part of the inventory problem on the fact that people are just sitting on their houses. If you're sitting on a 3% loan right now, why would you go buy a new house at 6%? You, you wouldn't do that. So overall, we want the interest rates to come down.
We want more houses on the market. We want everyone to do great. And your little post-it note that I'm tapping onto your monitor today is what do you have as a premium product? Do you have a premium product? Every one of you. Do you, you, I'm pointing at you, do you have a premium product? If the answer is no, you gotta make one.
Think about how you could do a premium product this weekend. 'cause that market seems to be doing just dang fun. Our lead story today is interactive. I am going to ask you a series of questions. You are gonna get out your notebook and we're gonna do this together. And this came out of a conversation I had with an entrepreneur yesterday.
They said, you know, I'm really disappointed in how things are going in my networking groups right now. And they shared how the groups that used to really work for them, they don't work as well anymore. People talk all the time like a monologue and don't ask others to contribute, or they expect you to show up and then solve their problems for them, and they never ask you how you are doing.
You've been in those groups before, in those rooms, before, those relationships and those rooms that you go to, they become habits. They become items on the schedule. They become things that we just do without thinking about it. Well, how about we think about it? Let's do an audit of the business people in your life.
Have you ever done an audit? And, and this is just you and me talking here, so no one's gonna see these notes, but I'm gonna ask you a series of questions and I want you to be honest. Because if you are with me and you actually put thought into this exercise, when I ask you a question, people are going to pop up in your mind.
Oh, Sally, oh, Fred aside, are those the oldest names I could think of on the planet? Might as well have said Moses, but I'm gonna say a name and the dis that are gonna pop up. Blink, blink, blink. And you're gonna just viscerally answer these questions and then at the end we're gonna take action because.
Your success as a business owner relies on who is around you. If you're surrounding yourself with people that are not helping you grow, you are in trouble. That's not gonna help you stay, uh, moving forward, inspired looking upwards, being with the people that are challenging you and lifting you up. You're just gonna be with a bunch of complainers.
That kind of, what's the crab bucket mentality that when you're in a, the crabs in a bucket will pull each other in rather than try and. Get out of the bucket on their own. So let's escape the crab bucket together. Now lit, literally. Now I, I see you, I can see who's tuned in and hello by the way. And I want you to get the notebook out.
I want you to do this with me. Oh, pat, I don't need to bs. I'm gonna ask you some questions. You think about it. Here's the first one of the people in your business life, of the people that you talk about, about business. Who is negative and always drags you down.
Blink people popped up, didn't they? You probably thought of them before I even finished the question. Who do you talk to that just bitches and complains all the time. Everything's a problem. I can't believe the thing happened. Oh, it all happened to me. They just go on and on and on and on and on. Good morning, Steve.
Great to see you. You know those people, they're around you all the time. So who in your life is just negative pants? Write their name down. I want you to write their name down. Okay? Here's the second question. Who in your life, in your business life now makes you feel like you are their therapist? The only time they talk to you is when they have a problem.
They just show up and they just unload their entire business life story on your desk. Just, oh, hey Nikki. Great to see you, blah. And they just, they're just always there to dump on you. Like they're just getting it out. Now that could be healthy if they then say, okay, you go and you two like use each other to decompress and share thoughts and all that kind of stuff.
Not talking about that. I'm talking about the person in your life that just shows up in dumps and you know exactly who I'm talking about. They think that you are their support person. You are not. You are a business owner that has a mortgage and you gotta eat. We have a finite amount of emotional bandwidth.
We cannot just take on everybody else's crap. You get the call from them, you're like, oh God, the Ben Affleck me when he's standing there with a cigarette. Oh, when the person calls, that's the emotion that you have. Write their name down. It may hurt to write some of these names down, by the way, but do it anyway.
Here's the third question. If you're just tuning in, we're doing an audit. Of the business people in your life. We're talking honestly about the people that you're surrounding yourself with, and it's not all negative. We've talked a couple of negative things, but we're gonna talk about some positive stuff as well.
Okay? Here's the next one. Who in your life, in your business life is always behind you, is always trying to pull you forward. People that when you talk to them, they just get you fired up. It's almost like, um, improv. You know how the rule of improv is. Oh, and then, and then, and then Is that what it is? And then I think it's, and then where, where you just keep on going.
No matter what they say, you just keep the, the bit going on. Well, who in your business life is like that? Oh, hey Steve, you're doing the thing and you know, another thing you can do, and oh, well what if you did this? And they're always giving their energy. To pull you forward and you feel reciprocal to them.
Just whenever you have coffee with them, you leave just fired up like, ah, I'm ready to take over the world. You have those people in your life. Who is it? Write it down. Write it down. Write it down. You're writing it down. I can see your notebook. You're writing it down. Good. Because when you find those people, we get to hold onto 'em tight.
Very, very important. Here's another one. This is oof. This is gonna hurt. This may change your memberships. This may change your calendar. Where are you going? That used to have results? That doesn't have results anymore.
You go to this networking group, you never get a lead. You go to this networking group. They're always talking about the same stuff. You go to this networking group, it's just a bunch of victims. You go to this networking group and it just makes you feel. Not inspired. We talked about that six months ago.
It's Groundhog's Day with these people. You have a regular coffee meetup. This just turns into family gossip. Where are you going? Where are you going? That's not working for you anymore. Write it down. Sunk cost is a real thing. You've joined it, you've got a membership in it. You, you've been with these people for years, whatever it might be.
Who cares? Who cares? Because if you look at it analytically, if you think about it, if you are in a room that's not working for you, do they really care if you are successful or not? And to be really honest, does anyone care if you win? As a small business owner, you kind of have to advocate for yourself.
And that's why this exercise of going through your business, uh, investments of people and places, it's so dang important. And maybe you've never done it before. And you may realize, wow, that group just really doesn't do it for me anymore. I think I should leave and we'll talk about what we should do with these names on the list in just a minute.
So then let's flip that question and make it positive. Where are you going? Like what organizations and rooms are you in that you just wish you could spend more time in? You go to this conference every year and it rocks. You go to this one group and you've always meant to go back, but you've got the other one.
It rocks. Where is that magic? Where are you not protecting time, not making time for that group? What are those rooms that give you energy and ideas and referrals and clarity and you just don't go enough 'cause you're not busy? You know those groups. Write it down. Think there's two more questions here, and if you're just joining us, we are auditing the business people in your life and the places that you go to make sure that you're maximizing.
Where you spend and how you spend your time, who in your life will tell you the truth, even when it's hard to hear? Now, this is a big one. I have a few people on speed dial in my life who I call, not because they're mean. I call because they care enough about me to say, pat, I know you're excited about this idea, but it won't work, and here's why.
You know how valuable that is. It's not that they know more than me or you, it's they care about you enough to be honest. Who in your life, these people are lifeboat people. These are, the house is on fire. You grab them and run out of the house with them people. These are unbelievable business relationships.
Who in your life tells you the truth, even when it's hard to hear? You might not agree with them on everything, but who cares? They care about you and they'll tell you the truth. And here is the final one. Here's the final one. Who in your life has already done what you're trying to do? And everybody needs that answer.
Everyone needs that answer. You need to have someone that's a couple chapters ahead of you in the book, maybe a couple of books ahead of you. Someone that can say, yes, I've done that before, and here's how it works. Be valuable to them as much as you can, but we all need to have someone in our life that's been there and done that so they can help you navigate a road to get to where you're trying to go.
If we look at this list holistically, think about why you might feel stuck sometimes if you don't have people in your life that have done what you're trying to do. If you're not walking into rooms that get you inspired, if you don't have people in your life that will tell you the truth. How do you expect to grow as a solopreneur?
Your dog's not gonna tell you what to do. You could tune into this show and I'll help you all I can. You could join the SBOC 'cause that's what we do there. But outside of that, you're gonna end up in those negative circles. You're gonna keep on making the same mistake you're gonna keep on underpricing your product.
You're gonna keep on chasing bad leads and creating stupid products that nobody wants, and then you'll think it's a you problem. Well, it might be a you problem, but it's also who are you surrounding yourself with problem? If you get this stuff right, if you have the right people around you, you can accelerate very, very quickly. Now you've got a list. Here are the people that just take from me. Here are the people that are always negative. Here are the people in the rooms that don't work for me any longer. I'm challenging you to get rid of them. Oh, pat, I can't, uh, they're, I, I can't do that. The, I've been with these people for years.
Yes, you can. I'm giving you permission on this show today. I'm giving you permission. We've been having coffee twice a a month for the last six years. Cool. Do it once a quarter, man. I'm really busy. I gotta Or do it? Not at all. No is a complete sentence. Things have changed. I got a thing. I'm starting a new product.
I'm starting a daily show. Things are really busy. I just can't do this anymore. I really care about you, but you're always negative and you drag me down. You don't have to say that part, but that's why they're getting voted off the island. Go right now and unsubscribe from the networking group. That doesn't work anymore.
And I'm gonna say it out loud 'cause it's true. You don't have to be a member of the Chamber of Commerce. You just don't. There's not some compulsory order that you have to show up. You gotta network if you're a local business and you gotta go know people. Every group is at risk if they're not paying off for you.
And here's another thing, you don't have to live in the city whose chamber you go to. What? Yeah, if this chamber in your city sucks, go to this one. 'cause everybody loves it. How about that? You could join a digital organization 'cause we're pretty cool. You get to take action on what's important to you and you don't have to wait.
Until two months or, or you move to a new location or some other act of God that gives you permission to do what you need to do. I'm giving you permission today. I'm challenging you, in fact, make these changes. Today's kind of like liberation day. You've got the list. Now you know exactly who's dragging you down.
You know exactly what opportunities you need in your life. I need a mentor. I need to spend more time with that business person. That lights me up every time we talk. I gotta join this group. I gotta go there because these business relationships, first of all, should be a two-way street. You, you're not anybody's therapist.
You don't have to solve other people's problems if they're not helping you solve yours. One, two, with your time and money, go to places that make you better and make you feel inspired. It's kind of why we spend our time and money on them. This entire discussion's. A big part of the Fridays off theory and the Fridays off theory in general is about reclaiming your agency as a small business owner. I don't have to work five days a week. Why? 'cause I don't need five days a week to get my work done. Oh, you mean I can take Fridays off? Hell, yes, you can. I don't need to go to that room anymore. Why? Because it isn't working for me. Cool. Leave it. Go. You're empowered and I'm empowering you and I hope this exercise was helpful and I hope you've got some names on your list.
You're gonna vote off the island and you don't even have to explain it. Last thought. You don't even have to explain it. You don't even even have to tell anyone that we did this today. Just a six foot four bald birdie sat on your shoulder and told you what's up. You can just do things and I think it will significantly improve your business.
Look who's here, Leanne. Lovely. Good morning, Leanne. Lovely. Great to see you. Thanks for joining us. Uh, and yes, Steve, it was Yes. And thank you very much. That's what it was. The improv. Yes. And coming up, we're gonna do the idea Slam, and I've got two like really good questions today, uh, that are emotional.
They're, they're kind of like. Can we do that? Yes, we can do that. Today's idea slam questions are, let's see where they are. They're right here. First of all, I've got a big old client that wants me to show up and work for exposure. How do I respond to them without burning the bridge? If you do anything creative, I guarantee you've had that request before.
And the other one is, is it okay to copy a competitor? There you go. Gut check time. People have strong opinions on that. Those two questions are coming up in today's Idea Slam. So get your brain ready to go. 'cause we are gonna idea Slam in a moment. But first, the show sponsored by Gen Head Scale Systems, not Chaos Gen Head is built specifically.
For early stage businesses like you, it's for founders, solopreneurs, and lean teams who need real momentum, not complex tools that need a full-time operator to drive. Everything is streamlined. It's all in one place, and you can act on it right now. This one system is gonna replace all of your disconnected tools.
If you're juggling A CRM and your social media scheduler and your content tools and your follow up funnels and all of this other stuff, gen Head brings it all together. In one place for one clear operating system for less chaos and clearer data and better execution. You can get it right now by scanning the QR code that's on the screen.
You're clicking the link that's in the chat gen head.com. That is gen head.com. And while we're throwing around QR codes, we need you to come on the show. Oh, and breaking news. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. That, that's like the World War II line. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Breaking Freaking news, Leanne.
Lovely. Get in here. Leanne's on the show Today we have innovated something new with the idea Slam. Soon you will be able to go to the idea slam link that's on your screen and not only apply to come on the show, but you can just drop box a question. In fact, today's first question is from someone that sent it to me as a Dropbox question.
I, I'm a little embarrassed to come on the show. I don't wanna burn a bridge with this client, but I need to know how do I do this, this, this, this, this. So if you are thinking, I would love Pat to help me solve this problem, but I don't wanna come on the air and I'm a little embarrassed and I don't want everyone to know like, okay, we'll get over all that as we business longer together.
But I can understand that might be a little bit intimidating. So Breaking freaking news, using this link, QR code, snap it right now and you can drop your question and we will answer it here on the air. It'll make things a ton easier. And Leanne, is that ready? Let's see. Yes it is. Is it ready? I can assume that that means it's ready, so.
Thank you, Leanne. I appreciate that. And Steve says, let's put Pat on the idea Slam about how we spread the love of this show for business owners. You ain't kidding, Steve. I would love to do this. I would love to do this for a whole bunch of people and I will take all the ideas that you have. Okay, we have up in the QR code.
While we do the idea slam, I wanna put the link up there so you can sign up for the idea Slam while we do it. Now it's fixed. First question, and this one should hit home for almost all of you. Okay. A big company wants me to work for exposure. They don't wanna pay me, but they're promising me that they'll get me in front of a whole bunch of people.
Frankly, I'm pissed. How should I respond to this big company that has plenty of money to pay me without burning a bridge? First thing to do is to close your laptop. Go into your safe room and like scream or punch something or just get it out because it is infuriating when companies that have plenty of money think that they should pay the florist and the caterer, but not you.
You get exposure. The caterer, they get money 'cause the caterer won't show up otherwise I have to pay them. Well, maybe you shouldn't either. Exposure doesn't pay the mortgage. We don't work for exposure around here. Sorry, we don't. So after we get the emotions out, take a deep breath and before we send our email, we have to think about how are we gonna deal with it.
If I were helping you and we were having this conversation live on the air, I would ask you, okay, what is the context of this event that they wanna bring you to? Are there other sponsors at that event? Oh yeah, Miller Beer is there and this car dealer is there and this insurance company is there. Cool. Go back to the organizer and ask them, can you do your thing in their booth?
Can you be the entertainment or creativity that draws attention to the other sponsor's booth? 'cause if you've never done events before. The biggest problem about having a booth anywhere is why the hell would anyone stop and look at me? Yeah, you are there, but I don't wanna go talk to the insurance guy for no reason.
Like we need to have a hook. Why would I go talk? I don't need your stress ball, bro. Like, why am I going over to see you? The organizer could go to their biggest sponsors and say, Hey, sponsor. I've got this creative thing that can help you activate your booth, what do you say? And then the creative sponsor will pay you to be there one way that you could get some revenue out of working with the event.
So when you go back to them, it's not a no, it's a, well, I can't do what you're saying, but here are ways we can solve it. That's the first thing I would say. The second thing I would say, if for some reason you. Can't get a sponsor to pay and the organizer won't pay. You could could do their event anyway, but demand value from them, having your logo on a board is not value.
What is valuable is their attendee list. What's valuable is curated Interru introductions to their biggest sponsors. Another thing that would be valuable is to say, I understand you don't have money for this event, but you do this other event in the fall. How about you pay me to come to that one and then charge them double? Why not? And then the last ditch would be, okay, you can't pay me to be there. I need contact information for the attendees, and I need to have your permission that I can sell on site. I'll give everyone the base level of my service, but I will offer a premium level on site that I, that they pay me for, or I'll be able to do, uh, a selling of a package or, or, or the next thing that I sell to people while I'm there, so I have a chance to make some money while I'm on site.
If we reflect on all this, when the sponsor treats us this way. Or the, the event rather treats us this way. It's infuriating. I totally get it. But if they're a big organization that has a bunch of people there, we can make exposure work. But we have to be, um, we have to advocate for ourself. We can't just, oh, nope, I don't want to go now, wait a minute.
It can be valuable to get in few of, in front of a few thousand people, but we have to be, uh, aggressive about what we want out of it. Don't take it lying down. Do not give them the finger. Well, you can give 'em the finger behind the scenes, but don't send them an email that gives them the finger and get creative because they may have more money than you think.
Second idea, a slam question of the day, and this one is juicy. Hey Pat, is it okay to copy a competitor? Ooh, ooh. This comes up all the time. Let's start by saying, taking someone's intellectual property and copying anything word for word is bad and wrong. Don't do it. Did you hear that part? Copying exactly what they're doing.
Word for word is bad and wrong. Don't do it. However. Ah. However, when you monitor your competitors, which you should be doing, you need to know at all times what all your competitors have in the marketplace. What are they doing for Google Ads? What are they doing on their website? How are they serving their clients differently than you are?
And when you're doing that competitive analysis and situational awareness, you're gonna see what they're putting in the marketplace. And when you see something that goes into the marketplace that you are not doing, that's when we get creative. Ooh, they're. They're doing that thing. That's a really good idea.
Well, putting your own spin on something is as American as apple pie. Everybody does it. And there's that great phrase out there. Talent borrows and genius steals. Great phrase. So how do we do it ethically? And this might be a little gray. It's not gray, it's not gray, it's American America. This happens all the time.
So here's how you do it ethically. The art is to figure out what are the competitors doing for the customer? What is the transformation they're providing? Oh, I never thought about doing group classes. I never thought about husband and wife classes. I never thought about doing a little bit of the service instead of the whole thing or a whole bunch of the service with an annual subscription.
Whatever the package and framing is of whatever they're doing that you are not doing, understand what the transformation is and then get really clear on what is the technique that they use to get there. Oh, okay. Annual classes for families. I never thought about that. It works because everybody comes in and now you get four subscriptions, not one, and it's an annual, so you get 12 months of payments.
That's their technique for the transformation. Okay, I see how that works. Good for them for coming up with it. And then this is where you put your own spin on it. How do you add your ability to solve that similar problem in your own way? When you build your small business, there is an infinite amount of things you can say and do, which sounds great.
You can do anything, but that means you can do a bunch of dumb stuff too. So while there's an infinite amount of stuff we can go do, there is not an infinite amount of stuff that your customers actually wanna buy. You gotta know what the market wants. You gotta know what people are spending money on. You gotta understand what people want right now.
And when you see your competitors do something and your internal trigger gets tripped, ooh, hey, scroll, stop. What is that? When that happens, pay attention to it and then break it down. Why is this transformation working and how is it different than what I do? And what is the technique they use to get there and then run it through your own filter.
So I am not saying, just listen to me. Remember I tell you sometimes open your ear holes. Open your ear holes. I am not saying that you become McDowell's like coming to America. That's exactly like McDonald's with a different name. Not saying that I'm saying, oh. Chicken nuggets. I bet I could sell some chicken nuggets.
How would I do chicken nuggets? And then you create your own version of selling chicken in your restaurant. And now that I'm thinking about McDonald's, I'm thinking about how much I love that movie. What an incredible movie Coming to America. Come on, bro. Is that a top 10 movie? Eh? That's a little aggressive.
Top 10. Top 10 comedy. Is that fair? Princess Bride? Holy Grail, man. Maybe it is a top 10 comedy. Hmm, your results may vary. We're gonna close out the week because remember, Friday's off. This is my Friday. We're gonna close out the week with a happy story from the small business owners community. We hit a milestone yesterday, and I'm really, really excited about it.
So we will do that in just a few minutes. But before we go there, let's talk about Eng G. Talk about making things easy. This is the marketing must have for small business owners. If you're walking around right now trying to figure out how in the heck I do all of my social media, and you're just kind of doing it with no help, oh brother, you are putting it on hard mode because doing all of your own social media and your marketing can feel really overwhelming.
How in the world can I fill all of these websites? I got a job to do. Well, ENGIE comes in clutch. It's an AI powered marketing engine that learns all about your business, plugs into all of your tools, and almost puts your marketing plan on autopilot. It helps to tell your story at scale everywhere that you are.
Plus, it plugs right into Canva. Graphics made easy, then it schedules your social media, so you never have to remember, did I put out Thursday's post? I meant to put out Thursday's post. It just happens when you sleep. It's beautiful. And it's not just pretty pictures. They believe in KPIs. They wanna know what's working and what's not, so you can do more of it.
NNG has changed the way that we mark this market, the small business owners community, and I asked them to give us a really good deal so you can try it out. And they did 14 days risk free. Just stop and think about that. Right now you're thinking, oh, I gotta do my social media. I don't do da. If you had Enji, it could be done by now and it could be running nearly on autopilot and you can try it right now for 14 days for free.
It takes 30 minutes to set up. It's a nothing burger. And then after you try it for 14 days, you're not gonna wanna let it go. Trust me. And you'll get the first two months at a discount, and then it's only $29 a month. So would you pay $29 a month to make your marketing problems go away? Hell yes. You would.
NG co slash sbo ng co slash sbo or the link on the screen props to our friends at Enji for making it awesome. We appreciate that they solve the, I do my own marketing problem. We've talked a lot today about being in the right room and having the right people around you, and we need to talk about a milestone that happened yesterday.
Uh, I'm pretty stoked about actually. We reached 150 members inside the small business owners community yesterday. Pretty cool. Since we started the show, uh, we've added a ton of members, ton of members from all over the place. Florida, Mississippi, and New York. Were the last three members that we added, and these entrepreneurs are, are, are getting it.
They're, they're finally understanding that running a business by themselves isn't just lonely. It's actually a bad way to do your business. We have all of these big decisions that we have to make, and we have no one giving us a second opinion or sharing their expertise. So we make fewer mistakes. It's dangerous to figure out stuff on your own because the AI tools that you're using will tell you everything is a good idea.
So who are you turning to? To say, Hey Steve, have you done this before? Oh yeah, I've done that. Don't do that. Whatever you do, don't do that, but do it this way. Those kinds of conversations really help, and the small business owners community is here for you no matter where. You're watching the show and 150 people, that might not sound like much, but it's the right 150 people.
They're all business owners. They're all in it to win it, ready to support one another so we can all become part of that top 20% that we talked about at the beginning of the show. That top 20% that are leading the way for small business owners in the United States. So if you're out there figuring out by yourself, I, I don't know what to tell you.
When the small business owner's community is sitting right here ready to help you, it's $19 a month. So click the link or visit small business community.com to check it out. It's going great. Well, guess what? Have a good weekend. Yeah, Friday's off. So I'm gonna act like I'm working for a couple of more hours and then I think it's Call of Duty weekend, I feel like, and I gotta hit some golf balls this weekend.
Call of duty and hit some golf balls. I think that's what's gonna happen. What are you gonna do this weekend? Oh, you have to work another day. You don't have to. We could be working together and have Fridays off. That's what we're working on inside the SBOC. And if you wanna know how, hit me up. I'll help you.
Don't forget to like and subscribe and share this show with your network, because the more we share it, the more people will get to collaborate with us and it just keeps on getting better and better. So share the show and I'll send you some share mail. I've got a little gift that I'm sending out in the mail for everybody that's willing to share it with their network.
So share the show and get good stuff in the mail, shall we? This is the new daily habit for small business owners. I'm back on the air Monday at 11:00 AM Central, and I'm off for the weekend right now. Oh, it feels so good. I'm Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners community.
Thank you so much for tuning in today. I will talk to you on Monday. Take care.