The Opportunity Ahead In Values-Based Business

If you pay much attention to the “news” (and you probably shouldn’t since it is mostly propaganda and BS), then it is easy to begin to feel a little… pessimistic.

Lots of people out there talking about recessions. Collapses. Social unrest. This, that and the other thing. Oh, and don’t forget all the things “they” will do to you (or are trying to do to you).

It is easy to turn into an effect of all this stuff. To feel like your future isn’t really in your control. That the world is going to just deliver headwinds your way and your best bet is to figure out how to survive it rather than thrive.

But, no.

Not only is that not a mindset that will take you anywhere good, but it also isn’t really even true.

See, I think there is TREMENDOUS opportunity right now for business owners of all sizes to grow. Even in niches that otherwise seem really crowded.

The opportunity lies in VALUES.

More and more, consumers are beginning to choose who they do business with based on the VALUES of the business. They want to know what the business stands for.

Not only that, there is opportunity to compete head on with really big players in your niche merely by proclaiming and standing behind the VALUES of a particular market.

I’ll give you a prime example…

The mobile phone space is super crowded. With really big players like Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, etc. Yet, a scrappy little startup called Patriot Mobile was founded. Right smack on their homepage, they take a strong stand as a “Christian Conservative Wireless Provider”. They stand for life, the Constitution, etc. And they wrapped themselves in the red, white and blue.

In another example, a shaving club called Harry’s Razors took a position in 2016 by discontinuing all advertising with The Daily Wire (a conservative media company) due to some views on gender identity. For one, gotta hand it to Harry’s Razors for taking a position. But, it goes further rather ironically…

See, Jeremy Boreing (the co-CEO of The Daily Wire) responded by founding an entirely new company called Jeremy’s Razors. A new company that did pretty much the same thing, but was specifically anti-woke. He said “stop giving money to people who hate you. Give it to me”. And the company has gone on to be rather successful on it’s own. Pretty funny.

Whether it be companies embracing traditional values, being “anti-woke”, sporting the PRIDE colors or putting the Ukrainian flag on their website and proclaiming they stand with Ukraine… all of it is values-based marketing.

Yes, this kind of marketing can also alienate people. Taking a stand often does. For instance, you’ve got a certain segment of people who are cancelling Tesla orders because of Elon’s antics on Twitter. Or some boycotting Disney for their “woke” stances. So, it goes both ways.

Thing is…

A lot of the times, the bond formed for those who agree with those values is stronger than the counter-reaction.

Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking that the only values that count here are overtly political. Those are just some examples that are more public and are likely to be known by more people, so they make good examples. But, the values one stands behind don’t have to be overtly political at all.

But, there can be a real marketing power behind declaring where you stand on issues that don’t necessarily have direct relation to your business.

That’s because of the times in which we live.

More and more, consumers CARE who they are supporting with their money.

See, a lot of business training out there talks about the importance of product/market fit. And, surely, that’s super important and pretty much the core to whether a business is going to work out not. But…

Values/market fit is a real thing, too.

It is a point of market differentiation. A point of positioning.

Even if the product or service you offer is almost identical to a competitor, you can still out-market them merely by standing firmly in the light of the values of that market.

In fact…

You could almost get away with choosing your market first. Choose it based on VALUES. Then, find out what they need and want and just build it.

Because of this, there’s a ton of opportunity out there to build offers for things that already exist, but just targeting a different set of values.

Even if you don’t want to overtly take on political positions, I think it is just important to BE YOU. You have opinions. Your opinions might not be agreed with by every single person you contact, but who cares. Stand behind them. Hold a position in space. Don’t be some generic wishy-washy blob trying to make every single person happy. It never works.

What are your core values? What do you believe?

And also important…

What do you stand against?

Don’t hide from it. Let it be part of your content and your marketing. Just maybe… let it help shape how you build and sell your products.

Tech Talk

One of my top recommendations - FluentCRM - has gotten another nice update to 2.7.0. Top enhancements are a brand new Latest Post Block to be used in emails (you can see it in action above) and a new recurring campaign feature. The recurring campaign allows you to now send an automatic email every day, week or month for things like latest posts. Pretty handy! You can read about the enhancements to 2.7 here.If you're much of a user of the Elementor page builder, they've released their development roadmap publicly so you can see what's coming up.And lastly, a rather big piece of news that I had a few subscribers want to know what I think...Yes, Thrive Themes has been acquired by Awesome Motive.This now puts Thrive Themes into the same family of products as OptinMonster, WPForms, MonsterInsights, AffiliateWP and more.I've written about this company before. Awesome Motive is a company that I have a combination of respect and annoyance with. On one hand, they are making a huge dent in the WordPress space and I have admiration for their growth and impact. I've also hung out with Syed (the founder) on multiple occasions over the years. I like him and he's a really nice guy and one of the most adept entrepreneurs I've met. The dude is a beast. On the other hand, I have talked before about what I think is some of the pushy marketing tactics in the WordPress space and Awesome Motive has been one of the top offenders.So, truth be told, I'm not sure what to think about their acquisition of Thrive Themes.It makes perfect sense, really. However, are they going to change the nature of Thrive Themes? Are they going to start using Thrive products to cross-promote and push their other products? Are we going to start seeing ADS inside of Thrive plugins?Or, are they going to continue to let Thrive Themes run independently? They say they will. And I hope that is true.In the end, I continue to like Thrive Themes products and I've enjoyed watching the company grow and expand their ecosystem. I continue to stand behind their products even though I don't use them quite as much as I used to. And if I see Awesome Motive begin to detract from what has made Thrive Themes work and start to build in promotions and garbage, I will call them out and, well, we'll just see how things proceed.One thing I will say, though, is that this acquisition could help speed up the move of Thrive products being more expandable to third-party plugins. For instance, if they would open up Thrive Architect to add-ons similar to Elementor, that could be a powerful combo. So, we shall see.