Let me start off by saying that I am not talking about keeping an eye on your competition. You absolutely MUST know what the competition is up to in order to stay competitive. If John Doe comes out with a new product that competes with yours and is better, you’ll need to improve YOUR product to stay competitive. Okay, that’s not what I’m talking about when I say to stop worrying about what the OTHER guy is doing. What AM I talking about? Keep reading to find out.
When I first started my home business, I used to have to butt my nose into everybody ELSE’S business. If John Doe was doing something that was maybe a little shady, I’d have to get right in there and give him a hard time about it and tell him was a no good crook he was. But think about this real carefully.
Do you HONESTLY think that my telling John Doe that what he is doing is illegal or unethical is going to change his mind about doing it? The truth is, most people, unless they’re brand new and don’t know any better, go into these shady practices knowing full well what they’re getting into and don’t care what you think.
Take this whole to do about automated backlinking and spamming of forums. Do you think these people care that they’re taking up valuable resources of these places? You telling them isn’t going to make them stop. But you’re doing something worse than just wasting your breath, and this is why you MUST stop worrying about the other guy.
By taking the time to scold this person and let them know exactly what you think of THEIR business practices, you are taking time away from your OWN business. And my friend, let me tell you, unless you’ve got everything running on total autopilot, that is one thing you cannot afford to do. I don’t have the time to go running after every low life on the planet…unless they’re doing something that directly hurts me.
That is the one exception. If they’re stealing MY content or slandering MY name or doing something that is going to directly take money away from my business, they are not worth MY time. Now, I know there are some who will say that it’s my civic duty to go after all these low lives. Well, I say…it’s not my job. Let the SERPs and the FTC clean up the mess. Nobody pays me to do it.