Taking the Blame With a Smile – Positioning and the Courage to be Disliked

It’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to satisfy everyone when running a business.

Even Apple, despite its position as the company with the highest market value, faces criticism for a variety of reasons.

There are always bound to be people who are just waiting for you to slip up, people that just try to drag you down for whatever reason.

In an ideal world, quality is maximized, costs are minimized, and deadlines are expedited. But there are physical limitations that just simply cannot be overcome.

It’s crucial to clearly define what it is that you wish to accomplish, and what concessions you can afford to make in order to do so.

We can draw a parallel to marketing’s key element of positioning, where the two most important elements are designated as the X and Y axes.  You then determine where exactly you want to be on the graph.

Syuka World, a popular economics YouTuber, often holds sessions where he reads mean or troll comments. In one of his videos, he read a comment that said, “This is supposed to be an economics channel, but it lacks depth.

If you want content with depth, you should watch 3PROTV (a different economics YouTube channel).” When most people come across a product or video they don’t like, they usually don’t think,

“Oh… I guess I’m not the target audience of this person’s videos. I should try looking for other content better suited to me.”

They usually default to, “Oh, this is a waste of time. Why did they make this useless crap?” While there are people who overlook these things, or even respond with positive encouragement, there are individuals who feel that it’s necessary to post sharp, hurtful things online.

While these comments can be hurtful, they can also serve as valuable opportunities for feedback. It’s also a chance for you to re-evaluate your target audience and change your positioning.

This post is no exception. I am, by no means, a perfect person. I am but a humble businessperson trying to create a meaningful business.

I dedicate around 10 minutes before morning meetings to writing each of these posts. It’s challenging for me to find extra time to improve the quality of these posts beyond what I’m already investing. Nonetheless, I write these posts to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned while running a business and to share the concepts I’ve discovered along the way.

Although I am still lacking in many areas, I write with the hope that I can offer whatever little advice and help I can. Of course, I could hold off on writing these things until I’m successful, but the opportunity may never present itself… But above all, it’s much too dull to wait that long.

It’s not like you have to wait until you’re a renowned mathematician like Euler to tutor math.

If you desire to read something written by someone more successful, something more refined and polished, then you can simply walk into a bookstore and pick up a book that’s written by someone who meets your standards. Rather, tailoring the contents to satisfy everyone may cause you to lose your true purpose.

I intend to humbly accept whatever criticism that comes my way with the courage to be disliked if there’s even a single person who enjoys reading my posts. Starting something new is always a daunting challenge.

Judging others and tossing around cheap words is relatively easy, in that aspect.

Overcoming my own doubts is already hard enough, but negative comments from those around me make it even more difficult. Of course, the position and stance I’ve taken in regard to this issue may be misguided. But then it’s a simple matter of re-positioning myself.

Let’s all try to muster up the courage to be disliked and position ourselves in a manner we see fit.

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