The first thing most of us did, before ever creating our first escort ad, was to surf though existing escort ad profiles for inspiration. Even after years of forming our own industry experiences, we tend to still spend time this way, whether it’s to celebrate the beauty & success of our peers, seek inspiration for our own advertising strategies, or simply to remain aware of who/what else is out there in the market. I myself ASSIGN this as a form of market research in an early part of the process of creating a niche business model.
Being aware of how other people are advertising & how well their business is doing seems like responsible ongoing market research as a small business owner. But the problem is that when WE are also the service/product, we tend to take these types of comparisons a bit too personally! (It’s only natural.) These types of ‘peer-to-peer’ comparisons can lead to toxic & self-limiting ways of thinking about yourself and your business. Any comparison that leaves you feeling bad & frustrated with yourself is not useful, and actually damages your ability to find the solutions you need. Why does this happen, and what we can do to gauge the success of our brands besides comparing them to our peers’?
You don’t have enough information. This is the most critical flaw in your efforts to evaluate your successes against the successes of your peers. Even if the person who you are comparing yourself to is your absolute bestie, there is still plenty that you don’t know about them and plenty of differences between the two of you that you probably aren’t accurately accounting for. No two people are in the same circumstances. And as much as you might THINK that someone else’s circumstances are very similar to yours based on what factors may seem important to you, there will always be more information that you simply do not have. This renders your comparison inaccurate at best and possibly largely irrelevant.
Be careful what you wish for! Entertainers & influential personalities often make their success look effortless. The reality is that you never know the true cost of someone’s success. There’s a famous quote- “Don’t be jealous of someone in their winning season. You don’t know what they lost in their losing season.” Most success that looks effortless is just marketing. “I’m so sexy I don’t even have to try that hard!” It’s an angle that people employ often because it’s very attractive. But it can be confusing if you allow yourself to buy into that illusion when evaluating yourself against your peers. Don’t allow yourself to become discouraged because your reality is nothing like other people’s marketing.
Here we come to one of the greatest poisons of social media— its use has been widely confirmed to exacerbate anxiety, depression, dissatisfaction & loneliness. For those of us who are sexworkers— especially full-time & long-term— life can be isolating enough as it is! Now it seems like more and more of our ways of garnering web traffic and connecting with each other revolve around social media, which is WELL DOCUMENTED to exacerbate negative & debilitating thoughts & feelings. Just open google and start typing “social media causes…” to see what I mean. Here are some results:
>> There’s Even More Evidence that Social Media Increases Depression and Loneliness
>> Does Social Media Cause Depression?
>> Depression in Girls Linked to Higher Use of Social Media
>> New Studies Show Just How Bad Social Media Is For Mental Health
>> The FOMO Is Real: How Social Media Increases Depression and Loneliness
Consider setting some boundaries when it comes to your social media usage if you’ve noticed yourself struggling with any of the negative side effects mentioned above. Learn how to study advertising trends in the market & celebrate the beauty & success of your peers without comparing yourself to anyone else or taking the differences personally. Because it’s better for YOU and your own mental health to break that habit ASAP. You may also be surprised how much space this can open up mentally & spiritually for you to move forward in pursuit of your goals.
Speaking of pursuing your goals, let me emphasise that YOUR GOALS IN LIFE should always be front and centre as you evaluate your brand’s success. This is one major reason why copying what other people are doing (or what you’ve always done before) will NEVER be as successful for your brand as your own original custom creations. If you don’t understand the reasoning behind someone’s marketing strategy or how your goals differ from theirs, you risk investing in a strategy that simply misses the mark, either by attracting clients who aren’t ideal for you or failing to attract enough clients at all. Looking to other people’s marketing for direct aesthetic inspiration is a distraction from where you should really be starting when you formulate your marketing strategy—and that’s with your own goals & needs and learning what can work effectively to help you achieve them.
Instead of comparing your success to your peers’, compare yourself to yourself.
Get honest with yourself about your wants and needs in life. Evaluate how well your current business model is helping you achieve those wants & needs currently.
Remember your past. How well did your business model do at meeting your needs earlier? Have your goals changed since then? Did you adjust your business model to compensate?
Set goals for your future. Both personal and professional. Start with where you want to be in life within 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years. It’s okay if your far away goals are pretty vague. Try to make your shorter-term goals more specific.
It’s OKAY for your goals to change!. If goal-setting feels awkward for you, try giving yourself permission to imagine your ideal for the future based on how you feel right now, and allow that to change over time naturally. The more you practice setting goals, the easier it will get to identify the difference between passing fantasies and sincere messages from your soul about what you want for your future. Goal-setting is a muscle that needs warming up and regular practice for you to reap its full benefits. So please don’t let your inexperience or discomfort with goal-setting shy you away from trying it if that’s held you back in the past.
Treat your business model like a personalised puzzle that only YOU can solve if you want to maximise how well it works for you. Experiment with different adjustments that you think would improve your income and experience. Take note of the results. Try hard to learn from both your mistakes AND your successes. Anyone can be successful in the sex industry. But not everyone can follow the same path to find that success. Remember that as you seek the path to greater success that is uniquely yours!
Happy #MarketingMonday! Don’t forget to follow my new twitter account @NicheEscortGuru, available to established/active sex workers only. (Please be sure to DM your relevant work link(s) to @NicheEscortGuru after requesting to follow if they are not posted in your bio or pinned tweet so I can confirm your established/active worker status before accepting.)