How To Deal With Jealousy & Being Intimidated By Another’s Success

She stuffed it down my dress so no one can see it. Elsa is always stuffing things down my dress. Stuffed by Elsa.

Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you're watching Marie TV, the place to be to create a business and life you love. And this is Q&A Tuesday. Today's question comes from Veronica and she writes, "Hi Marie, goodness, my friend sent me one of your videos the other week, and I've been hooked. I've spent ages watching them and every minute I learn something, not only about how to handle situations in my business, but also about myself. Many, many things. Here's my cue, and honestly, I find it a little embarrassing. I finally found a way to channel my creativity into something I love: making dolls. I recently launched my website and I've written a press release to send out to mags, approach boutiques to stock my dolls and I'm keeping my Facebook and Twitter updated.

My problem set in when I started researching the market. Sure, there are a lot of people making dolls out there, but I started feeling intimidated by one particular person's success. I think she's amazing. She's worked hard to get where she is and it took her quite a while too, but I'm a little jealous. She's everywhere. Praised left and right on the internet and on TV and in the magazines that I would like to get into. I'm worried that if everyone is so caught up on one person, they won't recognize anyone else. And now I've begun to doubt myself and started thinking that my press releases will end up in the bin and that people will think my work is behind the trend. Can I ever get noticed if someone else got there first?"

Great question. First thing I want you to know is that there is no need for you to be embarrassed. I believe that every human being on the planet at some point or another, has felt intimidated and jealous of someone else at some point in their career. In fact, below this video, I'm going to put some links to earlier episodes of Marie TV that we've done to teach you some healthy ways to deal with competition, and also ways to stand out from the crowd. But the big message you need to hear is this and yes, it's a tweetable.

"There's always room at the top." Daniel Webster. That's right. Daniel Webster said that, and you know who else said it? Adam Ant. (singing)

This is so bad I can't even dance to it. Think about any industry. I mean, let's take acting for example there's a lot of A list actors. You think about comedians or even think about the music industry. There's lots of A list pop stars and hip hop stars and country music stars. When it comes to press, it's actually really good news when someone runs a story on your particular niche, because it means two things. Number one, that publication will run your kind of story. Have you ever noticed that magazines run the same themes again and again? It's a good thing.

Number two, it proves that there's interest in your category. So other magazines are going to be looking to cover that same kind of story, but from a fresh angle and they're not going to want to cover the same person again and again and again. So here's the thing, Veronica. I went ahead and took a look at your site and it's amazing, but there's a ton more that you could be doing to up your game that has nothing to do with the competition. So let's go over to the computer and take a look right now.

All right, Veronica, here we are on your home page. So we're going to start right at the top. While we always love keeping things simple, I think Miss Veronica, this one is a little too simple. And what I mean is there's not enough copy. So you say right here, "Veronica Lavey designed." But that honestly could mean anything. You're selling handmade, vintage inspired dolls. So remember, you've got to instantly connect with your audience and communicate that you have exactly what they need. You also fail to mention that you do one of a kind custom dolls, Missy. This is huge and should be all over your site. So my suggestion is to come up with a good direct and clear headline that mentions something about vintage inspired, handmade and bespoke dolls. And it should go somewhere right here where someone could see it, the moment they land on your site.

Also, there's just one image of a doll right here. And here's the thing. You do such gorgeous work. So you could easily showcase more of it by adding some kind of slider where you could just literally slide through the images, beautiful rotating images of all of your work. So now let's go to your about page. So we're shifting over to your about page and you've got this great little picture here of a little doll riding a dog, which is awesome. But here's the thing. There's no picture of you. And people love seeing the genius behind creative endeavors. It could be a shot of you working in your studio or the kind of shot a magazine would take of you. Just doing this one small adjustment will help the media see you as you want to be seen. So that's another change that I would recommend.

Now, if we go up, we're going to go to your gallery page. So again, adorable idea with this little clothes pin and all the little pictures hanging. But when I click on one of these images, it's gorgeous. I can see this beautiful little girl, I can see the puppy and I can see this gorgeous doll that you've made, but there's no caption and I can't click on anything nor can I scroll through to the next image. I have to go back up and X out and then go back down and X out and it's kind of laborsome for your audience. So I think that you can upgrade there. You'd want to be able to scroll through all these images, put captions on. And then of course, you should be able to click on those dolls and go right to purchase them. After all, if we see these beautiful things, we're in the moment, we're like, oh my goodness. I want to buy one of those. We should be able to click through and purchase.

And then finally, I'll go back to your homepage for this. This is a big one. There is no opt-in, my love. And if you've been watching Marie TV for any amount of time, you know you need an opt-in. Every single business needs a list of prospects and customers. You should be building a list of people interested in hearing about new dolls and of course sales, if you offer them. So, especially in your market, which is collectible, heirloom dolls, your customers are going to want to know right away if you design a new piece, because once those one of a kind dolls are gone, they are gone for forever.

So that should be enough to get you started. But honestly, women, you need to get your butt in B-School the next time we run it. But for now you can go over to joinbschool.com and get some free video business training. That was my A to your Q Veronica. I hope you enjoyed it. Now, I would love to hear from you. Do you have stories that'll inspire Veronica about finding more room at the top? Or do you have other ideas to help her fantastic business get even better? As always the best stuff happens after the episode over at marieforleo.com. So go there and leave a comment now.

Did you like this video? If you did, subscribe to our channel and share it with your friends, and if you want even more great insight and resources to create a business and a life that you love, come on over to marieforleo.com and make sure you sign up for email updates. I put some good stuff in email that I just don't put my videos. Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams. The world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I will catch you next time on Marie TV.

B-School is coming up. Want in? For more info and free training, go to joinbschool.com. (singing)