Overcoming the Top 4 Challenges Faced by Conscious Entrepreneurs in 2023

Essential Mindsets and Marketing Strategies to succeed without selling your soul

As we head into 2023, conscious entrepreneurs face significant challenges that threaten to derail their efforts and impact their bottom line. Here are the top four challenges facing conscious entrepreneurs in 2023. I call them “The 4 C’s:”

#1: A Crowded Marketplace

The Problem: The marketplace is already full of dozens of options for customers to choose from when looking for help with any problem. However, in 2023, the marketplace is even more crowded with thousands of different companies, brands, and freelancers all vying for attention. To make matters worse, there are often low-priced and immediately available options for any problem in the form of products, pills, supplements, audio downloads, classes, courses, eBooks, and more.

The Solution: To stand out in this crowded marketplace, conscious entrepreneurs must focus on building strong relationships with their customers, providing unique value that sets them apart, and communicating their message effectively through marketing channels that resonate with their audience.

More importantly, you must abandon the “Content is King” mentality that demands you feed the “content monster” ever greater amounts of posts, stories, and images, which also tend to diminish in quality if your not a giant company, with an entire content division. Instead, the advantage conscious entrepreneurs can leverage is to create content that is much higher quality and more personalized to your specific clients. Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Oprah are far away from their customers and so their strategy is always going to be to produce greater amounts of necessarily shallower marketing and education. You are close to your customers, which is a huge advantage — use it!

Ironically, if you continue to focus on producing more posts at the expense of better, more personal storytelling, you’re actually probably producing clients for your competitors. Telling better stories, less often, that resonate more deeply with your target customers creates a demand for the material your producing and ultimately your programs, products and services, frees up your time and allows you to create a bigger impact overall on your audience.

#2: Increased Competition from Big Retailers and Corporations

The Problem: As more big retailers and corporations move into the conscious entrepreneurship space, it becomes increasingly difficult for small businesses to be noticed. These big players have deep pockets, expensive PR firms, and extensive marketing budgets that allow them to dominate the market.

The Solution: To compete with these giants, conscious entrepreneurs must focus on building authentic relationships with their customers, leveraging their unique selling proposition, and using targeted marketing strategies that reach their ideal audience.

You also want to focus on what you can do differently and what it is about your business, as well as your talents, gifts and abilities, that set you apart. Business strategy isn’t just about figuring out what you can do better than your competitors, it’s often more about figuring out what you can do differently. Stake out your unique ground, create a business model that brings unique value and tell your individual story through marketing and education that improves people’s lives more than other companies paid offerings. Don’t worry about setting yourself above — worry about setting yourself apart! There’s plenty of room for both Microsoft and Apple, Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray, Ford and Volkswagen because these companies, despite similar products, serve entirely different segments of the market.

#3: The Challenge of Keeping Up with Complicated Platforms

The Problem: In 2023, there are more platforms than ever before for conscious entrepreneurs to engage with their audience. From TikTok and Snapchat to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, telesummits, teleseminars, webinars, Zoom, blogs, podcasts, SEO, pay-per-click, email marketing, video marketing, Spotify, and audio ads — the list seems endless.

The Solution: To navigate this complex landscape, conscious entrepreneurs must focus on their core strengths, leverage the platforms that resonate most with their audience, and use marketing strategies that are tailored to the unique features and requirements of each platform.

Choose platforms and strategies that resonate with who you are and take advantage of your unique strengths and abilities. Rather than worrying about where you an insert yourself into the conversation, focus on where you can bring extraordinary value to the conversation. Don’t stress about being on every (or even any) platform, and instead choose the marketing strategies that are going to have the highest impact and where you can add something that isn’t currently being offered to your customers. Audit your marketing strategies, and automate where you can, eliminate what isn’t bringing in new leads and consider increasing your focus on the strategies that are working.

#4: The Cost of Getting Likes, Followers, Shares, Views, and Clicks

The Problem: As the cost of advertising continues to rise, it becomes increasingly difficult for conscious entrepreneurs to get the exposure they need to succeed. This is particularly true on social media, where getting likes, followers, shares, views, and clicks can be a costly endeavor.

The Solution: To keep costs under control, conscious entrepreneurs must focus on building organic relationships with their customers, leveraging their existing network, and using targeted marketing strategies that maximize their return on investment. Remember the Marketing Big Three: public speaking, networking and referrals. All of which can be deployed for low or sometimes even no cost.

It’s also critical to understand “The 4 Phases of Business,” which you can download here. Although there are many phases of business development, there are 4 broad areas, which are critical to understand in order for you to know where you’re at and what strategic decisions and smart investments you should make given the phase of business your in.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see entrepreneurs make: they choose the wrong strategies for their Phase and waste thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars, spending money on the wrong things given their current goals and needs. For example, if you’re currently making under $5,000 a month in your service based business, you don’t need to spend very much on branding, website development, logo design or social media marketing. Grab your free copy of “The 4 Phases of Business” so you can quickly identify where you’re at, what you need to accomplish to move up the levels and save yourself valuable time and precious money.

The challenges facing conscious entrepreneurs in 2023 are significant, but they can be overcome with the right strategies, mindset, and tools. By focusing on their core strengths, building authentic relationships with their customers, and using targeted marketing strategies that resonate with their audience, conscious entrepreneurs can thrive in a crowded and complex marketplace.

Michael Mapes is known for his ability to help his clients unlock their full potential and achieve their goals. He takes a personalized approach to coaching, working closely with each client to develop a customized plan to help them succeed. His extensive experience, deep expertise, and personalized approach have helped him build a reputation as one of the top coaches in his field. Learn more at coachwithmichaelmapes.com