Brief Overview

You hear it all the time in business – when people talk about their competitors and create this cutthroat business war mentality. “I win, you lose, that’s my piece of the pie, I want more market share“. But I’m here to tell you, there’s a better way, and I believe this is the future of business!

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Big Ideas

Turning Competition Into Collaboration  [2:29]

In TRIBE, we have all kinds of people who are growing and launching membership sites in all types of different markets. Because of that, sometimes there’s an overlap, and some people are building their business in the same “market.” For example, we have a whole bunch of people who are artistic creatives. But they consciously made the decision to work together instead of competing against one another. And as a result, their businesses are taking off like crazy.

I got a message this morning from one of the women in this “creative club,” Christie Hawkins. She told me she has just launched her membership site, and got 64 new members and an additional $4,800 a month in revenue. Tamara Bennett, who is also in the “creative club,” has grown her membership like crazy too. They both teach painting, along with other women like Kasey Hope and Sarah Williams, but none of them are looking at it thinking, “we’re competing against one another.” Instead, they’re thinking, “How can we support and help each other?”

Straight from the launch, Christie is going into Nashville for a live event, where she gets to meet a ton of other TRIBE members, including Tamara. You could call them competitors, but they’re not competing. They’re helping, supporting, and cheering each other on. I think there’s so much more opportunity for collaboration versus competition, and I want to give you three simple ways of how you can collaborate with others.

Support Each Other [6:17]

Number one is that you can just support each other like this group of women in our TRIBE. They have showed up for each other, supported each other and created a little accountability group where they meet on a regular basis. Not to mention, they also actively support each other on social. For them, it isn’t about tearing someone down, it’s about supporting and lifting each other up, and that’s exactly what they have done.

Promote Each Other [7:02]

Number two, you can promote each other. Your natural instinct on this would be, “Why should I promote somebody else if that may mean my slice of pie is going to be smaller?” But just because someone is in your audience or “your customer,” doesn’t mean they’re only your customer. You’ve got to expand your mind because it’s not like somebody else is getting a piece of your pie. The opportunity is coming together and creating a way bigger pie for everybody.

The question I always ask myself when I’m deciding whether I am going to promote somebody else or not is, “Will it serve our clients?” I am never going to promote somebody just because. I am always thinking about our clients and customers. If you’re in a market where you have “a competitor” who has something that could absolutely benefit your audience, you’re doing them a disservice by not mentioning it and not helping them make forward progress.

Always Consider the Best Interest of Your Customers [9:17]

There’s two sides to this coin though. I get people who will approach me and say they’d love to promote TRIBE, and how they think they could be one of our top JV partners. I’ve had this happen to me three times in the last three months. And then comes the, “But, I’m only willing to promote you if you commit and agree to promote me.” As soon as that “but” gets added into the sentence, I know it’s going to be the wrong thing. Undoubtedly, each of those promotional partners could be very beneficial to our upcoming launch on April 25, but I am not going to commit to another promotion because I “have to.” When I’m deciding on what I’m going to promote, it’s going to be in the best interest of our audience, clients and customers.

The same mindset needs to be utilized when it comes to thinking about competition. Somebody is potentially going to spend money with “your competition” if you’re referring them, but it doesn’t mean that your pie is getting smaller. There’s opportunity for business to flow both ways, and once you wrap your mind around that, you start to realize that this pie is way bigger than you give it credit for.

Create With Each Other [11:43]

Number three is to create with each other. This is one of my favorite ways to collaborate with other people as I love to create things with other people. The perfect example of this was my collaboration with Rachel Miller when we created a free challenge about growing your audience online. Rachel is one of the world’s top experts when it comes to organically growing an audience of highly targeted prospects, so we came together because I knew that would help our audience, especially those entrepreneurs who are in the earlier stages of growing their business.

Do Not Alienate Yourself, Instead – Collaborate! [16:00]

If you start to alienate yourself and push people away, saying no to everybody and not wanting to help and support other people because you think they’re your competition, you’re going to end up on an island by yourself. I’ve seen it happen with two of my friends and mentors. In one scenario, it was because of an ego. In another, this person just felt like they didn’t need anybody else’s help and could do everything by themselves. And when they eventually started looking for that support and help, everybody was gone.

In the third scenario, this person made a pivot in their business, and at the time when they could’ve used the most support to be able to really jump start that pivot, they started cutting off relationships with people who love them and had supported them for years by simply not reaching back to them and not following up.

When you alienate yourself, you end up on an island by yourself. It’s very hard because none of us succeed alone. Make life easier and look for opportunities to collaborate. You can support each other, promote each other and create with each other. When you do that, things accelerate much faster. You’ll experience much more momentum and it’s going to be so much more fun.

Memorable Quotes

“Make life easier and look for opportunities to collaborate. You can support each other, promote each other, and create with each other.” – Stu McLaren

Resources

TribeHub.com

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