87 - Should you Collaborate with Your Competitors? 3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Working with Another Business

Should you Collaborate with Your Competitors? 3 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Working with Another Business

Here at Business Babes, we’re all about Collaboration Over Competition - listen to learn exactly what we mean!

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE HERE:

As Business owners, we are often taught to “Crush our Competition”. Businesses use other brands' names in their ads to push their own products and bad-mouthing other companies for the sake of beating out their competition.

At Business Babes, we are NOT a fan of that at all EVER. It is toxic and, in fact, we have found that many are usually turned off when brands do this to promote their own product.

Danielle has a drastically different approach when it comes to ‘Competitors’ and people who are doing similar things within the same industry and she shares her thoughts and opinions on this topic of collaborating with your competition.

Buckle up for this episode! It’s going to be a good one! Before listening to the episode, you should check out:

Why Should You Collaborate with Your Competitors?

It’s an old school theory that there is not enough for everyone so we have to beat our competition or do everything in our power to cut them down so that we can succeed. 

Here’s the truth: Competition is good. It’s healthy to have competitors in your space because:

  1. It makes the industry better as a whole.

  2. It opens up opportunities for connection, support, and collaboration, which allows both businesses to rise. 

If you are approaching business with a Scarcity Mindset, there is a better way! Tune into Episode 39 to learn why an Abundance Mindset can totally shift the success of your business. 

People you might consider your competitors could become some of your best referral partners and even friends! So don’t close yourself off from these potential relationships and opportunities. Think about the products and services you consume in your everyday life. Do you stick to just one brand or business? Of course not! There’s value in variety and competition.

How to Determine a Healthy Collaboration

Does this mean that you should collaborate with all of your competitors? No! There are situations where it is healthy and beneficial for you to collaborate with those you might consider competitors and situations when it is not. 

Here are three questions you can ask yourself before you decide to collaborate with someone you consider competition:

  1. Do we share values? 

    This KEY! It is important to pursue collaborations with others who have a similar mindset and aligned or complimentary values, visions, or missions within your industry.

  2. Will this collaboration be mutually beneficial?

    This requires you to think about the collaboration from both sides. Will you be benefiting from the collaboration and will they be equally benefiting from this exchange? Collaboration can be so many different things whether that be: cross-promotion, hosting an event together, trading services or products, creating joined marketing strategy the list goes on! 

    Another approach is asking if your ideal clients purchase or consume content from both of your businesses? 

  3. Have you built some level of trust with this person or brand?

Mutual trust is key, especially if this collaboration is going to be something where you are both investing a significant amount of time or money. 

If the answer to these questions is YES, then you have an opportunity for healthy collaboration!

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Danielle Wiebe: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. It is a gorgeous day here in Vancouver, and I'm just feeling extra grateful today, grateful for this community, grateful for this podcast and the fact that I get to be in your earbuds and that we get to have a relationship. I mean, we are basically friends because, I get to speak with you and, actually, you are going to have the opportunity to speak back to me, and record little audio clips.

[00:00:30] I don't know if you heard in our last episode, but in the fall we are doing something really cool where we are going to be answering your questions. So basically what that means is you get to ask any question you want. It could be about business, it could be about productivity, it could be about mindset, strategy, whatever you wanna ask. And all you have to do is go to businessbabescollective.com/ask and record a question.

[00:00:58] Now the cool thing about this is that [00:01:00] not only will your voice be featured on this podcast, but I will actually answer your question. And also if you leave, a little bit more about your business and where people can find you, you can be promoted on the show. So I am so excited about that. So leave a question and we might just choose your question for one of our future episodes this fall.

[00:01:22] So that being said, we have a really exciting topic today. We're gonna be talking about answering actually the question of, should you collaborate with your competition? Okay. So if you're just like, what are you talking about, Danielle? Why would I collaborate with my competition? We're gonna dive into that today and I've come up with three questions that you can ask yourself before you do, so.

[00:01:47] So, often as business owners, we are taught to crush our competition, or I see people using other people's brands that are their competition in their ads and [00:02:00] pushing their own products and badmouthing other companies for the sake of, you know, beating out the competition. And I personally am not a fan of that at all. Like ever.

[00:02:10] And in fact, I think it's really toxic and I am usually so turned off when brands do this, when they promote their own product, by putting down another person's product is like, it actually makes me want to support the other brand even more. It actually kind of does the opposite effect for me.

[00:02:28] I have a very drastically different approach when it comes to quote unquote competitors and people who are doing things in the same industry. So today we're gonna be talking about it and I'm gonna share my thoughts and opinions on this topic. So buckle up for this episode because it is about to get real. And I am so excited to dive into this topic with you.

[00:02:51] Welcome to the business babes collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. In this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and [00:03:00] strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably. We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs so you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses. Let's dive in, as we discuss the wild, exciting, crazy, challenging rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.

[00:03:20] If there's one thing that makes me cringe more than anything else, it's when I see other people online when they are putting down other brands or other businesses or other industries in order to promote themselves.

[00:03:36] And I see this a lot on social media and it just really, really bothers me. And so I wanted to do an episode that really talks about this. It talks about collaborating with your competition, supporting people that you might consider to be your competition. Because I think there's [00:04:00] this old school theory that there is not enough for us all.

[00:04:04] So we need to go out and we need to beat our competition. We have to do everything in our power to cut them down so that we can succeed. And I do not agree with this at all. And let me tell you why.

[00:04:17] I think competition is really good. The fact that you have competition in your industry is great. It's healthy. It's healthy to have competitors in your space because it makes the industry better as a whole. Not only that, but it opens up opportunities because, if you are a trailblazer, let's say, and you are the first one within your industry to do something, it can be quite challenging, right? Because you are paving your own way, you're paving your own path.

[00:04:49] However, when you have other people who have done it before you, you can connect with them, you can support them. You can collaborate with them. And that's a way where you [00:05:00] can both rise, right? At the same time. And if you are someone who maybe you struggle with this a little bit, or you don't fully feel comfortable with the idea of collaborating with someone who could be your competition, I highly recommend tuning into the episode 39 that we did.

[00:05:20] It's all about having an abundance mentality versus a scarcity mentality when it comes to business. And I really dive into why I believe that there's more enough business for all of us. And we really dive deep into that episode. So I highly recommend you listen to that. But I believe that people that you you might consider is your competition could be come some of your biggest referral partners and potentially closest friendships, too.

[00:05:49] So I wanna encourage you, don't close yourself off to these potential relationships and these potential opportunities that could help you scale your business. Let's think [00:06:00] about, about it this way. Let's talk about podcasting, for example. This is a business podcast. And in this podcast, we host amazing, inspiring guests.

[00:06:09] We talk about business strategies to scale your business and increase your revenue, create passive income. We also talk about inspiration and mindset as well as the actual tactical of growing your business to the next level. So, those are all the things that we talk about in this podcast. So let me ask you, is this the only business podcast that you are currently listening to?

[00:06:36] If yes, then, I mean, thank you. Like I am really flattered and I'm honored and that's amazing, but likely you are also listening to other business podcasts from time to time. Or maybe you go through seasons where you'll binge listen to some of my podcasts, you'll also listen to other business podcasts.

[00:06:55] And so my point in this is that if I said to [00:07:00] myself, I'm not gonna collaborate with any other business podcasters, because they're my competition, I would be totally limiting myself. I would be limiting my reach, limiting potential amazing relationships with other hosts. It's I'd be missing out on some incredible guests that I could have on my podcast, who I've already had on this podcast and will continue to feature those other women who are doing very similar things, but maybe in their own way, right?

[00:07:34] Because we both have our own personalities, our own style of doing things. And so we are all unique. However, we could be considered competitors. but because my mindset, is there is more than enough business for all of us, why wouldn't I support those other podcasters? Why wouldn't I wanna collaborate with them and, you know, go on their podcast and have them come on my [00:08:00] podcast.

[00:08:00] Why wouldn't I wanna do that? Because it just lifts us all up and allows us to get in front of each other's audiences, bring each other's audiences, great value from different perspectives, from different viewpoints. We all have different backgrounds of how we grew our businesses. So if we can open up our minds to the idea of collaborating with others, and supporting one another, it actually allows us to have more success and that other person to have more success as well.

[00:08:31] It doesn't have to ha be an either or situation or scenario. Let's think about this also for the product based business industry. Do you only purchase one brand of clothes? For example, for me, I have multiple brands of clothes in my closet and the same goes for makeup I use or accessories, furniture. I mean, honestly, the list goes on.

[00:08:57] So you might be thinking right now, Danielle, [00:09:00] I'm not quite sold on this. Does this mean that you should collaborate with all of your competitors all the time? No, I don't think that you should. And I also think that there's very specific things that you should look for before you collaborate with them.

[00:09:14] And that's what we're gonna be talking about today.. So let me explain, I think there's situations where it is very healthy and beneficial for you to collaborate with those you might consider to be competitors and there's situations where it's not.

[00:09:28] So I came up with these three questions specifically so that you can decide what collaborations are worth pursuing and which ones are not.

[00:09:36] Okay. So the first question I want you to ask is, do we share values? This is so key. You only wanna collaborate with others who have a similar mindset and similar values within your industry. So I wanna give you a couple of examples, you can see this within your own business.

[00:09:53] if you have a skincare company, for example, and you wanna collaborate with another skincare line, do you both have [00:10:00] similar values when it comes to the ingredients in your products? Sustainability, inclusivity, all of those things.

[00:10:07] Okay. Another example is maybe you're an interior designer and you wanna collaborate with another designer. Do they have similar styles and do they value function over form or the other way around, right? Is helping clients maybe save money important to them, or is it more important to use sustainable materials that are long lasting, but more expensive? Right. Can you see the example of like the types of businesses and what you guys value and what you don't.

[00:10:37] One more example I have for you is like, let's say you're a health coach and you wanna collaborate with another health professional. You need to make sure that your messages don't contradict each other. So let's say one of you is talking about a specific diet that you recommend for all your clients and the other one is sharing why diet diets don't work and you should never diet, obviously [00:11:00] that collaboration is not gonna be successful because your philosophies and your values actually contradict one another.

[00:11:08] So these are some key things to think about when it comes to collaborating is do you share values? Right. So whenever I'm thinking about collaborating with someone who is quote, unquote, a competitor, someone who has, you know, a very similar business model or there are also a community builder or there's someone who has a podcast that's business related, I always think to myself, do they share the same values that I talk about in my podcast? And if their podcast is actually, if they talk about things that are like very counter what we talk about in this podcast, then it won't be a successful collaboration because I've created this community of you all who are listening to this podcast and you like specific types of content.

[00:11:53] So if I brought someone on and all they're talking about is hustle, hustle, hustle, and don't sleep because you need to [00:12:00] be successful and make all this money and your health and wellness is not important and, you know, ignore your kids, I mean, that would be a very extreme thing for them to say, that wouldn't be a very good collaboration.

[00:12:11] We talk about how to build sustainable success and how to scale a profitable business without burning yourself out, without working around the clock, et cetera. So I need to find people who really align with those values that I hold to our community. So again, that is the first question to ask. Do we share values?

[00:12:34] Second question. Will this collaboration be mutually beneficial? So this question requires you to think about the collaboration from both sides. So will you benefit from this collaboration and will they equally benefit from this exchange? And as I've talked about in lots of other episodes, which you can search as well, if you're kind of unfamiliar with what collaborations are or the [00:13:00] different types of ways you can collaborate.

[00:13:01] Actually, you can go to some of our earliest episodes. I'm just gonna quickly check here what those are. Okay. So I found the episodes, it's actually episode eight and episode nine. So pretty far back, but still very relevant. We have a two part series that it's tips for successful collaborations. And I actually describe what collaborations are, what some examples of collaborations are.

[00:13:23] So if you wanna go back to those episodes, highly recommend to do that. If you're kind of feeling a little bit lost right now where you're like, I don't even know what you're talking about when you're talking about collaborations, that's where I would start. so sorry for not mentioning that at the beginning, I was just so excited about this topic, I wanted to dive in.

[00:13:39] Okay. So some examples of what collaborations could look like. It could be cross promotion. It could be hosting an event together, maybe trading services or products, maybe creating joint marketing strategy. Honestly, the list goes on. There's so many different ways. Like I said, listen to those episodes. If you want kind of a deeper dive on this.

[00:13:59] But [00:14:00] will you and the other person that you're collaborating with both benefit from this exchange, whatever the collaboration is? Another way to ask this is can your ideal client purchase or consume content from both you and the person you're collaborating with?

[00:14:18] If the answer is yes. Awesome. That sounds like a great collaboration. I find some of the best collaborations happen with businesses that are not like doing the exact same thing, but they're very complimentary to each other. So some people would say those are competitors, however, they're, they have like a different niche on the specific thing that they're offering.

[00:14:40] The third and final question that you can ask yourself before you decide to collaborate with someone is have you built some level of trust with this person or this brand? This is a really, really important one. One thing I think is super key in collaborations is, if you are going to [00:15:00] work with someone else or another business, do you trust them and do they trust you? Especially if it's something where you are going to do sort of a longer term collaboration. Again, if it's something like hosting an event with someone or doing some sort of a partnership like marketing strategy together, or you are going to cross promote one another, whatever that is, there has to be some level of trust and that can come through, you know, your research.

[00:15:28] So doing your research online about this other company or this other brand, or this other person you wanna work with, and it could also come from referrals. So maybe someone that you know, knows them and has worked with them in the past.

[00:15:41] And maybe they've said really great things about that person. And so you're like, okay, this is a really good fit. And often you can really tell a lot about a brand or a person just based on the content that they have online, right? So if someone else has, let's say they have a blog or they have a YouTube channel or have this, a social media channel that they're active on, you can [00:16:00] get a lot of value and also understand kind of more about that person based off of the content that they, that they share.

[00:16:08] However, nothing is always, as it seems, right? So make sure do your research. I highly recommend too, something that I really like to do is if I'm going to do a collaboration that is a little bit more of a long term collaboration, I definitely wanna either meet that person over zoom or even in person, and really start to build that trusted relationship with them before I go all in and do like more of a long term collaboration with them.

[00:16:36] So that is, those are the three questions and I'm gonna leave it there. I am super excited to hear what you guys think of about this episode. If it opened up your mind to potential possibilities or ways, you could potentially collaborate with people that are quote your competition, I would love to hear from you. So send me a DM on Instagram. I'm [00:17:00] @danilivinglife, that's my personal account. And I would love to hear from you. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode, your questions.

[00:17:06] If you have any like follow up questions to this and you feel stuck. Also, if you are wanting to actually dive into this and figure out a really great strategy for collaborations and partnerships in your own business, this is something I love to work with clients on. And so you can apply to work with me one on one. You can go to businessbabescollective.com/coaching, and you can apply to work one on one with me. I would love to connect with you, learn more about your business and come up with a really solid strategy on how you can use collaborations to scale your business.

[00:17:42] So, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Again, don't forget. We have a free gift for you if you go to businesscbabescollective.com/masterclass. It's a free training where I dive into how to scale a profitable business without working around the [00:18:00] clock. You'll learn more about my journey and also the mistakes that I personally made in my journey and what I'm doing differently now and what I wish I would've known when I first started my business.

[00:18:10] So go to businessbabescollective.com/masterclass to grab access to that. And otherwise I will see you on the next episode. And if you enjoy this episode, it would mean so much to me if you shared it with a friend, share it with someone who you think you would get value out of it as well. And that is really how we are able to reach more people and continue to grow this incredible community.

[00:18:32] So I hope you have a great rest of your day and we will talk to you very soon.

[00:18:39] If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot, post and tag us on Instagram @businessbabesco. Want to know when the next episode goes live? Subscribe on your podcast app, and while you're there, leave us a review. Until next time, keep dreaming big, setting goals and taking [00:19:00] action.

Danielle Wiebe