Why Meeting With Competitors Is a Game-Changer
Updated: Feb 18, 2021
A friend of mine asked me the other day: “Alex, who are the top 3 companies in your field?” I was stuck. I couldn’t answer. He said that I needed to know that, follow them, and set up meetings with the owners. He said that it’s likely they will share whatever information I needed because people are inclined to share with others in their industry, especially me being a smaller company.
So, I took on the challenge and the other day I met with another branding agency to see how we could do work together. It was great to learn how someone else runs his business, targets a certain clientele, and has a unique approach to the market.
What was it about my instinct that was preventing me from opening up to others in my industry? Greed? Hording? Pride of knowledge?
Normally, we entrepreneurs don’t meet with the competitors. We avoid their Facebook posts, secretly envious, but not wanting to get frustrated seeing their successes.
But we’re all on the same team. We branding agencies all want to help the world tell their story, help people find their identity.
God didn’t create us to be competitive to the point of not meeting with one another. Even the best golf players in the world play friendly matches together. One day they are friends, the next day they are competing for the same prize, but they are both better today because of the things they learned from each other yesterday.
Similar to my situation was what was happening around the time of the spread of the church in Acts 11 of the Bible. We see a divide within the church of Jews versus gentiles. The Jews wanted to keep Jesus to themselves, but that’s not what God had designed it out to be. Jesus came for all to be saved, and for all to commune together to learn from one another, band together, and grow stronger.
You might be in a cut-throat industry where competitors don’t meet. You might even have walls of anger towards others who have taken business from you in the past. God is calling you, today, to forgive, move on, and explore opportunities of growth together.
We Godpreneurs act from a whole different set of rules than the normal marketplace functions under. We have a God that has so much business for us that it would be impossible for us to service everyone. There must be room for others because God has someone uniquely designed for competition to service.
Godpreneur Rule #85: Meeting and learning from the competition is designed to make us stronger.