Other business owners are viewed as competitors by many entrepreneurs. In our minds, we must outperform, outsmart, and outdo our competitors. There’s a need for the world to see that we’re at the top of the heap.
However, I’ve never had success with this way of thinking.
To share ideas, converse, and strategize, I’ve always gathered with other business owners — especially women. Our businesses, as well as our communities, benefit from this.
Other business owners, especially those in your industry, can benefit from working together, collaborating, and partnering.
The morale of an industry can be greatly boosted by showing that you can work together and serve your customers together. The benefits of adopting the mentality that we are not competitors, but rather a community of business owners who serve people, are incalculable. Our lives will be changed when we adopt this new mindset and see each business as a collective, as opposed to a single entity.
Here are three ways embracing community over competition can benefit your bottom line:
You Show Honesty
Your character, as a person and as a business, is revealed when you encourage and assist aspiring entrepreneurs. Your willingness to help and invest in others is evident. The value of that is immeasurable in today’s world. People certainly pay attention to what’s going on. The difficulty of starting a business and obtaining the answers needed to get it started should never be underestimated.
Genuinely embracing and helping other business owners will set your company apart from its competitors. Companies that align with their personal core values appeal to a growing number of consumers today.
Individuals want to support these companies, whether financially or in other ways. This is a benefit that comes as a result of simply doing the right thing. Isn’t it true that the golden rule is golden for a reason?
Your Business May Benefit From It
Not only do you provide valuable insight and ideas into another’s business, but you engage in an open dialogue about those concepts, which can lead to new ideas and improvements for your own business. As a business owner, you are often so focused on your own business that you miss seemingly simple improvements. It’s more important than you think to get an outside perspective.
It Takes You Out of Autopilot Mode
To maintain consistency, it’s easy to keep your head down and do the bare minimum when business is booming or going well. Because, if something is working, it will be much easier to sit back and coast. Easy as it may seem, letting your business run on autopilot prevents you from being agile and alert to unexpected challenges.
When we don’t actively learn from other business owners and maintain an open dialogue with them, we leave our own venture vulnerable to changes that could negatively impact our bottom line. Our constant learning and alertness require that we share our knowledge and expertise.
It may seem counterintuitive to what you’ve been told or even natural, but helping others succeed can have a powerful impact on your life. To the extent that we assist others in improving and becoming better, we are also improving ourselves.
Adopt the “your” Factor.
Nobody can take away your factor, no matter how stiff and vast you may believe the competition is in your industry. It’s you who makes your business stand out from the competition. You, as well as your competitors, rely on this secret sauce to attract customers.
Profit from this fact and keep in mind that there are more than enough customers to go around for everyone to enjoy. In addition to being much larger than we can imagine, the world is also filled with a wide variety of different cultures, values, and personalities. This is what a growth mindset is all about.
In the same way that every business and every customer are different, so are their needs. Others can fill the void left by us. As of today, I have 777,000 Facebook fans, and that’s just the beginning. Existing communities still have billions of potential members. Our job is to go out and find them.