Just about every entrepreneur has at least one experience where their heart sinks… someone is doing exactly what you’re doing. You thought your ideas and execution were unique, top-notch, the best out there, and yet someone else is getting the business you deserve! But here, we believe in community over competition.
It’s so difficult to have this realization, but let’s flip that mindset upside down. There’s room for everyone, and business owners can benefit a ton more from becoming a community and helping each other out rather than seeing each other as nasty competition. Let’s talk about how being friends with like-minded people and entrepreneurs in your niche is actually the best decision to make for your business.
Today’s Goals: Start networking with your niche community and find ways to support each other rather than tear each other down. Prioritize community over competition in your industry.
IN THIS EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:
- How the competition isn’t always direct competition – there are different niches and subsets within each industry
- Local businesses offering similar services can work together so each owner gets their perfect clients rather than just hoarding any client they can find
- Getting over the heart-sinking mindset that people who copy your ideas are stealing your success
- Surrounding yourself with like-minded, supportive people who light you up and choosing to walk away from toxic relationships that cut you down or limit you
Episode 16 Transcript: Community Over Competition
Alyssa
Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Making Mommy Moves Show. I’ve got my husband Larry here with us today. And we’re excited to talk about community over competition. We have been experiencing lately like the importance of surrounding yourself with like-minded powerhouse people, both in business and life. So we wanted to talk about that today with you guys and just encourage you to find your people.
Larry
Yes, yeah, we see it a lot because we’re trying to grow so many businesses that you might start something that’s brand new, and then you see someone else copying you, and you’re like, they’re encroaching on your space but you have to keep in mind that there are so many opportunities that you can’t handle them all yourself anyway. So yeah, the share wall is there.
Alyssa
Yes. Yes. And you got to think about like the different… I want to call it like subsets of people. Like Like, let’s just say like Jane, like as a wedding florist. Jane wants to buy wedding flowers, but Jane and I are a good fit, but maybe Maggie is a better fit for Jane. So I could refer Jane to Maggie and they would be a total, you know, like harmony saying like a connection made in heaven. And it’s like she wasn’t my client. We didn’t get along, like our personalities clashed, her style, the natural mind, like whatever the case may be. It’s not that like, she’s still in competition. It’s just it’s a better fit. Like as friends when you’re making friends in the community with other business owners, you can say, I have the perfect client for you. Here you go. And they’ll do the same for you. Saying like… I have been working with one of my favorite people. She [inaudible]. And she and I are, we’re really good friends and we’re able to share our rental inventory and order together our wholesaler and like get better prices and all of those things. And you wouldn’t do that if you had the mindset that everyone’s out to get you and everyone is your competition.
Larry
Yeah. And also too is that we might be in the same space as somebody but you don’t do the same thing as somebody. Yes. So if you are friends with somebody else in your field, that maybe they’re more budget oriented and you’re more luxury-oriented. So they might get a client that says, oh, you know, I have a $15,000 budget. And the person at the competition isn’t capable of doing that, and they say, Hey, I know somebody that is able to take care of that for you and the team and the resources. And the opposite, the opposite side to say, even a client that says I have a $3,000 budget. That’s not within your minimum, but you know somebody else that’s willing to take that on and say hey, go see my friends, they’ll take care of you. So you should pause, work back and forth. And they’re so snug between you and one person that’s between you and as many people as you can think of because if you’re all in the same space, each and every one of you has a certain, you know, thing that you’ve done differently than one another.
Alyssa
Yeah, you can even think about this lifestyle. So you know, I’m in the wedding industry and we do wedding flowers for our couples. I have a more organic and whimsical style. Somebody else might have more of a classic like ballroom style. So if it’s like a style that, hey, they’re a better match for you go look at their portfolio, they’ll take care of you. But that even relates to cars and everything like industry.
Larry
Yes, it’s, you know, I’m a mechanic as you guys know. I work in a very general shop so we do a lot of everything, but there’s stuff that we don’t want to do so we are friends with the guy down the street that has trans shop. So I mean when it comes down with transmission concerns, it’s out of our realm, we say hey, go see the guy down the road he’ll take care of you, and he does the same for us. He gets some stuff that he doesn’t do there and he says hey, go to our buddies of the road and they’ll take care of you. So although we’re both mechanic shops, and he also does, you know, other repair work as transmissions but if he can’t hit run at the time, let’s have our way and we send trans stuff his way. But we’re also two shops that are within a half a mile of one another that are competitors. But we also are friendly enough that we can do the work back and forth. And it works out well for us.
Alyssa
Yeah. So I want you to think about the differences, I want to see like niches within the niche.
Larry
A subset within your area of expertise.
Alyssa
Yeah, like try to find other friends within your community because I promise that’s gonna go far further than like, trying to steal work from each other or like having the mindset that that’s happening. Even if it might not be happening.
Larry
Yeah, yeah, that was my first thought because you had to set the post because we also have another business for event cleanup for florists, and we had saw that somebody put a listing in one of the florist Facebook pages that, Hey, my friend has started this cleanup business. Go check them out, and it was somebody that wasn’t us. And my first thought was, we did it first.
Alyssa
And literally, we did. We did this in New Jersey, we created it.
Larry
Yeah, we were the first ones in the area to really offer it and, you know, it’s I guess it’s flattering. That’s why I was picking it up. But to see competition out there and kind of get scared by it even though we’ve been doing it longer even though it’s only been a few months.
Alyssa
But yeah maybe she’s closer or more affordble or like in a different area
Larry
Like that’s what I’ve been wondering too a lot, like because a lot of our clients are out in Philadelphia, which is a bit of a trip for us and we kept the mileage in the pricing structure. So then we might be a little more expensive than more local closer, close ones. So if they happen to be closer, less than we are, maybe that’ll suit them a little better. And we have more range to clients that are closer to us and it works out both ways. Or, you know, we haven’t again, somebody that they’re they don’t want to get mileage fees and everything you can say hey, we know somebody’s closer to you, and they’ll be able to help you out. And likewise the other way.
Alyssa
Yeah exactly. If they’re over there. So something else I want to touch on maybe for those that are in business focused or have businesses of their own. I don’t like, like surrounding yourself with the right people. We want to make sure that you’re surrounding yourself with people that are inspiring you, lighting you up, motivating you, cheering you on, not trying to like suck the life and energy or make it feel like you’re keeping up with the Joneses because you’re not it’s all in your head.
Larry
Yeah, there are definitely people that you know, kind of give us that this is stupid kind of thing for you know, all the ideas that we have, that we want to build and it’s kind of like okay, you take that over there. We don’t need that. And there’s other people that are like this is phenomenal and you guys are inspiring. We love it like okay, you come right here.
Alyssa
Yeah come hang out with us, be in our circle, put yourself in the room with us.
Larry
So it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. If you are starting a fitness journey or starting a business or whatever, you know, whatever goals you have. Surround yourself with people that support them and if they don’t then go over there.
Alyssa
Yep, yep.
Larry
Yeah. So much easier.
Alyssa
Yeah. It’s something that we do a lot that I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but we like to keep things like to ourselves until we’re ready to bring them out into the world just to try to guard them. That like negative Nancy kind of like bleeding all over your idea. And it’s like, I don’t know if it’s good or bad. You do what you want, but like it helps us keep like our circle really close knit and inspiring and motivated so that we feel like continually inspired to bring it out into the world whenever we’re thinking.
Larry
OH yeah because the worst thing is when you have a great idea and you tell somebody who’s a friend or family, whatever you’re like, Hey, I got this awesome thing I want to currently want to do and it’s “that’s stupid. You shouldn’t even put your effort into that: and you’re like, it makes you second guess. Just think like, maybe I shouldn’t put my effort into this. Maybe I should just stick with what I’m doing. And it really pees in your Wheaties, whatever, whatever you have going on.
Alyssa
Puts out all that fire that you might be feeling.
Larry
Yeah, and especially if it’s something that is in its infancy. That might not be you know, anything right now might just be a thought and idea. You just getting started. So you might be months out before anything happens. If you tell somebody about it, and they’re they kind of just crap over your idea. You might not even want to put in any more effort to it. Which you know, stopping before you begin is the worst thing you could do.
Alyssa
Yeah, definitely.
Well, if you guys have any feedback for us, we’d love for you to share with us on Instagram. You can tag us @lyss.morton and @mortmotoshow. And share with us your ideas. Keep asking questions. Share your favorite takeaway from this episode with us. We’d love to hear it. And if there’s something you want us to talk about or question you want to ask or you want to come on the show, please send us an email. We hope to see you soon.
Larry
And I was thinking if we get a good bunch of Q and A’s we’ll do a q&a episode for you guys to answer all your questions. Definitely. Give me a little shout-out.
Alyssa
Yeah, yeah share your business and you want us to shout you out. Over here. Thanks again for tuning in. We’ll talk to you next time. Bye!
RESOURCES
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CONNECT WITH LYSS
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