Having been in business now for three years, I have observed some interesting behaviour from different camps within the home business movement.
One the one hand, I’ve experienced and seen people being amazingly supportive of each other, lending a hand, an ear and even an arm and a leg to help other businesses.
On the other hand, I’ve witnessed high school. Yes, it’s high school all over again, folks. Gosh, I never want to revisit that again. But here we have it – cliques, competition and lots of gossip.
Now I don’t want to fling mud anywhere. That’s not my style. But I do want to point out that, as little businesses, we’re all in this together. We should be doing all we can to help one another.
And I’ve been really blessed to be on the receiving end of wonderful, collaborative partnerships, especially in the last few months as I’ve prepared for next week’s tele-summit (see my post from last week).
When you collaborate, wonderful things happen. For a start, everybody wins. Let me give you an example. One of the clients I worked with in my last group program wants to run a fashion parade in her north Queensland town. So, she’s working hard to develop relationships with other designers (her competitors) and marketers so that they can work together to bring this event to life.
Now, a fashion parade is a classic example of an event that relies on collaboration. If nobody wanted to work together, an event like this would never happen and everybody would miss out.
The fact is, one person alone can only do so much, but when you work together, magic happens.
But what if others don’t want to play nice? Well, that’s their loss. There is no point chasing people down who don’t want to work with you. You’re better off spending your energy on people who do.
I’ve had the experience of being shot down when I’ve approached another business about a collaborative venture, and it’s not fun, but, at the end of the day, every business needs to choose who they align themselves with and how. And that’s their right.
So, don’t be afraid to get out there, attend networking events and participate in networking activities on Facebook groups so that you can meet other like-minded business owners.
If you assume everybody just wants to stake their claim and ward off intruders, then you’ll miss out on building some incredible relationships. However, if you take your time to get to know others and look for the synergies, magic will happen.
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