I found myself in a slightly awkward position last week. I asked a fellow consultant, whom I consider a friend, what project they were working on currently. The response, " I am not going to tell you". My response, "oh, apologies," followed by silence. I initially found this exchange quite unusual as I was asking about a current client–not a pending tender. Then the consultant went on to explain they had competed with me recently because a project they were working on had competed against a project I was working on. Confused yet? I am.
It gets more confusing because I am not sure this person is really a direct competitor. They have a different skillset, operate smaller firm, and have a significantly different approach into social enterprise that leads them to different clients. (I think)
This secrecy for an existing client by an industry associate got me thinking about my own openness with respect to work. And it got me thinking about competitors; what was appropriate to chat about what was not? Was I telling folks too much about the work we were onto or the work we hope we would be onto?
Nope. In fact, openness (not secrecy) and a policy of abundance (instead of scarcity) are the first step towards trust in this info rich world. Richard Scoble (a former Microsoft blogger) is quoted as saying, (thanks to PresentationZen for the link)
"Link to your competitors and say nice things about them. Remember, you’re part of an industry and if the entire industry gets bigger, you’ll probably win more than your fair share of business and you’ll get bigger too. Be better than your competitors — people remember that. I remember sending lots of customers over to the camera shop that competed with me and many of those folks came back to me and said ‘I’d rather buy it from you, can you get me that?’"
— Robert Scoble
In fact we have been trying to mirror this kind of atmosphere (in our own small way) by linking together fellow practitioners in social enterprise or the 3rd sector for two reasons: (1) attempt to set some quality standards, and (2) create a network of good referrals for business we don’t want, can’t win or need another partner to complete a consortium. Both of these reasons increase the quality of service to the client and therefore are inherently worthy of pursuit.
But just how should we be talking about my competition? On the whole, I believe we point to their strengths and politely move forward (I could be better at this!). After reading Presentation Zen’s take on how to handle questions about the competition, I feel we could do more to find out what is good about our direct competition so we can speak knowledgeably about them, not to disparage them better–rather to support good work wherever it might be. The purpose of this: show the client you can be trusted and you are not blind to reality.
In fact, your clients already know (perceive) the differences between firms. They will tell you what your competitor’s perceived strengths are and they have strong opinions about your service in the context of other providers. If you don’t know these real differences (not your opinion) you will not be able to effectively pitch your product or service.
Think about it. You want your client to trust you. They cannot trust you if you dispute plain truths or create a fear, uncertainty or doubt where one did not exist prior. Why be secret with client or competitors, are you afraid your client will discover you are not the brightest star in the sky? We all would like to think we are, but this is simply not true. Remember, creating an eclipse does not mean the sun is not there.
Think about this in the converse, a true story: a competitor (Rob Greenland) gave me a heads up on a great book by Jim Collins, which I wrote about, and used with several clients to explain our approach to 3rd sector problems. Why do you think he did that. Some of you would say, stupid Rob–he just gave more ammunition to a competitor. But the smart money would realise that by sharing information and ideas about helping our sector, we would both get better (grow) and therefore our clients would benefit. A footnote to this: your ideas are not powerful until others are talking about them.
The morals of the story:
(1) Know your competition,
(2) Be respectful of them to them and others, and
(3) Practice an abundance policy where you create linkages to those in your sector even if they are better or different than you.
If you are good at what you do (and good at explaining/showing why this is true), you will win your fair share of business in the end and earn the trust of your clients.
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