#65 Business Competition: The Truth About Competing & Sharing

Join our Facebook community on Facebook where folks just like you are sharing all about working in creative small business: http://doubleexposure.show/facebook - Save on shipping this year! Sign up for Freightcom with the code "Sophia" at http://doubleexposure.show/freightcom - We have a beef with you. Yes, you. YOU, the type of person who doesn't share your knowledge with "the competition," because you're afraid they might steal your ideas. Here's the truth: business competition isn't what you think it is. Especially in creative industries like ours. Take for example, small businesses like photography. Both Petro and Sophia believe that if a photographer can't succeed, then no one will succeed. If we are constantly dropping our prices to undercut our competition, then none of us will be able to pay our mortgages. Our clients will devalue our work, because we'll be telling them collectively that our time and talent is worth increasingly less. Instead of looking at your competition as people to be squashed, let's think of them as people whom we wish to succeed. Because if that new photographer on the blog improves and increases her prices to the same as yours, then you will both be telling your local market that what you do has value. OK, so what about sharing? Let's be realistic, no one has had a unique idea in 100 odd years. Mini sessions have been around forever, everyone can deliver prints on metal, and a wedding album has been a standard in wedding packages for, well, ever. If you have ever been on Pinterest, read a message board, taken a college course, or picked up a magazine, then you have been influenced by others in your field. Don't hoard all that information as if you're the only person who knows. (Shhhh!) Don't be afraid to share because you think your competition might do it better. Don't be afraid to share because you think your competition will put you out of business. Instead, share! Then bust your butt to provide your clients with a better experience. Treat them nicer. Send them more thoughtful gifts. Take a course on sales to learn how to better pitch to your leads. Learn how to make the booking process easier. Grow your mailing list. Connect with more people on Instagram. Hone in on your niche market and provide them with a better service than they could have ever imagined. Share more! Because we are doing ourselves a disservice by whining about not being able to bring home the bacon because there is too much competition. - Thanks to Benjamin Edward for our artwork and Bensound for our theme music. - Get the links for this episode at http://doubleexposure.show/65