3 Reasons to Partner with the Competition - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

3 Reasons to Partner with the Competition - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Doing business as usual includes observing the competition from a distance in order to remain undetected. We don’t want anyone to steal our ideas or copy our unique delivery. Fear gets in the way only to hold us back and delay impending success. But the word, “unique” stands out. No two individuals are exactly alike. We each have a personal brand defining who we are and how we deliver business. With this in mind, and, as you move forward, you open the door to more opportunity allowing possibilities to grow infinitely. Consider the following reasoning for partnering with the competition designed to give your business a jumpstart: 1. Learn new strategies that are working well Due to the fact we each have varied backgrounds and beliefs, our deliveries on goods and services differ. By communicating and possibly partnering with one another, you learn ideas that previously never occurred to you. In the course of conversation, you may decide the other person’s style just isn’t for you. The better scenario is finding you enjoy one another and explore possibilities for doing projects together. The trial run allows you to see if you are a good fit for further partnering. A simple conversation with the competition may easily open many doors of opportunity. 2. Share the stage As you begin your test of doing a joint project, you automatically become more powerful in your delivery. Why? Social media is a gift to every entrepreneur desiring to become known. By promoting your event with partners to each of your communities, the activity will put you on the world stage. As you are seen partnering with another, more of your competition or peers complementing your service will also ask to partner with you. 3. Become a powerful brand Just as you kept an eye on your competition, others are keenly watching you. They see you pushing fear aside to step into the limelight. They see you partnering with many well-known players in your field. Your competition begins to think, “Wow, she is a powerhouse” and they will then pursue you to partner on new projects. And, more and more people will find and follow you. New partners will add new ideas to mix of how to further gain exposure. The possibilities once again expand. It becomes a very nice turn of events from once upon a time being the unknown to now taking center stage. And by incorporating new ideas of others, you will be attempting new strategies. Additional social media and public venue exposure will push your reputation further. The interesting thing about all this is, because you have learned to develop a powerful personal brand, news media and sites monitoring activity will begin to list you as a top achiever in your field. As a footnote, I owe it to good friends who taught me there is no true competition because of our genetic and environmental makeup. This emphasizes the importance of partnering with your perceived competition. You complement one another to deliver a more encompassing service by combining your perspectives. Both you and your clients win by delivery and receipt of a heartier program. Capitalize on your differences and similarities, and you will enjoy the Smooth Sale! Author: Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, (800) 704-1499, was honored by Open View Labs with inclusion in their international list of “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2012.” Elinor authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training, private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for conferences. Elinor is available for consultation.