I’m not going to mention names, but I’m friends with one of our largest competitors in our local area. It’s been this way since the early stages of our business, and we continue to be friends to this day.
When I first started out and it was only me, I got on his radar as a lowly competitor and he reached out and asked if I’d like to close up shop and come work for him. I said “Thanks, but no thanks.” Our company stayed on his radar as we started to grow beyond just a one-man shop and eventually we sat down to discuss a formal partnership.
Fast-forward to today and that partnership is still in place and benefiting both sides even though we’re clearly trying to run competing businesses and often end up competing for the same work in our area.
If this sounds weird to you, I can definitely understand. But it works because we both believe that partnership is more powerful than competition.
People have asked me many times who our competition is. We obviously want and need to know who our competitors are. But the honest answer is that I don’t think about it that much.
- I think about doing great work that separates us from the competition.
- I think about creating strong relationships with our clients.
- I think about who we can partner with because I believe that we can be stronger together than apart.
I’m Not Built for the Fight
I’m not a competitive person. I never have been. Of course, I like to win, but winning isn’t what drives me. Plenty of people are driven by winning, and I understand why. A win feels like proof that you’re good enough. But when beating someone becomes the point, decisions get made for the scoreboard. That’s when people turn their focus toward taking down the competition across town. It might bring in some new revenue and fluff your ego for a short time, but there’s always another rival to beat, so the satisfaction never lasts. This approach does very little, long term, to make your business better, stronger, or more resistant to decline.
For a long time I wondered whether not being competitive was a weakness in a business owner. Being friendly is a nice idea, but in the end, isn’t everything still about keeping score? Isn’t everyone really just out for themselves?
Most of us learned that view at the kitchen table playing Monopoly. We’re taught from a young age to claim our territory and dominate it at all costs. It’s every man for himself, and the biggest bank account wins. I’m more fond of a game like Forbidden Island. The island is sinking into the ocean, and everyone is literally going to drown unless the players find a way off it together. Either everyone wins, or everyone loses. You’re stronger together than apart, and cooperation, communication and creativity are what save you in the end.
That’s a reality, and I’d be naive to think we don’t have to stake out our territory, have strong financials and “win” new business all the time. But 20 years in, I think we’ve proven that choosing partnership over pure predatory competition works. I’d rather be the friendly firm than the predatory one.
Fighting your neighbors has a cost, and it usually shows up in how people behave. They undercut each other on price to win a deal. They promise what they can’t deliver. They talk down another firm to a prospect. Any of those might win a project. All of them make the market a little worse to work in, for everyone, including the people doing it.
What Other Owners Taught Me
Most people running agencies around here face the same problems we do. Finding good people. Pricing fairly. Keeping up with Google, and now with AI. Explaining to a client why results take months instead of weeks.
Those conversations have saved us money and spared us more than a few mistakes. Nobody understands the business quite like someone else who runs one in the same market.
Referrals run both ways too. We aren’t the right fit for every project, and we pride ourselves on having a strong focus and not being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. There are times when we could serve the client and do the work. But in the end, we’re probably not going to be their best option, and it takes us away from being the best we can be at specific things.
The result is that the client gets the best service and expertise possible. They trust us more because we’re actually willing to say “no” to them and get them the right solution to their needs. We might even get a commission for the referral. The partner starts to trust us too, because we sent them the work. Then we serve and keep the client together. That strengthens relationships and builds lasting, recurring revenue. It’s growth that lifts all boats, including the client’s.
Showing Up Without an Agenda
The bigger version of this lesson has nothing to do with agencies.
A business is only as healthy as the community around it. Our clients are generally established companies in Northeast Ohio, within about an hour of our offices in North Canton. When the region does well, they do well, and so do we.
We Are Sanctuary
One of our core values is “We Are Sanctuary,” and for us, this means that we’re a Sanctuary for our clients, our team and our community. We believe in this deeply, especially the last part. This is actually how we’ve answered the question about why we exist as a company. It’s really about partnership and community.
In our brand guide, we say, “We provide a Sanctuary to grow organizations so together we can positively impact people in our world.” This is why we get up in the morning in addition to the necessities of making a living and doing the work at hand.
What Comes Back Around
I can’t draw a straight line from most of what we’ve given to what we’ve gotten back. Generosity in a community pays out the way a reputation does: slowly, and usually without a clear reason you can point to.
Many people call this karma. I don’t believe in karma, feng shui, jinxes or any other voodoo that’s not based in reality. But I do believe that your actions can cause things to happen in your world, and many times, those actions will cause something to happen that’s positive. Simply being intentional about doing good will return more to you and the world around you than purposefully engaging in a negative way. Maybe this is karma. But I prefer to just think of it as a result. It’s no different from punching someone in the face versus giving them a hug. It’s the result of the positive actions that you put out into the world as you engage in business and your life.
The Pie Is Already Too Big
If none of this touchy-feely talk resonates, let me wrap things up with one more belief of mine. Competitive thinking assumes there’s only so much work to go around, so every job someone else wins is one you lost.
That has never matched what I’ve seen. There are more businesses in Northeast Ohio that need our services than any one agency could serve. We couldn’t take all of it if we tried. Neither could anyone else.
So most of the fight is imaginary. We’d be battling over a pie that’s already bigger than any of us can eat.
Stop using your limited energy and resources worrying about what your competitors are doing and just go get it. Cooperate, communicate and get creative instead of building walls that keep opportunity out.
When we all work together, everyone can win. A partner covers a skill you don’t have, so the client gets the whole job done right. A referral puts a prospect with the firm that fits them best. A shared lesson saves someone a year of trial and error. Clients get better results. That brings more work to all of us and strengthens the whole. We hire here, sell here and live here, and every bit of that comes back to us in some form.
My lesson is that you don’t have to beat your neighbors to win. Being friendly instead of predatory has done more for Sanctuary than any competitive edge could have. When we work together, we all accomplish more than we would fighting over a pie that was always bigger than any of us could handle alone.