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Good Old Fashioned Networking.
Competition, Competing, and Competitors.

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Networking.
Are you missing out?

Merriam Webster defines networking as the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions; specifically: the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business. Networking is a great way to capitalize on opportunities. The is a phrase that goes, "It is not about what you know, but about who you know." If you are failing to network, you are failing to crapitalize on opportunity.

Today I posted a Facebook entry, requesting friends to provide me with ideas for topics to write about so I could continue my quest to dominate the online marketing industry. My once arch rival, Keith Bloemendaal, replied to my post suggesting that I write about networking. I told Keith that I had already covered that topic in my MySpace vs. Facebook article. Keith replied that he said good old fashioned networking, NOT social networking.

 

So here I am. It took me a little while to think about ways to cover and elaborate on this topic. Keith is a perfect example of networking. I was scouring the Internet as I constantly do checking out my competition. Keith once owned Raleigh Fence Contractors, another fence company, in the Raleigh market that was trying to compete against our company. His website was impressive and slowly generating steam to becoming a competitor that I would seriously have to contend with. I monitored his progress in Google's index constantly.

Competition, Competitors, and Competing.

Competition by Merriam Webster's definition is the act or process of competing. Wikipedia further defines competition as a contest between individuals, groups, nations, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or allocation of resources. It arises whenever two or more parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared.

I was watching Monday Night Football tonight. It was the Tennessee Titans against the Houston Texans. It was one hell of a game. It came down to the final minute of the game when Tennessee kicked a 54 yard field goal to go ahead by 3 points with :51 seconds left in the game. Houston rallied back down the field to get into field goal range with :08 seconds left. Houston's kicker kicked the field goal and shanked it wide left. In all honesty, he wasn't even fucking close to making it. It can be said that the pressure of competition got to his head, which caused him to get nervous and miss it. It also can be said that he missed it strictly because of bad luck. I tend to believe that the game was riding on his shoulders and he was just not able to capitalize on the opportunity that was presented to him.

Destroying the competition is in my nature as far as the business world is concerned. My philosophy is that if my competitor can do it, I can do it better, I can do it faster, I can do it smarter, and I can do it cheaper. I have a general knack and talent for being able to one-up the competition. You learn at a very early age how to be competitive. My son who is 5 years old has become very competitive by nature, more than likely a trait inherited from my love for beating him at everything. Yes, some people let their kids win. I do too, though much less frequently than most other parents. I want my child to realize that a good attitude about losing is just as important as being a good sport when you win. The problem is that in the “Real World”, second place is not where I want to be. The problem is when the competition is willing to lie, cheat, and steal to gain the competitive edge in order to beat someone fair and square.

Part of being able to gain a fair and legitimate edge on your competition is by knowing your industry inside and out. Even if you were able to eliminate some of your competitors, there will always be more to follow in their footsteps. I have competitors who don't understand the importance of being able to network with the competition. Keep your friends close, and your competitors closer.

 

Keep your friends close,
and your competitors closer.

My first encounter with Keith came when he published a couple articles that criticized our long time policy of not doing onsite estimates. Keith saw this as a flaw in our business structure. What Keith did not understand that our policy was put into effect just after our son was born. I realized I was spending all of my time running around doing estimates, many times for people who had no idea what a fence cost and could not afford a fence. This policy was also an attempt to minimize our overhead and pass the savings directly along to the people who actually did choose to hire our company.

After reading several articles bashing our company, though he did not directly name our company, I decided I needed to contact Keith. I let Raleigh Fence Contractors know that if he wanted to wage a war, I was ready. After posting a few articles of my own defending our business and policies, and threatening him with thousands of dollars in legal action, Keith and I both started realizing that these online attacks were likely not helping either of us. We agreed to a cease fire. We decided to focus our energy on more positive topics on our websites and both of us removed the negative postings.

 

Despite being arch rivals and competitors, we decided to turn something negative into something positive. We decided to meet for coffee. It was definitely interesting since both of us had forgotten our wallets and had no way to buy coffee. We sat and talked for about a half hour, and then went about our days. We stayed in contact and Keith let me know that he was having online problems in his personal life and business. Keith had incredible talent and even though he was my biggest competitor, I was truly saddened to hear about the issues that he was going through.

I received an email from Keith, asking me if I wanted to purchase his website. I couldn't believe that he was actually getting out of the fence installation industry. I absolutely had no choice but to purchase his site for several reasons. The most important one was so it would not end up in another competitor's hand.

The moral of the story, my biggest business enemy, through networking, has now become one of my biggest allies. Keith has started a new website which sells aluminum and vinyl fence products nationwide. A move which will hopefully strengthen our business relationship which was founded on competitive intelligence and networking.