How can helping your competitor help you?
I read an article in the June 12, 2006 edition of Fortune magazine titled “Pack Mentality”. The article centered around how competing cyclists work together as they compete. It also described the unwritten rules of etiquette which essentially punishes those cyclists that decide not to work with their competitors.
Just as every business is different and has certain areas of strength, so do cyclists. The toughest force cyclists fight is not gravity, but wind. They work together as they compete by taking turns drafting each other. Depending on the changing conditions, the person cutting the wind for others may be a leader, hill specialist, sprinter, or domestique. Without rewriting the article word for word, the basic point was to make the reader think about how working together, even with your competitors, can help all of the cyclists accomplish their goals more easily.
Stop and think for a second about your particular industry. Most likely, you have at least one friendly competitor that you refer work to when you are too busy or unable to help a good customer. They likely do the same for you. It is also very likely that you have one competitor that continually bad-mouths your business, and you likely have your own retaliatory methods of dealing with them too.
Comparing these two types of competitors, which one is helping you to accomplish your goal of making a fair profit as well as being a great service provider to anybody that asks for your help? Which one continually wastes your time and takes your attention away from your goals?
I almost skipped over this article because cycling didn’t seem much like business to me. I’m glad that I took the time to look further into the article. It definitely made a great point.
January 4th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Referer…
It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong…