Sometimes the relationship between competitors is fierce and they battle every day for the same clientele.
While this type of relationship is common, it does not have to be this way. If fact, you can turn your competition into a great asset for your business.
We will use the hypothetical case of Pete the Plumber to illustrate how this works.
Pete provides residential plumbing services and is based out of northwest Tucson. He has five trucks that service the greater Tucson area.
Pete attended a workshop on βturning your competition into an assetβ and made the following changes:
- Pete analyzed his competition and learned there was a plumber who only provided clogged drain service. The drain service company would not do major plumbing repairs. Pete contacted the owner of the drain service company and proposed they work together. Pete would refer his clogged drain business to the drain service, and the drain service would refer major plumbing repairs to Pete.
- Pete also learned some of his competitors concentrated on commercial work. Pete contacted them and proposed they send their residential work to him. In exchange, when Pete gets a call for commercial work he refers it to them.
- Then Pete built relationships with plumbers in distant communities. They began to refer business back and forth based on geographic convenience. This reduced the time technicians spent on the road, increased billable hours and reduced expenses for everyone.
- Because Pete was now well connected to his competition, he was the first to know when one of his competitors was going to retire. Pete made a deal to purchase much of the equipment and inventory at a discount. In addition, his competitor agreed to sell Pete his client list, his website domain name and even forwarded telephone calls to Pete.
When was the last time you analyzed your competition and looked for ways to generate business from them?
Try it, you might like it.
