Working with the Enemy

Did anyone see this video Dan and Lloyd from KPS Digital Marketing created about the Facebook changes…

Hilarious right!?

You may know this or you may not – but we get on really well with Dan and Lloyd (AKA Highlights and the other one), but how easy would it be for us to see them as competition…

• They’re our age (Dan is one year younger, and Lloyd one year older)
• They’re a duo
• They’re British in this space
• They make hilarious marketing videos
• They’re not quite as good looking, but getting there

It would be easy for us to hate them. They even take the mick out of our awesome GIFs in the above video.

But instead of seeing them as a threat…  we got to know them (online and offline at various events), and instead of making little Dan and little Lloyd voodoo dolls, we:

• Shared ideas
• Shared each other’s content
• Collaborated

And deeper than that – we keep each other on our toes. When we see videos like the above – it inspires us! We think – right how can we keep our own thing fresh? How do we keep pushing our own boundaries?

Not everyone thinks like this.

We’ve approached many marketing companies in the past to collaborate on something, and they don’t want anything to do with us!!

That’s cool, we’re not upset about it – but we do feel it’s a bit of a shame.

Because there is nobody who knows what you’re going through, your struggles and your industry – like your direct competition does.

So how do you work with the enemy?

Number 1. Reach out on Social 

This is easy – just give them some props on social media! Share some of the their content, and just reply to their tweets every once in a while. You may want to start a Twitter list called ‘enemies’.

We went wayyyyy back in Twitter to find this very first Tweet Dan sent Andrew after he read a post on Social Media Examiner…

@AndrewAndPete loving your new @SMExaminer post Andrew! ???????????????? pic.twitter.com/Nu7F3IijzJ

— Daniel Knowlton (@dknowlton1) July 14, 2016

Number 2. Collaborate

We don’t mean collaborate on work or projects (although that’s possible), but start easy with some content collaborations. One of the first things we did with Dan and Lloyd was a Snapchat takeover, but why not do a guest blog, or a joint Facebook Live, or a Twitter chat? Start with something easy!

Then if it all goes well, you can do more.

Have you seen our brand new show ‘Andrew and Pete VS Dan and Lloyd’ yet? They’re going dowwwwwn!

Number 3. Use Messenger

Once the relationship is it bit more established, why not start a private messenger thread on something like Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

You can kind of use these as informal masterminds – a place to share new ideas, ask for shares or get advice.

---

From ATOMIC…

We put this story to our ATOMIC members in our group, here’s what they had to say…

Nicole Osborne: “I genuinely believe there usually is enough cake to go around. It’s so helpful to have an open dialogue with your competition. At times you might be so busy that you can pass on leads. I’d be cautious about giving away new service or marketing ideas too early on – unless there is room for collaboration which is even better!”

Clare Crossan: “So far I’ve only encountered colleagues, not competition. I’m hoping my strategy of not being a d*** will pay off — it may be naive but I figure if you’re nice and helpful to everyone, it’ll come back at you! Oh, and you never know who will send work your way if they’re snowed under. And I love having people I can trust to send work to if I’m too busy to take something on.

Louise Harnby: “My industry is an example where I’d say there aren’t even frenemies never mind enemies. We’re just friends. There’s a massive online community (thousands), in particular on Facebook, and an informal referral network to go with it. Most of my champions and advocates are from that international community. Honestly, if you’re miserable in your job, you should become one of us. I think it might just be the kindest community in the world!”

Cathy Wassell:  “I am friends with lots of competition in the #DMCollective. We are all competing for the same jobs but we help and support each other every day.”

Gemma Jay: “I work closely with another one or two wedding planners, one I’d class as a close friend. We pass work back and forth. The planner needs to be right for the couple, it’s their big day and I’m happy to pass a referral over so they get the right person! Although there are some I don’t recommend! ????”

Lyndsay Cambridge: “We love speaking with other web agency owners! We wrote a blog post highlighting the 10 best web design agencies in Manchester. A few people thought we were mad for doing this! But this was our chance to highlight those we admired. We’re not the right fit for everyone and we understand that there are other amazing agencies out there that can help! Our only issue is many people we speak to have had bad experiences with web designers or those in SEO. And we try to combat that by being as transparent as possible.

Ashley Davis: We love working and collaborating with other digital agencies! In fact, we actually have a whole page on our website dedicated to it. Since we specialise in B2B lead generation, there are sometimes clients that are not a good fit for us and we pass them on. Other times, there are clients that are not a good fit for the agencies so they pass them to us. The fact is, there is more than enough business to go around. I was at a digital agency event a few months ago in Texas and in one of the talks they mentioned there’s something like 200,000 SME’s for every digital agency in existence. So yeah – nothing to worry about!

Awesome points guys! We completely agree! It’s not just Dan and Lloyd either – we have collaborated, worked with, masterminded with, and shared ideas with soooo many people and companies that we could see as ‘the enemy’.

Like the saying goes… keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Now… what do you think?

We want to know your best advice or best story around working with the competition. Drop it in the comments.

INCREASE YOUR REACH

In this ebook we break down 33 content ideas, designed to HACK the algorithms, guaranteed to get you extra organic reach across all your social platforms. And you can literally steal them all for yourself.

???? No Spam. We’ll keep your email safe. Downloading this also subscribes you to our email list, where we’ll send you awesome free content, and the odd sales email too. We NEVER share data with any 3rd parties and you can unsubscribe at anytime with the click of a button, and never hear from us again! ????