It is interesting how we grow up believing that everyone is our competition. In some ways it is true but in business it is a death sentence. Why? Who other than your competition has your exact target market? No one! Why wouldn’t you want to tap into their clients? Now you may be saying that all sounds great but they wouldn’t open the faucet and watch their clients flow my way. This just isn’t true. What you do is build an alliance with your competitor. As an Alliance Partner you grow your relationship to the point where both of you are benefiting. 

            So how does this work and why? You will run into potential clients that you either can’t help or don’t want to help (Toxic Clients). Not everyone in your industry including yourself does the exact same thing. Say you are a realtor. Well, realtors need other realtors to come view their homes for sale and maybe they are a buyer’s agent and do not list homes. Wouldn’t you want any leads that realtor needs to refer out? Maybe you are out in the suburbs and you find someone who wants a downtown condo. You don’t know the market down there and you really don’t want to push through rush hour traffic to show a dozen condos to a couple in their very energetic 20’s and what is exciting is that the realtor in downtown really doesn’t want to work with retirees who want a cute suburban one story. The two of you have made a really strong partnership that will carry you through years and years of business together.

            This works for any industry. Ask the person who is the top in your industry to go to lunch with you. Take them someplace really nice for lunch (which they need to eat lunch anyways) and let them know that you want to find out how did they become the top person in your industry and that you want to build an alliance with them where you will be sending them referrals. Who would say no to that? You do have to mean it though. The street can’t be a one way street. Once you show you will live up to your end then the industry leader will usually live up to their side but even better, you may even get a mentor out of it. Take a chance and get out of the fear of helping your competitors and watch what will happen.

Tonya Hofmann: www.YourLocalCity.com www.YourLocalCoach.com

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