The Best Competition is Partnership

Image: Gamespot

"I destroy my enemies by making them my friends" ~ Abraham Lincoln, 

If you ever studied economics or the basics of supply and demand, you will know that they are kind of like yin and yang and go together like pieces to a puzzle.

Do you wonder why demand is sometimes high, but supply remains low? Aside from other complicated reasons like regulation, sometimes it's as simple as you don't know where your customers are - thereby missing out on a great opportunity.

Competition is good. It's healthy and it gives you drive to keep charging on. Complacency is a killer and the only way to kill the killer is to find new and better ways of improving your business, your product and your brand. This doesn't mean paying an agency millions of dollars to redo you, but rather simple things like staying true to your brand values. Consistency can kill the killer, without becoming boring.

These days it's all about keeping the customer in the center of it all. Isn't that how it's always been? Maybe I missed the memo. 

Feet on the ground. Get a solid partnership, even if it's with the competition. Some companies kill their own products by cannibalizing existing products with new ones. Don't reinvent the wheel, expand it's purpose. Partnerships lead to creativity and that is the best competition - with your own product. 

Image:   CK NG of Indonesia

I remember someone once telling me - it's not the ones ahead of you that you should worry about, it's the ones behind you; they have drive the drive you once had.

It's the same as 'keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer'. The positive side of this is simply don't wage a war, rather find common ground to succeed. Two is better than one.

Imagine if Coke and Pepsi tried this...