Shownotes
Competitors or Collaborators? A Mindset Shift for Greater Professional Success
Summary
In this episode of Present Influence, host John Ball explores the often daunting topic of competitors within the industry.
He shares his personal mindset shift from viewing peers strictly as competitors to seeing them as potential collaborators.
John recounts his experiences from podcasting, both as a host and guest, and how these experiences broadened his perspective.
He discusses the ethical considerations around intellectual property, the pitfalls of the guru culture, and the importance of establishing genuine connections over transactional interactions.
Suitable for coaches, speakers, and consultants, this episode provides valuable insights into overcoming the fear of competition, fostering collaboration, and adopting an abundance mindset for professional growth.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction: Facing Industry Fears
01:16 Welcome to Present Influence
02:16 Competitors vs. Collaborators
04:20 Ethics in the Industry
06:01 The Guru Dilemma
08:02 Shifting Mindsets: From Competitors to Collaborators
11:34 Abundance vs. Scarcity Mindset
14:27 Practical Collaboration Examples
19:56 Final Thoughts and Upcoming Episodes
Go to presentinfluence.com to get your copy of my guide to building authority through podcast guesting and for speaking enquiries or connect with me on LinkedIn
Thanks for listening and please give the show a 5* review if you enjoyed it.
Mentioned in this episode:
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New PI mid-roll
Transcripts
As a coach, speaker, or consultant, how do you feel about other people in your
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industry, especially if the problem they
solve is very close or identical to yours.
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That's what I wanna talk about in today's
episode and how a mindset shift that I
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made a number of years ago really helped
me to expand my horizons and be less
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afraid of other people in my industry.
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Now if you have any fears about maybe
getting close or oversharing with some
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people who you may see as competitors
to your business, then we wanna get
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into discussing a little bit about my
take on some of those things there and
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where I have shifted from how I used
to think about this to where I do now.
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And I wanna share with you how that
really came about because of podcasting,
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both as a host of a show and as a guest.
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So by the end of this short episode
today, my hope for you will be that if you
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currently do have fears or you keep people
at a distance who may be competitors to
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your business that I might be able to
help you to reframe that a little bit and
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expand some of the possibilities of what
could be available to you professionally.
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So welcome to Present Influence the
show that helps coaches, speakers, and
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communication professionals develop the
skills to impact, influence, and inspire.
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My name is John Ball, keynote
coach, professional speaker, and
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your guide on this journey to your
mastery level presentation skills.
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My mission is to provide professional
communicators like you with
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everything you need to maximize your
impact and present with influence.
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interviews with influence experts.
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you enjoyed this short episode today,
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quality show for them to check out
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So let's get started with this episode.
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And I titled it Competitors and
Collaborators for a very specific
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reason, because that is the mindset
shift that I made from thinking about
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people in my industry as competitors or
thinking about them as collaborators.
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Let me share with you that a company
I once worked for, a personal
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development company, they were super
protective of everything like that
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IP, everything was kept locked down.
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There was security to make sure that
any of that IP that could be accessed at
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events particularly would be protected,
or that if anyone was in one of the
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live events, maybe taking notes and
drawing diagrams it was actually easier
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than you would expect to tell when
somebody was trying to get information
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more on how the events were run.
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And sometimes things like scripts or
other information would have to be
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around for the trainers to refresh
their memories on things like that.
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So the organization was
very protective of their ip.
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Now what's funny about that
is that they weren't actually
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the originators of their ip.
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It is something we've come across
quite often in the personal and
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professional development world.
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Something that's actually going on
now that you may have come across
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with Mel Robbins and her Let them
philosophy, which seems like she has
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taken not credited someone else's ip.
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And so there's been some
stuff going on around that.
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It is more common than you'd expect.
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I don't know the ins and outs
of that and I can say it does
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seem like he has done that.
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And I can also understand to some
degree the fact that she hasn't
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credited the people who she took and
that the company I worked for before
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didn't credit where they took the IP
from because as a professional or as
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a guru, it can undermine you a little
bit in your audience's eyes if you
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are not the originator of IP or if you
are teaching someone else's content.
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So I understand that desire to
feel like you are the originator of
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the content, but here's the thing.
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My take on it is this, I
don't think it's particularly
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ethical to practice like that.
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And I do think there is an element
of truth to just the perception of
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you being an originator will elevate
you in the eyes of your audience.
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Your audience maybe do expect you to be
the originator of the content that you
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are sharing and spreading with them,
rather than perhaps taking someone
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else's IP and making it your own.
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This kind of thing happens all the
time in the music world, right?
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With certain licks and things that get
taken and borrowed from other pieces
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of music that can be very similar.
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Sometimes they're similar enough that
royalties have to be paid to the person
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who originated the song, but sometimes
they're just different enough that
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isn't the case or it's just like a chord
progression that's actually commonly used.
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Very often we are building on
information that is lying around.
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We could create a talk that could be very
similar to what someone else has done
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that we won't even remember their talk.
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But if some of it have just stayed in
our brain, or we could write a song if
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we're a songwriter that's very similar
to a song we might not even have ever
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remembered hearing, but is somewhere
banging around in your unconscious,
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not too worried about all of that
when it comes to thinking about people
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as competitors or collaborators.
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But I do think that for me at least,
if you are having to pretend to be
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something you are not or pretend to have
originated something that you did not,
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there is an ethical issue there that
doesn't sit well with me and probably
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doesn't with many other people as well.
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So if being the guru is more important to
you than doing right by other people's.
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Intellectual property, then I think that
there is an issue there that needs to
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be addressed around this whole thing of
gurus, which I'm not actually a fan of
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anyway, and wouldn't aspire to be one
myself because of some of these issues
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and because generally my experience has
been that a lot of the people who have
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presented themselves as gurus, and I will
say not all, but certainly a significant
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percentage of them have, in my experience
when I've been more behind the scenes or
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connected in the industry, found out that
things are not always what they seem.
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That there's more dishonesty
and double dealings or dodgy
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dealings than we might know about.
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And I'm not making any
specific accusations here.
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I'm just saying what is
not always what you get.
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And anyone that we elevate to being some
sort of guru status or almost infallible
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kind of status, we are putting them on
a pedestal, and we're brushing under the
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rug that the pedestal is on all of their
potential flaws or problems whilst we
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focused on them being up on that pedestal.
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So I don't like that whole
guru relationship anyways.
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To me it's dangerous.
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And I've been a part of it and
I don't ever want to be again.
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So if you find yourself in that situation
where your admiration and respect for
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somebody in the industry is super,
super high and they can do no wrong.
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It's worth questioning that and
just recognizing we are all human.
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We are all flawed.
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We are all imperfect.
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We are all flawed, and that's okay.
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But as a guru or someone who's
been elevated, you are not
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allowed to show those flaws.
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You're not really allowed
to show them and own them.
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And if you do, if you start to get
really honest or maybe admit that
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you've done some somewhat unethical
things, you're probably gonna
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lose following and lose respect.
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So there does come a degree to which
you end up getting locked into a
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certain way of having to pretend
to be and live your life, that
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might go against some of your true.
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Your own true values.
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I wanna move on past that because I
don't wanna get too swayed down that
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'cause not really what I wanted this
episode to be about because the heart
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of this is understanding the difference
between competitors and collaborators.
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And I would say when I very
first started podcasting.
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I probably wouldn't bring anyone on
the show who I felt was doing something
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very similar or the same as I was doing.
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And you may have come across yourself
thinking this from time to time.
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Why would I want to connect or
be that close to somebody who
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is a direct competitor, right?
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The people that they would have as
clients are the people who I would
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want as clients and vice versa.
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So it does seem like there might
be a conflict of interest there.
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If you are doing something together,
like a podcast for example, and the
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people that they want as clients
could be your clients, you might end
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up with a fear of what they could
start taking my clients away from me.
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Or they might be better than me, or
my audience might like them more.
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All the stuff that our brains like to
start thinking about and catastrophizing
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for us that start to bring up those,
lemme say insecurities again, isn't it?
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But not just insecurities doubts and
not just doubts about ourselves, but
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doubts about our business, or that's
about are we doing the right thing?
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Here's what I'll say to this.
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If I ended up doing a podcast episode
with somebody who does exactly,
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or almost exactly the same kind of
work that I do and someone who is
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a client of mine listens to that
episode and decides they want to
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work with that guest instead, great.
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Good.
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Go and work with them because
there's something there that
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you want to work with them on.
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If one of their clients listens to
that episode and said, Hey, look,
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I like them, but I like what John's
doing even more, and I like his
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style and the way he does things and
then wants to come and work with me.
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Great.
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It's not the case that there's not enough
clients to go around in the world or that
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we're all fighting for the same clients.
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Not really, because we're all different.
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There are clients that are gonna work
really well with me who might not work
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so well with a competitor or vice versa.
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Even if what you do is exactly the
same as what someone else does,
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your personalities are different.
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You are different people.
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People may choose to work with you
because you are a man, or them because
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they're a woman or vice versa, even
things like that can make a difference.
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Or it could be that somebody likes
my accent more than someone else's,
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or somebody just thinks I'm a
nicer person or connects more with
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me or connects more with somebody
else in a particular kind of way.
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It's okay for that to happen.
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This really connects back to what
I started talking about with the
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company that I've worked for where
they were so protective of their ip.
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We end up being protective of
our business, and that's a big
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part of what this is all about.
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We try to be protective of our
business, of our clients, of
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our ability to grow and develop.
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And just to give you
another example of this.
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A lot of clients who I worked with back in
the late two thousands, early 2000 tens,
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a lot of people would have things like
protected PDFs and things like that, but
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very often people would find their content
being ripped off the internet and sold
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under other people's names exactly the
same content, maybe with different names,
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might even be with the same pictures, and
sometimes it is almost exactly the same
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with very little change made at all and
being sold on other sides of the internet
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or being downloaded and shared for free.
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These were and are very common things.
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It still happens undoubtedly, but
I do think it is something, oh, I
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almost reluctant to use this because
I'm not a fan of the sort of.
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Magical manifestation world
of personal development.
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But this level of scarcity, thinking
that there isn't enough to go around,
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that there's not enough business or
clients for everyone when there is just
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that you haven't come across it yet.
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So if you are not taking consistent
action towards getting new opportunities
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and clients, if you are focused more
on protecting yourself than getting
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yourself out there, then yeah, okay,
that's what you're gonna experience.
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I often relate things back to a
book that I love and if you followed
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the show, you've undoubtedly heard
me mention this before, a book
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called The Luck Factor by Dr.
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Richard Wiseman.
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And the book really explains this
whole principle of luck or bad luck
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are not magical or mysterious forces.
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They are states of mind to be more frank.
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And so if you believe yourself to be
lucky, or if you choose to believe that
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you are lucky, let's go with that one
as well because that's just as valid.
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Then you are far more likely to
act like someone who is lucky.
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You're gonna take maybe
a few more chances.
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You are going to start
random conversations.
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You are also gonna be less likely to be
protecting or overprotecting yourself.
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So I know that
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when you're more open, you're
also more likely to spot
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opportunity when it arises as well.
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Just take the chances, enter a
competition, go to an event where you
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might be able to network or meet some
people who could help you professionally
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Go and speak to that person who you
are terrified to go and speak to.
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Maybe it's a professional move or maybe
it's something you ask out on a date
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certainly when you believe yourself to
be lucky, you're likely to have a more
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open attitude that causes you to act
in alignment with that belief about
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yourself, and therefore it becomes
your reality, or at least starts
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to, if the converse is true and you
believe yourself to be unlucky, and
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good things just don't happen to you,
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you know that you need to protect
yourself from the world and from the bad
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outcomes because there might be good
stuff out there, but it's not for you.
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It doesn't come your way.
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If the bad luck follows you
around, there's a cloud dark,
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rainy storm following you
around that no one else can see
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you know you need to protect
yourself from, you're gonna close
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yourself off to opportunity.
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You are gonna notice far fewer things.
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You are less likely to start those
conversations maybe believing that
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they're not gonna lead to anything
less likely to enter competitions.
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You never win anything.
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Why?
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Take any chances.
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When you know that you are unlucky.
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So you're gonna be far less likely
to put yourself into positions
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where you could experience a win.
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And that's because you are
in a protectionist state.
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So this really is the heart of
the competitor versus collaborator
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conversation for me and over
various conversations with people
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in the industry as I was coming up.
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What came about from, essentially, I
say this is mainly from podcasting,
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but from having conversations with
people who are in the same industry
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doing similar or the same kind
of things that I do opportunities
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arose to collaborate with them.
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Sometimes there'd be invitations
to do projects together.
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Sometimes there'd be stay
connected and help know, help
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each other out, get advice.
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Sometimes it could be referring somebody
to you because you know they're not, don't
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feel like a great fit for them, but could
be a great fit for you and vice versa.
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It all expands your possibilities
and opens you up for more
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chances of success in the future.
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So I do not hold this limited scarcity
mindset that I need to protect
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myself from people who are direct
competitors to me professionally.
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Now is one thing.
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If someone is actually trying to
scalp business away from you, that's
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a very different ethical situation
that you would need, I hope that you
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would want and need to draw a boundary
around and say that's not okay.
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It's not okay that you are
actively going After my clients.
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So a coaching company that I was
working for, gosh, I'm thinking
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this must have happened about
five, six years ago, maybe more.
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But they were bringing another company
to manage their sales and their outreach.
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And this is a company that also had
their own coaches, but we weren't
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bringing them to get their coaches.
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We were bringing them
in for their sales team.
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But I think there were potentially
some options that they might have
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been looking at of maybe having some
of their coaches do something for us.
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What ended up happening was their
sales team started going after all of
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their active client lists, people who
were already working with coaches,
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and then trying to talk them away
from the coaches that they were
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with and to go and work with them.
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It crossed boundaries of
what had been agreed with the
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company in the first place.
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And of course, you can imagine it
annoyed all the coaches, myself
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included, who were working with the
company and saying, you know what?
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There's people contacting our clients
and our clients are contacting us.
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And in, I think pretty much every
case the clients were saying,
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we don't want another coach.
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And they were coming back to us and
saying, why are these people contacting
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us, trying to tell us that we should go
and work with their coaches instead of
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with the coachable with, and created some
ethical boundaries it created a problem
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in the company that had to be dealt with.
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A boundary had to be put in place.
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In fact, when the company ended up cutting
ties with that organization because
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00:17:12,827 --> 00:17:17,837
they had crossed the boundaries of what
had been agreed and ended up trying to
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00:17:17,932 --> 00:17:22,301
poach work away from contractors who
were already with the organization.
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Messy situations, we don't know
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00:17:24,642 --> 00:17:27,702
we don't want to let people off
the hook for any of that stuff.
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00:17:28,242 --> 00:17:31,752
What we really want is to be
able to connect with people who.
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Have a similar mindset who
aren't viewing us as competitors.
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I ended up having this
conversation with somebody on a
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00:17:38,987 --> 00:17:41,177
podcast recording just recently.
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00:17:41,227 --> 00:17:44,772
I can't remember if it was me being
the guest or me being the host, if I'm
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00:17:44,772 --> 00:17:48,432
honest, but I just remember this coming
up in the conversation and the other
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00:17:48,432 --> 00:17:52,302
guy being like, no, I hadn't really
thought about it in these sorts of terms
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that somebody who does very similar
thing to me, I could think of them as a
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00:17:55,722 --> 00:17:57,702
collaborator rather than as a competitor.
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00:17:58,332 --> 00:18:02,017
And it blew his mind and said, yeah I get
it, and I get why I would want to do that.
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00:18:02,387 --> 00:18:04,087
And that it could be beneficial.
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00:18:05,047 --> 00:18:08,227
That doesn't mean you become
a doormat, or that you allow
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people to start taking liberties.
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Because that would suggest that
they don't have the same mindset.
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They are acting as competitors
rather than as collaborators.
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00:18:17,127 --> 00:18:21,002
So you do need to check in and
maybe have a bit of a route.
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00:18:21,032 --> 00:18:22,652
What's this person's intentions?
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00:18:23,092 --> 00:18:25,402
And you, again, where you get
to do that is by connecting with
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00:18:25,402 --> 00:18:26,782
them and having conversations.
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00:18:27,352 --> 00:18:28,552
But don't be too skeptical.
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Don't be too suspicious.
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00:18:29,862 --> 00:18:32,232
We are never gonna get it right a
hundred percent of the time, but
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00:18:32,232 --> 00:18:36,612
I will say this, be wary of people
who just seem to be transactional.
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00:18:37,377 --> 00:18:40,137
This is a lesson I've learned over and
over again in the podcasting world.
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00:18:40,167 --> 00:18:44,547
I don't really want to interact or
have in my network people who are only
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00:18:44,547 --> 00:18:47,577
transactional and not relationship driven.
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00:18:47,907 --> 00:18:49,407
Sometimes it's unavoidable.
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00:18:49,527 --> 00:18:53,397
Sometimes people will slip through the
net, but for the most part where you
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00:18:53,397 --> 00:18:57,747
can pick it up, if someone is purely
transactional just know that if there
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00:18:57,747 --> 00:19:01,767
is no relationship there, then there is
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00:19:02,022 --> 00:19:06,072
potentially no empathy or
connection there either which
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00:19:06,112 --> 00:19:08,242
lowers the reasons to trust them.
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00:19:08,612 --> 00:19:11,282
To have trust, you need to have some
kind of relationship and connection
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00:19:11,552 --> 00:19:14,042
that goes beyond transactional.
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00:19:14,342 --> 00:19:17,982
If it's only you do something for me
and I'll do something for you, and I'm
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00:19:17,982 --> 00:19:21,672
really gonna bother with you whilst I
can get something from you, then that
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00:19:21,672 --> 00:19:26,037
is not an ideal relationship to have
in your personal or professional life.
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00:19:27,222 --> 00:19:29,052
So collaborate with people.
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00:19:29,202 --> 00:19:31,002
The rising tide raises all boats.
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00:19:31,002 --> 00:19:37,042
We want people with that kind of mindset
rather than if you get something that
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00:19:37,042 --> 00:19:40,702
takes something away from me, that's
a very limited scarcity mindset.
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00:19:41,182 --> 00:19:45,082
Be more abundant in your thinking and
know that there are a wealth of clients
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00:19:45,082 --> 00:19:49,372
out there and many of them would love
to work with you, but not all of them.
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00:19:49,672 --> 00:19:52,522
Some of them are gonna want to work
with other people and that's great
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00:19:52,732 --> 00:19:55,252
because there's enough to go around.
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Alright, even though maybe it's
been a little less directed
333
00:19:58,812 --> 00:19:59,712
than some other episodes.
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00:20:00,627 --> 00:20:03,807
Maybe there's been a shift for
you in how you think about other
335
00:20:03,807 --> 00:20:07,947
people as being competitors or
collaborators, and if that's the case,
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00:20:08,217 --> 00:20:09,567
then I would love to hear from you.
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00:20:09,617 --> 00:20:11,087
What do you take away from that?
338
00:20:11,357 --> 00:20:14,297
Do you have that collaborative mindset?
339
00:20:14,657 --> 00:20:16,517
Do you have barriers up?
340
00:20:16,517 --> 00:20:19,717
Are you trying to protect yourself
and your business and you are worried
341
00:20:19,717 --> 00:20:22,897
about letting your barriers up, that
people are gonna take advantage of you?
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00:20:23,107 --> 00:20:25,147
If that's stuff's gonna offer
you get in touch that you can
343
00:20:25,147 --> 00:20:26,407
reach out to me on LinkedIn.
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00:20:26,407 --> 00:20:28,627
You can reach out to me, John,
at present influence.com.
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00:20:28,957 --> 00:20:33,667
I'd love to hear from you what's going
on for you in relation to this and.
346
00:20:34,217 --> 00:20:38,147
If you would like a little bit of help
building your influence in your following.
347
00:20:38,837 --> 00:20:41,107
Right now, I'm working on something
new right now and I'll share
348
00:20:41,107 --> 00:20:42,187
that with you probably very soon.
349
00:20:42,187 --> 00:20:45,247
But right now you can go
to present influence.com
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00:20:45,577 --> 00:20:51,167
and you can download for free a copy of
my Simple visual Guide to being an awesome
351
00:20:51,167 --> 00:20:57,127
podcast guest and utilizing strategic
podcast guesting to get you more audience,
352
00:20:57,127 --> 00:21:02,197
more following, build your list, get
more opportunities, lead generation.
353
00:21:02,407 --> 00:21:05,017
This is all important staff
for growing a business.
354
00:21:05,017 --> 00:21:07,657
Whether you're a speaker,
a coach, a consultant, or
355
00:21:07,657 --> 00:21:09,457
something similar, hope you are.
356
00:21:09,457 --> 00:21:12,127
Go and get yourself a copy
of that and consider how
357
00:21:12,127 --> 00:21:14,347
podcasts could be helping you.
358
00:21:14,752 --> 00:21:20,332
Become not a guru because we don't wanna
be a guru necessarily, but more of a known
359
00:21:20,512 --> 00:21:23,242
expert and that's what's available to you.
360
00:21:23,302 --> 00:21:27,532
So I hope you'll do that, and I hope
you'll tune in with me next week.
361
00:21:28,012 --> 00:21:33,667
We are coming up pretty soon to 200
episodes, however, next week my birthday.
362
00:21:34,342 --> 00:21:36,652
I'm gonna bring you a
very special interview.
363
00:21:36,652 --> 00:21:39,982
I was debating on saving this for the
200th episode, but I'm gonna bring
364
00:21:39,982 --> 00:21:44,182
it out as my birthday episode, my
interview with the amazing Judy Carter.
365
00:21:44,452 --> 00:21:47,152
Judy teaches comedy amongst other things.
366
00:21:47,152 --> 00:21:48,442
She's also an amazing speaker.
367
00:21:48,662 --> 00:21:51,812
People in Toastmasters are gonna
know exactly who she is for the
368
00:21:51,812 --> 00:21:54,572
workshops that she's run over
the years, especially in the us.
369
00:21:55,122 --> 00:21:58,172
She wrote the Comedy Bible
and the New Comedy Bible, and
370
00:21:58,172 --> 00:21:59,852
she wrote the message of you.
371
00:21:59,852 --> 00:22:02,492
Still helping people to punch up their
storytelling and their speaking, and
372
00:22:02,492 --> 00:22:07,022
to be funnier, I got the pleasure of
being in a workshop with Judy recently
373
00:22:07,442 --> 00:22:09,662
and gave me the opportunity to ask her
374
00:22:10,197 --> 00:22:13,887
once again, having asked this some years
ago, if she would come and be on the show
375
00:22:13,887 --> 00:22:18,977
and she agreed, I was honestly delighted
to get to interview her and I think you're
376
00:22:18,977 --> 00:22:22,397
gonna enjoy that as well, especially
if you are someone who would like to be
377
00:22:22,697 --> 00:22:27,152
a little funnier in your communication
and better at telling your stories.
378
00:22:27,635 --> 00:22:28,685
Hope you'll join me for that.
379
00:22:28,685 --> 00:22:33,505
So that's next week's special treat my
birthday present to you is my interview
380
00:22:33,505 --> 00:22:38,425
with Judy Carter and we're back on
Friday with another solo episode.
381
00:22:38,425 --> 00:22:40,195
So I hope you'll join me for that as well.
382
00:22:41,425 --> 00:22:44,935
Wherever you're going, whatever you're
doing, have an amazing rest of your day.
383
00:22:44,965 --> 00:22:46,105
I will see you next time.
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00:22:46,105 --> 00:22:46,495
Take care.
