"Can't We Just Be Friends For Real & Create Community?" Yes, we CAN.
I just saw a tweet today from a singer/songwriter named Clare Means who I’m a fan of. A little bit about Clare - she’s fantastic. She busks on the Santa Monica pier, broadcasts live on Periscope daily and she’s immensely talented. Periscope is how I found out about her because it’s still my favorite livestream app by a mile and my wife Ally and I have been broadcasting there as Frameable Faces for almost 5 years now. Clare’s latest album Sidewalk Astronomy is absolutely worth getting!
So back to that tweet…
Now, I’ve discussed the idea of “coopetition” which I first saw in Michael Stelzner’s 2011 book Launch (on page 70 to be exact) which is just what it sounds like - a combo of cooperation and competition. Yes we compete with competitors for more business, but Stelzner laid out the idea of doing it with a spirit of cooperation knowing that elevating your space benefits everybody. Tearing down your competition is generally an ugly look - it makes you look like a jerk and can adversely affect your industry.
If the Stones & The Beatles could do it…
Take Clare’s experience - how ridiculous is it to be mean to another musician because you feel “threatened” by them? Were The Rolling Stones threatened by The Beatles? Were they competitors? Sure - for a share of the spend of music fans on records, merch, airwaves and more. But the Stones invited John Lennon to play on their “Rock and Roll Circus” together with Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell (along with a ton of other artists throughout the proceedings), and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were there (again with Clapton and many others) for The Beatles’ live television broadcast of All You Need Is Love. Personally I listen to both The Rolling Stones AND The Beatles. They didn’t criticize each other and see each other as a “threat” - they collaborated with each other in a vibe of mutual respect and admiration. When you’re secure in what you’re doing and giving it your all you can build your own tribe and be nice to others at the same time.
I’ve heard Paul Stanley rip on Emerson Lake & Palmer, David Lee Roth trash The Clash, and Kanye humiliate a young Taylor Swift on live television. This only made these guys look like total idiots. It certainly didn’t make me feel good about any of them.
For our photography studio Frameable Faces in West Bloomfield we set out to play nicely in the sandbox with other photographers in the same way The Stones & The Beatles did (and the same way Clare Means does), and keep in mind people don’t necessarily use more than one studio in the way they might listen to multiple artists. We’re at the other end of the spectrum in that way because even some our best clients may only come to see us a few times - ever. You could make the case that our competitors are indeed a “bigger threat” to us than musicians might be to each other because we’re high end / low volume. Yet we have plenty of fans of our studio because of the relationships we BUILD with people - our customers, vendors, and yes even with our competitors. Not because of constantly trying to TEAR DOWN others.
There’s a spectrum of either/or. Just like I listen to both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones - not just either one or the other. I’m a “customer” of both. And like my comparison between a high end photography studio and a musician, every industry has different sizes of the pie with a different number of pieces available for everyone. People may only buy one diamond ring ever from one jeweler, but hundreds of packs of gum from various convenience stores. I’ll leave the breakdown of these demographics and the customer behavior to the marketing types.
Create Community? Yes we CAN…
What I do know is that regardless of where you land on that spectrum, regardless of what is at stake in the battle for your piece of the pie, and how big the pie is, it’s better to be nice, and once again this includes competitors. It makes everyone feel better about you and the experience they have dealing with folks in your industry if everyone is saying good things about each other. It elevates everyone and it can actually create MORE pie and attract more people to the services of your industry. It’s good karma, it’s good vibes and yes, it’s good business. Clare is spot on.
*Stay tuned too, because I have a related piece coming up on this - it’s a story that hasn’t ended just yet so I’m not ready to write it, but it’s a story of a couple of restaurants in Detroit that is trending towards a pretty good ending.
So what do YOU think? Any good stories of a collab or good vibes with a competitor that proves this point? Please share below!
M10 Social is owned by Doug Cohen in West Bloomfield, MI and provides social media training and digital marketing services from the Frameable Faces Photography studio Doug owns with his wife Ally. He can be reached there at tel:248-790-7317, by mobile at tel:248-346-4121 or via email at mailto:doug@frameablefaces.com.
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