Colleagues, Competition, and Community
“Companies that focus solely on competition will die; those that focus on value creation will thrive.”
Do you like to talk about other people in the industry? What can you do to foster relationships with new colleagues and strengthen the relationships you already have with existing colleagues? If you cultivate a “colleagues not competition” mindset, you will move forward faster than the people around you who treat you as an adversary. In this episode, I spill the tea about my feelings toward my colleagues, my competitors, and the other members of our community, and give you a few tips on how you can become a pillar of your own community.
Colleagues
An underlying ideology that drives me is this concept of colleagues, not competitors. It reminds me of the expression “the rising tide lifts all boats.” Some of my best friends are photographers. These are my colleagues. These are also my competitors. We all try to take care of one another. We teach each other. We help each other. We lend each other gear. One thing I did recently with a couple friends of mine, Karen Byker and Kristina Laukkanen, was spend an entire day teaching them my Facebook ads strategy, because I get a more than 100 leads a month for my wedding photography business from Facebook ads and they wanted to know how they could apply that to their businesses, and what the strategies and techniques were that I was using.
When you approach the people in your industry as colleagues, there are a number of advantages to that at a professional level. We give each other work, whether that's second shooting for events for weddings, corporate gigs, conferences, etc. But we also recommend each other for jobs when we're not available or those jobs are out of scope with what we do.
Competition
Next up is competition. And one thing I want to stress is information is not a commodity right information is everywhere. Google YouTube, art strivers, absolutely amazing BTS posts on Instagram, but are we competitors? Of course. So one of the ways that I approach competition is from this idea of like, be so good that they can't ignore you. I
To be absolutely the best photographer that I can be competition makes us better. It'll force me to work on my skills to be better than you and which in turn should force you or inspire you to work on your skills to be better than me. And then other people will see the work that we put out, and that will inspire them to be better than us that will inspire us to be better than them. And it's a cycle, right? It's again, that rising tide lifts all boats, yes, we can compete with each other for work for jobs for skill set, but really the only person that we should be competing with at the end of the day is ourselves, right? always work to improve and get better at every aspect of your business.
Community
One of the best things that you can do is join or create a local community meet regularly with people. If a community doesn't exist on Facebook, then create it. You want to build your network, meet people within your network within your industry.
An absolute excellent example of someone who really gives to their community and is a community leader I think is Megan DiPiero. She has a Facebook group called Rise To The Top! with Megan DiPiero and she also has course that people can take. When someone asks a question in her Facebook group, she replies with insightful, detailed advice and absolutely no sales pitch. She’s a real community leader, and when you’re a community leader you need to not only create value for your clients, but you also need to create value for your community, for your friends, for your colleagues. When you become a valuable resource for other people, they want to reciprocate and help you when you need help.
When I became a photographer, that kind of community didn't exist locally, at a professional level, I wanted to create a community that was strictly for professionals in our industry, local to me, whether it was photographers, models, makeup artists, stylists, and more. That community didn't exist, so I built it. I created a Facebook group and just started adding professional photographers in the area. I sent them a note and saying, “Hey, I'm building this group, please come and join it. I think it'll be great for all of us.” That quickly turned into monthly in-person meetings. Many of those photographers have become some of my closest friends.
I'm adopting this idea for this podcast. I'm building a community for the Studio Builder audience on Facebook. Join in, introduce yourself, and become part of the community.
Art Streiber is an excellent example of a community leader and influencer who willing shares information, BTS images, and detailed lighting setups on his Instagram account. Be like Art.
What Next?
Reach out and check in on two colleagues who you haven't spoken to in a while. Find out how they're doing. If you want to make yourself available to them, let them know that you're there for them.
Links:
Art Streiber on Instagram
Rise To The Top! with Megan DiPiero Facebook Group
Alex Heidbuchel of BLVD Studio
