In the world of small business, there is a growing trend to support one another and collaborate whenever it is feasible and/or realistic. It seems that there is plenty of work to go around as long as individuals are focused on providing quality services and products. 

As the old saying goes: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Ok- that is a bit on the dramatic side, but has a lot of truth to it. Instead of thinking of them as your enemies, perhaps you can simply look at them as friendly competition. If you think of it that way, then wouldn't you want to find out a little more about how they do business, who their target audience is and determine the quaility of work they do? Now, just because you know them a bit better doesn't mean you have to lose your competitive edge, but consider this...

What happens when you are a very successful and busy sole proprietor. You have a great reputation and the work keeps rolling in.  Well, if you have been more competitive, then you may be turning away work. If you have been more collaborative, then you will be able to pick and choose work and refer jobs that you cannot do or don't want to do to others in your field. That is- as long as you know they do good work and you trust them to take care of the client.

So, you send along work to a fellow professional. The "potential" client will be well taken care of and although you don't do the work, your reputation will still be in tact. In fact, you will look even better because you were honest about not having the time to do the job, you referred the client to someone you trust and that business owner (if you know them well enough) will reciprocate when the time comes.

It's simple really. It is also a bit scary for those who haven't considered doing business that way. So, think about it. I will be revisiting this subject again, because there is a lot more to it, but I will not go on and on today. For those of you who already function in this fashion, you will know exactly what I mean. If you have any good success stories- please send them along to me and I will see about including them in a future blog.

 Have a fabulous day!