We have all head the old saying “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” but have you ever thought of this in the world of online business? Online business can be very competitive but there is a way to still make good of it. I think competition is healthy but you get to a point where lost income is just lost income because no business is going to close 100% of the leads.

Think of this, you are a unique company with a unique niche but you are not the only one on the internet doing what you do. You have a competitor that also offers the same services you do but both or you are still going to be different in some ways.

Instead of being in a “battle royal” all the time why not talk with your competitor and see if you can work out some kind of partnership. It could be a very healthy partnership if you are both trustworthy and are willing to work at it.

It could be that someone contacts you and you just don’t mesh or they need your service but also need a service that your competitor also offers. Do you lose the lead just because you don’t offer everything they need or would it be better to have a partnership with your competitor so you can still offer their services as well?

Also different personalities make the world go round, we have had prospective clients contact us that after talking with them a few minutes we just knew it would be a train wreck for them and us if we took them as a client. On the other side of the picture this was a good client, (just not good for us) but good for someone so we make a phone call (or email) and talk to a partner design firm, they got a new client, we helped a client and the favor was returned later.

The bottom line is we worked together, even though they do what we do. Most important the client was taken care of.

This should be a two way street mind you, being a design company we get a lot of people contacting us that are offshore requesting to become a partner when really all they are asking for is to become a contractor.

Now, which of your competitors can you form a partnership with that will benefit you both?

This was too funny not to post and usually if I do post something about a spammer I don’t put a direct link back to their website but I feel so sorry for this guy I am going to make an exception this time.

I don’t know if anyone has ever seen the TV show “America’s dumbest criminals” but that was the first thing that came to mind with this.

Okay, here is the email we got today:

Hi,

I was curious so I went to his website and guess what? It has NO PAGE RANK! Wait, let me do a Google search on it… Nope, it’s not there either. He did spam me telling me he could get me top 10 rankings and high PR right?

I had to dig a little deeper to find out about Mr. Clarke and guess what? Can you guess? Uh huh, that name must be an alias… Here is the Whois info:

Registrant:

02227777322 Fax –

Seriously Robert, Bob or Bhawana (what ever your name is) nobody likes spammers or people that try to rip people off and you would not have ended up here if you had behaved yourself and done things the proper way like the rest of us.

I would suggest you stop spamming people, write a few articles of your own and post them to the article sites, set up a blog and join a few social networks. If you work hard and practice what you tell people to do and do it for yourself you might be okay.

Thanks for the good laugh though!