Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss why marketers benefit from competitors who share tactics and push innovation. They examine how tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz drive each other forward, and why agencies should embrace frenemies rather than fear them.
On why every marketer needs frenemies.
But dude, would you agree that Tim Soulo and I are competitors even though we focus on more SMBs with our software than Ahrefs and they focus on more larger corporations?
You guys are indirect competitors in my mind because you're just focused on this. Your software leads into your agency. That's the main goal.
Yes, but we're still selling software to the same customer.
You do take some of his market share.
Yeah.
Yes.
And he takes my market share as well. They're larger than us from a software perspective. They generate more revenue. And even SEMrush, and I don't know who Moz is owned by now, but it's owned by someone.
Constant Contact.
Is it Constant Contact? The email provider?
Yeah, look it up.
I didn't know that.
Look it up.
I thought it was like some publishing company.
You're not even curious to look it up. Usually you look these things up.
No, I don't care anymore. Moz hasn't made tons of, at least from what I've seen, maybe I'm wrong. I don't think they've been making tons of changes.
I haven't heard about Moz in a while.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
But when you look at even you and I, we're friends. I would say we're very close friends from my perspective and your perspective, but would you also agree we're competitors?
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Eric just won a customer that we lost.
We did?
Yeah, I don't know who, but someone told me. It was over GEO and they're just like, we should update one of our neilpatel.com to include that in services so it makes it easier for us to actually show the companies we had it because the lead came in from neilpatel.com.
Oh, that's funny.
And I was like, cool. So I didn't ask him who the client was or anything like that, but the reason I think marketers need frenemies is, dude, when you ask me questions about my business and you can, you know, vocally talk about what you've asked, but you've asked everything from how I structure comp plans. Would you agree with that? To how I run my sales teams, to how we pitch.
I'll ask, yeah, no, I'll ask straight up, what is the exact structure of that comp plan? How did you structure this deal over here? Yeah. Yeah.
And I'll tell Eric.
Yeah.
And if he hits up someone on my team and they don't tell him, he usually calls me and I'll give him the answer.
Like, I don't care. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They hit up your sales leader.
I was like, oh, okay, makes sense.
So I called Neil after.
Yeah, like if they don't tell him, like I'll tell Eric. We're really good friends.
Yeah.
And if I have questions on something and I ask Eric, he tells me.
Yeah.
And do you think you telling me hurts your business that much?
No, because let me give you the main reason. The main reason I don't care Is, and I don't mind telling, is because there's so much business for everyone.
Yes.
And we gain a lot more from deepening relationship than me trying to gatekeep stuff. And if there's anything that irritated me more in high school than any— that irritated me the most was people that gatekept these like rock bands and like, oh no, we can't tell you, otherwise it'd be too mainstream. So I don't try to gatekeep this stuff.
Yeah. Although I met a lot of your high school friends.
They're chill. You did.
Yeah. You met some elementary school friends too.
Oh, cool.
Yeah. But I think just having frenemies is really good. Then they'll turn into friends and not even enemies because they can guide you and give you advice and help you out. And I think that is super important and it just helps you make a lot less mistakes with your marketing and helps you grow faster.
It's different perspectives too. And again, there's, you don't want to be friends with people, by the way, who gatekeep this stuff because they have a smaller view of the world. You want people who think there's abundant business for everyone, which there is. The world's so big.
That's true. And I think you break down a very important caveat in which we are going after big markets. If you're selling something and you're in a very tiny niche, one, you should think about a new market, but 2, helping out someone can just really crush your business. If you look at what Eric and I do on Marketing School, we even talk about changes to our business before we even roll them out, which means someone who's listening could just copy, but we don't really care.
It doesn't matter because if you, by the way, this is a side note, if you keep copying someone, it's fine, but just keep in mind you're always going to be following someone. But I'll tell you what, it works for the Chinese. And so like you do copy at a certain point until you start to innovate. So like it does work.
Yeah, that was the Uber example. Travis on the All-In podcast. I think it was a conference. Was it a conference?
No, just All-In podcast. It was a podcast?
He talked about, I'm pretty sure it was the in-person event.
I'll bet you it's a podcast. I'll go with you. I'll buy you this, everything sourdough cookies.
No, you're probably right.
Yeah.
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Eric doesn't typically bet unless he's going to win.
Yeah.
If you play poker against Eric, he doesn't play poker for fun. He plays poker for winning.
No, I play poker.
It's very calculated.
But I'll tell you what, so he said he had a floor of people and I think in the Uber SF office and it was all of, all Chinese people and the way they work, they work like animals, right? And In China—
Eric means that in a very respectful way.
Yeah, and I'm Chinese, guys, so like, I mean that in a respectful way. So I, I, I, but in China, he was just saying like Didi and all these other, um, companies, the moment they launched something, a week later they had the same thing, right?
Yeah.
Um, but it did get to a point where they just like, you just can't copy anymore, so you have to innovate. So it can work, um, but it's just not what we do and I don't look down on it. I, it just whatever works for you. Yeah. All right, guys. So that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we'll see you tomorrow.
