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Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss why they network with competitors instead of treating them as enemies. They share stories about peers like Tim Soulo at Ahrefs and explain how collaboration has led to deals and agency growth.
Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss why they network with competitors instead of treating them as enemies. They share stories about peers like Tim Soulo at Ahrefs and explain how collaboration has led to deals and agency growth.
So, speaking of this event, how many of the 180 people percentage-wise, how many of them do you think are direct competitors to you and I?
30%. I have the numbers.
Okay, so 30%.
Yeah.
Do you like networking with your competition?
I do.
Why?
Because it's— at least when you're in person, you're not trying to kill each other. You do— you start talking about other things and you start to figure out other angles to help each other. Even in— without going too much into your detail, but you have an angle in mind for something that you do. And, you know, I would just argue that maybe they're like a pseudo-competitor, right?
Yeah.
But there's always different ways to do business. It's not just like, oh, he's a complete competitor, I hate this person. Unless they're an ass, right? There's only one competitor that I don't like. Everyone else I like. The only competitor I don't like is because they're an ass.
I bet you that competitor is based out of Los Angeles.
Uh-huh.
Yeah. There's a lot of companies, competitors of yours in Los Angeles. But yeah.
Yeah.
I'm with you. I enjoy meeting up competitors. And Tim Soulo from Ahrefs and I were chilling for a bit and we were talking and he's like, do you remember that time where you said you were going to crush our company? And I'm like, yep, didn't crush it. We grew, but definitely didn't crush yours. And he was just like, yeah, we're growing as well. And we were just laughing about it. And Tim and I are friends.
Yeah.
And when we were talking about competition, whether it was on the software side or meeting other people in the agency world, the good thing is, is you get to learn a lot by being around your competitors. So for example, when I was talking to Tim, we were talking about our own growth rates and we were sharing them publicly because if he knows my growth rates and I know his growth rates, what are you really doing with that information that's causing you to grow faster? It really doesn't. I can't necessarily just go and copy his marketing strategies and tactics. In theory, I can, but it doesn't really yield the same results. A lot of times because someone was earlier to market or they've been doing it longer, their brand has a different type of pull. So you don't always get the same results when you copy, but it gives you an understanding of what's happening to the market when you get more data points. Plus, you can wheel and deal and you can get deals done. Like, I've talked to some competitors and some of the competitors are like, well, if you're not interested in these assets that you have, Do you want to sell it to us? And I'm like, oh, okay, what can I do with that money? I can redeploy it. And I'm not saying they would do a deal or not, it just strikes up conversations. So talking to your competitors, what I've seen over time, produces better results than going against your competitors and trying to create that rivalry. I do think it's different on the level of like a Google or Microsoft or Apple, but none of us at the event are anywhere near there, so it's different.
All right, so I wanted to take a moment to tell you about my podcast co-host Neil's agency called NP Digital, and they work with a whole host of global companies or a global organization. Also, Neil has SEO tools such as Ubersuggest and AnswerThePublic. All you have to do is go to npdigital.com to learn more, and we'll see you on the other side. And plus, the other thing is, if you're in the agency business or even just any business in general, there's so many customers to go around where you don't need to just focus on killing them. I think if you're probably in your early 20s listening to this, yeah, you might have the motivation to just want to kill your competitors, but we're a little older now and And that's not our motivation anymore. You know what's funny? Neil was working with a company before and then he met another company that was a big player in the space and he told them the same thing. He's like, we're going to crush you. We're going to crush you. And this is in Miami too, a couple of years ago, remember?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that one didn't happen either.
No, that one didn't happen either. That company is very much the big company now.
Yeah.
The only company left standing, one of the few.
That's right. And that company, the one I said we were going to crush you, it was a company we were doing marketing for. And we were blowing up extremely fast, doing really well. But the founder of that company, they were a client of ours. It's public, I'm not going to mention the name. But they did some funky illegal stuff that no one knew about and they went to jail. Nothing related to marketing. They just did some financial embezzlement and fraud that no one could have ever guessed.
Yeah. And so what did they say? They say pigs get greedy, hogs get slaughtered.
That's from Mark Cuban. Warren Buffett.
Did he say that?
It's Warren Buffett. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. That's the phrase. That's the phrase. Good. Yeah. But look, you just got in yesterday. So, tell me, okay, you came to this thing. Why did you come to this thing? What do you see the benefit of coming to these things?
Honestly?
Yeah.
Because you told me to come too.
That's about it, guys. I didn't look it up or anything. But the cool thing is you get to hang out with the person that you've been talking to. That's an in-person connection. I think that you deepen that connection. I think that's still worth something. Um, you getting to hang out with Tim, you know, that's, that's cool.
Was the other person that you introduced me to here?
He's here.
Was he already here? He was here yesterday.
Yeah, he's speaking.
Oh, today?
Yeah, well, I don't know if he'll be here today. He should come today. I should tell you guys to hang out, but you should make that— but that connection, you would argue that it helps?
Sure, I think the connections are good. I don't think it hurts to continually have more and more connections and get to know more people.
Yeah. All right guys, so that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe. Let us know what you think about this episode where we recruited recorded with the DJI Osmo. I set this up myself. We've got another camera over there. So that being said, we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
