I have seen a lot of problems in the realm of protection businesses over the years. One of the biggest issues involves the competitive nature of many companies. Don’t get me wrong, there is an absolute place for competition in society, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.
Many protection business owners and operators feel the best way to get an edge on the market is to talk down about their competitors. I have seen this many times in the private operational protection sector as well as with those who instruct on many topics.
Yes, there are a lot of people out there running protection companies and training companies. However, there is an even larger market of business clients and private consumers. Therefore there is no need to compete with each other on such a nasty level. In my experience, those that take that approach may experience some growth, but it isn’t conducive to long term success.
Most of these companies are taking a bullying approach to their business model. They are secretly insecure about their business and their own capabilities. In the end, it has the opposite effect of what they are trying to accomplish. I will be honest here, there was a time I had a different mindset than I do now and took a similar approach. As a private instructor nearly 20 years ago I thought I knew everything and no one else could possibly be as good as me. Well was I ever wrong. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but I sure thought I knew it all. Now I didn’t go so far as to bad mouth my competition openly, but secretly I thought I was absolutely amazing. It wasn’t until I started to expand my horizons as an instructor and a practitioner that I realized how many people out there had a tremendous amount of experience. In fact, many people had much more to offer than I did. I believe that my old school mindset was one of the reasons why previous ventures did not succeed as planned.
In my recent business activity, I have learned a lot from young me and the mistakes I made. As I embarked down the journey of an entrepreneur again I wanted to make sure I did it right this time. I took a page out of what makes great Protection professionals so successful; teamwork and alliances.
As I grew my company I aligned myself with like-minded individuals and sought out companies that exhibited excellence, collaboration and growth. I nicknamed this group the justice league. A group of people that were using their tremendous experiences to help others and the by-product was a greater success for all. Together we have worked on several individual and combined projects. As an informal alliance, we have enhanced and magnified our own capabilities, while filling the void of occasional deficiency. All of us involved have had greater achievements than when we were going it alone. We also feel better about what we are doing as positivity and helping others is so much more rewarding than negative competitive behaviour.
The bottom line here is that protection businesses with valuable services have so much to offer society. As an industry, we need to work together and not against each other. Unfortunately, folks that are new to the business side of things may experience minimal growth which may lead to stress and a negative feeling. Instead of going down the path of competitive negativity, a better approach is to go positive and work with others. If you’re a true protector then your motivations should be around helping people and not hurting them. Taking that mindset and applying it to your business dealings, creating professional alliances and doing quality work will ultimately have a greater reward.
So for your sake, the people we’re trying to protect and the betterment of society; stop competing (negatively) and start collaborating.
