I read somewhere on social media today: "I make new enemies everyday, it's called business", and even if it's a quote from a movie I couldn't help but feel sorry for the person who posted it because they made it their own. Who wants to live a life surrounded by enemies? Who wants to be in constant fear of competitors and peers?
It's true that in business, like in war, the only way to win a battle (that is, to get the job) is to end it in your favor. But, unlike war, in business we loose the jobs most of the times for reasons that have nothing to do with the world trying to come out to get us. We loose jobs because we are not the right fit for the client or the jobs are not the right fit for us (expertise, budgets, timings). We don't loose jobs because our peers are running around with blood on their eyes taking the jobs by force out of the hands of our clients. And if that is the case, perhaps it's time to reconsider the type of clients that we are trying to approach.
So instead of focusing your business development strategy on what your competitors are doing or not doing, lets focus in ourselves and in trying to improve our offer to become the best possible fit for our clients. The success of your peers doesn't automatically make you unsuccessful. It just means that there is also a possibility for you to succeed.
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