How Do You Treat Your Competitors?

Recently  I attended a cable function. This means you have cable operators and programmers, like me, mill around networking and enjoying themselves.

I was reconnecting with a gent who works for an operator in my old stomping grounds when my competition interrupted our conversation.

Ohhhkkaaay

It sometimes happens, but it could have been done better. And I KNOW this person, like we run into each other at these functions for the past seven years. COME ON.

I’ll just stand here, awkwardly, while you finish your conversation.

But then I don’t really like standing around awkwardly – who does? So when there was a pause, I smiled and asked about a former co-worker and how that person was doing in their new gig.

Stone cold glare.

Ouch.

Obviously she didn’t want to answer.

So I made light of it and said what a nice person that former employee was and that I’m sure she’s doing great in her new position…at a company twice your size.

She just mumbled and shook her head that they don’t talk. So I got the idea the parting was not sweet sorrow.

After THAT awkward mini-conversation, the gent I was connecting with decided to toddle off and my competition followed him.

I looked to my colleague next to me and we both said, “Wow.” That conversation was cold, rude and just plain weird.

But did it really have to be?

Look, you don’t have to love your competition or the people that work for it, but we are all human, and we all needs jobs and we all have families to care for. I wish our competition the very best and OF COURSE we will see each other in circles and we SHOULD be civil to one another. If you are not, your clients will immediately see the discourse and start passing along info like, “Did you see how so and so acted toward so-and-so?”

When asked about my competition, I always strive to speak kindly of them, and then steer the conversation toward my company. And at events, I try to say “Hello,” because it’s like that elephant in the room. After you break the ice, you always feel better.

Is it difficult to think this way about a competitor? Sure it is. But most times, those people are just taking directives from those above them. If you show them kindness and that you really aren’t that bad, they may warm up to you as well.