Compete vs Complement

Competition is pretty exhausing.

As a one-person shop, you’re likely up against all sorts of “competition”:

• Other soloists who do the exact same thing as you
• Other soloists with more experience
• Other soloists with less experience, who are cheaper
• Bigger agencies with more of everything
• Giant firms who wipe squashed bugs like us off their windscreen
• A.I. (just clap twice and it’ll do everything you do with more errors faster)

So in an effort to try something a little different maybe, you look for partners, or “adjacent” professionals where you can slot your discipline in around theirs, and fill a gap.

Rough and dirty example:

Your discipline might be photography – so you team up with web developers to be the photographer they refer clients to… and in turn, they become the web developer you refer your clients to.

Or as a copywriter, you team up with a designer, a developer and a photographer to all feed each other referrals.

*THIS* discipline supports *THAT* discipline, and everybody wins 🎉

Smart. But what if that web dev or designer already has their preferred photographer or copywriter?

Now you’re stuck… but are you really?

Fill Spaces:

Spaces you can fill don’t only exist inside a market.

You can fill spaces and gaps inside a discipline too… frankly, this is a smarter play.

How? Drill a layer deeper:

Designer → Brand Designer / UX Designer / Ad Designer

Deeper still:

Brand Designer → Logomark specialist / Guidelines developer / Rebranding advisor

One more:

Rebranding Advisor → For banks / For SaaS / For Luxury Brands

Aw go on, one more:

For SaaS → In the retail space / in the pet space / in the electric car space

Sure, you can probably go too far. But when you know your market, you’ll know what’s missing and where the gap needs to be filled.

So now ask: That designer person that my new developer friend uses… are we really competitors, or can I help them? Can they help me?

Here’s my point:

You’re not boxed in by your discipline. You just need to find the available space that no one else occupies.

Your peers are not your competitors – they’re your future allies.