Business Relationships and Enemies / 04.07.08
I will be the first to admit that I have never been known to cultivate strong business relationships. I have no problem making enemies or sharing my uncensored thoughts to anyone willing to listen. I can’t say it is the best way to do business, but I also can’t say it is the worst. I know people who try their best not to burn any bridges and because of this they have “friends” throughout the industry. On the other hand I know really powerful players who let it be known that you are either on their side or no side and they are on top of the mountain.
Robert Scoble can be considered the nice guy that puts all his ducks in a row. Never seems to get phased and is polite and cordial to everyone. You can talk all the shit about him you want and he never seems to lose his temper and is always willing to find a middle ground to meet you. It has worked well for him and he has developed many great partnerships and doesn’t seem to have a problem getting access to any company he wants.
On the flip side you have Arrington who lets it be known that if you cross his path you better bring a gun. You would think with his tirades and attacks on people that he would have more enemies than France, but yet he still gets what he wants. He has access to everything and his power only seems to grow.
What’s the difference between Scoble and Arrington and which path should you take? Is it really necessary to play the nice guy game continuously so you don’t burn any bridges?
I think I have taken more of the Arrington approach in the past, but not as much with the personal attacks. I believe that everyone has a strong opinion and should have no problem saying it. In the past when we would go after b5media it was because we saw them as the competition and if we didn’t like something we were certainly going to point it out. Apple does it with Microsoft. Microsoft does it with Open Source. Jay-Z did it to Nas. It isn’t that you are trying to start wars, but you must have a side for people to choose because that is how the big boys roll.
When 9rules started to progress beyond independent content sites we laid off of b5 and called a truce for the 100th time. But you know what? To be honest, not having someone to go against is boring. Not having someone to go against makes it harder to evaluate where you are as a business.
Enemies give you a good reason to evaluate what you want not only with your business, but with yourself as well. If you own a blog and you have strong competition there can be a mutual respect and hatred for them. Engadget and Gizmodo would suffer more if either one of them were to disappear. They would suffer more as well if they were to call a truce and not attack each other. Their “feud” makes them stronger.
This is why I always secretly hope that a competitor to 9rules would stand up. With the new 9rules coming shortly there will be more defined targets for us to keep an eye on. Chawlk goes head-to-head with plenty of other sites and if we don’t do better than the competition we die. Grand Effect is very similar to 9rules and I like to monitor what is going on over there to see what we can steal or do better. That is why you want enemies and although I have no problem with David Peralty or Sarah Perez I am going to put their network on my enemy list. “Enemy” may be too strong of the word, but I hope you can understand where I am going with this.
Many people are enemies of Loren Feldman and how in the hell could that benefit them? Well whenever you do something new and you know that Loren will rag on you in some form then that only helps you perfect what you are doing so he has no room to ridicule you. The whole Shel Israel vs. Loren Feldman feud is proof of that. Embrace what your enemies are saying about you. Use it as research to get better or use it as a sign you mean something in the grand scheme of things.
Back to Loren Feldman. You know with how many people he has pissed off you would think that nobody would want to talk to him, but not too long ago he got to stay at Arrington’s house and do interviews with Gabe Rivera and Steve Gillmor. Building strong business relationships doesn’t always mean you take the good guy path, just the honest one. If people can’t trust you they will never build a relationship with you, but there is always a small chance they will even if they hate you. Business isn’t always personal.
4 Responses
Business Enemies? - eXtra For Every Publisher // April 8th, 2008
[...] I think of myself as a pretty good guy and most people seem to tolerate me fairly well, but sometimes, no matter what I do, I seem to ruffle other people’s feathers. While, I don’t think this is one of those cases, I do find it interesting that Paul Scrivens, a man that I highly respect and dare I say, envy online, has listed Grand Effect, the network that I co-founded as one of his business related enemies. [...]
nathan eckenrode // April 8th, 2008
this idea you are speaking of is essentially fierce competition in the name of progress. this idea puts forth the notion that in order for true progress to be achieved there must be an opposite entity to focus your energy rather than relying upon this drive to come from within yourself. this is a noble view of competition and the possibilities it espouses.
i agree with many of your points, the various factions which seem to be eternally on the attack against each other. i do disagree that this raises the business or person to a higher level, in fact it detracts from achieving their primary purpose. this negative attack on the ‘competition’ is not done out of any intention of self-improvement but out of frustration that someone else would dare propose that they know how to do something as good or better than them. these attacks are meant to destroy to the opponent and leave the market to themselves.
this energy could be spent much better by improving themselves, measuring themselves against goals which are set internally, and solidifying their internal philosophies and dialogs to represent the pursuit towards being the best that they can be.
the “us versus them” model has big fail stamped all over it, particularly as there are less and less Thems and more and more Us.
Paul Scrivens // April 8th, 2008
Yes it does fail when your only goal seems to be to attack the enemy, but having one doesn’t necessarily mean you have to attack. In fact I agree with you completely when all you do is attack it takes away from running your business and improving.
You should get upset when a company does something better than what your company has done and you should be excited when they do something different because maybe they open your eyes to something else.
No Competition? No Market » Expert Idiot // April 11th, 2008
[...] I wrote Business Relationships and Enemies I briefly discussed Grand Effect and called them a competitor to 9rules. David Peralty, one of the [...]