Okotoks Chamber of Commerce is hosting “Small Business Week” and the Pigeons are right in the thick of it. With that being said these events bring a lot to the table, such as networking, problem-solving, collaboration, and just an overall learning experience to help in the day-to-day operations.  

Going through these types of events can make one evaluate certain aspects of business, and makes you look at your operation from a different lens. One question we like to ask is simply: What would you rather have? 100% of $100,000, or 50% of 1,000,000? You would think this answer would be pretty straightforward! But when asked, the answers are varied. What would you choose and why? 

One of the concepts of the week is the “Power of Small Business Collaboration”. How leveraging each other to pull levers allows you to open up new avenues or ideas, which in turn could open you up to a whole new demographic and new potential customers. This could also include creating brand awareness through cross-marketing and promotions. Use Go Pro and Red Bull as an example. GoPro equips athletes and adventurers from around the world with the tools and funding to capture things like races, stunts, and action sporting events on video — from the athlete’s perspective. At the same time, Red Bull uses its experience and reputation to run and sponsor these events. Who can you work with within your community to help build your brand? 

There are a lot of people out there that believe collaborating is strictly kept to marketing and promotions. What about problem-solving or idea-sharing? Yes, they are competition, but that does not mean you cannot take something from their ideas to help build your business! In the end, you become better internally whether it be ensuring you are keeping up on industry trends, but more so having a better end product for the consumer due to challenging yourself to be better! What about comparing competition vs non-competition? The ability to find common ground is easier when working with competition as it allows you to gain further knowledge in knowing your industry and gain further understanding of your industry landscape.  

We will leave you with a “sweet” analogy that entrepreneur Ed Mylett commonly uses, the Candy analogy. “Someone is always going to get the candy in life. That pinata in life always breaks down. Eventually, someone hits it and candy goes everywhere. That pounding by all these people causes a breakthrough!”