Episode 81 & 82: Why Helping Your Competitors is a Great Business Strategy with Shawn Khorrami
Shawn is a serial entrepreneur, having started and managed more than a dozen businesses, up to $100 million in revenue, involving products and services across a wide range of verticals. In the process, he has managed thousands of employees servicing tens of thousands of customers, large and small, from consumers to small to medium-sized businesses and even governmental entities.
Main Topic Notes
It sounds like you've had a lot of jobs in your life, what was your first one and what was one lesson you carried on with you.
Being an entrepreneur is different from being a business owner what do you think the pros and cons are of each one?
I read somewhere where you said Have a Fearless Approach to Stand Up for Yourself & Your Business. what do you mean by that?
We recently had Michelle Seller on the show talking about building your business to sell, you've said The Product is NOT the Business, But the Business IS the Product what do you mean by that?
Recap / Takeaways
When people are against you because of where you're from, you have to bust through those things and work hard to succeed anyway
Identify problems in your industry, do it better than your competitors, and then box it up and sell your solution to others
If your new tool helps your competitors become better than you, then your product must be much more valuable than your original business
What you're really worried about is that you won't be able to market that tool that you create
Create a chart of who would benefit from the tool or product you're creating
You will need to make tweaks as you market it to each vertical, so count the up front investment and consider the risk
Your product is not your business, every aspect of your business is your real product
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