Business requires we compete. But most people intuitively sense that there’s a right way and a wrong way to compete. One of the wrong ways is ‘going negative’. This is something that professionals know only too well. Trashing your competition may provide a short term adrenalin rush, but long term goes over like a lead balloon. People only want to be exposed to that type of rhetoric for so long, and soon after they’ll turn you off. Worse yet, it makes you look petty.
People prefer to be for something as opposed to being against something….it generates more enthusiasm, more energy. People want to know what your value proposition is…how you can help them…what you’re all about…why you’re better. Trash your competition at your own risk.
Take the case of the PR firm that was hired by Facebook to “plant anti-Google stories in papers and blogs”. This revelation was outlined in the Nov 29, 2011 cover story in Fortune regarding the future of social media and the fight between the industry’s two 800 pound gorillas.
Journalists soon discovered what the PR firm was up to. This hurt the PR firm’s reputation and once again proves why white collar firms aren’t necessarily ‘professional’. Facebook would have been better served to channel their energy into building a better product. Instead, Facebook’s decision proved regretful and made the firm look sophomoric.
Compete? Sure. But don’t be tempted to take the low road. Professionals compete to win in the marketplace—-not by ‘going negative’ on their competition.
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