April 2, 2009
Find your complementors
Who are your complementors?
For businesses, a complementary product or service is one which makes your product or service more valuable when the customer has both (a competitive product being the opposite). For you, personally, complementors will mask your weaknesses by providing their strengths.
If you are an entrepreneur, take the time to understand your strengths and weaknesses, noting that it may make much more sense for you to work on building your own strengths than patching those weaknesses. You’ll get more bang for your buck professionally by being an expert in some way, generally. Search for the right partner or partners to join you and fill out the management team you present to investors.
If you’re a small business owner, your complementors may be your employees. Resist the urge to hire those who are junior versions of yourself. Make sure they bring complementary skills to the table.
You can’t easily be a renaissance person these days, so embrace that and create more win-win relationships with others.
For this entry, I thank a classmate of mine who had me reflecting along this lins when he mentioned his interest in freelance consulting and the fact that we could collaborate in the future – him with strength in accounting and me with strength in strategy and operations.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail « Powers Consulting Blog said,
May 7, 2009 at 7:47 am
[...] sale if you refer them to someone you might consider a competitor in some respects. If you have complementary expertise, the person who might seem to be your competitor can become a [...]