Rethinking Collaboration And Competition In Marketing

Ready for a hot take that might change how you grow? We unpack why competition—not vague “collabs”—is the engine that sharpens your craft, speeds up decisions, and wins better clients. From a fast start to 2026 with a new office and a rentable photo studio in Little Rock, we dig into the systems that turn momentum into measurable wins and the partnerships that actually add value.

You’ll hear how a competitive mindset fuels daily execution: smart discovery questions, tight proposals, and respectful, consistent follow-up. We talk through real bid stories—what it feels like to go head-to-head, the thrill of landing a multi-month deal, and how to ask the right post-loss questions to fix price, scope, or fit next time. It’s not bravado; it’s process, iteration, and the discipline to get one step ahead of direct rivals without cutting corners.

Then we reframe collaboration the right way. Forget the trend where “let’s collaborate” means unpaid trades or mismatched swaps. We define strategic collaboration as co-marketing with complementary experts—PR partners for earned media, marketing strategists for planning and budgets, production shops for wraps and signage—so clients get integrated results while each pro leads in their lane. Think lender-title-realtor playbooks, launch events, and studio days that share audiences and drive action without handing attention to your closest competitor.

If you want a simple filter: compete to set the standard, collaborate to extend capability. Protect your brand’s edge, choose partners who make the whole stronger, and build a repeatable path from prospect to win. Subscribe for more grounded marketing tactics, share this with a teammate who needs a nudge toward clarity, and leave a quick review to tell us where competition or collaboration moved the needle for you.

Chapters

• 0:53 New Year, New Growth
• 1:27 Office And Studio Launch Plans
• 1:58 Collaboration Vs Competition Trend
• 3:03 When “Collab” Means Unpaid Trade
• 3:29 Owning A Competitive Mindset
• 4:28 The Thrill Of Winning Business
• 6:29 Defining Smart Collaboration
• 7:04 Co‑Marketing Without Direct Rivalry
• 7:51 Systems, Support, And Real Partnerships
• 9:04 Final Push: Compete And Collaborate Wisely

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:27

Hey guys, what's up? It is Shelby here with the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode. You know, I love doing these for you guys. It has been a crazy start to my 2026. I've added more people to my team. I've added new clients. We are onboarding like crazy right now. And I also believe that 2026 is going to be an insane year and one that I'm going to scale the marketing broker. Just a few quick things that are exciting in my life. I am opening a new office here where I live in Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm also opening a new studio specifically for photographers to be able to rent out because where I live, there are not many to do, like be able to rent out for affordable as well as cute. And you don't have to drive 30 minutes to get to it. So those are some cool things I have going on for 2026. I hope you guys have something cool going on too, especially with this momentum into the new year. I want to talk about collaboration and competition today. I don't know what it was, but a few years ago on social media, there was this big push, and you'll still see the trend now. It says collaboration will get you to the top of the ladder over competition. And at first I was like, okay, I can understand that. I see where that's going. Um, but then I kept seeing it was like only in female groups, you know, like business groups that I'm in on Facebook, and it was like, hey, is anyone looking to collaborate on this? Is anyone looking to collaborate on that? And it used to be where it was a good partnership, right? It was like, hey, um, I'm gonna do this and you're gonna do that, but we're gonna work at this equally together so that way we can move forward in our branding and our marketing, whatever we're doing. Then I started to notice that the word collaboration was really just used um more for like a trend, but people were using it in place of do you want to trade services? It'd be like, hey, looking to collaborate with a marketing person who does social media, and you know, I really offer great massages and would love to collaborate together to see what we can do. Then you reach out to that person and they want to just trade services, but they're trying to use collaborate. But I have my own opinions about collaboration and competition, and a lot of people may not like it, and that's okay. But when I first started my business, I um was very competitive. Well, let's just back up. I'm a very competitive person in general. I want to be the best at what I uh about what I do. I want to be the best business owner, the best leader, I want to be the best marketing person, I want to be the best everything in my life. I'm very competitive. I always want to win, and I hate losing. And so whenever I hear collaboration or competition, I don't like that. That makes me choose one or the other, right? So if I had to choose one or the other, I would compete every single day. I want to compete because that's what helps drive me to the success and drive me to my goals every single day. If I'm not competing with anybody, then I'm getting lazy, right? If I'm over here going, oh, I've got this market tied up, I don't really have to do so much and I become lazy. I don't want to become lazy. I want to be a better version of myself. I want my business to be a better version of itself every single day, and I want to be able to compete. There's nothing more thrilling to me than like competing for somebody's business. Like I know that I have given them um a bid, and I know someone else has given them a bid or a proposal, whatever it is. And usually everything's done virtually now, right? So like through email. And so I've got my whole process. Like, I know what I'm gonna ask in the first interview, I know what I'm gonna email with the proposal, I know how I'm gonna follow up. Like I've got the whole process. Have I lost those proposals in biz before? I mean, yes, of course I have. But then I followed that up with, hey, uh, why did you choose the other person? What was different? Was it a personality thing? Was it a pricing thing? Did they offer different services than I did? So that way I can kind of be more clear on how I can be better the next time. But it's just so great to always compete for something. And then when I win it, whoo, y'all, I'd be on a hive for like days. I'm like, A, okay. I won a bid um with a client that is very big in my business now, and I'm very appreciative of them. And it was very thrilling because it was like a three-month process. And I remember following up, I remember all the different um they were very open about like, hey, we're also interviewing other agencies. I'm like, I totally understand. And so when I won that, I was like, uh, okay. And so then I also um had to compete for a website with a client of mine that he's been a client, a social client for a really long time. And he was like, hey, I need a new website, but I'm gonna actually have you and someone else do websites and then I'm gonna pick my favorite one.

unknown: 5:37

Guess who won?

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

Yeah, that was me. I won that one too. So I was just really excited about winning that. But let's talk about collaboration. And I have a different meaning of collaboration. I don't think that I will ever, I will say don't think. I do not have the intentions of ever reaching out to one of my direct competitors and saying, hey y'all, you want to do like a collaboration? No, that is not something I want to do. I do not want to bring the focus of my following to my direct competition. Now, when we talk about collaboration in a good light and what I think it should be used as, in marketing, I can collaborate with PR agents. I can collaborate with marketing strategists, I can collaborate with um, I have a sign shop, but a rap company. Like whoever can help benefit my client of the services that I don't do. Also, we can take my co-marketing method that you guys may have um listened to before, and we can use collaboration in that as well. So if you're a realtor, you can collaborate with title companies, with um lenders, with um maybe, well, you can't really do insurance agents, but people in your industry that you also would recommend your clients to go see, those are the people you can collaborate with. You can do like a big event, you can do an open house, you know, things like that. That's how I personally think collaboration should be done. If it's in your industry, if you are trying to co-market and reach that person's um audience, and you're okay with your audience reaching them as well. Again, I don't think this is a direct competition. People are like, I see in these women groups all the time, and they say, Oh, you know, collaboration is really what's gonna take you to the top of the ladder, like I mentioned a few minutes ago. And it's like, not really. Competition is what takes me to the top of the ladder. Why? Because I want to be one step ahead of my direct competition every single day. Because if I'm not, I'm gonna lose. And it's okay to lose every now and then because you gotta learn. But it's really great when you win and you find out how to win. What do those ingredients look like? How can you mix those up to make sure every single time you are winning or you're winning as much as possible? So when you're thinking about collaboration and competition, know that you want to collaborate with people that you would co-market with, as well as you want to um find people that are in your industry that maybe help you out. So, like while I was saying I'm a PR agent, I literally have a PR agent for myself in my book. Like, I do not um I do not do all of that stuff myself. I don't do my own PR. I let her do that because that's what she does. I do handle my social media because that's what I do. And so I focus on that. And then I have marketing consultants that I work for that just do the strategy, they do the planning, they do the budgeting for different businesses, and then they hire us to handle their social media stuff. So those are the great collaborations that I have in my life. Maybe you can think of some of the collabs that you can do in your life, but let's stop using it as a trendy word and let's really focus on that competition, y'all, because we want to be better. That's the whole point of marketing. We want to prove that we are better than our competitors, and you can do that in a very tasteful way, and then you will also see success on the other side of that. Okay, y'all. I will catch you next week. Bye.