Actually, the competitor/colleague/collaborator asked: “You want me to list my company on your site? Are you sure?” And, my answer to him follows (with some grammatical fixes for readability purposes):

Absolutely, I want you to list your company on my site. No question. Both of us may get inquiries because of it and neither of us will lose any customers that we weren’t already likely to lose.

This metro area is big enough and I am small enough and focused enough that I have never been in a head-to-head bid competition with any other service providers. That doesn’t mean that my customers haven’t looked at others, or that yours don’t occasionally look around. And, it doesn’t mean that I have never lost a customer. I have lost customers because of price or wrong fit; I have fired one or two, and I have had a couple move on, having been with someone else before they came to me, and I was happy to see them leave me.

My perspective is that your listing on my web site has the potential to bring both of us more customers, as much as any marketing does. There will be folks who come to my site who don’t like my skill set, or my picture, or the way I present myself, and will find in you what they are looking for. They will find you because of my network, which is different than yours. However, just because they come through my feeder network doesn’t mean that they and I are a good match. Others will find my website because of your listing here and they will check us both out and decide that they don’t like your picture, or location, or price, or whatever, and end up with me. In either case, we both get exposure to potential customers that wouldn’t otherwise have seen our web sites. In the end, customers get exposure to choices that benefit them.

In short, both of us increase our potential for adding new customers and are unlikely to lose, through our collaboration, any current customer.

Yes, you really are invited to list yourself on my web site.

Charlie Havens