A few years ago, the four of us started catching up each month to share how we do things in each of our own businesses.
Topics we discuss are all relevant to any pain points we have such as:
Reducing expenses within the business
Value adding service to our clients
Staff culture and team management
Office structure and expectations
Last year we travelled to Sydney to visit a few other offices to see how they are running and to see if we could bring back some useful ideas to implement. One of the best things about sharing our knowledge is that we all have an area of our work that we specialise in - whether it is marketing and social media, checklists and office procedures, staff culture or legislation and we draw from each others strengths to better our own offices and teams.
Everyone you will ever meet with know something you don't and I can not stress enough the importance of being open and transparent within the industry and with colleagues, I mean.....I get why you wouldn't with your direct competition (even though I would) but the thing is, no one is ever going to do it like "you". Your ideas are not going to be presented to your clients with your energy and your personality so you never have to worry about sharing.
"Collaboration is the new competition"
