A rising tide lifts all ships. This is a mantra that we have inside The Business League.
In 2019 we organised a collaborative Brewers Lunch with three of the best breweries in Australia. These leaders from each brewery were all more than happy to get together and share what they were doing, how they were doing it with each other and share it with a group of 40-business owners.
During the lunch, one of brewers said, “our approach in the craft brewery industry is a rising tide lifts, all ships”.
And I think this is really important message for you and everyone in business.
You see Craft Breweries, now re-badging to ‘Independant Breweries’ (because the big players keep buying out Craft Breweries to attempt to steal the market) only account for 5% of the beer industry. That means the big 2-player command 95% of the market. As a result of this Craft Breweries don’t see each other as competition, they see themselves collectively working together to increase their share beyond 5%.
So the reason, I’m sharing this with you is I was just sitting at my desk during ‘email time’, and I received an email from Tahbilk Winery.
You see I love wine. It’s a passion that my Dad past down to me. Bec and I love dropping in to a local winery ,talking to the winemaker, tasting wines and sharing these wines with family and friends over good food. One of my life goals is to be only ever drinking wine that is 10 years or older, so I’m continually re-stocking the cellar for 2030 and beyond.
But I digress this email from Tahbilk was titled: “Mates Rates”
And this email was sharing about some of their ‘mates’ in the winery industry and offering their wines at a good deal.
Yes that’s right, they were selling their competitors wines to their database.
Most of you might initially think: ‘what are they doing? They’re competitors they’re in the same space.’
What Alister, one of the Pubericks (the family that owns Tahbilk) is saying is:
‘Hey, we’ve got a heap of friends in the wine industry. Some of them make some really good wine. We thought we’d share some great offers for them, for their wine with you. We like their wine – we are sure you will to. Is that okay?’
When I read this I was like WOW. I loved it.
I loved it because it was a great example of collaboration and getting rid of this competitive nature that businesses and other networking organisations facilitate and perpetuate.
It’s the rising tide lifts all ships approach.
But not only was it clever and collaborative but it had some great opportunities that were created for Tahbilk as a result them sending out these emails.
The first was, I genuinely thought that it was honourable of Tahbilk and that they were that confident in their product they knew their customers (like me) would keep buying off them. And I will.
The next was, Tahbilk get that people drink other wines. They don’t only drink one wineries wine. So if people are going to drink other wines anyway, why not help their friends. Which reinforces the networking philosophy that friends do business with friends.
The final one, which I think is the kicker, is that lets say for example, Tahbilk Winery has a database (email list) of 10,000-people. On the collaboration email there were 18-wineries that Tahbilk were promoting. Let’s say each winery has 10, 000-people on their list. That is 180, 000 people that Tahbilk are getting promoted to. GENIUS. So each winery is benefiting from 180, 000 new eyeballs onto their product.
What would you do for an extra 180, 000 eyeballs on your product?
This is the essence of collaboration.
This is the essence of A rising tide lifts all ships.
So there’s two things I would recommend for you.
One is have a look at who you can collaborate with.
And the second is have a look at how you get on a rising tide so that your ship is lifted.
Now The Business League is one of those rising tides. So if you haven’t been to one of our events, please check out one of our events and come along and get on the rising tide.