Community Now: Let’s Drive the Future of Music

I read a book where Simon Sinek talked about the idea of a “Worthy Rival” and his definition of it struck me because I personally have been chasing one for years.

Funny thing is, the Worthy Rival idea came to fruition because of his own realizations. He came to the conclusion that a worthy rival is part of the game we play in our businesses & life.

He writes, “Whenever I heard the name Adam Grant (famous writer), it made me uncomfortable. If I heard someone sing his praises, a wave of envy washed over me”.

”Although there are many others who do similar work, for some reason I was obsessed with him. I wanted to outdo him.”

Does this sound like something you have felt before?

Company X envious of Company Y

Brand X envious of Brand Y.

Person X envious of Person Y

We spend so much time as people “obsessing” or perhaps “hating” a rival that we do not see the main reason that “hate” exists:

They are good at all the things we are not good at.

They have figured out a way to do the things we have tried but have failed. 

Therefore, they get the notoriety, we do not.

In essence, the key is not to concentrate on “beating” a particular rival, but rather to recognize “worthy rivals”. In our case, these are brands that are not only in direct competition with ours but also complement our brand’s strengths and weaknesses.

School of Rock has 300 locations across the world. This kills me like a Creed & Nickleback song. Why? Not the locations. Not the brand.

Their strength is community. Our weakness is community.

Ironically the central theme of the last all-hands-on-deck meeting. 

We see ourselves as something we are not. 

We think we position our service a certain way- but the reality is probably different

We think our differentiator (software) is unique (and it is) but many customers don’t leverage it therefore our community is lacking.

So now that this is clear to me, we have an opportunity to change this right now.

Community isn’t just something that we strive for.

Community is something we need to live and breathe.

Now that is decided, the way to achieve community is to schedule it, implement it, and make sure everyone is taking part. Community.

Everyone is the keyword.

More soon.

Daniel Powers

Founder

Real Brave