Does sharing my 'secrets' hinder my success?

Hi everyone! Today I want to share a conversation I had with Johannes Höök about not wanting to share secrets and our mindset behind it. He also runs an Email Marketing agency so we're actually 'head to head' competing on the market. But even though we share a lot between eachother and also publicly, we've both not gone bankrupt.

Here's our conversation:

Johannes Höök

Had an interesting lunch with an agency founder just now. We had a conversation that relates to this a bit regarding "oversharing information" and being careful about giving away the secret sauce.

Would love your take on it.

I'm kind of radically transparent (not stupid of course) and I'm not holding back when it comes to sharing information and insights.

because I think that if those tips & tricks I share allowed someone to compete with me to the point of negatively impacting me.. well that just means that I'm not as good as I thought

You can't build something inherently strong on tips & tricks that can be replicated to achieve the same success

I'm not sure I'm right here btw

David Wardenga

The thing is that we live in abundance

There is enough of everything

Now, the lack of action coupled with the presence of abundance makes it impossible for you to get hurt by oversharing

Because 1. Nobody cares 2. If someone cares, which only 1% do, they will likely still not put it into action and then 3. That doesn't take away from your success

If you share your entire system on everything with 100.000 people you maybe have 10 who actually try it but then they lack other parts like mindset, experience, etc. which can't be taught

Like for real, you couldn't close sales as I do even if I gave you my strategies. Just an example ofc. But I couldn't analyze accounts like you do with your big ass sheets

Johannes Höök

1000% exactly my approach, especially this last point

David Wardenga

Even if you gave me all your sheets, I would have to CHANGE MY WORKFLOW which I've worked for for years

Johannes Höök

yesssss exactly

and even if you did change your workflow it could lead to either, 1) everything breaks because it's just not what works for you in your environment with your circumstances, or 2) you absolutely explode in business, outcompete me and leave me in bankruptcy

and if #2 comes through

well shit that means I wasn't better and didn't deserve anything different

David Wardenga

Dude

again

No oneeee will bankrupt you

Johannes Höök

hahah I know

David Wardenga

Nobody has 100% of the pie ever

Johannes Höök

but worst case scenario

David Wardenga

Not even that

It's impossible that that happens

Johannes Höök

True

David Wardenga

How would you bankrupt me? There is no way you do that with my tactics

Johannes Höök

You underestimate me haha

David Wardenga

Because yes, you can take a chunk of the future clients. But still, there are more than enough

Johannes Höök

hahah I'm absolutely with you

David Wardenga

Dude even if you had 1.000 clients I would still find a few

There are millions of businesses out there

Johannes Höök

I think it comes down to me fundamentally having the belief that I only deserve what comes as a result of my own growth and competence allows, and no matter the outcome, that's fine

and besides

call it karma or whatever, but I believe deeply that my sharing will position me as a person to trust, a person of competence, and a person you want to work with

the opportunities that will present themselves far outweigh any downside of helping someone else

David Wardenga

Yeah 100% I agree

Johannes Höök

like look at you with Aimerce

no way in fuck that you'd be working with Yiqi if you were secretive

David Wardenga

Exactly haha she found me through LinkedIn which I posted good content on for 1 year 3x per week with not 1 day off

My PopUp framework has been copied and shared so many times now

Johannes Höök

I think I missed that one

David Wardenga