When someone threatens us, we instinctively look for ways to either avoid, evade or protect ourselves from the perceived threat.

In business, where money, security, and even our family`s future rides on our every move, anyone or anything we perceive as a "threat" usually causes us to go into "protection" mode.

Once in "protection" mode, we close off to all possibilities except avoiding or defeating the threat.

On the flipside, anything or anyone we see as able to help us build our business, expand our reach, or improve our profitability, makes us instinctively think of ways we can use that to our advaantage.

Once you understand this simple fact, it`s easy to see how YOU can to turn your biggest competitors into your best Joint Venture (JV) partners.

"Competitor" is nothing more than a label someone else places on you because they see you as wanting to get the same thing they want (from a limited supply).

In other words, if 100 customers exist, and your "competitor" perceives you as basically selling the same thing they do, then the race is on to see who can get the biggest share of those 100 customers.

This behavior stems from a "scarcity" mentality of "The pie is only so big and I need the biggest piece possible!!"

My advice: STOP trying to divide up the same pie.

Bake a NEW PIE and get your competitors to *SELL* IT FOR YOU!

Any competitor you see in the marketplace can actually turn into your best Joint Venture ally and strongest sales person if you know what to do.

Your job is simply to find out how you can complement what they do rather than compete head-to-head with them.

For example: I sell an ebook (2 actually) on how to sell thousands of ebooks on the Internet.

The material comes directly from my experience of actually *doing* it - rather than regurgitating what others have done.

Since I already have two ebooks on "ebooks" I have no interest in promoting someone else`s ebook on the same subject.

In fact, I get rather snitty when they as