321: Ten Tips for Successful Collaborations: Fan Favorite Replay

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AliceAnne Loftus, and I’m a certified professional coach specializing in
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Benefits of Business-to-Business Collaborations

Hi there leading ladies, and welcome to today’s episode. I’m going to be
sharing with you how to have a successful business to business
collaboration. We have all been there where we have either reached out
to another business, or we’ve had other businesses reach out to us
hoping to do a collaboration. And when collaborations are done Well.
There are a tremendous number of benefits. I think, number one, the
reason why we as business owners want to collaborate with other
businesses is because it helps us to expand our reach and our audience,
you know, when we’re able to partner with another business, it allows us
to tap into their customer base, hopefully, and extend our brand’s reach
to new potential clients and new markets. It can also be very cost
effective when you’re working with another business, you’re sharing the
expenses and the resources that it takes for that marketing, for the
distribution of whatever you have created. And so when both parties are
equally invested in a successful collaboration, it really can be the
most cost efficient way for both businesses to get their message and
their products and their services out there.

What I love to do is and something that I find really powerful in my
collaborations is that it gives access to expertise and innovation. So
when I’m collaborating with businesses that are complementary to my
industry, I’m looking for collaborators that can provide specialized
knowledge or skills, which then leads to better products and services
and solutions that I can offer to my audience. It can also increase your
credibility. So when you’re pulling in collaborations with other
businesses that other people love and trust, and likewise, you’re
helping build credibility in both businesses because they’re getting to
see and experience you through the eyes of someone they already know and
trust. Collaborations can also lead to creation of new products and
services. I think of a time when I collaborated with Elizabeth Harris.
She is a leading lady ambassador, and we did a collaboration where I
brought her into my business to do some wellness training for my staff,
and it then snowballed into this like corporate training and also me
being able to offer that as another wellness benefit for my employees.
So it added a new service and benefit that both of us were able to offer
for our respective businesses. There’s risk sharing, sharing business
risks with a collaborator, such as entering new markets or launching a
new product.

It reduces that individual burden on each business. I recently had a
client just yesterday, she said, hey, I’m thinking about partnering with
this other woman who does similar work to me. We both have this idea of
launching this training program, but we don’t really want to do it
alone. We want to spend a year doing it together, finding our groove,
seeing what works, what our audience is like, and then have the
opportunity to split and offer it to our separate audiences. And I
thought that was such a great way for her to dip her toe into something
to see. Hey, is this even something I like doing that my audience wants?
And it does kind of lighten that burden and that risk to do that with
another business. Obviously, the innovation and the synergy, combining
the strengths of whoever you’re collaborating with, bringing these two
businesses together, it often leads to innovative ideas and solutions
that might not have been possible individually. So this drives growth,
and you’re able to have two brains working on something versus one. And
then lastly, there’s the networking opportunities. Collaborating with
other businesses often leads to wider network opportunities. One
business network could be similar but different in that you’re reaching
people that haven’t heard of you. And likewise, their audience might not
have heard of you, but your audience might not have heard of that other
business as well.

So that can lead to further partnerships. New potential clients,
suppliers, vendors. It’s just always great to have those connections and
expand your network. So how do you make this successful? How do you know
when a collaboration is good if it’s going to meet the objectives?
Because while the benefits are really great, and I think a lot of
businesses go into collaborations with these high hopes and wanting all
of these things, and then things kind of sort of fizzle out because the
collaboration was not set up in a way to be successful for both parties.
So here are ten tips for a successful business to business collaboration
that I highly recommend. Take notes. Look at the show notes of this,
print out the transcript and follow this and see. Are these the things
that you’re doing in your collaborations and what could you do? Or what
do you need to do to ensure that your collaborations are best set up for
success moving forward. So number one, this seems pretty obvious, but
choose the right partner to collaborate with. Select a business partner
whose values, goals, and target audience align with yours. So that
doesn’t mean that you have to have the same ideal client. It doesn’t
mean that they have to be looking for exactly the same things in each
business, but they do have to complement each other. So I often think
about in my childcare business. Okay, so my ideal client is a family
with young children ages 2 to 5. They’re both working parents. Most
likely they’re a relatively young family because they have young
children. So a great collaborator or collaborative partner for me would
be someone whose target audience is also younger families with young
children, probably dual income and no, I’m not looking for another child
care provider necessarily, but I am looking for someone whose target
audience would be someone with young children. So we have similar
audiences, but we’re offering solutions, products or services for that
ideal client’s needs. Also, ensure that their strengths complement your
own. That maybe if you’re going to collaborate with someone and you are
kind of a big picture person, not great with details, you’re more of
like the innovative thinker. You have the reach the network to get that
out there, but you’re looking for a partner that maybe is a little more
detail oriented or follows through with deadlines, things like that,
that they know what your strengths are and you know what their strengths
are so that you can support each other in that. Oftentimes I see people
that you have two innovators, but that both aren’t great at details. And
the marketing doesn’t get out on time or the process of selling tickets
isn’t clear or easy because neither one of them were really good at
that.

Like back end set up of the details of the collaboration. So really
getting in there and having those tough conversations with each other of
like, what are your strengths? Here are what my strengths are. Here’s
where we know we’re going to need some support and not make assumptions
that everybody’s good at the same things, or that you haven’t thought of
all the ways that you might need to support each other or find outside
support. So definitely, number one, choose the right partner. Talk about
why you’re a good partner. Are you trying to reach the same audience and
your business goals? Do they make sense for each other? Number two
establish clear objectives. Define what both parties hope to achieve
from this collaboration. Be so specific, measurable goals can really
help guide this partnership. So if you’re going into this and just to
keep it simple. Back to my childcare business. If my goal here is to get
more families registered in my program, obviously that’s location
specific and I’m collaborating with a company that doesn’t believe
children should be in childcare, wants to sell toys, educational toys
and products for people to use at home with their young children. That’s
going to be kind of a conflict. I’m going to wonder why they’re not
encouraging families to check out my childcare business. And believe it
or not, these things do happen where you think that it’s a collaboration
that makes sense.

You would think like educational toys would make sense for a childcare
business, but you didn’t realize that they weren’t on board with you,
understanding that you were actually trying to, you know, spread the
word. Hey, we have some openings in childcare. Register your kid. So
just making sure that both parties understand the goals of what each
business is hoping to achieve from that collaboration. Number three, and
this is the one that I see really, really, really lacking in a lot of
collaborative partnerships that I see. You need to create a detailed
agreement. Everybody I don’t know why people are so afraid of contracts
and agreements. You need to draft a formal agreement that outlines each
party’s roles, responsibilities and expectations. This should include
details on resource allocation, timelines and financial commitments.
Ladies, contracts are not meant to be big and scary. Contracts are
supposed to pull in those objectives. It helps people understand what
they’re agreeing to. Are you willing to promote me on your social media?
Are you willing to sell tickets? Are you willing to be at an event? If
an event is being hosted? I can’t tell you how many times I have seen
collaborators work on something, and maybe it’s like a pop up event or
something, and they get to the end of it, and it’s supposed to be like
an event from 11 to 2, and they’re like, oh, well, I have to leave at
noon.

1. Choose the Right Partner

Okay, where’s the contract that clearly states that you’re both going to
be there for the duration of the event, that you’re both going to
promote it on social media, that you’re both going to be sending it out
to your email list. So that agreement, that contract is the perfect
place to say, here’s what I’m going to do, here’s what you’re going to
do. Do we both agree to that and why? Why are we doing that? What’s the
objective of why we’re doing that? So if you’re feeling intimidated by a
contract or an agreement or you don’t know where to start, give me a
call. I’ll help you with that. Or Google it. Google collaborative
partnership agreement. There’s so many resources out there, there’s
really no excuse to not have a formal agreement that outlines each
party’s expectations of this partnership. Number four. Communicate
openly and regularly. You need to be checking in with each other.
Schedule those meetings. What’s the timeline of the events or the
collaboration and scheduling? Regular communication, whether that’s
email or text or face to face meetings or zoom calls, whatever you need
to maintain transparent and frequent communication to make sure that
both parties are aligned, and to address any issues that come up
promptly. Recently, I was in another city. There was an event happening,
and one of the collaborators was like, you know what? I don’t even know
if this is still happening because I haven’t heard from the person that
is putting this on.

And I was like, oh, big red flag, how do you know where you are in this
process? Like she said, she didn’t even know if the event was still
happening. So schedule that communication regularly and often. Number
five, I talked about this a little bit, but leverage each other’s
strengths. You need to identify and utilize the unique strengths and
resources that each business brings to the table. Like I said, you might
have one collaborative partner that has a huge network and the other
collaborative partner that is like just amazing with the details and all
the small steps to really execute this well. Being that the detailed
person can make sure that it’s easy to work with both businesses, that
the marketing is out there on time, that it’s clear there’s no errors
that can really help. And then obviously the other person with the big
network, it’s going to make it that much easier to get that message out
to the network. Or maybe one person has a physical space and the other
person has connections to great vendors to make that space really come
alive for the event. But really talking to each other and saying, here’s
what I can bring to the table.

Here’s the support I need. Do we complement each other? Do we need to
bring out, you know, outsource some things to support us in areas where
we’re both not super strong and really just clearly understanding how
each other works without expectation, like, oh, well, I thought that
that person was going to be better detail oriented. Spoiler alert A lot
of entrepreneurs, especially creatives, aren’t detail oriented. Like,
who’s watching the money? Who’s making sure the marketing materials
don’t have typos? All of those types of things. And you might giggle.
That might sound like common sense to you, but it’s not. And we can’t
expect business owners to be quote unquote perfect. We all have our
strengths. We all have our areas where we need support, and all of that
needs to be put on the table so that you can best understand the
perspective that each partner is coming to this project with. Number
six, understand each other’s audience. Gain a deep understanding of who
your partner’s customer base is to tailor your collaborative efforts
effectively and expand your reach. Again, that example that if I were to
collaborate with a toy maker or a toy company that does educational
toys, but their market is not families that want to put their children
in childcare, that’s going to be a problem to me. You know, that’s not
going to really work out. Or if you’re marketing to another company that
has very, very, very different political views than you or religious
views than you.

2. Establish Clear Objectives

Those are questions you need to ask, because you certainly don’t want to
offend someone else’s market or draw in potential customers that you
wouldn’t want to work with. So you really, really need to understand who
each other’s audiences are and make sure that it’s the right audience
for you as well. Number seven co-branding and joint marketing. This is
really important that you develop co-branded materials and joint
marketing campaigns that reflect the partnership and appeal to both
audiences, make it easy for each other to share and promote each other.
If something looks completely off brand or it doesn’t make sense, you’re
really not promoting each other. You’re just confusing your own markets.
So work with someone, or sit down together to come up with some
co-branding and joint marketing and make sure that it complements each
other. Oftentimes when I’m promoting the leading lady ambassadors, I
have their logo. I try to incorporate their brand colors and their
esthetic into mine. Anything that I ask them to share of mine, I make
sure that my logo is on it, that my colors are represented, but that it
really shows that we’re working together. Number eight, you need to
monitor and measure the progress regularly track the performance of the
collaboration against those goals that you set initially. Use key
metrics to assess success and make necessary adjustments.

3. Create a Detailed Agreement

Keep track. What’s the visibility? Did the emails go out? Are you both
posting on your social media and sharing it? What are the dates that you
agreed to do that? And again, this goes back to why it’s so important to
have an agreement because that can all be outlined. Do both partners
know that they’re supposed to be sending those emails out? How many
emails went out? How many people opened those emails? You know, someone
might say, hey, I have a huge network. I have 10,000 people on my email
list. But not knowing that only like 4% open their emails, that could be
problematic. So know your analytics and be able to show up and give that
data and ask for that data. Like, did you send these out? How many
people saw it? How many people from your audience bought tickets, you
know, things like that. And that’s not like tit for tat. Like, oh,
shouldn’t create a competitive nature, but it will give you insight as
to whether or not that was a good collaboration for you. Unfortunately,
I’ve hosted events. I’ve collaborated with people thinking that they
were going to bring, you know, fill half the room. And as we get closer,
I realize that no one from their audience or their network, you know,
it’s just 100% my people. That can be a little bit deflating.

But if you’re monitoring that and talking about it, see how this all
kind of connects? But as you’re checking in, going back to number four,
communicate openly and regularly. You can ask each other at those
meetings like how many tickets have you sold? How many emails have you
set out? Have you met all of the things in our agreements? Where are you
struggling so all of that can help you with that? Monitoring and
measuring. When you have a clear agreement of what you’re both going to
be doing. Number nine, be open to compromise. So you need to be willing
to adapt and compromise when needed. Flexibility is so, so crucial in
overcoming challenges in collaborations and finding mutually beneficial
solutions. When you’re collaborating with another business, you didn’t
suddenly become their boss. You can’t just tell them all the things that
they need to do. Again, this is why you start with an agreement. Here’s
what we both agree to do versus expectation. And expectation is just a
predetermined disappointment. But an agreement has the buy in from both
parties, so you need to be open to that compromise. How is someone
willing to work? I worked with a coach back in 2019. She really, really
did not want to show up on social media. Her business was not on social
media. That just wasn’t where she was going to be. And so when we
drafted up that contract, she was very clear.

4. Communicate Openly and Regularly

Alison, I am not going to be posting about this collaboration. I’m not
going to be sharing it. I’ll send it to my email list, but I’m not going
to be posting it on any of my social media. She didn’t even have a
business social media. She only had her personal social media and she
did not use that to market herself. So we had to come up with a creative
solution of how she was going to market and bring her audience in. And
if I had said, oh, I don’t want to have a collaboration with you because
you’re not on social media, I actually would have really missed out on
this amazing collaboration because in the end, it worked out so
beautifully and she was able to bring people she did personal phone
calls, she sent out emails, she set up face to face meetings to pitch
what we were working on, and she ended up bringing a lot to the table.
If I had not been flexible in that, if I had just been like, if you
can’t do it, I’m going to do, then it’s not going to work. I would have
missed out, but instead we talked about it. She had a plan. We came up
with a solution and it ended up really being beautiful. And she’s
definitely somebody that I would collaborate with again in the future
without any hesitation.

And finally, number ten, plan for the long term. Consider how this
partnership can evolve over time. Explore opportunities for future
collaborations and long term growth, rather than just focusing on the
short term gains. And here’s where I think is a big part of Leading
ladies is that our collaborations, our network. My goal is to always go
deeper, not wider. And so I might have a handful of people that I
collaborate with, but we collaborate long term. We’re constantly
thinking, okay, let’s reconvene every quarter or every year and map out
ways that we can support each other’s businesses and what makes sense
and what future collaborations can happen for us in the long term. And
that’s really beautiful. That’s how I built the ambassador program.
That’s how I have built this credibility and integrity of when people
know that they’re collaborating with me, they know that it’s not just a
one and done that. It’s going to be long term, and our relationship is
really going to be beneficial for both of our businesses as long as
we’re showing up for each other. And that’s really beautiful. I
appreciate that, and like I said, it’s made for incredible
collaborations. For me, it has built the Leading Lady Ambassador
program. I love collaborating with the ambassadors. I see so many
beautiful benefits from both of us and how we support each other in all
of our businesses, and I love seeing the collaborations that they have
with each other.

5. Leverage Each Other’s Strengths

So by following these tips, you can foster a successful and sustainable
collaboration that benefits both businesses and helps you both achieve
your shared goals. It’s powerful. Like I said, I hope that you print out
the transcript of this. Write it down, see what you’re already doing in
your collaborations, where you might need to fine tune it or implement
it. And if you have any questions or comments or just need clarity on
this, please reach out to me. I do read and respond to every email
that’s sent. Collaborations are a powerful thing in your business. When
done right, when they’re not done right, it can lead to exhaustion,
frustration, and disappointment. So I hope that this resonates with you.
And until next time, take the lead!

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