This episode is for those in Phase 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 of the Lifestyle Entrepreneur Roadmap™ Not sure what Phase your business is in?
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<inaudible> You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life. You love FASTA with business, mental and entrepreneur activator a probate. Hi everybody. And welcome back to the show this week, we’re diving into how to create amazing partnerships for your business and amazing affiliate relationships. And the reason why I was so excited to do this episode is because I get questions all the time from businesses in my community.
How do I pitch people? How do I work with this gold star partner? Or how do I get this company to promote my material or my content, or how do I partner with this business leader? And there are very specific ways in which you should be reaching out to certain partners to get what you want. So in this show specifically, this is for those of you guys who are new in business.
So this means you’re in stage two of my lifestyle business system. That’s where you’re still just launching your business, but you’re looking for affiliate partners and companies to network with that are really going to help you get your company off the ground. Or this is also for those of you guys who are in stages three, four or five of my lifestyle business growth system.
This means you probably have a new product that you want fresh eyes on, or you want new buzz around new services that you’re launching, or maybe even you just want to start pivoting into a new market. And so you are looking for brands and partners to reach out to that you can work with. There are mutually beneficial partnerships. So in today’s episode,
we are diving into all of those things. And you’re going to know all the tricks in how I was able to land amazing partnerships in my first company I ever launched. As a matter of fact, the strategies that I’m teaching to you here today are the same proven strategies that I’ve been teaching since 2008. And they have landed me partnerships with brands like whole foods market,
the bump.com, Patagonia, bright techs, women’s entertainment network and more. So this show is totally packed with amazing information that you can bank on. And at the end of this episode, you’re going to know who will make the best business partners for your company, just because they might look good when you first reach out to them, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to be the best partner for you.
So I’m going to talk you through how to figure out who’s going to be the best partner for your business. You’re also going to know how to make a plan to work with them because it’s important that you’re organized. And you’re going to know exactly what to say to them, to close your affiliate or business partnership deal. So if you’re ready for that,
we’re going to dive in to all of that. Right now, you can find all the show notes, everything that I’m chatting about on today’s Sweetlife entrepreneur in business podcast, by cruising over to sweet life podcast.com forward slash one 83. And if you and I have never spoken before, it’s nice to meet you. My name’s April beach, I’m an online business development expert,
and I am so glad that you were here. Let’s do it.<inaudible>. So when was the last time you actually reached out to a partner in landed it, or have you never done this before? Because you have no idea how to even approach a company that you want your business to work with. So the fact of the matter is, is most companies,
they really don’t have time to pay any attention to you. You know, companies aren’t out there begging for different companies to partner with, especially those that are leading the way in their industry. And so sometimes your attempts to have them pay attention to you, just because you want to offer them support, or you want to simply connect with them. Professionally are falling to the wayside,
frankly, they’re too freaking busy, right? And you get that. I get that time is more valuable than money, but you need these healthy partnerships to grow your business. Some of you guys listening have to have these partnerships because you can’t, in fact, even sell your products or services without them, or you’re going to end up spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing,
which you don’t need to do as long as you can lay into the right partners. So how do you do this? Let’s go ahead and break it down. And I’m actually going to give you the four steps. Now, there are a lot of notes in here, and I know that you’re probably driving your car to work, or you’re at the gym or you’re cooking dinner or whatever it is that you’re doing when you’re listening to this show.
And you probably don’t have a piece of paper and a pen in front of you. This is one of those shows that it would be really beneficial if you could jot down some notes so that you remember, because I’m actually giving you step-by-step, that’s going to save you years of time. So if you’re too busy and if you have yet to join us yet in our new sweet life entrepreneur and small business owner,
online forum, we’re super excited about it. We just launched a brand new custom app for you guys to connect with other businesses and you can join us free right now during the month of July, by visiting sweet life, community.com. And I’m going to actually drop in the show notes from this episode into that community. So if you’re too busy and you’re just like,
your life is like mine, and we’re always running around like crazy, then cruise over and join Sweetlife community.com. As long as you join in July, it’s free for life. And I’m going to drop these show notes in there for you. On top of that, with this episode, before I dive into any more detail, I’m also teaching a free livestream business strategy session on how to create winning partnerships on July 16th in that community.
So join that community. You’ll get to join the live stream. Plus you’ll get all the show notes from this episode, but let me go ahead and break the four steps for you to get started right now. So I can give you immediate result right away. So one is to do your research now, just because you think a partner may be a good partner,
doesn’t mean that they actually, well, here are the things that you want to look for when you are looking for really great affiliates or partnerships. The first question you want to ask yourself as do they reach your ideal audience. So a lot of times you might look at a partner and think that they do, but here is how to know your audience has a lifespan.
They have a journey that they’re going through in your business, just like other businesses usually serve a clientele within a certain part of their journey. Now you want to look for partners that serve your clientele, your customers, before they need your service or your product or your offer. The perfect partner is the one that is reaching your clients right before your clients are going to need what you sell.
There are a lot of great partnerships that you think just because they serve the same market or the same niche audience, that they might be cool people for you to work with. But the fact of the matter is, is, you know, I only want to identify who they serve. You want to identify when they serve your ideal audience. So do your research first,
dive in, find out when they connect with your audience, because you want to be the very next step to what that audience needs and the best partners are the ones that get to your ideal client and promote your services right before your clients. I need to find you. So that’s step number one, step number two is what is this company or what is this partner missing?
So what are the things that their clients want that they don’t currently provide? What do they not provide as far as content? Or what sort of service are they not currently providing? Or what sort of service or content or material, or perhaps products are currently providing, but frankly they’re doing it just cause they have to, it, isn’t something that’s part of their ideal business operations.
They’ve identified that they’re missing it. So they’re doing it, but maybe they aren’t really great at it. Maybe it’s not their, you know, Ninja skill. Maybe it’s not their specific zone of genius. So what is this partner missing? What does it not do for their clients currently that could make this partnership even better by you stepping in and providing it,
or what are they currently providing to the clients that maybe they don’t want to be. Maybe it’s costing them more money to provide this type of a service. And this is a great opportunity for you to either Jennifer these items in step in and save the day. What do you have that could make them look better, be better at what they do perform their services better and actually be an overall perfect provider to their clientele.
So here’s some examples of this. If you’re a dietitian, you could be an amazing partner for a supplement company. If you’re a copywriter, you could be an amazing partner for a marketing firm. If you’re a doula, you could be an amazing partner for a baby carrier company. If you’re a staffing company, you could be an amazing partner for a service based business and the list goes on and on.
So after you’ve done your research, take a look at the partners before you pitch them and identify what are they missing or what are they doing that maybe they don’t want to be doing? Maybe they don’t do as well as you could do. And how can you make them look like the best by bringing your services or your content or your materials to their business platform or their physical local business location.
Step number three is making a plan like we talked about in the beginning. Everybody’s incredibly busy if you show up and you’re all frazzled and you don’t have a plan, they are never, ever, ever going to take two seconds to listen to you because immediately they’ll identify that working with you is going to cost them time and money. So you need to have an organized plan and you need to be easy to work with.
And here’s how you do that. First of all, get your systems in place, whatever it is that you’re delivering or providing have systems in place already, that you are able to bring that to this new company. You don’t want to start out by trying new systems in a new partnership. That’s going to fail and it’s not going to be great for your brand.
And we don’t want you to present yourself and have that sort of business brand partnership, rep representation or reputation. So, first of all, we want to make sure you’re super easy to work with and your systems are in place. And then you want to present a plan for how you’re going to contribute or work with this partner. So how will you contribute your content or your services?
When will you do that? And what will this look like? You need to come to the table with a simple plan. That is not only easy for the person you’re speaking to to understand, but it’s easy for that person to present your plan to the decision maker. In most cases, the first person that you talk to in a business to partner with them,
isn’t the decision maker who gets to actually choose whether or not they’re going to partner with your company. So you have to present a simple, organized plan so that the first connection you have can easily explain the benefits of working with you and how it’s going to make them more money and how it’s going to make them look better to the decision maker. But in that you need to offer to amend your plan and you need to be willing to,
to all their needs. So you can suggest specifics on how you can work together. That’s simple to understand and easy to implement based on what they need. So although you’re coming to the table with a plan, that’s going to make you look like a rock star. Believe me, trust me. You’re coming to the table with the plan. You’re saying,
here’s what we can do. This is what it could look like. And this is how we want to help you. But the very next thing you’re going to say is, however, I want to hear what you need. What does your company need and how can we meet those needs for you? And you need to be a really good listener. And at that point in time,
you might want to go back, modify your plan and re, present your plan to them again, after you’ve listened and have to, after you’ve been able to perfectly hear their words and their struggles and their pains and figure out how your company can solve that. So that’s step number three. You have to have a plan. You have to be super organized and you have to be a good listener and be willing to change your plan based on what they need.
And then the very last step is more like a rule, but it’s incredibly important. Anytime you reach out to any partner, you have to understand that it’s not about you. It has absolutely nothing to do with you and your company. You need to reach out with a servant’s heart. You need to reach out giving first. You need to reach out in a way that you have zero expectations for how it’s going to turn around and promote your company immediately.
Especially if you are a new business. Now, I’m not saying you give everything away for free and you’ll be a martyr to this company, but it really has little to do with you. It is a mutually beneficial brand or affiliate partnership that works for both of you. And you need to start first by reaching out and presenting how you can give, let me give you a really quick scenario of this.
People reach out to me all the time and they want to be on this podcast all the time. I mean, I have so many applications for guests on this show. You guys, I can’t even get through them all. And the reality is is that the people that reach out, they send us emails or they go through the application process. And it’s clearly about promoting their business,
their brand, their services, their offers, and their sales. I mean, shit. I don’t even sell my own coaching programs on here hardly ever. This is a show where we are pouring into entrepreneurs and small business owners. It’s not about a show where you pimp out your services. And so those people that reach out and they want to be guests on this show that pitch us like,
Hey, I want to promote this. And I want to share what a great coach I am or whatever. They immediately go in the trash because it’s clear to us that they aren’t about serving you guys it’s clear to us. So they aren’t about providing proven business strategies and trainings that you guys can take to the bank. And that’s our mission. That’s what we do here on this show.
We’re a serving first company and that comes through in every single one of our podcast episodes. And so the same thing goes to reaching out to any business partner, even though yes, from a business strategy standpoint, we want you to create amazing partnerships. You can increase your profit and sales and you can be the leader in your space. Of course, we’re going to want you to make more money.
That is the point of making partnerships. However, when you lead with a giving first attitude with a servant’s heart, with these type of ways and saying, Hey, how can I help you? How can I make your company look better? How can we fill holes that are bottlenecks within your business? That’s how you’re going to land any partnership that you want that is looking for partners.
So to summarize, here’s what we talked about on today’s show. First of all, I mentioned to you join our live stream on July 16th, where we’re going to be talking about all this, and I’m going to be taking your questions on how to pitch your dream business partners. You can join us. Step. Number one is join our online forum and our community totally free.
You can just visit Sweetlife community.com, join our forum for free and then click on events and you can join me there in the live stream. I would love to talk to you and help you. And I will put all the show notes. So we talked about in the show notes for this episode on our podcast website, which can be found@sweetlifepodcast.com forward slash one 83.
And I’m also going to put detailed show notes of what we talked about in the forums. You have to be in the community to get all the detailed show notes, again, visit Sweetlife community.com. And on today’s show, we talked about these four steps. Number one, do your research, not every partner that looks great on paper is a great partner for you.
Number two, find out what they’re missing. How can you make what they do better, faster, easier. How can you make them more money? When you make them more money, you’re gonna make more money. Step number three, make a plan, be organized, present yourself in an organized fashion, but also be willing to listen and amend your plan to meet their needs.
And step number four is to be selfless. I don’t care how big your company is, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur and you’re just one person, or you have a team of 15 or 20 every single time you lead with helping others. First, your company is going to grow faster. I promise. All right, you guys, well, it’s always so great to talk to you again,
cruise over and join us in our new online community app and forum. I am so glad to be out of Facebook. And so I’d love to have you join us in our new app. It’s super fun to play with, and it’s been great to see so many new podcast fans and faces join us over@sweetlifecommunity.com. And then next week we’re actually going to be continuing this same topic where I’m going to give you three specific pitches,
three specific things that you can do to reach out to pitch and land partners. So we’re going to be talking about this for a couple of weeks. If you aren’t a subscriber to this show, please click, subscribe and share this show with your friends. We totally appreciate your help and support. All right, you guys have an awesome week and I’ll see you soon.