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You’re listening to the Sweetlife entrepreneur podcast, simplified strategies to grow your service business and launch a life. You love faster with business mental and entrepreneur activator, April Beach, come back to the show. This is episode number 240, and I am April beach, your host and founder of this sweet life company. And today we’re talking about how to form your business affiliate dream team.
So this is literally a collective team of other companies that can serve your clients, and that can extend the service you already provide to your clients, but how do you pick them? How do you reach out to them? Those are all the things that we’re talking about today, because when you do a great job, creating these affiliate relationships, it can be really lucrative for your business and really better for your clients.
And if you do it right, like we’re going to talk about today. It gives you an opportunity to get in front of your perfect audience in a very creative way. So all of the details and everything we’re chatting about can be found on the sh in the show notes, if you are driving and you can’t write any of the things down we were talking about,
there is going to be one time today when I’m like, okay, get a piece of paper out. Here are the exact steps, which I really love to give you guys these exact steps of exactly how to take what we talk about in implemented immediately in your business. So if you miss those and you can’t write it down, just know you can go to sweet life,
co.com, click on the podcast and all the show notes will be there for you as well. Okay. So today’s episode is for those of you who are in the launch through scaling phases. So if you were in the launch phase, you’re still working towards consistent 10 K months, or we’re scaling you to 20, 30 K months. This is a great episode for you to listen to if you’re not really sure where you are in your business development phase,
take a pause, go over to Sweetlife code.com forward slash quiz and take the short assessment we have for you. This assessment is going to give you a customized business plan based on where you are to get you to the next level. It’s totally free until you can take that by going to our website, or by simply texting the word quiz to the number 8 0 5 2 5 4 0 8 8 0.
Okay. So here’s the deal. What we’re chatting about the very best source of business comes from word of mouth. We know that. And so in this episode, we’re diving into forming these amazing business alliances. I call them business dream teams, and these are where the other companies you partner with for mutual benefits. And by creating this dream affiliate team,
you get to provide a broader scale of service options to your clients, but you also get to receive really well pre-qualified clients ready to give you money. And so we’re diving into all of that. And at the end of this episode, you’re going to know exactly which businesses are going to make the perfect partners for your company. How did choose these partners and how to approach them to get the outcome that you want.
So I’m going to try to keep this short. I know that it’s been summertime, by the way. I hope you’re having an amazing summer season if you’re here in the Northern hemisphere. So all of our friends down at hope, you’re having an amazing rest time that everybody’s staying well down there. And we have some big episodes. There are some huge,
powerful episodes next week, coming up on the show, just a side note, Bart, Miller’s going to be in the show next week show is so epic. You guys, we even whiteboard. And so, yes, this is an audio podcast, but we videoed it because the strategy that Bart is giving next week on the show, we even sketch out for you.
So make sure that you tune into next week because we’re going to be dropping a video on that one as well. And so today I wanted to keep it short and sweet and to the point and give you something you can run with right away. So you’re ready. Let’s go. Okay. So number one, how to choose an ideal business affiliate. Okay.
So first of all, decide what you want to be known for. You know, it’s actually a surprise. You think that you should nail this kind of in the first couple of years of business, this is something that companies struggle with for decades, just so that you know, so if you’re still struggling with this, like what do I really want to be known for?
What do I want to offer my clients? And what’s that specific niche I want to hit. Don’t beat yourself up about it. But in this particular case, and for many marketing and business profit reasons, we really do need you to hone in on that. And so once you decide what you known for what you want to be known for, then it gives you an opportunity to look around and say,
okay, what else are my clients missing? And when you go through this process of when you’re not trying to be everything to everyone and really stay in your lane, then you can refer out and you can receive clients from other businesses in each one of your companies gets to really specialize in your clients actually receive a better specialized service. So if you haven’t kind of checked off that list,
at least when it comes to what offer or program you are creating your business affiliates for really hone in and really decide what is this that I want to be known for and what are my clients missing? What else is in this ecosystem? So if you imagine your service, the solution you provide as the center of the universe, what are the other kind of planets that are floating around that other things that your clients could need that might not even necessarily be directly related to what you do,
but the other things people are doing or thinking about around that same period of time when they’re looking for your solution. And then what I want you to do is I want you to go, and I want you to make a list, a wishlist, a partner, and see you already know, and we want to go after people, you know, first number,
obviously, any company that you have worked with before, that’s going to be the best. Okay. Somebody you’ve worked with before that, you like them, you know, a little bit further out from that close of contact. It’s somebody that you have met before. Maybe it’s, you know them from a mastermind group or they’re a friend of a friend,
and then you can get a little bit further out, you know, maybe somebody you’ve met on clubhouse or somebody that you’ve connected with on Instagram before. So we want to go after people that you have a connection with first and make a wishlist of those companies and be really specific. We don’t just want to go after like any company, don’t forget, step number one is identifying what you do.
And then what other things your clients could be missing around what you do. We don’t want to just go get a whole bunch of partners just to get them. We want to be strategic about how you’re doing this. So you already know what holes or supplements you want to fill for your clients. And so make a wishlist of people, you know, and then make a wishlist of people that you want to connect with that you might not know directly,
but that you’ve been following them. You admire them, whatever that is, but try to go after people that, you know, first. So this is really, really important. Okay? And so this is the thing I wanted you to write down. When I said there’s going to be something to write down. Here’s a checklist of what makes a good business affiliate.
Following this checklist is going to save you time from just randomly, you know, hanging out all day on the internet, wondering, you know, who you can find as a partner. And it’s also going to save your business integrity and your brain from picking the wrong people. So who makes a good business affiliate? Number one, they serve the same audience,
but they provide a different service in your client’s journey. So we need them to serve the same audience. Okay. We need them to provide a different type of service to your audience. So that’s step number one. Number two, I ideally their service is a precursor to yours. The very best affiliates that we can find for you are the ones that provide a service or connect with your clients in some capacity,
two or three steps before. They’re about to make a decision to need you next. Ideally, we want to find an affiliate partner that your service is the natural next step after what they provide, but great affiliate partners are also businesses that provide services that could be considered like cross sells that are happening at the same time. And then even for you to be able to off-board your clients to them after what you do.
So, you know, I want you to find them as precursors, but it doesn’t always work out that way. So number two is ideally their services, a precursor to yours. Number three, they offer complimentary supplements to your service. So if you have a service and let’s say you are providing the bulk of it, but somebody is missing a small piece,
like a website build out or copywriting or you know, meal delivery, you know, whatever it is that you do, if their services can compliment yours and make yours even better, they’re also a great affiliate partner. Number four, they hold similar values and abide by the same ethics. This is probably the most important thing in here. Okay. And sometimes we don’t know these things unless we’ve worked with them or unless you’ve really taken the time.
And so with each one of these steps, I want you to go through literally and treat it like a checklist of each affiliate partner you’re looking at. So do they hold similar values? Do they abide by the same ethics as much as you can possibly tell, because that will absolutely affect you. Number five, their brand messaging is comparable to yours. Now this is also equally important,
but in a different way. So let me explain this. If you are more of a passive personality and your business is, you know, just a gentle type of a brand, the personality of your brand is, you know, chill and gentle and whatever, you know, and then you refer somebody out to an affiliate, a partner that is like in Your face,
let’s go soldiers. You know what I mean? That is not going to go well in European. I’m going to be like, why did you hand me over to this person that is such a different brand personality venue? It’s not that they have to be like that. You, but you just have to make sure that their brand messaging and their brand personality is an extension or a flow from yours because your clients hired you or your clients will resonate with you.
So it can go both ways because of the fact that they resonate with your brand personality, that resonate with your brand messaging. Right? And so if you have, let’s just kind of go with that more of a gentle type of a very strategic brand personality in your business. And you’re trying to get affiliates from this kind of ball or a brand. You know,
if you will, that’s really, really add row then, and they get to you, it’s going to kind of be like, oh, wow, okay. This is, this is a bit yeah, different. And so in a perfect affiliate dream team world, I would love for your brand messaging with your company. So from other companies to other companies,
there is a hand holding process. That makes sense. So that, that personality is a bridge from one company to the next, because that’s ideally how we’re going to continue to get business through your affiliate partners. So number five is making sure their brand messaging is comparable. Number six, they have to provide exceptional customer and client care. There’s no exceptions to this at all right.
They have to be very good at what they do, how well they are at what they do is going to be a direct reflection of you, even if they’re a totally separate business. So do your homework, go through the process and make sure that they provide exceptional client care and number seven, ideally, we want them to have lifelong clients and raving fans,
because if they are a company that has had fans coming back again and again, and they had clients and they have this amazing customer journey, their clients trust them so much that as soon as that business says, Hey, you know, go to April, she’s the one to do for all this. They won’t even bad their eye. They’ll just be like,
sure, whatever you say, Hey man, you know, if you say that she’s the one to go to. I am absolutely working with her, right? That’s what we need them to say about you. And we do that by looking at their established relationship with their audience and with our customers. So let me do a quick recap of those seven steps for you.
So who makes a good business affiliate? Number one, they serve the same audience, but they provide a different service in the client journey. Number two, ideally their services, a precursor to yours, but it doesn’t have to be number three. They offer complimentary supplements to your services. Number four, they holds similar values and abide by the same ethics.
Number five, their brand and messaging is comparable to yours. Number six, they provide exceptional client care and number seven, they have lifelong clients and raving fans. Now I promise I’m going to make this quick because I know I promised this would be one of our quickie episodes, but let me give you an example of this because it was really cool. I received a phone call a few weeks ago from a woman I met on clubhouse months ago and she had remembered me and she wanted to reach out because she has a business in New York and she was interested in sending clients my way.
And so she had a lot of questions and she reached out and we’re going to, I’m going to give you the steps to reach out here in a second. And she reached out in the pretty much, the exact way that I’m talking about here on this show, but she asked me really tough questions. And in the process of asking these really tough questions,
she was covering her integrity for her clients. And it was important for her to ask me these really, really tough questions. And I really appreciated that. And so as we go into this next part on how to pitch your partners and want you to remember this, I want you to know that it’s important that you interview these affiliates when you’re reaching out to them to truly make sure they are the right fit.
And don’t be afraid to ask tough questions. Now, when we’re talking about who makes a good business affiliate notice, I did not say that they are willing to pay you or require an affiliate commission. Please note that some of the very best affiliate relationships don’t offer monetary exchanges. Now I’m a big advocate for paid affiliate programs. My friend, Laura sprinkle has been on this show before.
She’s like the go-to for creating paid affiliate programs. I love paid affiliate programs. We’ve had paid affiliate programs before. All I’m saying is they don’t have to be paid because the value of tapping into another perfect affiliates audience with personal recommendations from them and exposure to their audience can be far greater than any commission that you could receive. Okay. So just remember that I’m not necessarily saying this has to be a financial exchange.
Sometimes the exposure that you would get, you could never even pay for and the amount of money that you would receive, because it’s so good. So just a side note there. Okay. Now five steps to pitch your affiliate partners. So step number one, do your research write a personal letter, kind of like you would be pitching a podcast, but even more,
you have to do even more homework. If you’ve pitched yourself or had somebody else pitch you on podcasts before, you know, you have to do the research on that podcast and write a good pitch letter. You’re going to do that like times a hundred. Okay. So write a personal letter, explaining your intention for reaching out why you’ve selected that. Now in that letter,
you need to be very, very clear saying that I’m not sending this to everybody. I have done extensive research on your business and I am not reaching out to everyone, just you. I just want you. Okay. It’s really, really important because we need them to know that you have taken the time and that you care a lot and that you would rather walk away from this partnership and have a partnership that isn’t good.
Number two, in this letter, explain who you are and who you help in, what your superpower is. So be very clear what you do, the end result you provide, why you’re the best at that number three, explain that you would like to send clients to them. Do not write a letter saying, Hey, I would really love to talk to you about sending people my way people are going to be like,
no, I’m totally not doing that. I mean, like I would delete your email in two seconds, right? But if you send me an email, say, Hey, April, I have done the research on your company. I love what you’re doing. This is who we are. This is what we do. And I want to talk about sending clients to you.
Like the woman who called me and she called instead of sending a letter, but she sent me an Instagram direct message first, just so you guys know. And when we got on the phone, she explained it. She goes, I want to talk about sending clients to you, but I need to know much more about your company first. And I was like,
this is awesome. Thank you so much because already I know that anybody that she sends my way is going to be a rock star because of how thorough she is. Right? And so you say the same thing that she said to me, I want to talk about sending clients to you. All right. So explain to them what you do, what your superpower is.
The fact that you’ve researched them a lot, that you have looked into everything that they do. You love what they’re doing. You want to discuss sending clients to them. Number four, ask to set up a call and number five, possibly share some case studies about what you do and the details of what you do. And an example of how working together could look like in that initial letter.
And it doesn’t have to be a letter. We can do this creatively. We’ll talk about that is from a tech standpoint. And just a second with what I’m saying to you, be very intentional. Don’t make it too long, right? It can’t be a long letter. It can’t be a novel. It’s hard for people to even read emails anyway.
So a couple of ways to get around this are sending an Instagram direct message and just saying, Hey, listen, I want to let you know, I’m emailing you a quick note right now. This is what I want to talk to you about. Then looking into your company. I want to talk about sending clients to you. This is my email address,
where it’s coming from, and I’m sending it over to you right now. So giving them a heads up like on Instagram or sending them a LinkedIn direct message, letting them know that you are reaching out to them is another great way in that email that you send them. You can also send them a video. So a couple of favorite tools that I love for video emails are loom and loom has a Chrome extension.
If you use Gmail or Gmail for business, loom has a Chrome extension. That is really cool. And you can just say the things that instead of typing in the letter, but do include some sort of text type in the letter as well. Or you can do a BombBomb or any other sort of video insert into your email as well. So those are some suggestions for you.
Let me go back over those five steps to pitch partners. So that you’re really clear on, on what they are. Number one, personal letter, reaching out, saying that you’re not reaching out to everybody, just them. Number two, explain who you are, who you help and what your superpower is. Number three, explain that you’d like to discuss sending clients to them.
Obviously you’re going to get on the call and it’s going to be a mutual discussion going back and forth, but you want to discuss how you can partner and send clients to them, request to set up a call with them and possibly include a case study of an example of what this relationship could look like. Okay, you guys, that is the summary or the full show of what we’re talking about today.
You know, let me just show you. I always try to share with you a little bit behind the scenes. We have had our business dream team for about 14 years, and we have some businesses that we have partnered with for so long. They are just in our collective. We call them like our collective Sweetlife business collective, and these relationships are so good.
They’re so good for you as a business owner, because then you end up growing and building a relationship with these other companies and your company grows as the other company grows. And they’re so good for your clients. When your clients know that you’re sending them to somebody that you personally know that you’ve worked with in the past, that you trust, they have so much more peace and they hired you for the answers.
And so it’s such a great opportunity for you to expand your services, become even more of a trusted source for your clients and provide a better end result for your clients in whether or not these are set up through monetary or not. It is a really powerful way for you to grow your business and to provide it much greater resource. So wanted to share this episode with you guys.
And hopefully it’s been quicker than some of the other ones here. I know, like I said, we have some great shows coming up. So this was episode number 240. This can be found by visiting Sweetlife co.com or as you know, cause you’re already listening to this. We are on every single podcast, listening app out there, including Pandora and Amazon music and just all of them.
And I just appreciate you guys so much listening to the show. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for clicking subscribe because sometimes apple loves to add, subscribe us in for sharing the show with your friends. If you found this show helpful, would you please just take a screenshot of this and tag me on Instagram at April beach life.
I would love to just see that you’re listening to this or see how you’re implementing this in connect with you further. You guys have an awesome day. I hope that your summer or your winter season is going exactly the way that you’d hoped. And I look forward to talking to you again next week.