99 - 7 Steps to Find the Right Businesses to Collaborate With (Do This Before You Pitch)

98 | Your Six-Figure Personality Type. Are you a feeler, thinker or doer? With Marta Spirk of The Empowered Woman

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Bring a pen and paper today! Danielle is going to break down seven steps to help you find the right businesses to collab with as you grow and scale. This episode will level up your collab pitches and open doors to your dreams collaborations!

Danielle has laid some valuable groundwork for this episode - to get the most out of these seven steps, you’ll want to Listen to Episode 93 and Episode 95. 

This episode specifically answers HOW to find people to collaborate with, WHO you can best partner with, and WHAT to do before you pitch. 

  1. Getting Clarity on the Purpose & Goal for Your Collaboration

    This is SUPER important! One of the biggest common and biggest mistakes in collaborations is when partners are unsure of the goal they want to achieve through a collaboration. Sit down and write out the purpose and goals of a potential collaboration.

  2. Find Businesses Who Have Similar Target Audiences 

    They might have a slightly different niche to yours or they might even seem like your direct competitors, BUT they could be your biggest collaborators. Danielle breaks this down even more in Episode 87 - Should You Collaborate With Your Competitors? 

    We all have value to give, and we offer unique products and services, and a collaboration with someone that you might perceive as a competitor can provide a valuable relationship as you navigate your industry together AND they can help you get in front of larger audiences. 

  3. Do Your Research 

    There are so many avenues to research people and businesses in your industry. You can do your research on Google, Facebook Groups, Instagram (Hashtags), Podcasts, Youtube Channels etc. Also, reading books by leaders in your industry can help open your eyes for healthy partnerships. To build an authentic pitch to lead to a great collaboration, you need to know what this brand is all about and if your values and purposes align.

  4. Create a Collaboration Contact List

    It’s important to keep track of potential and past collaborations! You can be simple and use Google sheets and make notes and colour coding to discern organize it. This way, you can have an easy-to-read system, all in one place, that is not easy to lose or forget. It’s an amazing way to prioritize growth through networking and building relationships. 

  5. Consume Their Content 

    Connect on Social Media + Any Other Relevant Platforms! This is SO important and crucial to a good pitch. This is part of doing your research - take time to watch, listen, and read what they are all about. This helps to not only determine if they are a good fit, but helps to foster a genuine and authentic connection. 

  6. Ask yourself: Do we share values? Would we be a good fit to work together?

    There’s not much point in collaborating with a brand that you are not aligned with. Your reputations will affect one another! Don’t get distracted by numbers - a bigger audience from a random influencer does not convert to clients that value your brand.

  7. Come up with a Clear Idea and a Clear Ask.

     When you pitch, make sure to answer the questions: 

    1. How are you wanting to collaborate? 

      Layout what you are looking for in a collaboration. What goals and purposes do you have in mind? What are you looking for from this brand?

    2. What value will you bring to this collaboration? 

    Be clear about the value you will provide the brand and their community.

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TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Danielle: Hello. Welcome back to the podcast. I am so excited for this short and sweet episode because I have been getting a lot of questions since we started talking about collaborations and the power that I believe collaborations has in order for you to grow your reach, grow your impact, grow your business, grow your revenue, all of those amazing things.

[00:00:19] And I am so passionate about this topic because really it's how we have been able to grow and scale our business. And it's been a way that I have taught our clients, our mastermind members, people within Action Takers Club, to also grow their businesses, is working and collaborating with other people within their network.

[00:00:39] And so I've been getting a lot of questions on, you know, how do you do this? How do you find the right people? Who do you look for? All of those things. So today we are answering those questions and I'm gonna give you seven steps to find the right businesses to collaborate with so that you can expand your reach and grow your business.

[00:00:58] Before we get started [00:01:00] on these seven steps, I wanted to remind you that next week we are hosting a live workshop and it's all about exploding your reach and creating an organic growth for your business through the power of collaborations and partnerships. And you guys, you're not gonna wanna miss this training, this workshop, it is going to be live.

[00:01:19] We have a q and a so you can come bring all your questions. I would love to connect with you. I love being able to connect with you on this podcast, but I love even more when we can connect together and I can actually get feedback from you. I can get to know you, I can get to know your businesses, answer your questions live.

[00:01:39] It is so much fun for me, so I cannot wait for that workshop. So to get registered, go to businessbabescollective.com/workshop and you can put in your information, you'll get sent an email and you'll get all the reminders for next week. So next week, it's the 28th at 12:00 PM pst. So I [00:02:00] can't wait to see you there. All right. Let's go ahead and get started with the episode.

[00:02:04] Welcome to the Business Babes collective podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Wiebe. In this podcast, you'll learn tangible business tips and strategies on how to grow successfully and sustainably. We'll also interview seasoned entrepreneurs, so you can listen in on their stories and see behind the scenes of what it took to grow and scale their businesses. Let's dive in as we discuss the wild, exciting, crazy, challenging, rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship.

[00:02:34] So if you are new to this podcast and maybe this is one of your first episodes that you're listening to, I highly recommend going back and listening to episode 95, which is 10 creative ways to Collaborate with other businesses to grow your reach and impact.

[00:02:50] Another episode that is really beneficial is Five benefits of Business collaborations and how they can help your business grow faster. You'll get a [00:03:00] overarching idea of the power of collaborations and some of the ways that you can actually collaborate with other businesses within those episodes.

[00:03:08] This episode specifically is answering the question of how do I find these people to collaborate with? How do I know who the best people are to collaborate with for my business? And then also what do I do before I go to pitch? Because we're gonna be talking about the pitch specifically more in detail on inside of our workshop on the 28th. So again, make sure you're registered for that because the pitch is really important and something I find a lot of people get wrong, so definitely come join us for the workshop so you can learn all about that. But today we are gonna be talking about, again, the seven steps to find the right businesses to collaborate with, to expand your reach.

[00:03:48] So number one is getting clarity on the purpose and goal for your collaboration. This part is super, super important because as we talked about in past episodes, specifically [00:04:00] in episode 95. There are so many different ways to collaborate and when we talk about 10 ways to collaborate in that episode, but there are so many other ways that you can also collaborate, um, which I love strategizing with with our clients.

[00:04:13] But one of the biggest mistakes that I see when people go to collaborate with other people is that everything is very unclear and they're not really sure like what other businesses they should collaborate with, cuz they don't really know what their goal is for the collaboration itself. So that is the biggest thing to figure out first. What is the goal of collab, the collaboration? What type of collaboration are you looking to do?

[00:04:38] And then we can go to the second step. So the second step would be really finding people who have a similar target audience that might have a slightly different niche to yours or people that might seem like your direct competitors, but they could be your biggest collaborators.

[00:04:57] I talk about this in a past episode. I can't [00:05:00] remember exactly what episode it was. Let me go check to see if I can see where that episode is. Let's see here? Um, oh yeah, episode 87 is should you collaborate with your competitors? Three questions to ask yourself before working with other businesses. So definitely listen to that episode if you're curious about this, because if you're thinking to yourself like, Why would I collaborate with a competitor? Like a direct competitor to me, I don't understand that?

[00:05:27] Listen to that episode, and I think you might be a little bit surprised. Because for me, like I have come to a place in my business where I don't see anyone else as a competitor, because I think that we all have value to give. We're all providing slightly different services, uh, and, um, products that actually could, if we actually came together and collaborated together.

[00:05:49] It is a really, really incredible to see what could potentially happen. Now, I'm not saying that you should collaborate with everyone that is your competitor, but I [00:06:00] think that, again, if you listen to that episode, you'll, you'll find out, you know, the qualifications that I believe are necessary in order to collaborate with someone who might be considered a competitor of yours.

[00:06:12] So I won't go too much into that because again, we have a whole other episode about that. Um, but really this is what I want you to do. I want you to research other people who have very similar, if not identical target audiences to yours. Okay?

[00:06:26] Number three is doing your research. So this is such an important step because this is how you are actually going to find those people to connect and collaborate with. So there's so many different avenues where you can do research. I would start with Google. That is number one. Um, so start with Google, Googling people within your industry. I actually think it's super powerful to look at the people who have written books within your industry as well, because those are people that are going to be potentially quite influential in the space that [00:07:00] you are in.

[00:07:01] Uh, I would look into Facebook groups, so depending on your niche, there are hundreds, if not thousands of Facebook groups within your niche. And what I would do is I would try to actually connect with the, leader of that Facebook group, cuz that is gonna be the person that has influence within that group.

[00:07:19] There's also obviously social media platforms like Instagram. When we first started our community and we were hosting events, Instagram was honestly the number one way that we would find people to collaborate with. And the biggest way that I did that is through hashtags. So I would search specific hashtags depending on what I was looking for.

[00:07:38] So say for example, I was looking to collaborate with a photographer or a catering company or a venue, I would look through hashtags. I would, you know, um, look through Instagram to see if there were, um, people within that industry that I could then follow and connect with and all of that. Um, that is how we actually found most of the people that we collaborated [00:08:00] with for our event.

[00:08:01] Another place you can look is podcasts. So what are some podcasts within your industry that you could potentially connect with or collaborate with? YouTube channels, et cetera. So you know, the list goes on when it comes to research.

[00:08:15] And the biggest tip that I'll have for you, and this is actually step number four, is keeping track of all of those people. So number four is actually creating a collaboration contact list. Now I love doing this in Google Drive, um, or sorry, Google Sheets. So I have a Google Sheets and I have all of the people that, um, I want to collaborate with and the people that I wanna work with, and I have them in a spreadsheet.

[00:08:41] I'll have their name, I'll have their business name, I'll have their email, and I will have notes about them if we've connected before and what that conversation was like, whatever that is, where we, where I've met them. If I haven't met them before, then I'll just write some notes about them in general.

[00:08:56] And, um, that is where I keep track of all [00:09:00] of the people that I either have already collaborated with or the people that I would love to collaborate with one day. Now, the importance of this list is that you do not want to lose track of the people you wanna collaborate with. A lot of people, they have these ideas or maybe they've written it in their notes on their phone, or maybe they've emailed it to themselves and you know, it's kind of all super disorganized.

[00:09:24] So the biggest tip that I have for people, if you are really going to make this a priority of how can I get more exposure for my business? How can I collaborate with other, other business owners? I mean, you guys, this is business 1 0 1. Like you have to build your network. You have to connect with other business owners in order to grow.

[00:09:45] So this should be a priority for you, right? And so, The biggest advice that I have is keep track of this somewhere where it can be really organized for you. Again, for me, I keep it in a go Google, uh, sheets and it's super [00:10:00] simple, super organized. Uh, I also have links to people's websites, people's Instagram handles, all of that kind of stuff.

[00:10:06] So it's all right there. And I also have it color coded. So if I have talked to this person before or we have started a conversation about a collaboration, I will highlight them in a specific color. If we've already completed a collaboration, I will highlight them in a color. So this is really what helps me, you know, keep track of the contacts that I have in my business, and it's super, super beneficial.

[00:10:32] All right, number five is consume their content and connect with them on social media or any other relevant platforms. This part is really important to do, especially if you're planning on reaching out to them or pitching them via email. You wanna make sure that you've actually, you know, done your research, which we talked about, uh, and then also consumed their content and actually, you know, taken time to watch or listen or [00:11:00] read what they are about.

[00:11:01] Cuz you ultimately, you wanna find out is this person a good fit and do I feel like we can, we can connect and do something together? So another thing is following them on social media. I cannot tell you how many times that I've had random pitches from random people and I go Look, And they're not even following us on social media.

[00:11:23] They're not following us anywhere. You can tell they've never consumed any of our content and it feels just really inauthentic. So that is a super, super key important step is making sure you're actually doing your research, consuming their content, and connecting them with them on social media.

[00:11:39] Number six is asking yourself These very, very important questions. Do we share values? That is the first question that I want you to ask. And then would we be a good fit to work together? There is no point in pitching a collaboration or pitching to work with someone or, you know, wanting to connect if you know that you [00:12:00] actually don't share values or if you know that you're actually not gonna be a good fit to work together.

[00:12:04] And that's where the research comes in. That's where consuming their content, making sure that you are actually aligned. Because at the end of the day, if you're gonna be collaborating and working with this brand, your reputation is going to rub off, off on them, and their reputation is going to rub off on you as well.

[00:12:24] That's why you wanna be really thoughtful of the type of businesses that you go ahead and partner with and collaborate with. This is really, really important. So don't get, um, I guess distracted by the numbers. I see this a lot. A lot of people think, Oh, I really wanna work with this person, this business owner, or this influencer because they have, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers or a million followers.

[00:12:50] And you know, I always ask them, is this someone who actually shares your values? Is this someone who, their, if their reputation was rubbed [00:13:00] off on you, that would be beneficial for you and for your business and for your community ultimately? So that's a really, really important question to ask.

[00:13:08] And then number seven is come up with a clear ask. Why are you wanting to collaborate? What value are you going to bring to this collaboration and what are you actually asking them for? And so this really sets you up for a really, really good pitch.

[00:13:26] So when, on the 28th, when we talk about the actual pitch and pitching people that you wanna collaborate with, doing this groundwork First is so, so important. Because you can't do a really good pitch if you haven't done the research, if you haven't followed them on social media, if you haven't asked yourself these questions and you haven't consumed any of their content, right?

[00:13:48] So those are the seven steps to find the right businesses and to actually prep, prep yourself for a really good pitch when it comes to pitching for a collaboration. So [00:14:00] I hope you enjoyed this episode. I tried to keep it as short and sweet as possible. Again, we're going to be going into so much more detail in our free workshop on the 28th at 12:00 PM pst. So go to businessbabescollective.com/workshop to register, and I cannot wait to see you there.

[00:14:22] If you love this episode, make sure you screenshot, post and tag us on Instagram @businessbabesco.. Want to know when the next episode goes live? Subscribe on your podcast app and while you're there, leave us a review. Until next time, keep dreaming big, setting goals and taking action.

Danielle Wiebe