In today’s episode, Katie shares how to set yourself up for profitable collaborations that allow you to grow your list, reach more people and create a bigger impact through partnerships. With a mixture of “what to do” and “who to partner with” and stories woven throughout, Katie will help you understand that growth hacking isn’t always about using FB ads!

Katie: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the light in your launch podcast. Katie here today, I'm sharing a recording of a live that I did on seven ways to collaborate in business. I find that a lot of coaches and online experts are trying to figure out how to build their list, how to reach more people and get their message out to the masses. And everyone always makes the assumption that Facebook ads is the only way to do that. And I'm here to share with you seven ways that you can collaborate with others and probably get even better results if you do it the right way. So stay tuned.

Announcer: Hey, we're the Launch Squad and this is the Lighten Your Launch podcast. We teach coaches and course creators how to lighten their launches. We're bringing you all of the tips and strategies to take your launch from intimidating to money-making. In this podcast, we talk about everything; the sales, strategy, mindset, technical and spiritual aspects of running your best launch ever. So if you're feeling overwhelmed and unsure of the next right step, we're here to bring clarity, confidence, and excitement into your next launch. This is the Lighten Your Launch podcast.

Katie: Hey, Hey, we are live happy Thursday. I am really thrilled to come to you today with this topic. Um, because I think it is something that people skip, skip over. And they're always asking me, how can I build my list? What can I do? How can I get my free gift out there? And these seven ways to collaborate with others is the answer. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Katie Collins, co-founder of the launch squad and we support coaches and online course creators to get the word out there, actually launch their system, their program, their course up to three times in nine months. So that they're finally, instead of whispering, they're getting it out there in a massive way and people know where to find them and they know exactly what they do. So we're excited to bring you this live today on seven ways to collaborate in business.

Katie: So one of the first things I wanted to address around collaborations is a lot of people immediately as summits. And some of you may grown like, oh, I hate summits, right? And some of you may be like, oh, I've done some it's in there. Awesome. Cause for a really great way to build your list in a fairly quick amount of time. Um, although they do take quite a bit of work. I am not talking about summits today, uh, in part because I haven't done one myself, I've participated in them, but I haven't led one. And I wanted to come to you today with seven ways to collaborate in that I've personally done and feel confident to share with you about, um, but of course, summits are, are high on the list, whether that works for you or not is fine. But I just want you to understand that there are so many other ways that you can collaborate with people that are not that huge project, right?

Katie: There are things that you can do starting right now and you could literally be in a collaboration next week. The first thing I want to share too, was this really great quote I saw from Jay John C. Maxwell. He says collaboration is multiplication. That is so true. I really want you guys to see that because I know I remember reaching out to collaborate with certain people that were doing much better in business than me. Sometimes it took a lot of guts for me to reach out to these people and see if they're willing to collaborate. And I'll share later on which, which one I'm talking about. Um, and, and, and to get the no, or the blow off, you know, and it kind of hurts your ego or whatever, but that is business that is sales. And even then you're not offering your program and I'll ask them to pay you any time.

Katie: We're asking for a collaboration, there's essentially a sale that's happening. There's an agreement that needs to be made. So I know that sometimes it can be a little tricky to reach out to people like that or to claim that expert status. But when you do, when you do collaboration is multiplication. And when you ask me, how do I build my list? Collaboration is my answer. Now, a lot of you, your answer might be Facebook ads. That's the best thing ever. I can't tell you for every person that I hear. That's the best thing ever. I hear three people say I wasted my money. I didn't know what I was doing. I hired the wrong person. I tried to do it myself or for a million other reasons. Uh, Facebook didn't like your ad. They didn't like the words you used. It is very difficult until you get your messaging dialed in.

Katie: It's very difficult to have Facebook ads work for you in the numbers that you want. And so collaborating in the beginning of this, whatever you're doing makes you get a much bigger bang for your buck than you do throwing money at Facebook ads. So in what you save in money, you spend in time. But for a lot of people, time is what they have more of than money. So it's up to you, but these are really great ones that have worked for me or veers. All right. So let me get started. Um, before I dive into the seven things, I want two things to keep in mind. Number one, these all require you to be the leader. So you hear me talk about, you know, being the leader that you're meant to be being the CEO that you're meant to be showing up, um, you know, with no excuses with organization, with a strategy, with a team in place to help you.

Katie: It's really hard to do some of these on your own. Um, and so you're expected to be the leader for these interviewees. They're looking to you for that to make sure that you're solid in your own leadership for this, um, event, before you start asking people, if they want to be a part of it, you want to have your structures and systems in place. You are responsible for providing the email swipe, copy. You are responsible for providing the graphics you're responsible for providing the social media copy, swipe copy. So those are things that you need to through and make time for and know that needs to be taken care of so that your interviewees or whatever we're talking about here are taken care of. The second thing I want to bring up is the massive, massive importance of energetic alignment. So what I mean by that is like, I know when I was, I was trying to build my list.

Katie: I was following the advice of every guru out there that was saying, you know, don't work, don't collaborate with people unless their list size is $5,000 or more. Um, I followed that rule. Um, I'll tell you a story later on, but it didn't always work in my favor. So I am all about energetic Alliance with the people you partner with and making that much more important than their list size. If this event, whatever you're doing goes well, you can, of course, it's going to be recorded. You can use it again and again and again, but imagine doing an event with somebody that you kind of think is a little bit of a jerk, um, offline, or you've seen them be that you don't want to, you know, you don't want to partner up with somebody or have your name attached to somebody that you're not aligned with.

Katie: So keep that in mind, alignment is so much more important than list sites. Okay. All right. Let's dive in. So the first thing that you could do to collaborate with others is to host an interview series. So why would want them to do that? Well, it helps build your list. Most of these are going to help you build your list. It helps you get in front of the various audiences of your interviewees and you are positioned really well as an expert in your field. By simply being the host of this series. Now, some people believe they have to have a Facebook group in order to host an interview series. You don't let me tell you why you might want to. It's great when people can register for the interview series and that way you're capturing their email address. You're the one that sets all that up and you're collecting every registrant's email.

Katie: So if you host your interview series, a business page, which is public, and anyone can watch it at any time, it's not as exclusive. And therefore there's really no reason for people to give you their email because they can just watch it online. So if you host it in the closed group, then you are requiring them to kind of jump through some steps to get that interview series. So you don't have to do it in a Facebook group, but you might want to, depending on how you want to collect email addresses, or is it really just to get you out of your shell, is it to get you, you know, interviewing others and serving your audience? And if that's the case doing it on your business page is fine. So you always want to start with a goal in mind, what's the goal and are the choices that I'm making for bringing forward this event, making sense for the goal that I've set.

Katie: Some people worry about competition, right? So, um, in my other business, I'm a business coach. I'm a sales coach. So, you know, you're like, oh, well, I don't want to invite other business and sales coaches because then we're kind of in competition of each other and we serve the same people. So I would agree with you. I probably wouldn't bring in a competitor. What we want to think about is that very same word, like collaboration means compatibility, right? So who are you compatible with? Or I used to say to my clients all the time, who's in your vertical, when you think of your clients, you serve, um, where do you go before you and where do they go after you? And those are the service providers in your vertical. And those are really great people to collaborate with because you're not competing, but you are, um, serving the same audience.

Katie: Right? And so it's compatibility. Last thing about hosting an interview series. You want to think through the length of time, how many interviews you're going to do, whether you're going to drop one or two a day, you've got emails to promote it. Um, and you've got to kind of set up your system and your guidelines because most people will sell the recordings of the interview series that they'd have lifetime access or an, and in that case, they're going to remove the access from the Facebook group. Um, if people don't opt to buy. So you may say this interview series is for the month of August. On the last day of August, your access will be removed unless you buy the upgraded package to have lifetime access. A lot of times people want that it usually sells for like anywhere I've seen anywhere from 37 to $97, depending on how valuable the content is and how positioned to the experts are.

Katie: Um, a lot of people do buy that because it is hard to find 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, a day to catch all of these experts. And so people are missing a lot of the, which is people's, um, you know, problems with summits as well. You're kind of expected to dedicate two to three hours of your time to consume that content, or it goes away in 48 hours. I think people get a little frustrated by that. Um, and they want a little bit more time. So just think through your parameter is what makes you feel good about putting it out there and making sure people have time and access to that content without just giving it all away for free, without any sort of a way to make a little bit of money back. If you think about how you would use the money that you may make from selling the lifetime access to the interviews is you would put it towards advertising.

Katie: So it really is a win-win for you to think that through. All right. Another kind of big collaboration event is called a co-creation expert panel. So I did one of these a few years ago, and this was really meant to be a list builder for me. Um, and of course, a positioning opportunity for me as well. So let me tell you what it looks like it's you and four experts. So five total people on the panel and each person is going to talk for about 20 minutes on their topic. And then you host a Q and a, took a three to four hour event, a single day summit, if you will. Um, and you host a Q and a, and you can also put together a bundle to sell for a very inexpensive price, such as 1 97 or 2 97, where each expert contributes something to that bundle.

Katie: Of course, it's not a free gift. It's an actual, valuable thing, might be a module out of their program, or it might be a month or two membership to their, um, you know, membership things that are leveraged that don't take one-on-one time from people. Now, you bundle all that together and you sell it in the name of charity. And so you say all of the proceeds, right? The profit from this, which excludes the help that you needed to hire to get this, to put this thing on. Um, but the profits from that bundle go to a charity. I think Shanda Sumpter was the creator of this particular thing. I seen it done multiple ways, but I just want to give credit where credit is due. I learned it from someone who learned from her. So that's where I'm going to say, I first heard it.

Katie: Um, so that's in essence. So let's, let's look at that again. So it's three to four hours of awesome content, Q and a, they get to buy a bundle. So let's think that through why would we want them to buy a bundle? Well, you already know who your warm leads are by the people that are buying that bundle. And then, because you're the creator of the event and you're the leader of the event, you're eventually going to share the list of opt-ins with your co-creators, but you delayed sharing of the list with everyone's full understanding prior to the event, including the people that are signing up for said, list that their email will be shared. Um, everyone knows that they're not going to get that list for 14 days, and that gives you 14 days to market what you want to market, because you're the one that did the blood, sweat, and tears for this event.

Katie: So here's what I want to talk about list size, because this really was the experience for me. Um, the coach I was working with was saying, you know, it's not worth it to bring anybody in with a list size for less than 5,000. And I didn't have a list size of that amount. So I felt a little shy requiring that of others, but I could see what she meant and when it summits, and there are 25 30 people participating, it doesn't really matter if not everyone has a list size of a thousand or more, but when it's only four additional people, it does kind of matter. You want to get the word out as much as you can. So I did find people that fit those parameters. And one person led me to a person that, um, I instantly didn't connect with, to be honest, but this person's list size was huge.

Katie: We're talking 30,000 and I'll never forget this story. That former mentors of mine had shared where they got an opportunity to promote whatever they were doing to Eben Pagan's list. It was like this golden nugget opportunity and it turned their business on a dime. It's a success. And that was a story that kept going through my head. And so I was focused on the numbers and I left my heart. I forgot that the heart mattered more than the numbers. And we just, you know, I share my, uh, my mistakes with you so that you see like I'm real and I make these same mistakes. Um, and so I invited this person to join it. And every step of the way this person was, um, ignoring our requests for content information, like, could you get me through your bio, your headshot, duh. It was just complete disrespect the whole time.

Katie: And then this person also kept calling me like a budding entrepreneur. And now that's on me for him to have had that assumption of me. I must not have positioned myself very well, but I've been in business for a decade. I think I deserve a little bit more than budding. Um, but this person didn't see me that way. And it, and I think he felt like it was a favor. And when they feel like it's a favor, they kind of blow you off. So I ended up kicking him out of the event before it even started in event of five people went down to four and we went live with four amazing ladies and it was amazing, but it certainly didn't have the results I thought it was going to have. And I wished I listened to my heart. And instead of making his list size, you know, mean more than anything, I wish I listened to my heart that said, let's find somebody that you're a little bit more aligned with, that you enjoy being in, in their presence.

Katie: Um, so that was a big lesson for me. And so, yeah, less eyes matters, but so does reputation. And you don't want your name next to somebody that you don't feel aligned with at all, or next to somebody that doesn't treat you with the utmost respect for the amount of time dedication and, and frankly labor that you and your virtual assistant and team are putting into this event. And it was just a complete lack of respect on his heart. And I wish I kicked him out sooner. So, um, so that's an essence what that co-creation expert panel looks like. It is phenomenal. I can't remember exactly how much money we donated, but I, I picked women for women international because it was, um, very win centric business women's centric panel. Now that that guy dropped out or got out. Um, and we said, you know, I don't know, over a thousand dollars, I want to say it was like $1,700 maybe to that charity as a result of that bundle that we sold.

Katie: And so all of it felt really good and exciting, but, um, it was definitely a lot of work. Okay. The third one is called a webinar swap. So it is exactly what it sounds like. It's like, Hey friend, who's bestie, right? New friend from a mastermind group I'm in or new friend I made in a group program. Right? All you are networking with business people all day long. You can simply say, I think we have the similar audience. That's the most important thing is you'd want to be attracting people that are in your audience. Right? So if I am partnered up with an energy healer who works specifically with businesses owners that are launching, and I work with business owners that are launching, but we are teaching very different things. Then I can partner up with set energy healer and say, Hey, would you host my webinar to your audience?

Katie: Like as a guest expert to your audience. And then I'll host you to my audience, whether that means my Facebook group, or we go live on my business page or we invite people and make them register for the event in my email list, you're just creating, um, or, you know, exchanging trainings for each other's audiences. And so it's a win-win. All right. So I think that one's pretty straightforward. And again, that's one that you could literally do next week. You probably already have a webinar ready. And so if you were to sit here and make a note of, you know, who would be a really good collaborator who has a similar audience to you, um, start making a list right now and start reaching out to them and saying, Hey, is this something you'd be willing to do? Can we get done by the end of August?

Katie: Right. Um, along the same lines, number four is an interview swap. And so you can, uh, you know, if they don't want to show up and do a webinar, you can simply do an interview of each other. This is a really great thing. If you're fairly new or you don't have a huge audience, and you just want to be doing something like maybe you started a Facebook group and it's not really getting going yet. Like you're putting in a lot of, um, engagement posts, and people are just not really engaging yet. Um, you can bring someone in to interview. You don't have to do the whole series. Like I said, for number one, if you could just do one interview, swap where you bring in somebody and interview her to your audience, and then that person does the same. So the most important thing here is that it's a swap.

Katie: It's really important that it's a give and take right, as much as possible. Sometimes it's not possible. And maybe you're asking to partner up with somebody that doesn't have time to do all that you want. You know, it's up to you. And again, lead with your heart, go with your heart. But, um, the interviews blob is a great kind of beginner thing that you could do. And again, it's something that you could do pretty quickly without much technology or support or promotional materials, um, required ahead of time. Okay. So let me just reiterate what I've said so far, because I've gone over four of the seven ways. So the number one was you can host an interview series. Number two, you do a co-creation expert panel, number three, you could do a webinar swap and the, before an interview swap. All right. So I've one more swap idea for you, and that is a free gift swap.

Katie: So here's what I did. I had a brand new free gift when I first got my newest website and I wanted to be able to promote that free gift to more people. And so I reached out to a specific group that I knew, um, my kind of people in it, my kind of women. And I did an intro. I described who I was, what I did like the problem that I solved. Um, I have a free gift. It's perfect for this audience. If anyone in this group serves the similar audience to what I just described, I would love to do a free gift swap, meaning I will send an email on your behalf that you write that introduces your free gift to my audience. And then I'm going to write an email for your audience that introduces my free gift. And I had a handful of takers on it.

Katie: Most of them weren't great fits, but I did find two were a great fit. And, and we did it. And so again, it was a pretty easy partnership, not that difficult, um, gave us an opportunity to get to know each other and share a little bit. And I remember the leader of that group commented and was like, this is what it's all about. This was perfect. All right. The number six of my seven ways to collaborate in business is podcast interviews. So again, you may not have a podcast and I understand that's the case. Um, you could, again, easily interview somebody on zoom, take the audio of that and turn it into, uh, an audio interview podcast. If you wanted, or you could simply use the video of the zoom interview and you could distribute it to your audience and promote, right. But if somebody else has a podcast, um, and you are pitching yourself to be on their podcasts, it works better if it's a win-win.

Katie: So what I see a lot is just this essence of like, what can I get, what can I get from this group? How can I get people to promote me? How can I get people? And when you're asking that question, it's so out of balance, right? With like the kinship of it all, like the idea of collaboration is that it's a win-win. And so anytime you're going to ask for someone's time, attention, or favor, you need to make it a win, win to show how appreciative you are of someone's time and have them sharing their expertise. And so even if you don't have a podcast, please show up when you pitch yourself to their podcast, as the way to make it a win-win for them and that they could get in front of your audience. The other thing I want to say about podcasts is when you're a guest on someone's podcast, it's really important that you, number one, leave them a five star review on their podcast.

Katie: Like they need that, give them some words, give them some credit. Like that is like a number one, gift. Number two, definitely be promoting that podcast in more than once. Right? Don't don't um, you know, put it out there one time and say, yep, I did it. It's like, there's a lot of time and energy and money and attention that goes into creating a podcast episode, right? It's not just your time of being interviewed, but it's also the editing, the processing, right. Doing soundbites, getting it onto the feed. There's a lot that goes into it. And there's a lot of money and time spent on that. And so showing your appreciation and be a BFF to the podcast, prune by promoting the episode that you're in and any other episodes as well, like show up and be a friend. Right. And so it gets out of the, what can I get and more in the, how can this be a given a given receive?

Katie: How can I show my gratitude? Because the people that show their gratitude get invited back. So keep that in mind. Okay. So we've done number five, free gift swap. Um, by sending emails, number six was podcast interviews. Number seven is one of my most favorite. And it's probably because I always teach about how to craft an irresistible offer. And that includes bonuses. And a lot of my clients will be like, oh my God, how much content do I have to create? Like, you know, bonuses is like even more stuff that I have to record. So the collaborative idea here is to find complimentary bonus partners. And what do I mean by that? You get to find a, for example, when I was business coaching solo, before the launch squad, um, one of the things I was really passionate about and I still am is, um, the way you look, I did a lot of speaker training.

Katie: I helped people write their talk and write an offer from stage and what you wear, whether it's to a meet up group or online, or, you know, on a stage in front of a thousand people, what you wear matters and knowing your colors, knowing your style, um, you know, see me, I'm not like a big makeup person. It's not about the glamour. It's just about being fully you and allowing yourself to be fully seen. And that was something I really believed in and still do. So that's an example of a complimentary bonus that I would love to put into my program. If somebody, if I could collaborate with an image consultant that had a recorded training or a module, so I'm not asking for their full program that they sell for $1,500. I'm not asking for that for free, but I'm just say, Hey, can you maybe either record a one hour thing for this particular thing?

Katie: And we can brand it with my program name branding, which is great, or they give single module out of their program to my participants because, and I've done this myself, the participants here that module, but they know that there's a module before it, and after it, and the curiosity gets piqued and you can send a follow-up email sequence to get them to buy the whole thing. So do you see the win-win my audience wins. I win because I've got a more, a better bonus and more exciting bonus that I couldn't provide without a partner. And my partner wins because she's getting in front of the ideal audience that she's looking for. Right? So it's all that win-win win. Um, another example is I sold a program where we had, uh, how to do video online. And we partnered up with somebody that was sharing about social media, and she shared a little bit from her social media kind of zone, a vault of resources and brought it over as a bonus to our program.

Katie: And she consistently gets clients as a result of that partnership. Let me, let me outline the most important things I want you to take away from this list size matters, unless your heart says no. Right? Because collaborating with somebody that doesn't have a huge list could be a beautiful thing for all involved. And so please do not make decisions just based on list. Um, know that your heart should be at the center of everything you're choosing to do. It should be a give and take. And I want you to be thinking about how much more can I give, how can I keep giving? Because when that is your essence, when you're putting yourself behind any collaboration, your energy is so much more magnetic than it's going to work. Is it going to build my list? Am I going to get the biggest bang for my buck?

Katie: Am I gonna, you know, I'm investing all this time and all this money and right. Do you have any of those feelings? We need to stop the project and just either get rid of the project or get rid of your bad attitude and start again. Um, but if you come from it with this perspective of giving of collaboration, of partnership, of sharing your audience with others, knowing that everything comes back to you, karmically, that is just a beautiful place to be. And collaboration works better than Facebook ads when you're still figuring stuff out and figuring out your messaging, it's cheaper, it works better. It works faster. And you're usually walking away with something that you can leverage later on. So, as I said, like the interview series, and then I talked about complimentary bonus partners. What if one of your interviews was perfect for it to be a bonus in your program?

Katie: And now because you've eliminated the opportunity for people to keep watching the interview series over and over, they either bought it or they didn't, there has value. It's not free. And you can take that interview and a couple of those, your top five interviews or the whole dang series. And that could be a bonus in your program. Not just to be a bonus, though, it has to align with your offer. It has to make sense. It has to solve a problem that your buyer hats there's more to be said about bonuses, but we're not just kind of throwing stuff out there just cause you have it. So be really, um, choosy with what, what you're going to put out there to your buyers. But you see how a lot of these collaborations can be reused, repurposed and used again and again. Um, they are so worth your time. So, all right, that's it for today. Thank you so much for being here. We love having you in the group. If you're not already in the light, in your launch Facebook group, we encourage you to join. I know I've broadcasting in a few places today, um, but that this is where the magic happens. We love your questions for participation, and we've got a lot coming up for you in store, even in just a couple of weeks. So stay tuned. All right, everyone have a great day. Bye. Hey,

Announcer: Hey, thanks for listening. If you'd like to have clarity, confidence and excitement around your next launch, join us in the Lighten Your Launch Facebook group today at thelaunchsquadlab.com/facebook. We also invite you to download our free gift, the Lighten Your Launch starter kit, the free guide to creating an irresistible offer, pricing it right, overcoming tech barriers, and tapping into the energy you need for success. Get it now at thelaunchsquadlab.com/freegift.

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About the Show

The Lighten Your Launch Podcast is for Coaches and Course Creators who want a lighter online launch experience. Maybe you’ve done a few launches already, and feel exhausted just thinking about it! Or, it’s been one of your goals, but you don’t know where to start.

Tune in to learn from our team of experts, The Launch Squad, who aren’t afraid to dig into all aspects of launching: sales, strategy, technology, mindset, funnels, and even a bit of woo to get you through the toughest times. Let’s put a stop to perfectionism and procrastination, and finally take your launch from intimidating to money-making!