Strength Through Collaboration

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Has 2009 been a great year for you or a tough year?

What happens in bad economic times is that the weaker businesses fade away. They just don't have the persistence and staying power to succeed.

On the other hand, the stronger businesses take a tough economy as a challenge and find ways to thrive.

These businesses take risks, they innovate, they work on their marketing and they focus on customer service to keep their existing clients delighted.

They also collaborate.

I've declared collaboration to be my marketing and business theme for the year 2010. But what exactly is collaboration and how can it help your business? And what things can you actually do to collaborate?

Collaboration is defined as: "the action of working jointly with others on an activity, esp. to produce or create something."

What you're doing is working with associates, partners and even clients to create something you wouldn't have created by yourself.

And collaboration creates synergy. That is, one plus one doesn't equal two but five or more. The power of collaboration adds energy to any undertaking and tends to propel things forward.

Here are some ways you can collaborate this year.

Co-Coaching

Two heads are better than one. Everybody knows this, but as an Independent Professional, it often feels easier to go it alone. But what if you could team up with an associate?

For the past two years, I've met with my friend and associate Patrick Summar once a quarter, and we help each other with our businesses. For a full day we mastermind, brainstorm and coach each other. It's resulted in great results for both of us.

Find someone whose talents can compliment yours. I help Patrick with marketing plans and Patrick helps me with systems and structure in my business.

Affiliation

Does one of your associates, or even one of your competitors have a service or program that you don't offer? Why not help them sell this service and get paid a commission? Every month I earn from $3K to $5K in affiliate commissions.

I simply mention my affiliate partners in my eZine every week. And once in awhile I send a special email to promote the services of one of my affiliate partners. If your partner offers quality services or programs that you don't, why not?

Partnering

Perhaps you offer a business service to a certain target market. Why not partner with other professionals who serve a similar market and do co-promotion?

One of the members of my Marketing Mastery Group is putting together a group of "trusted advisors" to serve his clients. He's a management consultant and the partners are an attorney, accountant, business broker and estate planner.

They'll be putting on seminars and inviting their current and potential clients to attend. The clients of each partner become the potential clients of the other partners.

Summit Meetings

Why not put on a "Summit Meeting" of your most creative business associates and clients? In an interactive, collaborative environment you'll get to know each other better and explore ways to work with together on projects.

This isn't something you can do by conference call. Getting together physically and letting the chemistry happen can lead to places you can't imagine.

I'm doing an InfoGuru Summit Meeting at the end of January with the professional experts I've interviewed for my Marketing Club. For a weekend we'll make new connections, brainstorm, and emerge with new business collaborations for the new year.

Mastermind Groups

These groups can be done by teleconference or in-person. The format is to meet regularly - weekly, bi-monthly or monthly and support each other through idea and resource sharing.

My experience with groups like this is that everyone starts to put out ideas of things they've wanted to do but didn't have the confidence to start. With the support and encouragement of the group, new projects get launched, many with great success.

Those are just a few of the ways you can collaborate.

I encourage you to make collaboration a centerpiece of your business in the coming year. You can only get so far by doing things all by yourself - especially in a tough economy. Who knows how far you can go if you creatively work together with others?

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Collaboration makes your business stronger. It helps you discover new ways of doing things and new avenues of expansion. When you lend support to others and receive support yourself, business also becomes a more enriching and fulfilling experience.

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How are you planning to collaborate in 2010? Please share ideas of successful collaborations. Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the Comments link below.

Comments

[Kare Anderson]

You are joining many other individuals and organizations, Robert who understand that in an uncertain yet increasingly connected economy (and world) SPECIFIC collaboration, centered on sweet spot of mutual benefit often enables us to accomplish greater things together than we can alone. We may co-create a stand-out product or service or campaign or helpful tips. We may cross-refer. We may help each other through differing slow times for business. We may enter each other's niche markets or reduce the number of steps to buy.... and more. As a longtime advocate of adept partnering and the creator of over 60 collaborations for clients I admire your focus on supporting your community in honing this skill. For specific methods and success stories see How We Partner and Moving From Me to We

[Carol L. Skolnick, ClearLifeSolutions.com]

I discovered the power and pleasure of collaboration in this past year. It was something I wanted to do for a long time with people in complementary fields. It's also been wonderful to collaborate with those who, in the past, I might have seen as competitors. In every case our two heads have been better than one; eeryone brings something different to the mix.

I look forward to more creative projects with all kinds of professionals in the coming year. My strengths include group process facilitation (inquiry-based stress reduction, The Work of Byron Katie) and improv skills for life and business. Any takers?

[Sandra De Freitas]

Hi Robert,

I'm so glad you brought up the importance of collaboration.

In 2010 I will continue to co-coach with my mastermind group every Friday and in person twice during the year. We have done this for years and it works fabulously. It's also a lot of fun!

I am also considering some local workshops and may work with other local coaches to facilitate it with me.

I also intend to pump up my affiliate marketing for those tools that I adore and love and know that my community would love them too.

Thanks for this wonderful post Robert!

[Cheryl Sylvester]

Robert, your so right. The synergies are the real value of collaboration - as you say one plus one can equal much more than two. In 2009, my brand coaching business, Your Brand Coach (www.yourbrandcoach.ca) began collaborating with Mike Vermillion's digital production business, Far Hills Media. Together we've co-founded www.brandpersonal.com, a category-creating personal branding service for high achieving professionals and entrepreneurs to elevate their digital presence. Brand Personal is like having your own personal coach, branding expert, strategy consultant and digital PR agency working together as one team that is fully dedicated to your professional success. This is something that neither of us could have done on our own. It's the synergy that's made it possible. Here's to more collaboration in 2010!!

[Kathy Mallary]

I've been partnering with my friend and fellow coach, Michele Corey, for a couple of years now -- we meet via phone twice a month plus once a month in person, much like you and Patrick. We've helped each other through all kinds of stuff, both with our businesses and just life in general.

I'm curious about taking collaboration up a notch for 2010. Not sure yet what that looks like, but the though is energizing. Thanks for planting the seed!