How To Sell More With Successful Collaborations (With Amy Purdie)

Working with other experts is a powerful strategy to reach more of your ideal clients.  Today, I am joined by brand expert & designer Amy Purdie as we share how we recently ran a hugely successful collaboration, the List Grower and our do's and don'ts to running successful collaborations.

You will also hear from 2 of our amazing clients who experienced this collaboration first hand, Kelly Oliver Douglas and Emma Hill.

The List Grower is our 30 day LIVE Coaching Programme where Amy and I support female business owners to grow your audience of WARM LEADS into your business through email marketing.

This is perfect if you haven't got started on your own email marketing strategy or if you need to restart yours.

The 30 days programme takes you through the entire process step by step, helping you to implement this strategy. And because we understand it can feel overwhelming, we also include templates and done for your services so you can take fast action and achieve REAL results within 30 days.

If you would like to be amongst the first to hear about our next delivery of the List Grower, you can join our WAITLIST here (there is no obligation to purchase) - https://rachelsmith-thebusinessgrower.com/list-grower/

Who Joined Me On The Podcast Today:

Amy Purdie - my collaboration partner and brand expert.  Amy has been helping  businesses  to be MORE VISIBLE since 2007 and loves all things branding and in particular creating a pioneering brand that connects you to your ideal client.

Find out more about Amy here: https://amypurdie.co.uk/

Kelly Oliver Dougall - from Unisus Counselling Services and you can download her fabulous RELAXING MEDITATION here: https://www.unisus.org.uk/relaxing-meditation

Emma Hill - founder of Wild Things Forest School and you can download her Autumn Fun Guide here: https://www.wildthingsyork.co.uk/autumn-fun

Also mention my Web Manager Lisa Rees who provided down for you web services on the List Grower and you can find out more about Lisa's services here: https://wonderfulworldofwebsites.com/

Connect with me further:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TheBusinessGrower

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thebusinessgrower/

Website: https://rachelsmith-thebusinessgrower.com

I hope you loved this week's episode, I would love for you to drop me a review so more people like you, find this content.

Rachel x

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If you have any questions about scaling your business to consistent months of high income, drop me a message here: http://help@rachelsmith-thebusinessgrower.com

Love Rachel x

Transcript

0:00

welcome to the money, mindset and miracles podcast. Helping you to grow a predictable and scalable months of high income from your business as gracefully as possible. I'm Rachel Smith business coach mindset expert. And the founder of momentum mastermind, your 90-day sprint to scaling your business to five care. Join me every week as I dive into the tips, inspirational stories and strategies that are going to support you on your journey. To growing your awesome business. I'm gonna talk about one of the most powerful strategies in business and how they can go terribly wrong and how they can go terribly, right? So the strategy that we're talking about is collaboration. You are likely to have heard the word bonded around fall so many times, like you need to collaborate with the other experts. But actually getting this right is really tricky. So I'm going to break that down with my guest today. We've recently just completed our first collaboration. on a live program where we were helping our clients to scale their business through, creating an email strategy and a sales funnel. This was like such a wonderful experience to work with my guest, Amy, who you're going to meet in a moment. There's so much that we want to share with you so that you can actually go and use collaborations in your business as well. Amy, we are here to talk about our collaboration that we have done recently on the list grower. And I really wanted to share this with our audiences. Cause I think, as we said, when we were just having like a bit of a off. Line chat a minute ago is there's a lot of talk about collaboration, but there's also a lot of things that can go wrong in a collaboration and I definitely experienced that we can talk about that a little bit later. But there's also so much benefit from collaborating. And I really wanted to share with our audiences. Some of the things that you can do to have a successful collaboration and some of the things to kind of watch out for as well that that will help you to have a really successful experience. I've been Amy's client, she's been my client, and we have quite a different skill set. I'm a business coach. I use a lot of strategy in my business, which is something similar to Amy, but if you can just share with my audience kind of where your skill set is different, Amy, that'd be really helpful. Yeah, so I call myself a brand explorer, which is like a posh name for a graphic designer and brand strategist. So that's where the strategy is with the brand strategist, the brand strategy even. But, um, graphic design is My key thing that's that's where I started and that's definitely the main focus of a business strategy just ties in beautifully with it because you can't do really good design without having a really good strategy behind it. So that means we work quite well together because you've got this this different side of strategy because business strategy and brand strategy are not the same thing and that works really really well with graphic design and how important that is in order to get your message across and communicate really effectively with your audience. Yeah, and especially in this day and age when we're on all of these platforms where we want to stand out, we want to be noticed, we want it to be easy for our audiences to understand who we are, who we work with and whether or not we are for them. So like brand is essential, The kind of background on the list grower is I have this product. It was called something else. And it was essentially a mini program that's, supported people to grow an email. list to have a funnel and to have a way of calling in warm leads. So I'd run it a couple of times, had really great success for it, but I knew there was something missing. And it was the bit that was missing for me. Was the skill set that I don't have, but Amy has, and it was like over the summer holidays and you looking at my overall kind of plan that I was going to relaunch the list grower. Um, and I really wanted it to be fantastic. I really wanted it to have everything in it for my clients to have success. And that's how I always approach all of my offers. I always think about, you know, what can I put in this? That is going to really help and support my, uh, my clients to get as much success and to get some real results from this. I'm not a fan of like, just selling stuff and not caring if people get results, you know. I'm really, like, very, very committed to trying to ensure that. My clients, have brilliant opportunities to come and get real results. And I knew that there was something missing and it just felt so natural to reach out to Amy and say to her, look, you have the skills on the design side of things. That I don't have, how about we come together and look at how we can bring this together. So I have two options at that stage. The first option was to pay Amy to provide all of those templates and those done for you services that are included within the Listgrower program, or I could have collaborated with her. Reason why I didn't go down the let's pay Amy to do those things is that I understand the power of collaboration, like that would still be me on my own going out there promoting this offer, getting in those clients. Amy wouldn't have had any involvement at that stage. She would have been paid. It would have been great. But I wanted to reach a bigger audience. I've got, you know, got an existing audience of my own, which I'm continuously growing the things like the podcast I knew that it, there would be Even more success if I was able to collaborate with Amy I could promote it to Amy's audience as well. Now there's a difficulty in that I could say to Amy at any point, Amy, I've got this great offer. I'd like to share it with your audience, and I'm sure she'd say yes. But at that stage, Amy's audience doesn't know me. So actually, what would that mean to them? There would just be somebody that Amy's saying, Oh, this is great. She's great. Go and work with her. It's much more powerful for Amy to be talking to her own audience because she's the one who's developed that know, like, and trust element and they're much more likely to buy something that Amy's promoting than me, who's a relative stranger. So that's kind of my take on where my head was at over the summer. when I decided to reach out to Amy. So Amy, from your perspective, what did it mean for you to work in collaboration with somebody else? I think just like what you said, reaching a different audience of people who didn't know me is always a good thing. But I think also it's about having a stronger offer, isn't it? Being able to provide something that is even better than you could provide on your own can only be a good thing. Because like you were saying, results for everybody are going to be so much better. So that's... Wonderful, but also it's really nice to work with somebody, because we both, we're soul traders, aren't we? We're all by ourselves, and when you're by yourself... You know, you can, you can do a lot of stuff, but it's really nice to have somebody else to thrash ideas out with and have someone to go, Oh, what do you think about this? And I think that's happened a few times during the list grower, hasn't it? Well, I've said, Oh, should we say this? And is this the right thing to say? And just double checking things. And I think that's really lovely to be able to do that. It's nice to work with somebody else and just get a different take on things. And. Also like the fact that we do things differently so I can watch how you're doing things and learn from that and you can watch how I'm doing things and learn from that and so I'm learning, in the list grower I'm learning loads about email marketing and you'll be learning loads about sign and Canva and that's great so we both benefit from the content too. Um, and I think. There's, there's a lot to be said for having two people, to be able to get back to people a bit quicker, you know, if I'm not around you, you're there, and if you're not around, I'm there most of the time, I think that's been pretty much how it works. You seem to be there quite early in the morning, I'm there a bit later in the day, and that seems to work really nicely. Um, so I think, I think it's just really lovely to, to work with somebody else, especially somebody else who you know is gonna do a good job. Um. Not make it a mess of everything, you know? You know, and I knew what was gonna work. When you said said you wanted to work on this with me, I was like, it didn't take long to think about. Well, yes.'cause I knew, obviously I knew you for a while and I knew being a client for a long time that you would be amazing, and how, how supportive you'd be for my people buying into this as well as your people. Um, so it's just so good to, to have all of that together. So yeah, collaborating is. Wonderful. You've raised like such valid points there, Amy, when I was first talking about it on the podcast, I hadn't even thought about the fact that one of the pieces of magic has been actually working with another person because in the 10 years I've been running a business, it's been like mainly me, but we have that kind of ability before, during, and whilst running the Lisboa to really kind of like be supportive, be like a little mini team. And I have loved that as well. Yeah. And certainly in past collaborations I've had, that's what I've thought. It's been so nice to not be on your own, but then I also still like running my own business by myself, but to be able to have this extra thing where it's not just me, it's really lovely. But I also think that thing you said about reputation is true and, you know, we'll get into this later on, but I think it is one of the things to think about when you're collaborating with somebody is that your reputation that you've spent a long time building up is at risk here. You know, it's something that you need to really think about is that the person that you're looking to collaborate with, can you trust them? So that your reputation doesn't just remain in intact, but actually it's escalated because you are given the ability to show up in a completely different way in partnership with somebody and, you know, work with people who'd never worked with you before. Yeah, that's part of your brand, isn't it? Which is obviously all my thing. And you've got to protect that. So working with the right people is really critical. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's definitely something to think about. So, it was in my plan to run the list grower, I knew that I was going to run that in, September. It was always there, but for you, you know, I'd be really interested to know how did working on the list grow actually support your business growth and help you to achieve the goals that you'd set for yourself in your business? Well, I think for me, it's, it's about expanding who knows about me. So obviously that happened through marketing, the list grower, I'm doing it too, marketing the list grower. And also sort of, you know, like that association. You were just saying with the reputation association with you, that can be a good thing for me because you're great. And if people think you're great and they think that I know you and we're working together, that feels good. Um, and also, you know, financially, it's always good to be able to have a bit of extra income, isn't it? So this is like an additional income stream, which can only be a good thing. And also expands. What I can offer to my audience and gives them some things that I wouldn't have been able to give them otherwise, because I'm definitely not an email marketing expert. I do a lot of email marketing. I would say I know quite a lot about it, but I'm definitely not a. Expert in the same way that you are. So to be able to give them that it's wonderful because I want, I want to be able to help my clients. I don't want them to be sitting there going, Oh, this is nice. I want them to be like, yes, I am succeeding. And the more, the more I can pour in to help them do that in their businesses. And we had, um, like we, our approach to the launch was quite relaxed. We, I mean, we spent about. Two weeks, I think, just telling our people what we've got. There was no challenge, there was no webinar, there was nothing. It was what I class as a, like, a bit of a lazy launch. It wasn't. There was a lot of effort that went into it. But we were, like, we didn't really have capacity to do any interviews. We didn't get on each other's podcasts. Um, we didn't really kind of mix across the two. platforms or worlds. Um, you know, I was very much speaking to my audience. You were very much speaking to your audience. Um, and it just goes to show that actually just that kind of double energy, that double effort really got some great results. And it, you know, we really called in a really brilliant group of clients in this first Toronto. And it was a real kind of 50, 50 split of like people from your world and people from. My world as well. So it was really interesting to see who was attracted to this and who, you know, who came and worked with us. Um, so yeah, I think you're right. I think you've got to look at your own time. You've got to think about how does this fit in? Um, does it work for me? And what is that onward strategy as well afterwards? So for you, Amy, what are some of the things that worked really well that you'd love to share with the audience? Well, you just talked just now about our launch and how we did it sort of separately and we did do it separately, but at the same time, we also used each other's skills. So you wrote loads of copy, you wrote loads of emails that we both sent out separately to our separate lists. And then they were so useful for doing the marketing with, because I, I did the visuals and I gave you visuals. I gave Lisa visuals who we haven't mentioned Lisa, but Lisa did some, some web stuff as part of this grow, which has been really helpful for. Um, the list growers who don't want to baffle around with their websites. And so she promoted some stuff as well. So we, we sort of crossed with our own, our skills and made sure that we made the most of those things. And I found that really helpful because to me, creating a shed load of graphics to promote something as a doddle, writing copy. I can do it, but not necessarily as well as you can. So it was really good to be able to, to combine those two things. And that, that sped the process up for me, which was great. And I feel that it made the launch so much easier. So you call it a lazy launch. If I'd been doing all of that on my own, then certainly to an outsider, it probably didn't look like a lazy launch. But it really was because I was like, this is easy. I've got copy. I've just got to make things look pretty. And it's brilliant. That was great. Yeah, I totally agree with you actually Amy, I mean, like I am really good at the copy side of things, but in terms of graphics in my normal launches it's normally a selfie, and the quality, of the images that you give Lisa and I. To share across our own platforms, it was like, I was posting three times a day. It was so easy and I felt like it wasn't the same thing. There was like a different message. There was a different angle that really helped keep the content really fresh as well. And it wasn't just in the launch. I've mentioned that because you just mentioned it before you asked me that question. But just delivering, um, the list grower itself. It's just been really great because again, we've had those complimentary skills. And it's meant that it's been so, so much better than it would have been if it had just been one of us. I think that's really true. I mean, like your eye for detail, your expertise in all things design. You know, the feedback back that I've had from the people who've, been part of the LIS grow this first time round, they've felt as if they're approaching business in a much more professional way because they've got the strategy, they've got their branding sorted, they feel like they've got the whole toolkit to go out there. and show up and deliver their promotion about their lead magnet and their business in exactly the same way that we were able to during the launch because we were combining those skill sets. What have you learned about collaborations from this experience? Oh, that is quite a good question because yes, I have done quite a lot of collaborations before. I think, it is about communication, which again isn't, isn't something I've necessarily learned this time around, but I think is really critical. I don't think you can do a collaboration without actually talking to each other and scratching out all the details and making sure that everything is set out properly and that you've come to agreements and signed things, which always feels really awkward, doesn't it? But I think it's so important to do, um, just to make sure you've done things properly. It's important to do things properly. So that's always really important. And I think it's always really important to make sure that you know, the person you're collaborating with and that, you know, they're going to do an amazing job. And I have had, I'm certainly not going to. Mentioned details, but I have had something in the past where I worked with somebody who I really liked and I thought everything would be wonderful and it wasn't. And it's very unpleasant when that happens. So I'm very keen to avoid that. And ever since then, I think I've been more choosy. You have to be really choosy. I think it's so important that you pick somebody who you know is going to do an amazing job. So that when you're working with somebody else, it isn't going to impact badly on your reputation. And also that you do as much as you can. And I feel in this Discoverer, and I know I've said this to you privately, I don't feel that I have been as on it with this Discoverer as I would have liked to, because I had some things going on in life. Um, so I'm slightly disappointed about that. And I don't think you feel the same, which is good, but I feel there's definitely a little bit more that I could have done. And I would hate to feel that either of us were disappointed with the other person's. Performance, I knew that delivering the list grow was in my calendar for September. And actually we extended it into October as well because the guys were getting such great results. We were like, actually, there's a, there's a opportunity here to keep on working with them. Um, so we extended it. So you know, I think there's a balance there and we already know that we're going to do a second round of the collaboration, um, between Amy and myself and Lisa, our technical expert. And I think that's going to be maybe feel easier for you because it'll be in the schedule well in advance. We've had this round, we understand each other's skill set, you know, like I haven't really got an eye for detail, Amy has, she's got all that expertise in the design, but also in running a successful business and you brought so much, all of that into the list grower. Yeah. I think it definitely will be great that it's more planned in advance. So it's, it's lovely having it in there now and knowing that it's going to happen and knowing when it's going to happen. Yeah. It's great. So I'm excited. It's going to be really good. Yeah. And for anybody who's listening to this, it was like, you know, even if you listen to this and you think, well, I'm listening to this because I'm interested in collaborations. But if anybody's listening to this and thinking, Oh my God, I need to get an email strategy up and running. I am actually going to share at the end of this, our wait list. For the lister'cause it is amazing. And, um, yeah, so we'll, we'll give you some details about that. But really today's conversation is about, um, the collaboration. So for people who are like, okay, I thought collaborations worked for me, or I've maybe not had the best experience about collaborating successfully. What are the three tips that you would like to share, Amy, so that people can go off with confidence and actually have really brilliant collaborations with other people? Okay, so I think I've actually covered most of them already, just through us talking. Yeah, it's Yeah, I think, I think the main thing is, is communication. That's absolutely critical. If you don't communicate in England, it's not going to work, is it? And it might feel a bit one sided or just unfair and that, that isn't good. I think it's also really important to set some terms. or some rules or something upfront, preferably something that you can sign that says this is the responsibility of this person. And this is who's managing the money. And this is how all of that stuff's working. So you don't have to worry about the answers to those questions later on and have awkward conversations, get all the awkward bit out of the way. And it probably won't feel awkward. I think if you're working with the right person, it won't feel awkward. You'll just get that moment where you go, we need to sign something. And the other person will go, that's a good idea. So I think it's important. It's important to set those things up just like you would in any business. exchange, any description, you would always have terms, wouldn't you? And it's just the same in this scenario. And then the other person, the other thing is, is to make sure that the person that you are collaborating with is amazing. And then you can't really go wrong, can you? Yeah, I think that's, I mean, it's so, so true and I'm not surprised that you're reiterating those with this kind of last part of the podcast. So for me, um, one of the key things is strategy. So I always approach everything with strategy. It's like, how does the list grow fit into my business? How does it fit into Amy's business? How does it fit into our technical expert Lisa's business? And it's ensuring that actually. there is that kind of forward plan in each of our businesses that it fits in, that people got time and capacity to actually participate. Um, and yeah, it's really about having a clear strategy, having a beginning and end of the launch of running the program. That anything that is a change like The extension, giving people an extra opportunity to work, continue to work with us. That's in agreement before you start to talk to other people about it. And it's thinking about, right, if I'm running this course, where does that lead me to? You know, I've pulled in all these extra clients. What is the next step? How does, how can I take them? Further into my business with my kind of forward strategy. So that's definitely one. The second one I think is really important and something that I've learned the hard way is about your compatibility. In the past, I've done a few collaborations. But the skill set of like their partners have been too close. So you always feel as if you get one partner who doesn't really want to share what you're doing with their audience because there's that fear from them that their audience might prefer you. So I think for us, we had myself as a business coach, Amy as a brand expert, and then Lisa as a technical expert. They're quite different skill sets. And it was, I think it's been quite clear in the list grower, like, you know, I'm going to give clients feedback on their strategy, on their content, on their marketing. Definitely. That's really clear. Amy's then got her own skill set on looking at people's designs, their professionalism, really having that kind of ability to review people's work as well and give them really constructive feedback, give them some tips about how they might do things differently. And then obviously Lisa's was like the technical side of things, which I don't think either of us would profess to have. So actually it, those skills complemented each other. There was no like people worried about. Oh, you're speaking to this person and they're going to prefer you. It was all about us being in this together, thinking about how we can support our clients in the deepest, most transformational way and bringing that skillset together. And that has been like a really massive learning. And then the kind of third aspect is that because you've got more people in the pot. I think one of the really important aspects is planning. So actually when I'm doing a launch in my best intentions, when it's myself, I like to have things pre planned. But in reality, I am really behind the scenes go, right, okay, I've got to write another sales email, maybe for the next day. So I'm not that Organized because I'm busy working clients and busy doing other things. But with this, because it was a launch with three people, I couldn't be giving Amy and Lisa the sales emails the day before it really forced me to, to sit down and it didn't even take that long, but to write those sales emails in advance so that we all had that information in advance. I think if, if any of us were feeling like we're in catch up all the time, that would have been really hard. Give people what they need in advance so they can actually use it. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think, um, having all of that stuff up front was super handy for me, that stuff that you created. But again, for me, I also had to create a lot of stuff up front, which is, is easy, but it isn't what I would do if it was on, if I was on my own. I might do a few days worth up front, but I wouldn't do two weeks all at one go. But it's, um, It's not hard once you sit down and do it, and then it's, it's all done, and then it's easier, not just for you, but for me as well, it's great. Yeah, yeah, I think anything that makes the working together easier, but planning was a big one having all the content ready in advance for this program, well in advance, not up to the nail. You couldn't, you can't do that when you're not on your own. And the next one is going to be even easier because we have it all done already. Yeah. And we're going to be sharing some of the success stories as well from the current, List Grower client, cohort that's been through this time. So you can actually hear from, from those guys, what it's been like to be part of the List Grower. As, as Amy says, we've got plans to run this again. But Amy, I just want to, you know, personally say thank you so much for making the time to come and work with me on this and for everything that you've inputted into the LISCO. It has been such a great experience. Can't wait to do it again. I can only reiterate that. Thank you very much for inviting me to join you in it. It's been amazing and I've fully enjoyed it. It's going to be great to do this again and again and again. Yeah, exactly. And for anybody who's like, okay, this has given me confidence now to maybe think about how they could approach a collaboration in their business. You know, who, who's already in your world that you've got an existing relationship with, who you trust, where actually you've got that compatibility of skills, you can come together. and actually create something as amazing as the Lisboro.. You have heard our six key takeaways, which all down to communication, relationship, strategy, having a contract in place, Ensuring that your skills are compatible and planning. Thank you to Amy for jumping on and sharing her thoughts on our collaboration on the LISQA. You know, good to hear from two of our amazing clients who are currently working their way through the list grows. They're going to talk about their own experience working with Amy and myself and their current results, which are amazing. Hello, my name is Kelly Oliver Dougall and my business is called Unisys Wellbeing. We provide mental health support through our counselling service, and I wanted to increase the number of clients that are coming through our service. So I joined the list grower. Rachel helped me to record a relax and meditation as a lead magnet to offer for free and then to build an email sales funnel. I've managed to increase the number of,, signups on my email list, which will help me to build an audience for my offer. I've had loads of support of Rachel and I'd highly recommend that you join if you're looking for help to promote your services. I'm Emma Hill, founder of WildThings. WildThings runs forest school sessions for children and adults in York, and as well as running outdoor sessions, I also create nature based activity boxes. So I joined the List Grower as I'm keen to expand my origins mainly from families who are based in York to UK wide as I plan to develop a nature based subscription box for children. I've loved being part of the List Grower as it's really helped me to develop a strategy for growing your origins and then the important bit for me is help me to actually implement it. So there's a daily support where the experts are at hand to offer guidance and advice. And there's been once or twice I nearly gave up as I was finding it so hard to make the time and to get some bits of work. But the experts were on hand to help and after this I was back on track. I've also loved that the other participants of the course are part of the same messaging group. And over time it's felt like a community where we've been able to give feedback on each other's work and to share expertise. And again, all of that has really helped to keep me, um, focused and motivated. What have I achieved during this course? I created an 11 page lead magnet using Canva. Also using Canva, I designed a landing page and a thank you page. I've developed an email sequence and integrated that into, um, my website I established a Facebook group to further grow,, my audience. I've had 57 sign ups to the lead magnet. And I've seen a gradual growth in the Facebook group. I, genuinely wouldn't have achieved all of this without the support and guidance., of the course and Rachel's daily checking in on us all and making sure that we're all supported and giving us accountability and helping to keep us all on track. It's been amazing if you would like to grow your audience of warm leads so that you have even more amazing clients coming through your business, the list grower is the program. That's going to help you to achieve that. And with that, you will get all of that support that Amy and I have been talking about. in this episode. If you would like to join our wet list for the next round of the list, grower. I'm going to leave all of the details about how you can join that. Wait list down in the show notes. Down in the show notes, you can also find information about Emmy. Kelly and Emma, all of whom you've heard from on this podcast. I hope this has really helped you to think about how you can use collaborations in your business. I can't emphasize how amazing it is to actually work with somebody else and have access, to their audience. Until next time, have a really great week growing your awesome business. Bye for now.