Collaborating with other businesses and brands is a crucial part of the personal branding roadmap.

Even though you’re working on building your individual personal brand, it’s a journey best enjoyed with others.

That’s why, this month inside the Cafinnate Academy, we’re encouraging you to make a special effort to reach out to and collaborate with others in your industry.

When you collaborate with someone who’s speaking to the same or similar audience as the one you’re targeting, you’re likely to gain new followers and more importantly, new leads which lead to new sales.

The idea is to find joint venture partners who have a bigger audience than you. Lead generation is a numbers game.

“But if they’ve already got a big audience, what value can I give them?”

I’m glad you asked.

Collaborations ALWAYS have to have a win-win outcome. A win for you and a win for your collaboration partner.

The Collaboration Secret Formula

The ‘not-so-secret formula’ for collaborations is:

COLLABORATION = AUDIENCE + VALUE

If they’ve got THE AUDIENCE, you need to provide THE VALUE.

So what value can you provide?

I’m glad you asked that too!

Here are some Collaboration examples:

• Doing a Facebook Live for their audience and teaching your secret “How to” or “Pro Tips”
• Being a guest on someone’s podcast
• Write a guest blog post specifically for someone else’s audience and email it to them
• Co-host a webinar
• Run a joint giveaway/competition
• Provide a special offer exclusively for their audience

Essentially, you’re providing the value through them which makes them look good in the eyes of their audience.

 

Affiliate Programs

Another option is to set up an affiliate program and share a product or service that they can sell to their audience in exchange for taking a percentage for each sale. So that translates into money directly into their pocket.

For example, all our Cafinnate members have the choice to join our affiliate program and promote the membership to their audience with a special link that tracks their clicks and sales. And when someone signs up using their link, that member earns recurring commission every month for the life cycle of that active member.

 

 

Collaborate for a Fee

…and finally, when all’s said and done, if you’ve tried all of the above, or you can’t provide any of the above, you can always pay your collaboration partner a fee!

You’d need to figure out what your marketing spend on this campaign would be for you, and put it down to ‘Marketing Costs’

The benefit of going this approach is that a ‘referral’ ‘review’ or ‘word of mouth’ promotion from someone who’s already built their credibility with their audience is far more likely to sell that a straight up advert from you promising that your product or service is worth the money your audience might spend on it.

Having someone else say this on your behalf goes a much longer way!

 

It’s not to say that these collaboration methods will all work or all generate sales, but its worthwhile to test them out and see which ones get you the most return for your input.

 

The #CafinnateCollaborate Challenge

 

So now that you’ve got a better idea of what form of collaboration looks like and which option best suits you, your products and services, and your pocket, now it’s time to take action.

We’ve declared August 2020 #CafinnateCollaborate month because #womensupportingwomen (and it’s Women’s Month in South Africa!).

Our challenge to you is to:

1. Decide on the Collaboration approach that you’re going to implement
2. Contact at least 3 women you want to offer this collaboration opportunity to. If you’ve never done this before or you’ve wanted to, but have fallen prey to all the excuses your brain could come up with, focus your attention on the act of reaching out, rather than the outcome of whether they agree or not. This is about getting into the habit of instigating collaborations. Remember: it’s a number’s game!

Let us know how it goes!

 

And once you’ve got your collaboration partners lined up, here’s a masterclass you’re going to want to watch:

 

Healthy Collaborations in Business Masterclass

Getting your legal ducks in a row

 

In this masterclass attorney Nicolene Schoeman-Louw distills her years of legal knowledge and experience into a short and rich masterclass to explain the different collaboration options, and what we should be aware of legally whenever we enter into any form of collaboration.

As creatives you often prefer to gloss over the cold hard facts and get stuck into the creative process, but this masterclass will explain clearly and concisely, in language you can understand, what you need to do and be aware of to ensure that your collaborative projects are a win-win-win for all involved from a legal standpoint..

 

SIGN UP TO Cafinnate Academy TO ACCESS THIS MASTERCLASS

 

#CafinnateCollaborate Month

In line with our theme this month, we’re collaborating with our Cafinnate Ambassadors to bring you some valuable SPECIAL OFFERS and A CHANCE TO WIN!

Who are the Cafinnate Ambassadors?

They’re the core members of the Cafinnate Crew who believe so strongly in the value of this community, that they’ve stepped up to hold space every month for fellow female solopreneurs to help them build their confidence in business, in their creativity and in their self identity.

Our Ambassadors host free monthly meet-ups for ANY woman to join.

Find out more and book your spot at the next meetup here

 

SPECIAL OFFERS FOR #CAFINNATECOLLABORATE

WIN, WIN, WIN

 

Stand the chance to WIN 1 of several prizes during August 2020 – AKA #CafinnateCollaborate month!

 

HOW TO ENTER:

Entry to the Giveaway is easy…