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Community over competition. It\u2019s something we often say in this Rising Tide community but what does it look like? Is it sharing a friend\u2019s Instagram post to stories? Scheduling a coffee chat with a new friend? Purchasing one of their digital templates? Yes, exactly! <\/span><\/p>\r\n What community over competition looks like is mutually beneficial, impactful collaborations. Finding new biz besties helps you grow your visibility and income, things we need to do as business owners anyway. Collaborations help find your footing as an entrepreneur and pivot towards purpose.<\/span><\/p>\r\n I\u2019ve used a few types of collaborations over five years in business including developing a video content series, guest blog posts, round-up blog posts and guides, building directories, participating and hosting summits. Your collaboration type has to be specific to what you want to accomplish.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n An easy rule of thumb; the more people involved the more work you\u2019ll end up doing which means you need to effectively use the time that you do have to execute a top-notch collaboration. Whether you decide to go the guest blog route or an income-producing summit the steps you\u2019ll go through to get the most out of the collaboration are generally the same.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Always double the amount of time you plan on spending on your collab. You\u2019ll be surprised at the amount of time you\u2019ll spend outlining, emailing collaborators back and forth, fixing broken tech, updating sales pages, embedding Flodesk forms, scheduling social posts, writing sales emails, etc. <\/span><\/p>\r\n Always give yourself more buffer than you anticipate needing. I\u2019ve set aside two to three months for every successful summit I\u2019ve worked on but always wish I gave myself five to six months to execute.<\/span><\/p>\r\n When setting your time expectations, make sure you\u2019re not overburdening your collaborators with requirements to send multiple emails, schedule social posts and pre-record long presentations on short deadlines.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n One thing that helps you determine how long your collaboration will take is to map out all of the tasks you\u2019ll need to complete. Start high-level with overarching tasks such as:<\/span><\/p>\r\n Pro Tip: <\/b>From there, go back and add in more details. When you see everything you need to do in front of you, estimate the time you\u2019ll need for each of these things and schedule them on a calendar. Keep in mind that you\u2019re still running a business and a lot of these tasks are dependent on people outside of your business responding to you. This is why I suggest two to three times the amount of time you plan to spend on a collaboration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n You probably dreamed up your collaboration with a few people in mind already! Make sure to put those down on (digital) paper. This makes it easier to see any potential holes in topics, demographics or any overrepresentations of topics or demographics. If you find issues with your potential line-ups, you need to spend a little more time diving through your digital Rolodex to find people to potentially work with.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n Before you talk to potential collaborators, always vet your idea with trusted biz friends and experts in the field. Most of my larger collaborations have started with a DM to a friend asking, \u201cIs this crazy?\u201d before doing large amounts of leg work. It\u2019s saved my butt so many times!<\/span><\/p>\r\n Once you start reaching out to collaborators it\u2019s going to get hectic so it\u2019s important to have as much as humanly possible planned out before contacting them. Some of these details are going to be the difference between a yes and a no so the more work you do define these the smoother it will go. Before talking to potential collaborators <\/span>answer these questions:<\/b><\/p>\r\n When I planned to host The Hill Roundtables, I knew there were going to be objections because DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) is a topic a lot of people have a lot of opinions on. Before reaching out to speakers we decided what our deal breakers were and how we were going to protect our community in our space. Our lines were crossed multiple times but because we had done the work beforehand we were able to respond to most objections seamlessly.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Work on a summit, consider a partner to take some of the stress of doing everything off of you and have someone just as invested as you are in the event of succeeding!<\/span><\/p>\r\n For me collaborating with someone else on collaboration makes it feel more like a community activity for me and takes the stress out of the icky parts of executing. If you\u2019re a procrastination warrior like I am, then this also helps you stay on top of deadlines.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Pro-Tip:<\/b> If you can manage to hire a VA or admin to handle communication with collaborators, do research and manage your community you\u2019ll free up yourself for more high-level tasks. I strongly recommend it and though I might consider a summit without a collaborator, I won\u2019t ever consider doing one without admin help.<\/span><\/p>\r\n If you\u2019ve gotten to the reach out to collaborators stage you\u2019ve done a lot of the hard work already. While it may be a little frightening to hit send on that email, there\u2019s a way to give yourself extra bits of joy as you do this and build yourself up along the way.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Include all the necessary details to send to potential collaborators but personalize each one. My template always includes important details like the event topic, why it\u2019s happening, when it\u2019s happening, compensation, time commitment and next steps. I personalize each asks with why I\u2019m specifically reaching out to them and how I\u2019d like them to participate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n This means sending anywhere from 30-40 individual emails, replying to every individual up to one to three times before confirming and a half dozen or so communications between confirmation and the actual collaboration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n Pro-Tip:<\/b> Create an information page with all of the important details even more spelled out that potential collaborators can refer to. When sending individual reach-out emails, alternate subject lines to lessen the chance of ending up in the promotions, updates, spam tab.<\/span><\/p>\r\n An easy yes comes from people like your close business (and real-life) friends who support you no matter what. It\u2019s also the people who helped vet your collab and people you collaborated with in the past. Those first yeses make you feel excited about the event, especially if you\u2019ve already been bogged down in details like building speaker pages, hiring a VA and finalizing contracts.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Unfortunately, people are going to say no. Some will say no because of schedule, a topic that doesn\u2019t fit with the direction of their brand, the time commitment, or compensation. These are expected and why you create a large list of potential collaborators. Be okay with these and move on.<\/span><\/p>\r\n If you receive feedback consider it but don\u2019t feel the need to reinvent your already vetted summit. People are allowed to not want to participate because they don\u2019t feel called or comfortable but they aren\u2019t allowed to usurp your event. If they want to speak on a topic that\u2019s not aligned with your collaboration, they are fully in their power to go put on their event. Don\u2019t let them wreck your energy because it could carry over to your collab and end up hurting your other collaborators and audience. Protect your safe space.<\/span><\/p>\r\n It might seem like I skipped over the actual collaboration part but if you handle the before and after right, your collaboration is going to run smoothly and become an easily predictable and repeatable part of your business.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Pro Tip:<\/b> After my last summit, I hosted a Happy Hour for highly engaged participants. It was great to connect on that level but also to get usable feedback, reviews and garner interest for another summit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n Make sure to send a thank you and also consider a small token of appreciation. If you are considering hosting another similar collaboration, they are going to help you seal the deal on new collaborators so getting feedback from them is a really important follow-up step.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\r\n After your collaboration, follow up with yourself. Don\u2019t expect to hop right back into biz and life as normal after a large event. You\u2019re going to be emotionally spent so schedule some time off and take a day or off to recharge. It will give you time to reflect, consider your next steps, or just do nothing. You deserve it because you\u2019ve been grinding for a while.<\/span><\/p>\r\n I always say if you\u2019re going to do it, do it well. More impactful collaborations are going to take more effort to plan, more effort to execute, but will have a higher payoff in the end. Collaborations have a lot of potentials to increase your visibility and anytime you do that you\u2019re going to increase your network and revenue. <\/span><\/p>\r\n There are many ways to increase your visibility such as hosting a podcast, using paid ads, or showing up on social every day. While they will make you more visible they don\u2019t always have the added benefit of designating your business as a place where community over competition survives and thrives.<\/span><\/p>\r\n Learn more about how I integrate the community in my business, get a behind-the-scenes look at the Speakeasy, my <\/span>intentional marketing community <\/span><\/a>for marketers, CEOs and freelancers!<\/span><\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n HoneyBook, the best\u00a0<\/i>crm for solopreneurs<\/i><\/a>, streamlines everything you need\u00a0<\/i>to manage your business into one place. Manage projects, book clients, send an\u00a0<\/i>online invoice<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and get paid through our\u00a0<\/i>online payment software<\/i><\/a>. Now peace of mind comes with just one login.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Community over competition. It\u2019s something we often say in this Rising Tide community but what does it look like? Is it sharing a friend\u2019s Instagram post to stories? Scheduling a coffee chat with a new friend? Purchasing one of their digital templates? Yes, exactly! Community over competition looks like not being afraid to highlight someone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":297,"featured_media":77389,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-collaboration"],"acf":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b.jpeg",1814,1103,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b-300x182.jpeg",300,182,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b-768x467.jpeg",768,467,true],"large":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b-1024x623.jpeg",1024,623,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b-1536x934.jpeg",1536,934,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/hbbadmin.dev.reliablepenguin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Stocksy_txp6d585c51PZ4300_Medium_311476_336661f12b.jpeg",1814,1103,false]},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"Community over competition looks like not being afraid to highlight someone else because you think it will stop you from growing.<\/strong><\/h2>\r\n
Here are 8 ways to more impactful collaborations:\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\r\n
1. Decide on a Collaboration Style that Works for You<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
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2. Effectively Use Your Time<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
3. Set Realistic Time Commitment Expectations<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
4. Map Out Everything before Reaching Out to Collaborators\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
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5. Create a Wishlist of Collaborators<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
6. Vet your Idea & Consider Objections <\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\r\n
7. Consider Objections<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
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8. Consider Having a Collaboration Partner or Outsourcing<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
Create a Reachout Template<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
Reach out to Easy Yeses First<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
How to Handle a No\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
Focus on the Follow-Up<\/b><\/h3>\r\n
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Don\u2019t forget to follow up with your collaborators! <\/b><\/h3>\r\n
Schedule Self-Care Time After!<\/b><\/h3>\r\n