Lessons

Lesson Info

"Dating" Your Partner

Someone asked me to say why I got into this and it's a good way to talk about dating uh growing up publicly shy I was observer most of my life and now I know that three of you are at least three of your introverts one of the most pleasurable things when I was a reporter was seen patterns and so I'd cover a story and then I say, well that kind of relate to the next story and as my bureau chief said, if a man asked as many questions as you did the try get smacked up he wasn't real supportive of that at first but here's the key part of that I started seeing where there could be so much leverage and I see some of you are just natural matchmakers between each other as well and so I'd start making suggestions to people and it took me five years to realize that could actually do that myself and it's probably in one of the most enriching parts of my life to be around people who are so extremely different than me. For example when I talked about the people in prison I actually have fourteen of ...

them and jobs now they're doing editing for friends of mine writing books and it felt really good to set up a partnership with a publisher and doing that and out of that three people are fighting their own books so you get different life adventures and I profoundly believe in an increasingly connected, complex world, bad and good hits faster and from more places that's why we have more human trafficking, drug trafficking, the now and so partnerships or one of the best ways that we are happier and higher performing together when they're done right. You use your best talents, you accomplish greater things. I also believe partnerships is one of the main tools of all the illicit trades. So it's just ironic, the way it's happening. Um, so going back to our own lives where we are now, if you have that mindset and you had that instinct that you like someone and you think there's a mutual market, dating them as a really important thing to d'oh s I know know that at least half of you've had a bad experience I did, and the person not only had material stolen from the other three partners, but besmirched the reputation of one, and it wasn't even trying to, so it was a really good lesson. And they say the definition of mental health isn't that you don't have problems, that you have gone to better problems, so you don't want to not date you wantto learn really about yourself, judging too quickly and not watching behavior, so if you're doing that, then what I want you to think about doing is to see it's not just what people say they're clarity's important it's what they do as we're talking about a bit earlier do they keep commitments is their business and comparable health, and when people are in a very dire strait, it brings out extraordinarily good or bad things in them, as we well know. So knowing that there's some stability about where they are from which they're launching is helpful because and we're supporting them and strengthening the best side, and then that common market of customers caught a mutual market that there is a strong, mutually agreed upon mutual market. You may see it, and it may be true, but if they don't see it, then it's hard for them to believe it. And they may be a second round of partner after you've proved your concept with others, and they was got have more or less mutual benefit there's a tit for tat game and it's especially important for women to know, because we women in general tend to give, give, give and resent it that people don't give back and it's not an attractive quality that's a big generalization born out by about four studies, but in a tit for tat game you give you proposed and you see if there's a response, do they get it? Do they like it? And did they instinctively reciprocate because after that, the flow happens and it's not a quid pro quo, but you're giving people a chance to be proud of who they are and being proud of working with you. I say this born out of the notion of dating khun bring out a better part in someone that they saw themselves read consequential strangers a book to learn more about that, or they can see a worst part and resent you for being successful and smart. So you want to bring out the better side and that that doesn't happen early on it's hard there's, another book that says that warmth and confidence are important in relationships. And ironically, this is also hard lesson for me to learn if there's not a felt warmth up front, then it's hard for people to feel your competence and trusted and want to work with you. So that warmth in the beginning and I know I have one person who's over the top happy all the time. How are you? Oh, you look so good and I feel like slapping them even when I'm feeling good because it's too, over the top boy that probably hurt the people on the internet, that loud sound, but when you see that there is ah there's, a grounded nissen them somewhere. And you see that they do reciprocate when you do this small, short thing, and you see that then it's not a quid pro quo, but it's a flow over time. But with that first one, it's got to be felt pretty clearly it's more or less equal. We're being very clear and candid about our expectations of our benefits, and we're also going to debrief afterwards so and doing that that's, why it's important that do a couple of things that are the most sort of low risk and ways to start now? I mentioned at the top of the class about this wonderful book called utility and there's, several people that write about very concrete ways of being helpful by offering specific concrete relevant tips. So if you're doing that that's one place to start, you would co create a list of tips about your common situation, or maybe a frequently asked q and a or maybe a way that you can extend the situation of your partner with other resource is and tips that you would offer different formats q and a so q and a is probably one of the best things that you can do is anticipate with those q and a's are and give them and site experts other than yourself, because another way that you might pull in prospective partners. Is you cite them because you generally believe in the quality of the tips they have to offer your people it's sort of like twitter some people say I had coffee and they tweeted other people cite other people specific points that show this is my brand and I recognize when other people are smart about my brand so that's called pulling in the second level of partners later on but sharing the tips and thinking of all the different formats by which you could do it so for example, those group that won the picture of me earlier they had the text around it those air free there's one called a stitch and that's where you can use your camera she's been your smart device and do a short video and add the text you want and add the music and you can send it to people so later on we'll talk about how to get an opt in list and I'm sure some of you have already got optimum lis so tips that air pithy specific and relevant and sometimes it takes the third party to pull it out of both of you because you know too much and you forgot what you know and so when they say well and they pull it out of you so one of my best allies is the friend where we cross consult I do that for her because I don't know enough about her stuff and there's I have learned more overtime but I can ask questions of the partners and come up with ideas for topic titles you might have an ally who do that for both you and your partner so short tips based on either situation or shared interests and then encourage your staff to mention your partner's products say well when when we use these these are other things we found are also really helpful so then you're going to find out for a short period of time does this person follow through other staff well trained because we actually go in and we'd like to talk to each other staff if we have it and get them to feel a part of it and tips that are no more than five or about optimal there's a five or ten tip maximum because most people will read three so when doing that you think ok, I can start thinking now and it might be part of the way a recruit to date some of the things we could do and that would be a start on it um if they don't have staff than it's coming down to you all and you practice saying the messages to each other as will be doing later on again it's the specificity and if you look in other people's sites one of the gratifying things is very few so businesses or even partnerships offer helpful tips so you really stand out and for those of you that track who comes to your business in personal light, you're going to see a big upswing just because of that it also makes you more candy to reporters and columnists because it looks like you've got something to say and as a reporter I know that sounds down, but a lot of people aren't prepared to say something specific about what they're doing next you can pull your list and pulling your list you can make a joint offer by ours together that said most touching in a way but you could have separate offers and the single document which maybe that's something you send out by email and maybe something online it's certainly time limited and you might also do something where it's an event or together you make the offer which is to come to event or several of you were doing a very short talk or something that gives feedback where people bring something of themselves to it like you had bad them bring something from their home so that they're feeling participatory in the beginning. So in that case there's some instructions about it and you might say in the event we're going to be limited to x number of people so the scarcity gambit is one of the most potent gambits in terms of time or number of people and so you also get notice with the topic you've chosen if it's limited who signs up to learn more about your customers and so does your partners. What did they have in common? So you can notice some when they come to the event or they respond to the offer again, that gives you a limit on it so that you're able to assess, did they do their part? Was I winding up doing all the logistics? We had this agreement, as you know, that they were into certain things and I was going to certain things and these air the benefits we had. So then you get to that touchy place you've gone through this, and I'm going to talk about the worst scenario on the best and the worst, son ayotte, they didn't do certain things they didn't tell you is a mediocre the most you lost in that is, um, you have a weak partner, but it'll be hard for it to damage your brand unless this a joint offer where they didn't fulfill a product that they agreed to do is someone bought from you so and thinking this through, you want to have the lowest threat and in your assessment of your partner, see where along that continuum you think it's worth taking the risk, I'm doing it and it's a big wake up call, then off I don't have a customer list over sixty percent of small, medium sized businesses I have no idea who their customers are, they don't, I mean, they don't have an opt in reason to do it. So just gathering the list, you might say, for example, I'm gonna be making a series of special offers over the coming year if you'd like to be included on that, please, on our website, just add your email and say you want often or write your email down on this card and leave it with me, so they're opting in at that point and so way to actually start getting a list. You may want to ask two other questions there at that point, too, but don't make that a requirement, because your goal is to get a cz many as possible and doing that and going through that it's amazing how much you learn because some people it's three categories, some people do what they're going to do, do it earlier and actually have very good ideas toe leverage, further value, invisibility and that one thing now that's a good partner, others keep talking about themselves when they're talking about the joint and don't mention you. So lucky for me, my first partnership, um, I was with four people, which is something I don't usually recommend. We all knew each other pretty well, we're all former journalists, and that helped but we call wrote a siri's that was actually turned into a video that actually was translated in other languages on this specific for you to think about in the future it's crazy to do that is the beginning, but we all contribute. Our resource is was a great filmmaker who happened to be in love with one of the four partners, so you want to do it for free, and it was on quirky behaviors that helped get us in conflict or make us get along better. And we had people in seven countries act out both behaviors and by the fear look of it, they were just really great, in fact, one man that every thought was pretty understated. Walter mitty type. He loved being a jerk. He said, this is isis, just you be quiet. You here? He said, no, I told you that earlier and he went to all five things of being demeaning, pointing, being fierce, standing close, even started throws something and we thought, was this guy kidding or not? And the cameron says don't if it works, this will be good and he started go like that uses. Okay, I'm just stopping now, so this is people are unexpected. Resource is. It costs us only time together and through discovery channel, who we didn't approach, because we didn't know how to and we're too dumb to think about it. They approached us and said, you know, that guy, that walter mitty looking guy, we think that that be interesting to our audience. Would you like to do it? So we did seven episodes, and it went into syndication that's. Why I was really good to have the next partnership be a really bad one, because you know you over generalize on your success, and you learn more from your failures. So, that's, why I'm being personal about that, I that went on for five years, that one first thing, and for four years we had to overcome the damage to the reputation of our group because of a very clever person who misrepresented himself. Um, and they dovetail. So I want to have you skip that kind of learning process, or maybe you've already gone through it.