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Get Closer To Your Partners

Notice how ann's first instinct was to say, we're sisters not like, oh, that could be a competitors was like an echo, no she's my keys in my tribe, thank you, and some people do get territorial and afraid and that's good also to notice about partners and it's, one of the things that you just want to look at, and when they're generous and specific, she put time and the way she deals detail that so carefully, and she didn't make it about herself. She made about other, so of course it was about herself, because they're reflected our values. And so it was the specifics of the partnership first, and then her general feelings and values specific about the offer, which is the thing that she wanted to give you, and then adding the part about her only feelings and values. After that, most people will go on and on about generalizations must own feelings and values, and the specific proves the general in the general makes people go to sleep. So I want to talk about how you can literally a closer ...

and that's my leap from it, and if you literally get closer, there's some amazing opportunities especially I know many of the people in creative life are creative professionals, soloist making creative work from photography, tio other things, they're expressionistic so a lot of those add value to different look house, but if you're thinking about it you want to get really concrete you think about a couple things like coal locating across linking so suggesting a couple of cold locations when I started off a long time ago, the beginning of yesterday I talked about victoria bc and the woman had the tiny little shop and she was showing art the physical objects but she was also showing pictures of other objects if you wantto haven't honestly goodness unique souvenir from the area and that she partnered up and that wall to be able to offer even more artists where you could turn the page and see pictures and she had the, uh, mailboxes us a type person doing the inventory to so you could send it home people didn't have to take it with them so that's the cold location so when she did that so well it was her idea, not mine. Then we told a boutique hotel chain about it and the boutique hotel chain is in shanghai but now there's another one in mumbai and the notion was you walk in the hotel and they're just beautiful glassed in box like museum quality last inbox begin its unique souvenirs from the area art of all kinds and you can look at it as numbers, descriptions and it's from the equivalent u s dollars five dollars to seven thousand dollars so they really want to pick a variety of things, and they mimicked another variation. They took this technique to their world because if your guests there and they pulled in, a lot of people are locals who weren't guests just to come and see it, you could order it, take it in your suitcase, or have it sent home for price and through partners, there was a seamless service, so hotel didn't have to get into inventory management, and there was a fourth vendor, which was the accountant managing it because what they decided was when a certain amount of sales happen for each artists, the check would go to them. So they were doing a lot of chicks, but they'd make sure it was at least once a quarter. So built all kinds of loyalty for that hotel among the artists in the area who all had displays, probably in their area, sign our poster on their site, the website, the notion you could see the whole collection going back to rebecca, said pardoning with complimenting people. You could see the whole collection at the hotel. So was a multiple channel magnet. Ice made that up, but this is it's, a notion that people can see touch feel, and they came in for another reason not key thing here is whenever there's a waiting area. If there's a waiting area there's a time for you to do something that will either irritate thumb or likethe um I am to be not a fan of naming every building especially comes down naming schools after companies but the notion of you catch her people in a moment when that whole display is a reinforcement of the unique differential personality story brand of that hotel that's pretty fabulous and the notion of brings something home that you know a bit about the artists and his unique it's a it's a wonderful opportunity so they took that wall within a lobby and have taken in other places and you can let your mind go wild about where that would be a magnet to bring more people in for more people to talk about it even if they didn't buy they take pictures other things till they asked him to stop because people might try to imitate the art so just a repeat where they have to wait remember when I talked about the buses stopping and all those places in san francisco and you know what the price ranges the salary range of the people there that's an interesting target now you could completely irritate them and what you do I could be going by with your cute little tray and have a gorgeous a delectable set of snacks that they can't wait till they get down to facebook or twitter down there or whatever to not google's to also give them something on the way and they might look forward to it because of its uniqueness, and I might talk about the different bakeries that came from, um, so waiting non intrusive but actually adds value. I remember I walked into aa upscale hotel restroom in the public area and there's this big huge sign and the restroom stall and it was advertising um, a diarrhea medicine and I just cracked up laughing and you know, when you're sitting this stone here, several people shut the stock or start laughing, I guess they thought it would be appropriate, but it was kind of disgusting at that moment, so you can think of one's or where is the line where it's whimsical odd, unusual, but any time you do a first ever, you're a media hook as foreshadowing what we're going to talk about in the next thing. So co locating can also mean I've had several stores where I had them be adjacent to each other with an internal door kimpton hotels does it with some of their restaurants and separate restaurants, so you don't have to go outside use open the door and you go through and is that psychological connectiveness? We've also done it with a certain kind of sports clothing and sports drinks in certain places the most we've ever done is a seven inner doors, the connections and what happened there is some people forget where they started and come out and say honey, I'm over in room three I think but there's a convivial ality about it and you can then see is this working so cross linking cross linking can also happen so the same thing that you're doing in person you can do online where do you want to channel people off of your site because they're going t channel on back and I really really believe that when you're doing that you become a better magnet so when you're doing this stuff like the cross linking think of the situation think of the location based aps you might to sport since I don't believe people should make their own absent first I do believe they should later on what our absolute could use on what air contests or co located events because you're that magnet what's something you do on lee once a year what's something you do intermittently so they come to see if it's happening then so situation or location based and one of the mobile aps you use I never used four square very much even when it was hot but it still exists the ironic thing is since it's not being used that much I believe you can take the free version and you can actually do your own version of foursquare and highlight the distinctive spots that you've each gone too and crosslink that weigh heavily since most people don't talk about or I went to do this and where I saw somebody when I did this, if you had twelve people cross linking their businesses than a physical location and I think it could be very powerful and they don't have that happening very much so stand out and again even that's a story so thinking further sub let space from a complimenting business to track more foot traffic now in the case with the museum on a wall or store in a while, as we called it they originally but space from their partner the hotel but they found out it was so very valuable hotel the hotel says we just want to give that space to you and in different places sometimes is a business where someone else managed the whole thing as a separate partner, the changes that have and what they'd show the management that work with the accountant and so on because that its courts a pretty simple business that someone can do at home see remember we talked about the hook or the platform again this is something that someone else could scale and take other places I believe, for example, it's not just boutique hotels which might want have that in the wall it's also regional banks that want to highlight the people in their area so wouldn't be tourist related it might even be a convention center so you're thinking, what kind of stuff do I partner so there's something that happens literally on the wall, literally on the wall, like I try to convince my friend who runs the mosconi center, I said to him years ago, disney want to do great outdoor adventures on the edge of danger? Then they realized the larger market want to feel like they're on the edge of danger but didn't really want to be there, so they went back to their more safe adventure stuff. But I said there's, so many glorious things people want to see in our town just like they want to see in austin in seattle and everybody's town to the right eyes, why don't they have a projection on a wall like a big, big wall? Projections that changes every three minutes you see on the golden gate bridge, the top of quite tower, maybe some places that would be very quickie. I thought of somebody better not say them now, um, but people could stand in front of them and they'd have both the name of the convention happening then, and I might have the name of the photographer and I stand in front and I get my picture taken by my friends or there might be nothing there, so just trying to think where people are awaiting our to pause on a different experience where is there a wall that in fact could be part of how you get closer? What do you do to attract more foot traffic? I even thought again of hospitals that had when I spoke all around the country years ago hospitals had gift shops that were so precious inadvertent partnerships because these volunteers would make these adorable baby booties and sweaters they're these little pearl rose things on him and I kept saying I'd like to buy a bunch of those sweaters would they ever make one for adults? Oh no, we can't ask our volunteers I said I have to know a lot of nurses would love to have these as well as may know we're not going to change so goes back to that mind set you have to want to see it because people packed into those for the last minute gift nurses would do are working too hard because they didn't have time to shop after work they just want to go home and rest their feet. So when you're thinking about stuff like that complementary businesses it can go pretty far. But I believe physical spaces for those and creative live that are creative professionals that don't need a physical space they partner with someone that does yes and this woman to give an example to kind of echo that idea because please thie oncology office that I work at is an integrative oncology center and the doctor he created this amazing, beautiful, unique space but he has an acupuncturist dietitian massage therapist myself everybody under one roof and he said no, I don't you don't pay me a thing if you bring one more patient to me because you're here then it's worth it to me each year so he's created this partnership with all of us where we all work together as a team but we're all independent so it's a really it's a unique relationship but it gives us more exposure because obviously the patients are coming to him and we're right there in his office so that's a great example and it's also seamless service where there's yeah there there boy and what you said is so specific it could be adapted to others and that and that's what it's a warmed up introduction just by the his choice of having you there there's an inherent recommendation, right? Right. Which is priceless, right? Yeah. Does anybody else have an example that of cold location? Yes. Yeah andi also kind of one of the questions from online was about how big of an event you should attend and things like yes, I went to when, um at kiva the cave office downtown keep this case people so kiva is basically a knopper to nitty to loan money to small businesses but I think it's in general the public can basically, invest their money so I could donate to kiva yes, so that someone else could borrow money to do something for their business. Yes. And what they did was so amazing to me, there were only about maybe fifty or so people at this event, but all of their partners, they were people like the people who run the bizarre, bizarre and other companies that might not seem like common partners. So when you come to the event there's music and cupcakes and I think maybe in a little bit of alcohol and then they had each of their partners just give, like, a two minute blurb on who they were and what they did, and if they hadn't upcoming event or special, they would say that. But then the really interesting thing was the event was a panel all about crowdfunding, and they had four different people who had raised money for different ways. Kickstarter, indiegogo, kiva and one who had done kickstarter once and kiva another time. And so really what? They were educating their audience and qualifying their customer all at the same time by fed. Yeah, by letting us all ask questions. Why did you choose schiavo? Why did you choose kickstarter? What kind of project would you choose for cuba next time, or how did you how did that work for you? So everyone kind of walked away thinking if I was gonna raise money, I would definitely go with this company or that group, but keep a qualified their customers, and then so all those people came, they invited us to a pop up shop with their favorite kiva entrepreneurs who had a product to sell tell what a pop up shop is, so pop up shop is really just kind of one time opportunity to come and buy some goods from usually an independent entrepreneur of some sort. I'm so lucky you guys have got such great examples, it just adds a lot more to it. I appreciate that and the bravery of saying we're sitting this up to do two minutes and stickiness two minutes, but even more to have potential competitors and to hear the truth and comparison, which of course creates a learning curve and the nudge for all of the innovate to get better. Um, so they're theirs. We've got about nine different tips within that idea and also set up a format which is scaleable I'm actually quite intrigued, really honest, and I want to put them on the spot against we've been asking the audience a lot of questions. You really strike me as a group have bean are in terrible together when you've really sort of got your visions to set up what do you think is holding you back? Yeah I mean what it's more stopped you from taking the next step with developing partnerships in the strength of men think about the's no the opposite I think that's clearly moving in before this thing really great ideas like this trip what are the barriers that you found yes tonight I would say one for sure is nobody's heard of us yet we don't have the level of cloud to really you know get some real progress and so the actionable specificity it's the way you say specifically uh I think that is, you know, some items that I'm going to take away from the course that will hopefully get me some traction, but I also think that there is a matter of, you know, I'm still young and nobody really knows who I am and, you know, I just need to get out there and figure out more ways to become known so that people will recognize that way are out to accomplish something that we haven't yet we are out to accomplish something on ly thing it suggests is you're very clear about who you're going to serve in how and as you do this, you're going to collect information about that market and people in that market service that I co brand this service with you as I'm growing it or if I'm doing this event with you, I'm gonna be looking for certain factors that will be helpful to me but also to you. So even though you don't have that content or that list yet you're focused on getting it means they don't have to focus on it and it's another way they can see another facet of the common base of customers and that's pretty priceless I don't think it works as well if you're not aren't as articulate and clear yes, yes, some great e guess my biggest thing is I am so grateful in love all the opportunities like this one here being here in this audience, but since I've made a transition into maybe like working through my own ideas in entrepreneurship, I don't know what to focus on, so I have all these great opportunities and potential things, and if I really focus in like commit to one, I could make some partnerships but it's choosing which path to go down which parents in your business next in your word yeah that's that's a hard one to read why quitters when and and and I just let's say one last thing remember that earlier exercise very briefly what I most dislike people situations, whatever it's a really good narrowing quickly and then prioritize what it is and flip it over and you're going to realize that one of them is your obvious choice betsy had won and then shin and then I know mine is not being specific and I'm not sure I need to I kind of have a heart to heart with myself and see if that's some kind of commitment issue that I'm having to really committing to my business and I really need to figure out what my specifics, what my knishes are, what my threes are that I offer that make me unique and once I really commit to that, I think I might be having some commitment issues, but the specificity is really what I need to do and what's stopping me, but you already made a shift between yesterday and today as you've been focusing not just on massage service and if people are all not in here and you're knowing that you want to provide that other service could you know, wear yourself out and so have you already taken yourself down that passed so it's describing it and you also already gotten more specific about that? Yeah, I think so, thanks to this course yes, yes, sometimes they don't give ourselves credit for the shifts only made them to need us around you to tell you the truth thank you, thank you very much, sharon in that and um so rene and I were talking about this that lunch, that first of all, you've like hit, I've been working out partnerships for the last two three, gosh, maybe in four years now and feeling like I was sort of failing at them or they weren't going anywhere or I would have an event or that did go fairly well, but I couldn't figure out how to repeat it or it didn't go well, but I didn't know what to learn from it. So being a business owner who has to do fifty things, I would be like, ok, that didn't make money, I got to go into next thing. Yeah, and I wasn't really learning what I could do differently next time to maybe make it more successful. So for me, this class has kind of tapped every single one of those obstacles of I followed the big corporate partnership, and it was more like a sales pitch, and I followed it for a year and nothing happened. I've had the event that then no one else I couldn't repeat after that, I've had the event where everyone else made money except for me, and I'm the one who organized it, so the tom sawyer is like for me, it's, I have not been held back. I've been doing it, but I haven't had the tools yeah, so I'm being validated. I'm like that was a good idea. I did do the right thing, but at the same time, like that's how I could do it better next time. So that's my kind of take on all of it. So everything you said I've done too and so it's oddly validating, and I'll tell you the big thing, I just want to one sentence time we want the big thing that helped me was having five people who I really trust and respected, to be honest, who are also interested in it as I talked to ideas, but I thought he thought through pretty carefully and when other people give feedback saying that's good, but maybe not that air this we've all helped each other get more brave and more smart about it. So I strongly suggest that, and but not more than five, and even go for less because we start with three for a year were blissfully happy is only we found two other people that wow, this is cool and I pursuing partnerships for a while so I don't feel held back, but I think you know, what I'm appreciating is all this takes time and deliberate effort. Oh and I'm I'm very I'm pretty focused but I'm even more focused now as a result of this of where I'm going to focus my attention for so that's valuable but I talked to rebecca I talked to rebecca immediately just because I want to talk to her I know that you can do it just for the idea but you'll wind up angela yeah I would say I'm ready to take it to the next level but I feel like one of my road blocks is that I feel like it's something that's applicable to anybody um but I don't feel like that consider possible customer or client um sees that as something that's accessible to them does that make sense so it made it that it really your service successful yeah accessible like it's too scientific or it doesn't apply to me where you know anybody could benefit but they don't see it that way so I think explaining it on a level that somebody khun really understand look at and go oh yeah well that makes sense I totally I mean I could use that what I suggested you might want to do q and a and you might want to pick someone who you think is articulate and from a totally different area so they can be as far removed as possible and once they get it and what they keep asking questions about you though that's a part that interests him whenever I'm doing something with a different field, I asked them to ask me the questions, and then I realized the language, they use the language I drill down to making understandable look, it's helpful it's fast. And then angela and I was just going to say that I think the strategies we've been given to create those testimonials, we'll just be so impactful because if they can prove that, they can have one of those videos that they can see somebody speak about your product, they might like, you know, we talked at lunch about how I personally, you know, my family could use your product. Well, other people don't necessarily know that that's what they're doing, you know, I'm your average person, but I could really, you know, be helped, and so could others, something similar to that, you know, sometimes we need someone else to tell us what's obvious because we have a hard time making the cut my wall early, but I want to repeat that we need someone else. Sometimes you show us what's obvious that is gold. Yeah, so I mean, immediately, I'm thinking of that similar kind of kiva event for your office, which has all those professionals in it, you could have each one of them invite their list. Talk about what each of you d'oh offer something to each other and now you're not expanding your audience by someone who just happens to see your door on the way into some other realism yeah and turn and turn that collective event into some tips that might be ah video embedded e book like book can do so we're talking about cold location and we went in a rich circle around it was a pretty smart question for him to vest right now I just floored, flourished and took us in a certain direction um and so it comes back to something that can seem prosaic but just notice how where it is to think of physical co location and it's one of the best and you cannot leverage it with the online call location but it's so people said it gives us a chance to share when I talked about the internal door, you know, so I think I'm doing I'm bringing up two times in different ways they told me it takes three times to sort of remember stuff so I come at some of the same things in different angles and I don't understand why more people don't do internal doors but I do believe you need a legal agreement when you do this I'll go back to the and constraint but I believe that their gateway there's some shopping centers where the china make it feel like a community center where there's more walkways and outdoor seating areas and some of the ones they're doing and brazil venezuela is in the news right now in argentina it's not so good for them right there but there's some that were started there ah and in egypt so the idea was something where it's indoor outdoor co located there's seamless passed they even have and this is the one of the things I want to say is during certain events they do pattern lines as pass to go so sometimes those hearts at christmas I've had a valentine's day and I'll take you the sequence the places you might want to go, she could go around the whole path with your passport that's kind of cool and then a theme would be something different was always in colored chalk and so is great for the parents of the young kids when they had a certain theme for that segment. So I've even suggested in larger areas why not have passed there's certain themes like green and doing some element with that so you can really take temporary things it's a version of pop up and for those of you may not yet have heard of pop up pop up stores can happen a variety of places I've asked for there to be pop or pop up consulting tents outside of the hospital area because some people want to talk to a doctor outside that setting and it's temporary around a certain theme so when you think about the internal door that can be an external door internal or if you've heard of highline hi line is this extraordinary place in new york city where they actually of a walkway where it used to be a train track way and it's got beautiful foliage in people of walking on it now here's going back to the laws of subjection, they adamantly allah chris agreed there'd be no sign each no promotion, no offers so what's really interesting because I I absolutely agree with it there's clusters of people at different ends and all that because you want to celebrate share and that's where the promotion happens that's involving different partners or the co created events. So remember you need white space and a good ad you need white space for the words and that image we also need white space where it's just all about one thing, so going further used to have a wall display with number of products they could buy and I'm going back where is the wall that's going to display your stuff? Where's the video that might be in a window that shows interactions and shows it with an outdoor speaker which they can actually have embedded in the ceiling and outdoors? So when you're talking about having displays number products sickened by think of different places that they can appear it's such a shame that the gas stations are showing these ads in these pseudo news they're so boring, because if you seen that them on the gas pumps think what a shame as sort of distracting but doesn't mean that couldn't be good and then collectively rent space, I'm going back to rebecca's notion several my clients and friends are doing things where they turn existing spaces, or you have to wait anyway into something that adds on, um, and so you think even people have been using it for the time when school's out to school space schools are making it very difficult to use it, but things going to get more desperate for schools on funding, and for them they're often located and a good place, and they have parking space. So for those of you warming up to it, think about where that might be, where there's dead space anyway, and they might want to do something that relates to you and a reward party. So one of the things that we did is we themed events at certain restaurants, small tables, dim sum serving, and they had women's, friends, night and guys friends, night, but they'd have brief talks, or they'd have improv to teacher improv to be more flexible, open quick, spontaneous now, was that a set of partners? Well made things interactive and becoming, and just I condemn some. You'd be sitting the table if your glass and you'd order the odor of she wanted there was your dinner going that way, and you're even encouraged to sit at different tables after a while if you wanted and we did enough of version where there's a community table, she can go in and sit in the community table and you get order as much as little as you want of the drinks or the dim sum. That's not dim sum can this dinner, food and the partners to provide the food got branding opportunity because one of the restaurants, in fact, wasn't a restaurant they call themselves the non restaurant. They were the space and that other people bring in their food that want to brand and be known from a caters to people introducing new lines of food that were asked to brand band together. So for very little money, the space created became a real magnet for what was on the wall, the activities that were happening, and they did different styles and formats, and they built a huge mailing list and they said to the mailing list, if you want to opt in they're gonna have to mailing lists once it just the calendar and the tips that you learned from these events and the other is our partners and want to make special offers to. She can sign up for either, but we're not going to merge them. So you're not going to be included if you don't want to be. But if you want the options.