Help your partners

“As a professional presenter you endeavour to make the conference organiser’s life easier. Rule number one of presenting: don’t ever whinge. You can be the greatest presenter in the world on stage, but if you are a pain in the arse off stage, that is all they will remember.”

• Dr Adam Fraser, The Third Space: Using Life’s Little Transitions to find Balance and Happiness

The first few times you partner with a channel and get in front of a new audience, you need to over-focus on being easy to work with. Doing so makes it easy to work with the same partner (and further partners) again.

Another way to grease the wheels is to help your partner with the offer you’re making to potential new customers.

In the Partnering your way to success section there were a number of “moves” you can make to make the collaboration successful.

Remember that you can also make it worth it for the partner as well.

You can:

• Offer a % of profit from any future customers that come via their channel
• Give their audiences a specific discount
• You could report on how many people saw any cross-promotions you did
• You can follow-up with a thank you note after the engagement
• You can recommend their channel to anyone else who you think might be able to help them
• Send them a box of chocolates, flowers, wine, or 6-pack of craft beer (my go-to presents depending on the person)

Try not to look for the edge on the first few partnerships you do. Your goal at the start is to simply get used to a cadence of being easy to work with and helping others.

The rest follows.