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OK, onto today’s topic!

I built my first business all by myself. It’s not a flex, far from it — it was excruciating! I white-knuckled through everything: decisions, assets, hiring, client management, delivery, and more.

My second time around is very, very different, which makes it much, much easier — a good thing, since now I’m running two businesses.

The key difference? Partners and friends.

At any given moment, I can ask at least a dozen people for advice, help, or a cross-promo. Some of these partnerships started as friendships, others happened the other way around.

Either way, I’m not alone anymore. I’m doing better, my content is doing better, my business is doing better.

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Here’s why:

Partnerships = leverage on steroids

​Like it or not, you’re running a media business​. And media businesses thrive on reach and visibility.

Here’s the kicker, though: getting reach and visibility is HARD, especially if you don’t have the budget to pay for ads.

No matter how good your content is, if it doesn’t get seen, it’s useless to your business. And, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but a lot of exceptional content gets buried because it doesn’t reach enough people — on social media and outside it.

Enter partnerships aka the way to tap into other people’s audiences with or without a budget.

Partnerships get you two important things:

• A ready-formed audience — easier and faster to leverage than building your own.
• Trust — when someone recommends your content or your products to their audience, some of the trust they enjoy from said audience is transferred to you.

In other words: you grow your audience, your business, and your credibility.

What’s not to like, right?

BTW, I cover partnerships and cross-promos as an integral part of building your audience on auto-pilot in the Audience Accelerator course. ​Get instant access here​ to learn how to grow your audience AND your business.

How do these partnerships work?

The beauty of partnerships is that there are no rules. You can tailor them any way you want.

Some popular examples:

• You share each other’s social media posts
• You link to each other in your blogs
• You mention each other on social media
• You are guests in each other’s podcasts
• You co-author articles, whitepapers, newsletters
• You promote each other’s products
• You co-host live events (I do this every month, on ​LinkedIn​, with my friends ​Hannah​ and ​Michael​).

The world is your oyster. Mix and match as you want!

But don’t forget to be strategic about it!

The strategic approach to partnerships

You don’t need just any partner, you need the right partner. So, before you start recruiting them, figure out:

• What type of content/format is a key business growth driver for you? Is it a newsletter? Blog posts? Social media content? Podcast? Find partners who publish the same type of content or something complementary i.e. they could mention your latest blog post in a newsletter of theirs.
• What channel are you most active on? If someone recommends you on X but you don’t have an account there, you’ll get some leverage but not as much as you could.
• Can I offer them a fair exchange? Ideally, look for partners with a similar audience size to yours. If you have 2K followers, it’s unlikely that someone with 50K would accept to partner with you or that the exchange would be equitable.

Example time: my biggest business growth driver is this newsletter. So my biggest focus is finding other newsletter operators I can exchange cross-promos with.

More on how I find them below.

Can you work with paid partners WITHOUT a budget?

Believe it or not, yes. You can do it without an initial budget.

It’s called affiliate (for products) or referral (for services) marketing. It’s fairly simple: your partners send potential clients your way. When someone makes a purchase, you pay them a commission.

It’s a win-win for everyone!

Yes, you have to pay them but you don’t need to pay out of pocket. You only pay if a sale happens.

Of course, this only works if you have a solid margin for your offers. This is why, for physical products, commissions are lower than for their digital counterparts.

For instance, I offer a 50% commission to the partners who recommend Audience Accelerator to their audience. I’ve been told it’s too much countless times but I don’t think so — if you allow me to tap into your audience, I’m going to pay up.

Want in on this commission? You can make up to $625 from a single sale. More details in the final lesson of the course — ​access it here​.

Where can I find partners?

The most convenient way to find partners is social media — ideally a channel you both spend a lot of time on.

If you’ve already interacted with their content, you can send them a DM asking for a collaboration. Then you can hop on a Zoom call (or not) and hash out the details.

Other underrated ways to find partners:

• Ask! In your newsletter, your blog post, a social media post. It’s as simple as: “hey, I’m looking for partners in [your field] to [cross-promote, co-host an event, and so on]”. Be careful with this approach, though! Don’t say “yes” to just any opportunity, make sure it’s the right fit.
• ​Lettergrowth for newsletters​. An excellent platform to find newsletters in the same field as you, with a similar audience.
• ConvertKit, Beehiiv, and Substack have creator networks where you can recommend others and get recommended by them. It’s the easiest, most hassle-free channel. BUT the subscriber match is not always ideal, so some list pruning may be required.
• Clients: your clients are your best advocates. Go beyond asking them for a testimonial and try partnering with them. You can incentivize them with a commission.

How do I approach partners?

Always lead with what’s in it for them. While no money exchanges hands (usually), this is still a sales pitch.

More importantly, the best collaborations are a result of friendship, so make sure the exchange is equitable — you wouldn’t shortchange your friends, would you? Explain why you want to do it and be honest about your audience and your engagement level.

Also, reach out to your partners outside your campaigns. Check in on them and ask if you can assist them in any way — you want this to be a long-term relationship!

Here’s why:

Rinse and repeat

This is a mistake I see very often: you do a cross-promo with someone, it goes very well, then you move on to the next partner and forget all about this collab.

Why?

As your and your partner’s audiences grow, you should re-do the cross-promos or the collabs regularly — once every three months or so.

So, before you scour the Earth for new partners, look back on your previous collaborations. Do any stand out as massive successes? Reach out to those partners and do it again.

A rule for life and business: be kind and generous whenever possible

Champion other people’s work and they will champion yours.

Found an article you like? Share it and tag the author on social media!

Admire someone’s work? Tell them! Ideally, make it easy for them to use your message as a testimonial.

​The Reciprocity Principle​ states that people have a natural tendency to reciprocate — give to get.

Don’t always expect a quid pro quo. Oftentimes, a sincere appreciation post leads to the most natural friendship and lucrative partnership.

I know it’s very basic but not being a jerk pays off. Always!

That’s it from me today!

See you next week in your inbox.

Here to make you think, Adriana