Profitable Partnerships [PROOF]

They’re EVERYWHERE.

Welcome back to the newsletter built to prove to you that partnerships are more valuable than content creation - everyday, all day, always.

Maybe you hear the word “Partnership” and think about some cringe relationship-help podcast. Maybe it brings back horrible memories of your high school since lab. MAYBEEE you’ve spent enough time around me for it to prompt a vision of dollar signs 💲💰😉

High leverage, massive value partnerships can be found everywhere we look.

This Dunkin’ x JetBlue collab is incentivizing the coffee fans to travel and the travel fans to ..coffee? The promo essentially gives JetBlue AND Dunkin’ status to anyone that flies on this plane. It will no-doubt bring in tens of thousands in added revenue for both companies by the end of the year.

America’s Favorite?

If you’re not a Dunkin’ fan (much like myself, despite my Boston roots 🙃), maybe this one will resonate more:

If you’ve ever been to a McDonalds or seen one of their ads, you know they sell EXCLUSIVELY Coca-Cola brand beverages. That’s been the case since 1955. If you’ve ever had a hungover friend beg you to take them to McD’s because “their Diet Coke solves everything” - this is why:

The Coca-Cola product delivered to McDonalds is objectively superior.. like actually, higher quality standards than anywhere else. What has that resulted in?

Oh, just a small 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS added to Coca-Cola’s revenue in 2023 ALONE. The beverage behemoth brought in a whopping $46 billion in top line in 2023, and a staggering TEN PERCENT of that came from the good ol’ McD’s.

Zero added marketing, simply a well-positioned, carefully curated, Strategic Partnership.

Back to Reality:

Okay, okay. If you’re anything like I once was, you see those names above and think:

“COOL. Sounds lovely. Rainbows and butterflies. Blah blah blah. I, however, do NOT run a business that does billions in revenue (yet), nor do I have a marketing team to build out all of this nuance.”

To that, I say: CORRECT.

It’s actually EASIER (and faster, and likely more enjoyable) to pursue partnerships on a smaller scale. Take my client’s experience, for example:

We’ve just officially locked in her SECOND partnership that will PAY HER to acquire new leads. How are we doing that, you ask? Simple:

We’ve found a couple of businesses that share a similar ideal audience to hers, and we’ve figured out what it is that they want to provide to their people.

In this case, we’ve planned joint events with them both that we will sell tickets to. The profit share for the event is 50/50, with the other half going to the venue (our partner) where the event is held.

We’ll leverage BOTH audiences to sell the events out, and then we’ll provide a special offer to all attendees to increase the LTV of each one.

These types of partnerships don’t magically appear, but with the right framework and process, they’re easy as pie.

There’s NOTHING about this set up that you’re not capable of.

“So, What Do I Say?”

Our goal is always to Go in GIVING. We figure out what they want to provide to their members / clients / subscribers, and we determine how we could ADD value to that.

Once we identify our potential partner(s), we find the right contact for them, and we reach out with our no-strings-attached offer.

Once we get an initial “yes”, we’ve opened the door to conversation and can start to make real moves.

Then What?

There are one million and ten ways to spin a partnership. The possibilities are genuinely infinite. A few of the potential set ups include:

• Referrals

• Endorsements

• Special Appearances

• Sponsorships

• Joint Ventures

  … & the list goes on.

For me to go into every possible detail would require this newsletter to be encyclopedia-length, which is what prompted me to start offering Private Intensives to teach (& workshop) these concepts.

If any of this resonates for you and you’d like some help building out some partnerships for yourself in your own business, let’s chat. I work 1:1 with a handful of business owners each month to identify, find, and establish their first strategic partnerships, allowing them to rinse and repeat.. forevermore.

I should still have 2 or 3 openings left for June, so reply back PARTNER if you’d like to chat about taking one.

Until next week, my friends 🥂

-Ashley