What are the benefits of business partnerships? In our online world, it’s easy to feel like you’re on an island. Instead of going at it alone, begin to leverage collaborations and partnerships to help you grow.
My guest today is Danielle Wiebe, founder of the Business Babes Collective, a community of women entrepreneurs. She has over seven years of experience in business partnerships and collaborations, and is passionate about helping women grow their businesses.
In this episode you will learn:
- How to leverage partnerships and collaborations to grow your business
- The benefits of business partnerships
- The importance of being clear about expectations in a partnership
I asked Danielle how she got started with her business.
Danielle said she’s always known that she wanted to be an entrepreneur, and got her feet wet at college in the business program. After trying a lot of different things, she really found her niche in social media management.
Partnering with someone from a past job, they started a business together doing website design, social media, consulting, and more. In this partnership, she learned a lot about working with someone else and working with different personality traits.
After looking around for a community of other women entrepreneurs to connect with and network, she finally decided to create one herself. She hosted her first event in 2014 and it snowballed from there into the Business Babes Collective.
getting started
Danielle says the first time you put yourself out there in a partnership is scary. Everyone gets told no at some point. But the more you put yourself out there, the more yeses you get.
The biggest mistake Danielle sees people make with collaborations, is that they want to work with someone else, but they don’t know what they want. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with collaborations in the past – too one-sided or they didn’t see the benefits in the exchange.
Danielle says the most important thing for a successful collaboration is being clear on the expectations and making sure that you are holding up your end of the deal. There’s risk involved, but the benefits can outweigh the risks if done well. The more collaborations you do, the better you get.
Some additional things I asked Danielle to share with us:
- A partnership success story
- A lesson learned from a partnership. What would she do differently next time?
- How do contracts play a role and what’s most important?
- Why are collaborations and partnerships important in our current environment?
Danielle says that the most important thing before starting a collaboration is what YOU want out of it.
What are the benefits of business partnerships? How do you want to collaborate? What am you looking for in the collaboration, what is your goal? Cross-promotion, more exposure for your brand, hosting an event together, generating sales and revenue?
who should you partner with?
Finding the right people to collaborate with is so important. Danielle keeps a Google doc of all the people in her industry she’d love to connect with. She researches by consuming their content, listening to their podcast, watching YouTube videos, following them on social media. She makes sure they share her values or are in line with her business and goals.
Yes, this takes times. Wouldn’t you rather send out 10 quality pitches to businesses you know are a good fit? Instead of 100 pitches to businesses that are a mediocre fit or don’t align with your values?
To learn more about Danielle and her business, check out her Business Babes Collective podcast. She’s also running an awesome Organic Growth Workshop that you can sign up for today!
If you have questions for Danielle, she says you can find her on Instagram and reach out to her through DMs.
For further reading/listening:
- Optimizing sponsored content for Pinterest (podcast/blog post)
- Balancing family with running multiple businesses (podcast/blog post)
- Finding the ROI in marketing (podcast/show notes)
