Building strong, mutually beneficial relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs is an essential step for anyone striving to reach their long-term business goals. But in today’s rapidly changing landscape, knowing how to initiate and manage strategic partnerships can be a daunting task for most entrepreneurs.
In this episode of the Influence by Design podcast, we’ll discuss the fundamentals of maximizing returns: creating and managing strategic partnerships. When looking to maximize your growth potential, partnerships are one of the essential areas to focus on.
Partnerships allow two organizations that might have different strengths or objectives to collaborate and benefit from one another’s expertise. However, managing these partnerships can prove to be a complicated process and requires clear boundaries, well-defined goals, and regular communication.
Properly managed strategic partnerships can open the door for future opportunities and offer unique advantages that neither party could access independently. Listen to this episode now to learn how to create and manage strategic partnerships.
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- The power of ChatGPT and other AI (01:40)
- How to create key referral partners (03:46)
- Amplifying your influence with potential partners (08:13)
- Properly managing your partnership network (14:09)
- How to nurture your connections so you’re not forgotten (17:54)
- How to add value to your key strategic partners (22:04)
QUOTES
- “The best way to build a business is with the people in your network.” -Samantha Riley
- “The closer we get to the point of sale, the more personal we want to be.” -Tim Hyde
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WHERE TO FIND TIM HYDE
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CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
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TRANSCRIPTION
Tim Hyde Snippet 00:00:
I think when we look at that from a how do we influence potential partners? What are the activities that we’re doing, and systemising in our business to kind of reach out to people and build these trusted relationships, which we can eventually, potentially benefit from, then our clients can benefit from as well.
Samantha Riley Snippet 00:20:
We do things, not to gain something in return. But of course, it made me feel so good that I did return the favor and did promote. So just really helping the partners in your world feel valued is a really great way to go about creating some great partnerships and really, to nurture those partnerships.
My name is Samantha Riley, and this is the podcast for experts who want to be the unapologetic leader in their industry. We’re going to share the latest business growth, marketing, and leadership strategies, as well as discussing how you can use your human design to create success in business and life. Inside and out. It’s time to take your influence, income, and impact to the level you know you’re capable of. Are you ready to make a bigger difference and scale up? This is the Influence By Design podcast.
Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design. I’m your co host for today, Samantha Riley. and joined as always, on Thursdays by my fabulous co-host, Tim Hyde, or by the lovely Tim Hyde with you, we buy you around you to
Tim Hyde 01:30
English speaking this, this introduction was not written by AI.
Samantha Riley 01:34
This was not nor was written by my brain, I apologize. But we are here.
Tim Hyde 01:40
Actually, I got sent an article from a copywriter that I was having a conversation with because we got on to the conversation of chat GBT and AI and if you haven’t seen some of this stuff appearing in your newsfeed lately, you potentially are living under a rock, or an industry it hasn’t touched yet. But it’s certainly going to change. You know, certainly as marketers, we’ve seen a lot of this in our feeds over the course of the last two months. Not very long at all. Yeah. But I can’t I can’t open it up with it here or the AI tools. But interesting after this article was written, and then graded by an English teacher. I failed, who got nine out of 20?
Samantha Riley 02:21
Oh, really, really? Well, I actually am enjoying playing with it. And I believe and I could be wrong, but I believe it is the fastest growing website of all time.
Tim Hyde 02:32
Wouldn’t surprise me if it was, we’re going to see the other players respond really quickly. Right? So keep an eye out for Google bod. As well, that’ll that’ll weed out shortly as well.
Samantha Riley 02:44
Yeah, I’ve heard it’s not that great. But we’ll see. It’s an emerging
Tim Hyde 02:47
space, right? It’s an emerging space totally. The more it learns, the better it gets? Well, I
Samantha Riley 02:52
have been doing a lot of training with chat GPT, and a lot of workshops and working with a lot of people going down the rabbit hole. And I said to my husband, Leon that I think that we’re going to see the biggest change in business this year. And him and I have ever seen in our careers. I truly believe that.
Tim Hyde 03:13
Yep. Look, I completely agree. Now interesting thing of the conversation that I had was around the influence of AI. And the only stupid amount of content we’re about to see sort of appear onto the internet, right? It is going to become a very, very crowded space. And what does that mean for other forms of marketing, such partnerships and how we influence the personal relationship and referral. does that become more more important, or less important,
Samantha Riley 03:46
so going to become more important, it is going to be what makes you stand out. And that’s why we’re talking about it today. We’ve been talking about influence for the last couple of weeks. So we spoke initially about being more deliberate in your influence. Last week, we spoke about influencing your clients. And this week, we’re talking about how to create more influence in your network. And I really love this conversation because networking is something that you and I, I’m gonna say it are very good at. I said to you before we started recording, I think we’re in the top 5% You made a very bold claim and thought that I was either I wasn’t quite right.
Tim Hyde 04:29
Either think you were selling yourself short, Sam, because I said, you know, and again, our listeners know that I do a lot of networking, and meet a lot of people in the space. I would say that you are in the top 1%.
Samantha Riley 04:39
Yeah, both of us. This is something that is that something that you and I really we value the people in our network, we know that the best way to build a business is with the people in your network. So we’re going to talk today about what you need to or you know why I this is so important to us why this is so important to you something that you need to look into, and how we can go away to grow our influence within our network. Because there’s a lot of people that, try this and don’t quite get the results that they’re looking for. Would you agree with that comment?
Tim Hyde 05:19
I would absolutely agree. And I think and again, the we started this conversation around content because an AI because as I’ve always, I’ve always said, Sam, the closer we get to the point of sale, the more personal we want to be not the less personal. And we want to scale, the number of relationships we have, but increase the level of intimacy. Now the use of AI, of course, is the complete opposite of that it massively scales our reach in the same way. Let’s roll back 1015 years, when email marketing first became a thing, we were able to scale our reach in the same way that AI is now used to do now. But in process of scaling our reach, we became very impersonal because we treated everyone the same. And AIS, I suspect will follow a very similar trend. That’s my bold prediction. Almost every single trend game will scale the amount of communication massively, that goes out, but we’ll lose that personal connection in the process. And that’s why that influence through trusted partners, family members, other clients, becomes increasingly important. And I think that’s why we’ve seen in terms of the efficacy of particular lead channels, over the course of recording that, you know, time immemorial, referral from friends, colleagues, you know, trusted allies, as always been, you know, most important, this guy is a good guy, you should go with him. Okay. Yeah. And, and if you think about your own life before, even before you turn to Google, but you got to know your cleaner, your, you know, your mechanic, your whatever, you know, the new restaurant that’s open, you will ask people whom you trust about their opinion.
Samantha Riley 07:08
Yeah. And that is what the importance of partnerships is that there is the transference of trust that someone already has, and they’re handing it to someone else. I know that you and I refer people to each other Tim. And if it’s someone that’s in our network, and we say, hey, look, you should definitely reach out to Tim, he’s the person that you should speak to he’s the, you know, the best person in this area, then the trust that I have already built with that person is then transferred to you, which makes it a lot easier to sign that client. Yeah,
Tim Hyde 07:40
absolutely. Okay. And you have that because you’ve built a relationship with that person. Okay, so the rest of today’s episode will be, how do we create implements with a referral partners who already have those trusted relationships?
Samantha Riley 07:55
Know, you shared a story with me, Tim, before we started recording about a book that you’ve actually, I believe, sitting right beside you, and how you actually acquired or would, you know, got that book, I’d love you to share this story, because I think this sets the context of what we’re talking about,
Tim Hyde 08:13
I will so I’m gonna go, I’m gonna read the I’m gonna before I even go into the book, I’m gonna read the intro, right? So Tim lifefitness is actually sort of handwritten intro inside of this book. And it’s not this guy’s book, by the way, life in business is about relationships, remember to always give without expectation, without the expectation of getting anything in return, your friend Matt would. Now I met met, or maybe twice, I think maybe two or three times on a networking call with the other group in the US. And it seemed very similar. And we’re in the same place Matt’s in the business of relationships. And this book actually is, which I’ll get to undertake was in coaching, referral strategies. And at the time, one of the automations that we were building, one of the systems we were building for a lot of clients and still do, actually was around how do you systemize and manage all the relationships you have, particularly your referral partners, and I said, we’ve touched on this in previous episodes before. Anyway, so I finally got around to having a one to one chat with Matt and I happen to notice that he had an account with them, right 13 of the same book on his bookshelf, and the book was entitled, Never Eat Alone. And author is Keith Ferrazzi, which is actually really interesting book but it’s all around partnerships and referrals and building influence with key referral partners, okay. Or the you know, if you’ve got friends you Never Eat Alone, right? And have you ever gone on a zoom call with Sam, you’ll notice that she’s got all of her books color coded, but they are all different books. No, so I had a chat with Matt and said what Tell me about that. You bunch of the same book there, Matt, do you particularly like that author? Or is it your book and so on? Anyway, pull this book off the bookshelf, Michael. went into a conversation about it. And he said, I’ll send you a copy. And I’m like, I’m immediately feeling a little bit special. Thanks. Yeah, he’s in North Carolina. Thanks, man, you know, for sending me a copy. And a couple of weeks later, we got off the call, it kind of forgot about the conversation a little bit, had it in my sister and sort of reach out and touch base with Ben again, in a couple of weeks time. And sure enough, one afternoon, this is, I think, might have been just pre COVID or about the start, I started COVID don’t recall exactly, you know, another delivery turns up on the doorstep, as they tend to do quite a lot lately. And it’s a it’s a, like a big bag, it’s probably about the size of a sort of carry on bag that you take on a plane quite heavy, and is $70 worth of postage US dollars with a postage stamps on this thing. And I’ll open it up. And it’s not one book, there is literally 15 books inside this thing, several copies of Matt’s book that he’d written, and a bunch of others around partnerships, referrals or related stuff. We talked about that last week I’ve related that he’d sent me, right. And again, little handwritten note says, Hey, I hope you enjoy these books. There’s some of my favorites, how fabulous cheers, Matt, not sign up to my thing now. My stuff. Alright, it was just coming back to that, you know, give without the expectation of in the beginning in the return. And I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve told that story now.
Samantha Riley 11:34
Right. And he didn’t do it with any expectation. But it changed your day in such a positive way that you tell the story over and over? Because it makes you feel happy.
Tim Hyde 11:47
The gods? Yeah, absolutely. That’s. But the thing is that when we when we come back to, I guess the in Albia, the sort of the genuine, the genuinely generous nature that Matt was expressing. I think when we look at that, from a how do we influence potential partners? What are the activities that we’re doing, and Systemising in our business to kind of reach out to people and build these trusted relationships, which we can eventually potentially benefit from, that our clients can benefit from as well,
Samantha Riley 12:21
totally, I had a story, this was actually it probably was during COVID, I would imagine just thinking about where I was living. And I say that because I’m a very visual person. And I actually remember where I was standing when I opened the gift box. But it was from a partner in the US. And he had sent a whole heap of like travel mug, and there was a coffee mug and there was a beautiful like leather Compendium that had you know, a place for your pen and for your paper. It was all perfect things for me, you know, very, very analog person, I like to take notes I’m I don’t like like, just
Tim Hyde 13:00
you like your stationery,
Samantha Riley 13:02
I love my stationery, thank you. Now you would think that he would be sending all of that with the logo of his business on it. Or he didn’t what he had done was grabbed my logo off the internet somewhere off my website, I guess. And he had printed in my own branding colors, my logo on the gifts that he sent me. And I just thought that that was so nice, because I could tell that he had really gone out of his way to make me feel special. And of course, what did I do? I promoted him extremely well. And I mean, you know, he didn’t, obviously, we had did talk about on the last episode that we do things, not to gain something in return. But of course, it made me feel so good that I did return the favor and did promote. So you know, just really helping the partners in your world feel valued is a really great way to go about creating some great partnerships and really, to nurture those partnerships.
Tim Hyde 14:09
I think this is a way and again, if we’re looking at deliberate, you know, how do you manage more partners? I guess, right? It’s quite easy to kind of, if you only had one person who was your key referral partner, it’d be quite easy to manage that. Yeah, when you’ve spoken to maths, you’ve probably got a note enough, you know, I’m gonna paper on your desk. And it’s pretty easy to kind of remember what you’re up to with that person. But as soon as you start begin scaling the number of people that we have a relationship with, that we’re trying to kind of build influence with, the more that we can remember or record or systemize the process of that like like anything, right? If you’ve got a system you can refine and improve the system to achieve the outcome that you’re looking for. Yeah, And so it can be just if your system is just like every time you speak to someone, right? Arrange another call, or get in for a couple of weeks time, and then put a note in your calendar appointment about what you spoke about. Alright, and again, if you just recall what’s going on with somebody, and make reference to that the next time you see them, as you said, Sam, right, it’s about, you made me feel special, just by remembering things that were important to me.
Samantha Riley 15:33
Yeah. So there definitely needs to be a system around nurturing those relationships, deepening those relationships, because doing that is what’s going to increase the probability of the ROI or the return on investment of that relationship. So when there’s not much connection, or the relationship isn’t deep, then the probability of the ROI is quite small. So we want to increase the probability of that return on investment. Because, you know, time is our greatest asset, we’re essentially we’re giving away our time to do this. So we need to have some sort of return on investment. So I love that you mentioned book that call in before you even get off the phone. I know that you also have a, an email nurture sequence that goes out that touches base with your referral partners.
Tim Hyde 16:33
I think, you know, the thing about building influence is not just, you know, whether it’s an email or something, although you could email a potential partner, or even just to say, Hey, Sam, I’ve got this information about you just want to check in and make sure it’s still correct. I used to working with coaches I used to, you know, in the influence space, you know, as your price range, still this sort of price range, right? Because we we know that people change and in what it is they do, yeah, but even if you just automate or systemize, the workflow that says you need to do something with this person now, right, because more often than not the relationship that you have out of sight out of mind. Yeah, the squeaky wheel builds the relationship. And so if you’ve got one, that you’ve got a workflow that says, hey, you need to reach out to this person who is going to be important to you, and can add value to your clients. And you can add value to them, and so on, and have coffee sharing articles, send a book, and promote them in some way. And on social media, do something nice for them, don’t just send them a text message to show your appreciation, whatever it is that you’re doing, we can systemize that into a process that then prompts either us or someone in our team to do that outreach on our behalf to build the relationship between our companies. Absolutely.
Samantha Riley 17:53
No, you and I have a number of partners that we speak with every week. But there’s also a whole group of people that we speak to once and don’t speak to for a long time after that. And my team has a spreadsheet of people that we’ve connected with in all different ways that I know that they’ve just updated today. So there’ll be a whole heap of emails going out, re touching base with people that we’ve connected with previously with but not partnered with. Because when you think about it, always looking for a new partnership is a lot harder than touching base with partners that you haven’t, you know, deepen that relationship with. And I think that this is where a lot of people are going to say it wastes a lot of time, always looking for the new thing. It’s the same in lead generation always looking for the new lead, instead of thinking, Who have I already got that’s in my world that we can deepen that relationship with. So I think that touching base or having a system that touches base with people that you’ve connected with and not partnered with, you don’t speak to them on a regular basis is a really wise investment, also, in creating that influence?
Tim Hyde 19:09
Well think about this way. And you know, we’ve talked about this as a lead generation strategy. And I think there’s, there’s a whole bunch right and ultimately come back to what’s the return on effort or return on investment from doing if you’re doing direct advertising. We’re doing your marketing will definitely turn we talk about sort of cost per click or cost per conversation, cost per acquisition, those sorts of things, right? Because it’s really easy to go. I had, you know, I spent $20.17 people clicked on it and you know, five people converted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know, and that actually kind of gives you a direct dollar investment return. And certainly corporates will do that. Without a doubt. No, I was my direct dollar into investment and, but in the same way, as we build partnerships, we’re also spending a resource that’s quite precious to our business. That resource you you or someone on your team comes at a cost. Okay, whatever cost you put in your own time, whatever cost you put on your team members time, and it has the same effectively has the same return on investment metrics. If I spend five minutes every two weeks, right for 52 weeks, all right, well, you know, 26 by five, that’s 130 hours as my math 130 hours, I think that whatever was over that 13 hours, I don’t know, whatever it is gonna be. I didn’t work out the math, I
Samantha Riley 20:35
was gonna say, we noticed I didn’t jump in there. Math is not my thing. I just walked away from that conversation for a moment.
Tim Hyde 20:41
divided by 60. Yeah, whatever it was a couple of hours, sort of couple of hours of work. And that comes at a cost to you, right? So it’s you, it might be three or $400 with a cost to acquire a referral partner, who then delivers you a new client every single month. Right, because you build influence with that referral partners as such, where they go, I really like you, I’m going to refer to you, my clients. And if it’s the right referral partner, potentially, that referral partner is sending new clients every single week. And we’ve talked about this before Sam, right, if you would open up your calendar right now, and I put up mine, we can absolutely find at least one person, we can introduce each other to
Samantha Riley 21:22
100% Way more than one every time they
Tim Hyde 21:27
want to date. So as long as we’re talking to prospects, we will potentially find every single day, a referral. Now, if you think about that, on a return on investment perspective, as a marketing strategy, the investment in creating influence with key strategic partners is massive. Way better than anything else you could potentially do. But you’ve got to invest in that strategy, you’re gonna have a system around managing it, or it doesn’t work, because you have those conversations. And then six months later, you walk in different directions and go, What was that guy’s name? I can’t remember.
Samantha Riley 22:04
Yeah, six months later, do you think it’s not even that long? I find that that it can happen six minutes later. We’re all busy. Let’s be honest, we’re all super, super busy. And unless there’s a reason to action, something, just having a conversation will actually get forgotten. And not because anyone’s doing it on purpose. Because we’re all busy.
Tim Hyde 22:28
Yeah, yeah. So I think yeah, again, it pays off. But it’s it comes back to those fundamentals of building influence. How can I add value to my key strategic partner, like a referral partner, that makes them feel heard, makes them feel special, makes them feel valued? That we start to build some, I guess, reciprocity in that 100%. And sometimes the investment you make won’t pay off.
Samantha Riley 22:54
It’s not going to 100% of the time, let’s you know, Let’s call a spade a spade, it won’t. But the thing is, you never know where that there’s that one person or those key 10% of people that will pay off in a very big way. And you know, it’s all totally worthwhile. So, as you’ve been listening to this conversation, you’ve probably had some ideas that’s popping up. But I’d love you to think, what is or who is one person or five people or 10 people who you can reach out to, you know, right now this week, and touch base with again and start this conversation, how can you influence them in a way that helps your business and helps their business because it’s coming from a place of service that this works really well.
Tim Hyde 23:47
I want to take that one step further, Sam and suggest that I want you to go and get five post it notes, right, or magnets, if you’ve got a whiteboard handy or something like that, right? Write those. Name, the people, the five people you thought of the 10 people in photo, write their names on those posted notes or magnets, right. And every time you do something each day, just do something nice for one of them. And then take that, post it note and then stick it to the bottom. And then next day to the person on the top of the list and then move into alright, and eventually it doesn’t take long right it’s it’s fine. It’s a couple of minutes just to do something nice for someone send them a text message saying hey, forgive you hope you will. Or Sweden doing something really awesome. Congratulations on x y Zed. Haven’t seen anyone for a bit is everything. Okay? All right. And then each day just do something. Right and what you’ll find is you’ll build incredible relationships with those people.
Samantha Riley 24:47
Love it. Thank you for taking that to the next level Tim say I told her but 1% Thanks so much for joining me Tim and thank you for listening to another episode of Influence By Design. We will catch you next year. Is day for another episode. Ciao for now.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Influence By Design podcast. If you want more head over to influencebydesignpodcast.com for the show notes and links to today’s gifts and sponsors. And if you’re looking to connect with other experts who are growing and scaling their business to join us in the coaches, thought leaders, and changemakers community on Facebook, the links are waiting for you over at influencebydesignpodcast.com
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