Wendy McCallum (01:25)
Hello there. Hope you're doing well today. Welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I'm Wendy McCallum, your host. I'm wearing a t-shirt today, which is a big deal because I live in a part of Canada where it has been cold and snowy for, ⁓ my gosh, it feels like a year, but it's really been four months. And so the weather has finally changed today. I have no idea how long it will last, but I am determined to max it out. I've already been outside with my dogs twice. I'm going to go out again later today and I'm wearing a t-shirt to celebrate. Okay.
So before we get started on today's topic, I think is, I know is a really interesting topic. And the reason I know it's an interesting topic is as with many of the topics I talk about on this podcast, this is something that comes up a lot inside the BBB, my business building community for coaches in the first five years of business. talk a lot about how to know whether it's the right time or the right person to partner with when it comes to creating new offers and programs, especially group, group coach programs. So we're going to talk.
about that. We're going to talk about all of the ways that collaborations and partnerships can be helpful as you grow your coaching business, but also some of the risks that are associated with those. So stay tuned for that conversation. Before we get into it, I always forget to do this like really simple thing that really should be a lot easier for me to remember, which is to say thank you to you as a listener for continuing to listen. Whether you're somebody who's been listening to this podcast for years, or you just joined me more recently, I'm really happy you're here. The purpose of this podcast is really just
for me to create a platform for myself to share as much of the practical learning as possible that I have had over the last 15, 16 years of business building as a solopreneur coach. I have built a really successful business. I'm really proud of my business. My goal was never to make millions of dollars. My goal frankly was to get to a place where I could pay all my bills with my coaching business and having recently gone through.
separation and now being solely financially financially responsible for all of my bills. I can say with a lot of pride that I am at that place and that feels really great. I am not here to you know tell you how to scale to you know seven figures that's not what this podcast is about. It is a practical podcast that I hope feels really accessible for you really safe for you just a place where we talk about all of the real
challenges and also gifts in being a solopreneur business owner, in particular a coach. It is designed for coaches in the first five years or so of their business, although we have lots of coaches who listen who are much further on than that because I share all the wisdom that I gather through everything that I do as a coach and also the wisdom that I get from the coaches that I support inside my coaching programs.
And what I wanna do is give you shortcuts where I have them always, and most importantly help you avoid making a lot of the mistakes that both I made in the earlier years and even more recently in my coaching business and also the mistakes that I see some of the coaches inside the BBB have made. So today is an example of a podcast episode that is really anchored in all of that, in that.
I have seen so many partnerships go wrong. I have also seen so many partnerships go right. And I personally have been involved in all kinds of different collaborative opportunities and offers and partnerships over the 15 plus years that I've been doing this. So I wanna talk about my experiences with that, but I also wanna make sure that I explain to you.
the both the rewards of collaboration. So we talk about what's good about collaborations and partnerships between coaches, but also the risks so that you can avoid them. Because I think this is one area where actually just doing a little extra work, just being a little bit more diligent, just putting, you know, a little bit more formality around things can actually be incredibly protective and helpful for you. And I really wish more coaches did that. I just had a meeting with a coach who I had worked with.
a couple of, the last, I haven't worked with her now for about a year, but she was in the BBB and was somebody who I'd worked with ⁓ one-on-one with around her business and helping her grow her business. She has a really successful business model. She's done all kinds of very cool things in her time as a coach so far, but she did have a partnership that went not the right way recently, which is really unfortunate. And she said to me when she reached out to me again for some support around how to unwind things and kind of get things back on track,
She said, I really wish I'd listened to you. So with those words, I thought I need to talk about this again on the podcast. I believe I have talked about this to some degree in a much, much earlier podcast, like episodes, seasons ago, but it felt like the right time to revisit it. So we're also gonna talk about the risks and how to prevent them. So really get into like the details of some of the things you need to be thinking about if you're considering partnering with another coach. Okay, so first let's talk about the benefits of collaboration.
because there are lots. I'm a huge fan of collaborating and partnerships. Now, what I'm not really talking about today is cross referrals. That is, I guess, a form of collaboration, but not what I'm talking about today. And that would just be where you have one coach in one niche. Let's say there's a coach that I know who works in and around, you're helping people with their mindset around business. So really getting them, you know, dealing with mindset blocks that people have around building businesses.
And then you have me and I'm more like on the practical side of business building, helping people with strategy and accountability and moving forward and making decisions in their business. That would be a good opportunity for cross referrals, for example, or, you know, on the personal coaching side of things, maybe you're an intuitive eating coach and you know somebody else who helps people change their relationship with alcohol and you've got clients that you work with and they make big changes around their, you know, the way that they think and behave around food, but they're also drinking too much and.
you know, maybe you've got the alcohol coach on the other side of things, often sees people who change their relationship with alcohol, but then end up eating like far more sugar than they want to as a replacement coping mechanism. There's a great opportunity for cross-referral there. So cross-referrals are awesome, but that's not really what we're talking about today. Today we're talking about creating offers and programs together. opportunities to either create programs together or guest coach or teach for each other.
Okay, so that's really what the partnerships and collaborations are that we're gonna be talking about today. What are the main benefits of collaborating with another coach? Well, I mean, I think the biggest one is that it's an opportunity sometimes to leverage an audience that you don't have, to get in front of a group of people, sometimes a really big group of people that you wouldn't otherwise be able to get in front of. So if you are collaborating with a coach who has a larger following than you, for example, that can help you to build your own visibility and create
more client outreach. So I've done this before. Now this generally only works, this type of collaboration only works if the coach with the smaller audience or following has something really important that they bring to the table that the coach with the bigger following doesn't have. So I'm going to caveat it with that. So I can think of an example of a time that I partnered with somebody who had less experience with content creation than I did, less experience coaching than I did, and a narrower scope of coaching
I would just say like her coaching niche was a lot narrower than mine. coming to the table, I was able to offer, you know, really lots of experience with content creation, being able to create the nuts and bolts of this program and to create a structure for the program and just knowledge around how online group programming works and offers work that she didn't have. And then she had a much bigger audience than me because she had had.
spent some time in kind of the influencer world and had published a book and had a bigger, much bigger audience than me. That was a good partnership because we were both bringing something really valuable to the table. And it made sense for her to partner with me because otherwise she might not have been able to get that program together and out there and marketed. And it made sense for me to partner with her because even though I could create the program, I was able to access a completely different audience by partnering with her. So.
Oftentimes that is a benefit of collaboration, leveraging a bigger audience, or maybe you have the same size audience as the other person, but it's just a new audience. You get in front of a new group of people. There are also other ways that collaborations can be really beneficial. One is that you can combine expertise. So again, if you have one coach who has one niche and is a real expert in that one niche, and then you are an expert in another niche, that can really enhance your offering and
build value for clients inside group offers and programs or whatever type of program. might even be a self-guided evergreen course that you're offering. But if you can put your two areas of expertise, your two different niches together, that can sometimes provide a really interesting and much more valuable solution for a certain group of clients. So for example, creating a program that combines an intuitive eating approach with a, you know,
some coaching and programming around how to change your relationship with alcohol. Those two things could go together really well for a certain segment of your client base, for both of those coaches, frankly. Because there's an intersection oftentimes for people between those two things. A lot of the women that I've worked with in the past who are drinking too much and looking to change that relationship are also finding they're relying too much on food or
food or sugar becomes a substitute coping mechanism once they get a handle on the alcohol, right? these things are often intertwined. So you're looking for that type of thing where there's a, there are two niches that actually often show up together for the same avatar client group. That can create, or the combined experience can create better value. That also can allow you to create a really unique offering. So something that,
is really niche, very niched down and specific. if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that sometimes it's just way more, it's much more marketable if it's really specific, because it's really easy to speak to the particular person who is struggling with that very intersection of issues, right? So it can be more marketable if you...
create a really unique offering that is a combination of two areas of expertise. It's naturally going to niche you down, right? It's going to make it more specific. It's going to be for less people than maybe the broader offering is. But it's going to be a whole lot easier to attract the right people because they're going to know for sure that this is them. Are you somebody who's struggling with your relationship with food and also drinking too much to cope? This program's for you, right?
So I think it can really help to attract clients who don't fit in like a traditional coaching mold. So it can be really helpful for that. The other thing that is a, it's a way to collaborate, but also a benefit of collaboration, I guess, is to do guest coaching opportunities. So that would be where you go in and you speak to another coach's group or membership. And oftentimes you can do a swap. They can come in and speak to your group if you have one, and you can go in and speak to their group.
That's another example of a way to get in front of a different audience. Now it's probably going to be a smaller audience because it's not going to be their big social media audience. Although oftentimes they will promote the fact that they have a guest speaker or guest coach coming in to talk to their membership on their bigger platform. So that benefit may be there as well for you. But it is an opportunity for you usually to get in front of a group of people who are do fall within your avatar client group if you've partnered strategically. So these are people who
are being supported in another area by the coach who's running the membership, but who also would fit within your kind of dream client avatar and might be struggling with the, also be struggling with the problem that you help people solve. So you can get in there and it gives you an opportunity to build some like no trust because you're coaching, you're teaching, you're probably in front of these people for a longer period of time. And I love that. I've done so much of that.
It's also really helpful. I mean, if you take the BBB, my business building bootcamp as an example, inside that community, we have master classes every month, which are, you know, above and beyond the weekly office hours calls that I run as the head coach in the BBB. And I often bring in experts and coaches from outside to run those master classes. And those are people who have.
an area of expertise or knowledge that is just much more specific than mine in that topic and something that I think might be really helpful for my coaches to learn about. That provides an opportunity for those coaches and guest speakers to get in front of the BBB audience and they may have something to offer them that's different from what I offer in the BBB that's really helpful, but it also feels a need I have. I want to get really valuable, interesting speakers and topics in front of the BBB all the time. I wanna be creating new content that is
valuable and a reason for people to stay inside the BBB and also is attract is a way to help attract people into the BBB, right? So it's it's also serves me to be bringing in interesting valuable good quality coaches and experts to speak inside my group. So it could be really a win-win. I have found that every time I go and do coaching in somebody else's group, put on a masterclass or do a know, workshop on something that that leads to
clients, it leads to somebody eventually coming in to my programming as well. So it's just really good. It's really good marketing. So those are just some of the benefits of collaboration. Why we're talking about this today is really great. There are also the lots of risks of collaborating or partnering with another coach. I think the biggest thing that happens, and this is the thing I just want to, if you take nothing else away from this podcast, I want you to promise yourself that you will never enter into
anything significant in terms of a collaboration or partnership with another coach without having a really
honest conversation with them and then putting something in writing. Because what I see happen too often is that coaches just go in with blind trust. They really like this person, know, maybe they got certified with them or they did a training with them and they just really like them and they're really excited about this opportunity but they don't have a conversation about any of the things we're about to talk about in this episode and they certainly don't write any of it down. And when things start to get complicated,
not necessarily fall apart, but just get complicated, there's no easy solution to those problems because they haven't pre-agreed to anything. So just promise yourself that, okay? That's the biggest pitfall is entering into a partnership solely based on trust without any formal agreement. Now, some of you may know that I was a lawyer for 12 years before I became a coach. So obviously a little bit of that brain is coming in here. I'm a risk manager at heart and...
I just feel like I have to tell you guys how important it is to document this stuff. I'm not saying you have to go hire a lawyer to do this. I if it was a really big partnership, then that might be wise for you to do. But I don't give legal advice on here. I'm no longer a practicing lawyer. And this isn't legal advice, it's just business advice. But I can't help have that legal hat comes on.
when I'm talking about things like this, write it down, get an agreement, talk through all the details. Just the talking through of things can help to avoid problems as things happen because things are gonna happen, right? I have seen coaching relationships, coaching partnerships go so badly awry.
I in fact just recently had a coach reach out to me who I supported a couple of years ago inside the BBB to say that a partnership that she had been in had gone really awry and she said, Wendy, I wish I had listened. I wish I had listened to what you said to me about getting a formal agreement in place because now I have nothing. And that unfortunately that partnership ship went really awry and you know, I've been working with her to help her sort through that and build after the breakdown of that partnership. But
I just want to help as many coaches as possible avoid that. So even in a situation where it feels like, my gosh, I totally trust this person, I love them, they're awesome, they're never gonna do me dirty, this is gonna be easy, we get along so well. Just assume that maybe something might happen outside of your control and it might have nothing to do with the other person's personality or trustworthiness or any of that that might make the partnership challenging going forward. I'm gonna talk through some of the things I think you should be talking through with potential collaborating.
collaborator or partner, and I think this will make more sense to you. It's not personal. It's just good business sense to have these conversations. Some of the things you're wanna talk about, some of the risks of collaboration are around things like content ownership and access. I mean, this is something that rarely gets discussed, like who owns the content that you create for whatever this offer or program is. And how can each of you access this?
content and use this content. So for example, if we create a workbook for this group program, is that something that I can take and brand as my own and use with my one-on-one clients? Or does that have to just be used for this particular program and I have to start from scratch, right? Or if we create this program and then after a year decide we don't want to run it anymore, can I sell this program on my own and group coach it just as a solo coach? that, how would that feel to the other person, right?
has I've seen again I've seen this play out I've seen coaches who have been locked out of their own content as a result of not having discussed this and then the partnership going souring or something happening and then suddenly they can't even access like the the videos that they co they co-recorded or the content that they co-created it's just not accessible to them anymore because only one
partner had access or one partner went in there and changed the password and then the other partner can't get in. And I know you're probably thinking to yourself, Wendy, this can't happen very often. Trust me, it happens. Let's just make sure it doesn't. It's so easy to prevent. So content ownership is one thing and content access. Revenue sharing is another huge point of contention between coaches and partnerships if you have not talked to this through. So you really have to talk it through. What is the revenue split here? How's that gonna work? Are we talking before or after expenses? What happens if, you know,
17 people sign up for the group program as a result of the marketing that I did and only three people come in through your side. Do we still split 50-50? How are we doing this? So many conversations to have around revenue and expenses. And then lastly, I think the biggest area where people get really stuck and tripped up and often it just doesn't go very well is exit strategies. So what happens if one of us doesn't want to do this anymore? Or what happens if both of us don't want to do this anymore?
How do we handle that? What happens to the content, the program and the outstanding expenses, the revenue that hasn't been collected yet, whatever the things are, how are we gonna manage all of that and go forward? What's the plan for that? What's the exit strategy?
Okay. Here are some of the key questions. There's a whole module actually on this inside the BBB. This is something I wanted to create a resource for coaches on this because I had a lot of coaches who I was supporting who were considering entering into partnerships and
having partnered many times with people. And I think also, again, that legal hat comes into play here. I wanted to try to create a list of things that people should be talking about with their potential collaborators or partners. So these are some of the things from that list. The first thing, so schedule a conversation with your potential partners. Say, look, I think it would be so, this is gonna go so much smoother for us if we actually talk through all the potential contingencies, the way this thing could go, the potential.
questions that we might have down the line or bottlenecks or points of you know ⁓ possible contention. Let's talk about all of them now while things are still really great and figure out how we want to do this so we can avoid problems down the road and make this the most the smoothest and most fun experience possible to create this program together. The first question is and this is one to ask yourself before that meeting obviously do we even like each other?
Like, do we really like each other? Because you're going to end up having to spend a fair bit of time with somebody if you are actually co-creating and collaborating on a program or offer. It's a little different from like guest coaching once inside someone's membership. I'm talking about creating a group offer, for example, or creating an online program and having to go through the process of like all the content creation and recording and uploading and marketing and launching and all the rest of it together. Do you like each other? That's like, I think a base prerequisite.
Okay, but it is not the thing that's gonna make it go well. I wanna be really clear. I've seen lots of people partner together and then it hasn't gone very well. So they partner together because they like each other a lot, but they're actually not good business partners or they haven't talked through these other points first and sorted them out. Do your coaching styles compliment each other? I think this is really important. That doesn't mean that you need to coach the same.
In fact, I think the best partnerships are often where coaches have different styles of coaching and different coaching, certainly different niches and topics that they can coach on. But what I do think is important is that your values are aligned and your coaching philosophy is aligned, right? So that you have talked that through, here's what we wanna do and here's what we don't wanna do. Or it's really important for me to make sure that we're constantly reminding people that this is a really safe container to really highlight privacy, to highlight keeping things within the group that happen in the group, all of that stuff.
If that's a view that you have and that's really important to you and you have a partner who's like, feels really differently about all of that, like, no, it's really important that people can talk about this stuff, you know, where outside, I mean, I don't know when this would happen, by the way, this is a bad example, but you get where I'm going with this. You wanna make sure you're on the same page with your coaching styles, really complimenting each other. My approach with coaching is always, you know, coming from a place of like, this person already has the answers. They're not broken, they're not, you know, they're not missing anything. It's my job to help them kind of,
pulled themselves back into a feeling of wholeness and really tap into the knowing and the intuition that I know they already have deep down. That's a big piece of my coaching philosophy and I would need to be in alignment with that on that point with another coach if I was gonna be coaching a program with them. Contribution levels, this is so important. like who's gonna be doing what? Again, I can think of an example of a coach that I worked with who partnered with someone who ended up doing at least 80 % of the work, probably more.
80 % of the marketing, 80 % of all the stuff, brought 80 % of the stuff to the table and then ended up in a situation where the expectation was a 50-50 split forever because they hadn't really talked it all through. So contribution levels matter. Who's going to be bringing what to the table? And this doesn't just mean audience size, for example, that's a factor in it, but also who's going to do the hustling? Who's going to do the content creation? Who's going to manage the clients? Who's going to deal with the backend admin stuff? Who's going to do the website? Who's going to, you know,
Who's gonna do the posting? Who's gonna run the coaching calls? Like having conversations about all of that. Who's bringing what to the table? If you couldn't do that in a way and it feels like it's 50-50, then maybe a 50-50 revenue split makes sense post expenses. If you do that exercise and realize, the contribution levels are gonna be really different, that doesn't mean that it can't work as a collaboration or partnership, but it does mean that you probably need to think about a different revenue split that reflects that fairly, right? Platform hosting.
platform is gonna host this program that you're creating? It's a really good question, because I'll tell you what, if you host it on your own platform, it's a whole lot easier down the road when that group program collaborative effort ends for you to just keep offering that program, because now you've already got it all uploaded and ready on your platform, right? So that's a big deal, who owns it? It's also, you you gotta have trust in the person who owns the platform that the program is hosted on.
Or maybe you're just, you two are going to go in together on a new platform. You're going to open a circle community and share the costs of that, for example, and be co-admins on it. Like there are different ways to do this, but you need to talk about it. Who's, where are we going to host this thing? How's that going to work? Definitely talk about audience contribution. So who is bringing what size following and potential client base to the table. That's important. What's that, what's the exposure going to be to that person's, to the other coach's audience and vice versa.
Marketing responsibility is also something people don't talk about. Who's going to market and launch this thing? What's that going to look like? What are we going to each be responsible for? Spin off work. This is a biggie. This is something I think all coaches need to talk about because it always happens when you run a group program, you will inevitably end up with one on one clients or a potential pool of clients for a second group offer that follows this offer. Who gets that?
So where are you going to be directing people when it comes to one-on-one? For example, if people are looking for more support, they're in a group program, they love it, but they want some one-on-one support, which coach gets that business and how do you manage that? Do you just leave it up to the client to pick? Or is only one of you interested in doing one-on-one? I can think of a BBB coach who has a group coach program. They did discuss all of these things because I took that coach through, know, she watched the module, we had lots of conversations around this, she had good discussions with her partner. One of the things they talked about was do we...
Are both of us interested in one-on-one coaching if the opportunities arise? And the other coach said, no, she wasn't. She didn't have the capacity for that and wasn't interested in that. So all the one-on-one referrals went to the other coach, but that was agreed upon in advance and the agreement, revenue split, all of that, it was all done in a way that felt fair to those two parties. So spin-off work is a big thing and it's something to think about because it will inevitably.
happen or the opportunity for it will inevitably arise. Who owns the content? This one is huge. Who owns the content? Do we both own it? So I can think of a program I did with a coach where we created content together. Let's say there were 30 videos, 15 of them I did, 15 she did. We put them all together in this platform. We created a workbook and some other resources to go with. And then we group coached the program a few times together. But the program also worked really well as a self-guided program.
And we designed it purposefully that way. We had a conversation about it and we both said we wanted the ability to use and sell the program as self-guided on our own separate platforms. And since then I have used it with a lot of one-on-one clients. I have my own version of it that lives on my website and she's used it inside another membership community that she runs. We had pre-agreed to all of that. So there was never any dispute over that when we did that. But I have also seen it go wrong. People, you know, again, end up with this
jointly created content and no agreement as to what happens to it when they stop running the program jointly. What happens if the partnership ends? This is a big one. Can the other partner just keep running the thing or does the program have to wrap up? Is it just over and dead? Can, again, like same questions, right? Can one partner take the content and make it their own and create a new program or no?
So much to think about there.
What happens if we convert it, if it gets converted into a self guided program, do we continue splitting the revenue after that? If we decide we don't want to coach it together anymore, lots of different ways that that could go and things to talk about costs, the costs involved, like what's gonna, what are the actual expenses that are gonna be involved in creating this thing? How are we gonna keep track of those and how are we gonna split those fairly? What's our plan on profit? Will we do, like, will we pay profit out?
only after we've covered all of our expenses in creating this program or we start paying profit out right away, what's the plan for that? And then obviously what constitutes a fair revenue split or a compensation model for us? Like how are we gonna actually fairly split the revenue from this program? And then this is like another like simple thing that people don't think about, how are we gonna pay each other? Like how's this gonna work? So if you've got a coach in Canada and you've got a coach in the US, you've got to deal with that because...
You can't Venmo somebody in Canada from the United States. We don't have Venmo here. So you're like, okay, how's this logistically gonna work? Am I gonna invoice you through Stripe and you're gonna pay me for the amount, the half of the program revenue that's mine? Are we gonna do this through PayPal? Like how's this all gonna work? And when are we gonna be paid and how do we ensure transparency? So how do I know if one person is managing the revenue coming in on this program because they're the owner of the site that's collecting the revenue?
what's the accounting procedure going to be? How am I going to know that I'm getting the share that I'm supposed to be getting of the revenue that's coming in? There's easy ways to deal with that upfront. And this is not a contentious thing to talk about in beginning. you know what? I'll just do a printout every month and I'll send you, you know, the sheet of how much we've generated and what the expenses were. And then we'll have a conversation if you have any questions. And then I'll just do, we'll do the split as per the agreement and I'll send you the money via, you know, PayPal.
for example. And if you talk about that in advance, it's not contentious. But let me tell you that if in the moment you're thinking to yourself, I don't know if I'm getting my fair share here. How do I know? It seemed like we had a lot more people in that program. And I think that this is too small an amount. It becomes contentious in that moment when you ask for accounting and accounting. So pre-discuss all of these things, pre-agree to these things.
So, mean, this is not rocket science, but really what we're talking about here in terms of best practices on collaborations are things like open communication, encourage it. Set up a plan for that even. I always encourage my coaches to have a plan with their partners to meet on a regular basis. Maybe you have a weekly half an hour meeting where you just discuss how the program's going, any concerns you have, any thoughts you have about the program, marketing, whatever, and you just get it off your chest.
and have the conversation regularly instead of letting things build up or things not be said that maybe need to be said. I think formal agreements are a no-brainer. Like you've got to write this stuff down and both of you like sign and date it. I'm not necessarily, you know, I can't give legal advice as I said earlier and I'm not suggesting that every arrangement requires an expensive legal contract. God knows that that would be prohibitive for a lot of us as small business owners, but you can.
Do a lot of this stuff yourself by thinking it through, writing it down and agreeing to it. Each of you agreeing to it and signing it. It can just be a helpful foundational document. right, we did agree how we were gonna do this in the beginning, right? Also just being careful about who the right partner is. mean, listen, mistakes get made. You partner with people, people surprise you. People surprise you for the good, people surprise you for the not so good.
So you do your best with this, but really being thoughtful about this. Finding somebody who aligns with your values and your goals is really important. And then the most important thing guys is that everything I talk about around beta applies to partnerships and collaborations. Try it once. So have the conversation, come up with all of the, know, try to discuss as many of the potential points of conflict, contention, confusion, whatever, as possible, get that all done, written, whatever. Do your trial program, but agree.
that we're just gonna try it for one cycle and see how it goes. And then we will revisit after that cycle. But here are the terms that govern that cycle, including things like if we decide after the cycle to not do it at all again, this is what happens to the content, the ownership, the revenue, all of that stuff. But beta mindset with collabs and partnerships is even more important, I think, than doing it by yourself. So don't enter into some long-term thing with anybody. Again,
Any of the partnerships and collaborations I've done have always been a one-time thing for the first time. Let's just try this and see what happens. And then we'll talk and see if we wanna try it again. And if we do wanna try it again, what do we wanna change the next time? So maintaining that beta mindset. So I hope this was helpful to you if you're somebody who's been thinking about this. think collaborations and partnerships are really interesting ways to be thinking about things right now. We're in this like weird.
no man's land right now where nobody really knows what's happening. Are we in a recession? Are we not in a recession? mean, so every day basically I wake up and I'm like, is there a war? Is there not a war? How's, you know, it's a crazy time to be a human, let alone to be a business person. And I do think that collaborations and partnerships sometimes can create some stability. can create, you know, certainly there's a value in like not doing this stuff by yourself. Oftentimes a partnership is the thing that gets me over the hurdle.
and actually to the point where I've created a marketable program that I otherwise would have just stalled forever or not felt confident enough creating on my own. So I love the idea of partnerships and collaborations. They can fill unique niches. They can just help distinguish you from other everybody else out there doing the same thing. But if you're going to do them, really think a lot about them and make sure that you have a conversation about as many of the things as possible. I've highlighted.
many of them today there are lots more things that you could be thinking about depending on what it is you're thinking about doing just put some thought and mindfulness into it and then write it down and agree to it so that you have something in writing that you can go back to in the event that things don't go well most of the time things go well but sometimes they don't and when they don't you really are going to kick yourself take it from the couple of coaches who've come back to me and said i am kicking myself you will kick yourself for not having taken this step
I would love to know if you have collaborated or been involved in partnerships or if you have ideas for partnerships, like send me a note, let me know what has really worked for you in terms of a partnership or collaboration, or if something's gone awry and you have a story to share there, feel free to share that with me too. I love hearing from you, I love learning from you. It does help me, really, it helps to inform the subjects of the podcast episodes.
As always, if you have an idea for an episode or you have feedback on an episode, you can send that to me at wendymichellem.com or you can reach out to me on Instagram. I am at wendymichellemcoach. I'd love to hear from you. I hope that you enjoyed the podcast episode. If you did, you do me a favor. Just give it a like, share it maybe with some other coaches who you know who could use more community or feeling alone out there in the world of business building. I appreciate you and I'll see you next week on The Coaching Edge.
