There's a shortcut that most people miss
and it's sitting right in front of them.
You can spend years building an audience
from scratch or you can partner with
someone who already has the exact
audience that you're trying to reach.
Most people think
partnerships are complicated.
They're not.
You just need to know who to partner with
and what to offer them.
Today, I'm going to show you how to find
high value partners and
exactly how to pitch them.
This isn't influencer marketing.
This is strategic
co-promotion where everyone wins.
If you're tired of slow
organic growth and you want to
strategies that gets overlooked and
people are missing a
huge, huge opportunity.
I was reminded of this because recently
on one of our coaching calls for our
membership, I was working with one of our
members who has a photo book membership.
We were talking about how to grow this
business and they were talking about
their number one problem
or challenge being traffic.
We were trying to figure
out how to grow faster.
What I realized was in going through
this, instead of them spending a whole
bunch of money on ads or grinding away at
content, I asked a different question.
I asked, "Who already
has your ideal customers?"
We started listing a bunch of types of
businesses, whether it's family
photographers, travel bloggers,
scrapbooking creators, teachers who
document their classrooms, sports coaches
who want to preserve team
memories, and then it hit us.
These people don't
just have our customers.
They're actively creating the moments
that turn into these
incredible photo books.
We mapped out a simple workshop, how to
turn your travel photos
into a beautiful keepsake book.
The partner promotes
it to their audience.
We run the workshop.
Everyone who attends gets a
template and a discount code.
The partner gets an
affiliate cut on every sale.
Their audience gets value.
We get customers who are
pre-qualified and ready to buy.
See, one partner workshop could bring in
more customers than six
months of organic posting.
The point of the matter is this.
You don't have to
build your audience alone.
already has them.
You just need to show
up with the right offer.
So, here's what the research shows.
According to data from last year, 79% of
creators prefer long-term partnerships
with brands over one-time deals.
And 92% of consumers trust
recommendations from
individuals over brand ads.
Now, this is huge because people trust
people more than they trust brands.
So, when you partner with someone who
already has that trust with the audience
you want to serve, you get
to borrow that credibility.
So, how do you go about doing this?
Well, it's going to break
down into three main parts.
Part number one,
look for partners.
And friends,
partners are everywhere.
All you got to do is just open your mind
to the possibility of being able to
partner and you're going to start seeing
examples of them everywhere.
So, if we go back to the photo book
company that I was working with.
I mean, obviously the examples I'm about
to give are specific to their business,
but hopefully it immediately gets some
ideas going for you.
So, when we look at the photo book
business, what do you immediately think
would be an ideal partner?
Photographers, right?
And there are all kinds
of different photographers.
First, there's family
and life photographers.
I mean, these people are creating the
moments and this is
perfect for a photo book.
Number two would be travel and experience
creators because they
inspire the memories.
Three would be
scrapbookers and memory keepers.
I mean, they're already documenting.
Perfect, right?
Number four would be teachers and home
school creators because they get to
capture the students' growth.
Number five would be adventure and
outdoor photographers because they're
documenting epic trips.
Number six would be sports teams and
coaches because they want
to preserve the seasons.
Number seven would be memory and legacy
creators because they
focus on storytelling.
Now, in all of those examples, what I
want you to notice are the patterns
people who are adjacent to your product.
They're not competitors, per se.
They're complementary.
Search on influencer marketing in 2025
shows that 57% of marketers now
prioritize working with micro influencers
because they have higher engagement and
more trust with niche audiences.
So you don't need to be a celebrity.
You just need someone who
has your exact customer.
So your first step in all of this is just
to identify the types of markets that
already serve your ideal customer.
Who serves the same customer?
And how can you look to identify who they
are and begin partnering?
Okay.
Number two,
design win-win programs.
Okay, so once you know who to partner
with, you need to create an offer they
would actually want to promote.
And there are a bunch of different models
that work for this, but I
really nail it down to two.
So one are niche workshops.
For example, in the photo book example,
we could do how to organize
travel photos into a book.
The partner promotes it,
you run it, everyone wins.
Number two would be
done for you templates.
Give the partner's audience a free
template or resource.
You could collect emails,
nurture them into customers.
Super easy, right?
Now, if we want to take it one step
further, you could do number three, which
would be co-branded lead magnets or list
builders, where you
create something together.
They provide the expertise, you provide
the product, boom, you both promote,
bada-bing, bada-boom.
Now, the key is this, the offer has to
benefit their audience first, not you.
So if your partner can't confidently say,
this will help you, meaning their
audience, they won't promote it.
And according to research on this,
long-term influencer partnerships, brands
that build ongoing relationships with
creators see stronger returns and deeper
audience loyalty compared
to one-off collaborations.
Meaning the more you work with someone,
the more trust you create.
So start with one workshop or one lead
magnet, test it, and if it works, then
build it into a more
long-term relationship.
Is this making sense so far?
Like don't overthink this.
Okay, point number three,
structure the partnership.
Now let's talk about what the partner
gets, because they're not going to
promote you for free.
Now there are really two
options that I like for this one.
Number one is an affiliate percentage,
meaning if they promote,
they get 20 to 30% of the sale.
And that's super easy and clean, right?
Because you're not coughing anything up
without a sale being made upfront.
Number two is co-promotion.
This is one of my favorites, because this
is where you work together.
You promote them, they promote you.
So it's an exchange.
Now the affiliate model is the cleanest.
They have a financial incentive, and you
only pay for results.
So everyone wins there.
Now the thing that I like about affiliate
partnerships is they're
performance-based, meaning influencers
can earn commission for every sale.
This is low-risk, high-reward model that
works especially well for smaller brands
with limited marketing budgets.
Now here's the bonus.
Once you run a successful campaign with
one partner, you have proof.
Now you can approach five more partners
and say, "Hey, here's what
we did with partner name.
Want to do the same thing?"
It makes it super easy.
Okay, lesson number four
is the outreach playbook.
All right, so this is the last piece.
So how do you actually pitch them?
Well, my encouragement to you is just
keep it super simple.
Create a one-page landing page that
explains the workshop or offer.
Or you could even just write a short
little email that just says, "Hey, I'm
running a workshop on topic XYZ.
I think your audience would love it
because I've seen comments in your
community like this and like this.
You interested?"
Now just listen to how simple that is.
I, number one, I'm just explaining that,
"Hey, I'm going to run this workshop.
I think your audience would like it
because I've seen comments
like this in your community."
And when you show
screenshots, it makes it real.
Like they see that, "Oh my gosh, yes.
There are real people in my community who
are asking these types of questions and
this workshop would be
perfect to answer them."
And at this point, you're just trying to
gauge their interest.
So when they say yes, then you can work
out the details like the date and time.
And so just notice how in that email
template, I didn't load them up with a
whole bunch of details.
It's not a full-on book of explanation.
It's just, "Hey, I'm
running this workshop.
I think your audience would like it
because there's examples of questions
being asked like this and like this.
Are you interested?"
So when they say yes, then
you can work out the details.
Now
you get to that point where you have a
date and time, then you can also provide
them some social collateral, maybe some
pre-made graphics that they can post or
some email templates or even some
captions they could use for different
posts, but just make it easy for them to
be able to promote
and share the workshop.
Now here's the thing to know.
Successful outreach involves engaging
with their content first
to show genuine interest.
So you notice how I
identified some screenshots?
That means that I was in their community.
Maybe it's a free Facebook group.
Maybe it's their online community.
Maybe it's their
membership, wherever it is.
But what we want to do is
we want to engage with them.
Maybe it might even be comments from
their Instagram posts
or their YouTube videos.
But bottom line is that
you want to show interest.
You want to find out what
their audience are looking for.
And then when you send that short,
friendly message who clearly states who
you are and why you're reaching out and
you've got that social proof that these
questions are being asked, it makes it
very easy for that partner to say yes.
So just test it with
five different partners.
See who responds and then
double down on what works.
this week.
I want you to identify five to 10 markets
that would make great partners.
Who already serves your ideal customer?
Then I want you to do some research and
make a list of five to 10 potential
partners within each market.
That's going to give you a list of
anywhere between 25 to
100 potential partners.
Then all you got to do is
just reach out to one of them.
Someone that you
think would be a good fit.
Design a simple co-promotion.
Maybe it's a workshop, a lead magnet, a
template, something their
audience would genuinely value.
Then reach out, keep it
short and make the benefit clear.
And if one partner says yes and you run
one successful workshop, you, my friend,
have just unlocked a growth channel that
doesn't require you to
build an audience from scratch.
And I'm telling you that if you run this
playbook, you will not only grow your
list in a significant way, but you'll
also generate a bunch of
sales with this as well.
So just keep it simple.
Follow the steps and keep moving forward.
Now speaking of moving forward, I want to
take a moment and just thank you, my
audience, for watching and listening to
this podcast and for
also leaving reviews.
Because we are climbing
the charts, my friend.
We have cracked the top 50 in the
marketing podcast and I
have you to thank for it.
So thank you so much.
And shout out to Shana from
budgetbesties.com who
left a recent review.
She said, "I saw Stu speak years ago and
thought he was awesome.
I had no idea he had a podcast.
Bad news is I've been missing out, but
the good news is I can now binge.
I'm a small business owner with a love
for marketing and this podcast is the
perfect addition to my morning runs and
my creative marketing itch."
Thanks everyone.
It's so good.
Shana, thank you, my
friend, for leaving that review.
Appreciate you.
All right.
So as we wrap up, number one, I would
love for you to go and
leave a review yourself.
That would be epic.
Let's keep climbing
the charts, my friends.
All right.
If we think about today's episode, I want
you to realize that you
don't have to grow alone.
Somebody already has your customers.
You just got to identify who those ideal
partners are, design a win-win offer and
structure the
partnership with clear incentives.
Reach out with a very simple pitch.
We just mapped out seven different
partner types for a photo book business
and we realized that one workshop could
bring in more customers than
six months of organic posting.
The same can be true for you.
All right.
Thanks for listening, my friend.
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