Last Christmas, my sister-in-law got me a delightful paint by numbers kit. It was made by a company called Breathe People, and included digital resources to make the painting situation into a lovely little meditative experience.

And like the small business nerd that I am, I creeped on their website as soon as I opened the box last weekend to get my paint on.

Which leads me to the marketing + lead gen idea I want to share with ya.

On their site, they have a Let’s Collaborate link that heads (as one would imagine) directly to a spot with details on the kinds of collabs they’re most interested in and deets on how to reach out.

And in an instant I knew I had to put this together as a strategy for your consideration.

Now look: brand collabs and partnerships are nothing new. It’s not like I just discovered some new idea.

But seeing that Let’s Collaborate page reminded me that there are so damn many ways to market outside of creating content on social media or YouTube or sending emails.

Those marketing channels just happen have the best marketing themselves, so much so that a lot of juicy AF channels fall by the wayside.

So here’s the deal: there are a myriad of small businesses out there whose audience overlaps with yours.

Those businesses already have trust from their audiences. You already have trust from your audience. And there’s really fun, beautiful, creative potential to play with here that can grow your audience and get you in front of new people who need and want what you have to offer.

I think this strategy can be particularly magical for people who have less energy, who are really burned out on content creation and social media in general, and whose work leans more nuanced.

I also think this strategy is brilliant because it is like a fast pass for trust building. We’re talking about a human to human collaboration with already warm audiences, and there is so much potential there.

So if this sounds interesting, here’s what I want you to do…

1. Make a list of small business niches, services, physical product or brick and mortar businesses whose audience would overlap with yours. You’re not looking for the specific businesses yet, just looking for the categories that you’ll search for. Using my Breath People example, they could partner with someone who teaches breathwork classes, a massage therapist, meditation teachers, somatic practitioners, astrologers, in-person summer camps or events business, etc. If you’re an accountant, you could think about software companies, social media managers, business coaches and consultants, SEO experts and web designers, anyone who also sells to business owners. You get the idea?
   1. Prompt to get you started if you’re drawing a blank: if my audience is already interested in [my service/product/niche], they’d also be curious about…
2. Set a timer for 1 hour and get to researching. Use Google and Google Maps (to find local - an even juicier trust build opp), Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, whatever you like! Your goal here is to get a list together of businesses to reach out to, no need to think about what collab you’re pitching just yet. Aim to get 30-50 businesses on there.
3. Set up a simple list or spreadsheet where you organize the info. Ideally you want to get the business name, a blurb on what they do/sell, their website and contact details all in one place. If you’re an AI user, this is something you could probably have Claude Cowork handle for you at least for the initial phase.
   1. A little note on business sizes here: I know it can be so easy to talk yourself out of including any business that feels too big, too legit, too much further along that your business. But I want to encourage you to put those on your list and shoot your shot, because really the worst thing that happens is they say no or you get ignored. And I know you can handle that.
4. Now, set a recurring event on your calendar when you’ll go research each business a little bit more and craft your pitches. It’s important that this is a recurring event, because this kind of strategy can be incredibly good for your business, but it’s too easy for this to turn into one of those projects that you started and never implemented fully - especially when the siren song of social media and emails keep calling, telling you that you’ve got to come back and post more, share more, say moreeeee. It is going to benefit you to have a more diversified marketing ecosystem, so protect this time.
5. When you sit down to do your outreach, start by reminding yourself what your sales and marketing focus is for the next 6 months - as in, what is your internal business goal for these collaborations? You’ll want to frame your asks and collab ideas to match those goals, and because this is a longer-lead marketing strategy, I want to make sure you’re thinking ahead so the juice is worth the squeeze here.
6. Once you’ve got your goal, research what they’ve done before, what they’ve got coming up, what they’re talking about online, and then comes the most fun part: get creative with your collab ideas! Come up with 1-3 collaboration ideas, draft them into an email, DM, or contact form submission, and hit send!
   1. Need collab ideas? A few thought starters… email list swap/takeover or lead magnet swap. Joint launch where you’re both selling one of your offers but collaborating for the whole launch. Launch where their product is the bonus for your offer and they promote to their audience. Virtual or IRL event. Sponsorship of their newsletter, podcast, YouTube, etc. Affiliate or referral setups. Podcast interviews or guest blogging. Social media takeovers. IG live together.
7. Rinse and repeat!

One final reminder here: this is a longer-lead marketing situation, at least most of the time. So while I do think it’s brilliant and would really enrich your business, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that like… going dark on your existing channels in order to do this is not exactly what I’m suggesting.

What I will say is that the more you invest in human-led, longer-form marketing strategies, the more stable and sustainable your business growth is going to be long term.

And this is a great strategy to make that happen. Realistically, you could set this up in less than 2-3 hours for the beginning, then budget an hour every other week to outreach. Then reap the rewards.

So with that, I’ll leave you to get sourcing and collaborating!

Would love to know if you plan to try this - hit reply and let me know?

x

CQ

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