Innovating your business and growing your profitability with profit partnerships
Welcome to another exciting episode of "Process to Profitability." I'm your host, Samantha Mabe, and today we have a very special guest with us. I had the pleasure of interviewing Mikki Wilson, the brilliant mind behind Dot Connector Consulting. Mikki is here to share her expertise on profit partnerships, a topic that is sure to provide valuable insights for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and online business owners. If you're looking for new ways to grow your business, innovate ways to better serve your clients, and increase your profitability, then this episode is a must-listen.
Timestamps:
[00:00:05] Introduction
[00:00:35] Welcoming Mikki Wilson to the show
[00:00:41] Overview of profit partnerships and their benefits
[00:01:16] How to find the right profit partnerships for your business
[00:01:49] Key considerations before entering into profit partnerships
[00:02:25] The role of profit partnerships in business innovation and client service
[00:02:59] Success stories and examples of profitable partnerships
Key Topics:
Understanding profit partnerships and their role in maximizing profitability.
Strategies for finding the right profit partnerships for your business.
Important considerations before entering into profit partnerships.
Leveraging profit partnerships for innovation and improved client service.
Real-life success stories and examples of profitable partnerships.
Tips for establishing and nurturing profitable partnerships for sustainable growth.
Resources:
[00:00:00] Samantha Mabe: If you're looking for a way to innovate in your business and maybe you're feeling tired of having to run everything on your own, or you feel like you could serve your clients better, if you could bring somebody else on. Today's conversation with Mikki is all about profit partnerships.
[00:00:18] She is sharing how she approaches profit partnerships and why they can look like something like a joint workshop or a referral network, but really you're diving deeper in with somebody so that you can both work towards a single goal and bring both of your expertises to the table to serve your clients really well.
[00:00:39] We also talk a little bit about how business is evolving and why partnerships are going to be really important as we continue to grow and as the online space continues to be where people are looking for their services.
[00:00:54] Mikki of Dot Connector Consulting empowers evolving entrepreneurs and human-centered CEOs to elevate value, voice, and visibility with distinct and disruptive strategies that connect the dots between purpose and profitability.
[00:01:09] Before building her business, Mikki Wilson built her identity as the dot connector growing her personal brand across the North Shore and beyond. She is the chief energy officer of Dot Connector Consulting, a human-centered business consulting firm that supports solopreneurs and small business service providers.
[00:01:25] When she's not connecting the dots, Mikki serves as the board leader for nonprofit organizations focused on education, entrepreneurship, and advocacy.
[00:01:35] Hi Mikki. Thanks for coming on today.
[00:01:40] Mikki Wilson: So excited to be here and talk about all the things, profits and partners.
Mikki's journey from a corporate career to a marketing coach
[00:01:47] Samantha Mabe: So I let everybody know your official bio at the beginning of the episode, but can you tell us more about kinda your business journey, how you got to what you're doing today, and maybe how you came into Profit Partners as a part of your business?
[00:02:04] Mikki Wilson: Absolutely. We could have a whole podcast episode just on this alone, but I'll, I'll keep it super brief. The way it all started for me is four years ago I started a business after suffering severe, um, burnout from a 15 year corporate career. I had taken like a six month break after leaving my career. I started this business and I started the business like showing up as a virtual assistant.
[00:02:31] So it's been a four year journey of rediscovering who I am, um, finding my chief Energy officer, uh, identity and really pouring that into business. And how I am showing up today is I am a coach, a connector, uh, a collaborator. I love working with solopreneurs and service providers to really focus on what their bigger picture is.
[00:02:57] My skillset is marketing and entrepreneurship in general so that allows me to look at their business in a holistic way so that they are building a business that ultimately serves them. That's where we're at today.
[00:03:14] Samantha Mabe: So many of us started off as generalists. Like, I will do anything you want me to do to pay, get paid money, and then we figure out where we actually wanna be and where we can be helpful. And that's so much more beneficial for our clients too.
[00:03:28] Mikki Wilson: Oh, I totally agree. And the, the, the funny part about this, uh, conversation is when I entered my business, I thought I would be building Squarespace websites. And then I quickly realized, I think as a generalist we have so much expertise.
[00:03:46] I think when you start to try to funnel that down into a specific area and become a specialist, you quickly realize that you're either meant to be a generalist or you have to kind of figure out which specialty really brings you joy.
[00:04:03] And it was so funny, as soon as I started building websites, I was like, I don't know how long this is gonna last. And it was really because I felt that I had great knowledge, but I ultimately was not serving great value, uh, with that particular skillset.
Why you can't be a generalist in business forever
[00:04:22] Mikki Wilson: So yeah, the plight of the generalist, either just figuring out how to do it all or getting very kind of narrow in that thing that you love to do the most.
[00:04:32] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, and I love that perspective of like, we have to find the place where we have great knowledge, but we can also provide great value. And I think that is a hard place to find until you're years into business and it's still always changing.
[00:04:46] Mikki Wilson: Yeah, I agree. I've seen this and I've always wondered why this three year mark is so critical for business owners. And I think that it's truly like going to college in a sense, in your own business you need time. Uh, and that time generally seems to average out to three to four years to figure out who you are inside of your business and to make sure that you're building a business that you actually like to wake up and go to every day. And I think that generally takes us about three to four years.
[00:05:15] But then what also happens, right, is we get into a period of like, all right, well I really need to make this business work now. Like playtime's over, I need to really make this business work now. And then we start to get stressed if we feel like we haven't, uh, figured it out yet. So I love, my coaching style is allowing my clients to play in possibility while really looking at profitability. And that's kind of like, it sounds like it's not possible, but you know, through we get there somehow. There's a lot of ways to the finish line as I like to say.
Building a sustainable business that continues to support you
[00:05:51] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. Everybody talks about, you know, most businesses won't make it to one year, but I think that three year mark is hard. And for a lot of people that started their business in 2020, like, we're hitting that three year mark.
[00:06:01] And this is where it's rubber meets the road, we've got to either do it or we've gotta let go and find something else.
[00:06:08] Mikki Wilson: It's a good point. Sustainability, right? I think sustainability starts to creep in, like the first three years can feel really fun if you're in like, like a peak. Um, a lot of people were profitable during the pandemic because they were very flexible in being able to provide their genius from the comforts of their home.
[00:06:29] But now as we're starting to see, I think there's a lot of shifts in our external environment, but as we're starting to see the world shift into, again, this, this, not really so much a new norm, but this new idea of like, life is different, but we're gonna go back outside into it. And how do we deal with that?
[00:06:46] We are seeing an economy that's a little bit tougher for all of us, whether we have been profitable over the last year or whether we've been struggling with profitability, things just cost more. Decisions are a little harder. To make. So yeah, I think that we're all in a period of sitting back and saying, okay, so, so what's next?
[00:07:11] If it hasn't been working, how do I get it to work? And if it has been working, but all of a sudden it stopped working, that's scary too. How do we all come together?
Who Mikki discovered partnership as essential to her business strategy
[00:07:22] Mikki Wilson: Partnerpreneurship found me, let's say. So this concept I, I started seeing it around, but this concept of people working together for the benefit of people, I think that has been around, but as I teach my students marketing in entrepreneurship, it's very clear that there's a shift happening that we're living through of 20th century business moving to 21st century business.
[00:07:46] So it's less about profitability being the priority, but people being the priority, but then also having faith that if you put people first, profits do then follow.
[00:08:02] And so yeah, it's just, uh, I won't lie, like 20 years from now, it'll be interesting to look back on this period of time and just say, wow, we survived that wave.
[00:08:12] I think even for good times, right? We've seen the six and seven figure entrepreneurs even, that was not, that was not easy achieving that. We just kind of always, it's always relative, right? We're always comparing ourselves where somebody else is at.
[00:08:26] Samantha Mabe: Absolutely. And I mean this whole little series has been talking about innovation and I think that is what is gonna make businesses survive and thrive is, are you willing to innovate? Are you willing to try new things?
Partnerships have to focus on people first
[00:08:40] Samantha Mabe: And I love that like you're approaching that from a people-first standpoint and doing these partnerships, and that's how you found for your business and for other people's business and the people you're serving. Like it's all this big kind of connecting point where you are making it work and you're, you're willing to try out different things.
Partnership can breathe life back into your business
[00:09:03] Mikki Wilson: Yeah. I've always been a person. I don't encourage this, but, uh, some of my high achiever friends out here will hear me when I say this, but I've always been the person that kind of builds the plane as it's flying. Totally calm and telling all my passengers, we're gonna land this thing. Don't worry, don't worry. Because as a visionary, you always have the bigger, the bigger picture in the back of your mind.
[00:09:28] But for people that really, um, Thrive on having their short term goals set out in front of them so that they can get to that bigger goal that they sometimes can't see, it can be very scary hopping on a plane with no front wheels or the front wheels aren't working.
[00:09:45] But I thrive on that because that's when my creativity kicks in, and I agree with you completely. We're in an age of innovation and I believe that partnerships, whether you're co-creating, collaborating, or actually going into a more official strategic, um, partnership, this is where innovation is born. Because until you get two geniuses in a room talking together and they have two different skill sets, then it's like they develop, um, this baby product or this baby service that nobody's offered yet.
[00:10:24] So it's been really fun and I've seen some of that happening, uh, within, you know, our online sphere and I've been part of that.
[00:10:31] I used to say this about marketing, can we just make marketing like fun again, because I worked with so many people, marketing can be very painful if you don't have a plan, right? But I would encourage people like, what do you love about marketing? What feels fun to you? Do more of that. Because we generally will just do more of what we have fun with.
[00:10:51] So I encourage people when sales are slowing or clients aren't pouring in, if you have the resources or the ability to just find a playground of possibility and start to create a partnership strategy that can really help ease some of you know the pain of being a hundred percent responsible, you know, for your business as much.
[00:11:20] Business is much more fun when you can share resources. You have somebody that you can share some risk with or like bounce your ideas off of, and it's a less siloed way of working, especially for solopreneurs, because sometimes we just don't get a chance to get out of the box as much as we'd like to.
What profit partnerships are and how they're different from other types of business relationships
[00:11:37] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. So today we're talking about what you've kind of coined as profit partnerships. So can you explain what those are so people understand kind of how they're different from some of the relationships we've thought of as partnerships in the past?
[00:11:54] Mikki Wilson: Yeah. I've really been living and breathing this so profit partners, profit partnerships. This whole concept really started for me as a connector. I have the ability to refer so many people out. Especially the background of marketing refers so many solution providers, service providers for certain things, and I would tell people I am great for your big picture stuff, but let me connect you to one of my, what I started coining is just partners because I have a wide network and so I love this network because it's more than just social capital to me. It's really being able to connect people with the specific solution they need in that moment.
[00:12:43] So it took me probably like a year into the business to realize, like I wasn't looking at how to monetize my referrals necessarily, but I just knew that I had so many different layers of partnerships from just simple.
[00:12:59] Referrals people that I could say, Hey, go see this person. I trust them. I've worked with them before and that had a lot of value.
[00:13:07] But then I had people that would come to me and they wanted to collaborate with me in like a workshop setting. They brought a certain expertise, I had a certain expertise. I started noticing that they were happy to come to me because I had no problem doing like, not the majority of the work, but I would just get things done quickly that would make them feel so much better. And they were like, I just wanna be paid like a hundred dollars or whatever their, their value was for the service they were providing. And I was like, oh, I like working, like with my friends. That feels fun.
[00:13:38] And then most recently, I, um, piloted a dual coaching program, um, with one of my own coaches In the specific need there was really realizing that marketing and sales could be paired, uh, so that entrepreneurs didn't have to pay two different people and apply two different methods.
[00:14:01] So profit partnerships was really born out of seeing that there was incredible value in working with people in instead of viewing them as competition in a sense.
[00:14:17] And when you're a marketing generalist, it's like everybody could seem like competition at any given moment. And I just never was into that. I was just like, okay, so how can I work with everybody so that my clients can ultimately have their problems served? I make sure my it, it's always just been my general thing, but I definitely put my clientele, my audience first, and that's how I approach solving their problems.
[00:14:40] That's how profit partnerships were born. And then I just started seeing, it's like the red car, I started seeing people start to talk about it and I said, you know what? I'm going all in, uh, headfirst and really starting to talk about this because I believe that partnership and my newer term, because it's more of a business model now, is partnerpreneurship, this is a way that people who are in that third or fourth year, it could be your 17th year, but this is a way in a competitive, meaning externally with like the economy and everything.
[00:15:19] In a tough environment, partnership could literally be the way to breathe life back into your business, into your profitability, into your life. Because if it's been a tough time doing it solo, it feels so much better when you have support. Whether that's a couple of partnerships, one partnership. It's much like a marriage too, I like to say. It's nice when you come home and somebody has cooked the dinner for you.
How to add partnerships to your busines
[00:15:47] Samantha Mabe: So what, like this partnerpreneur business model, if you, if somebody's thinking okay, I like partnering with people. I've referred people out. What does it look like to transition? Or maybe just add it as part of your business model instead of just, I have referrals. Sometimes we work together. How does that play out?
[00:16:07] Mikki Wilson: I get it. And don't mind me, uh, your audience for looking off to the side. I actually brought up notes for this one because I have a framework for this. Um, and there is an actual strategy.
[00:16:18] So the first thing I would say is, before even reaching out to anybody, just whip out a piece of paper and start to write down people that you would love to potentially work with, collaborate with on something.
[00:16:34] You don't even have to think about the what yet, but just like people you love. Like I love working with Samantha and I do a mastermind together, so I love your energy, your vibe, but we could totally sit down and say like, okay. I do, uh, entrepreneurship, you're doing web. But it's just identifying people that you love to work with and then going into the goal planning.
Mikki's framework for finding and creating profit partnerships
[00:16:57] Mikki Wilson: So it's much like strategy. So I will give my framework, since I'm the dot connector, the framework is simply, DOTS. D O T S. Dots is define, outline, target, and survey.
[00:17:11] So very quickly you're gonna define your objectives for a partnership. What, um, goals or what is the objective you are looking for from this partnership? And be very clear with that. You might wanna identify areas where you need support, where you need additional resources, um, Capabilities that could compliment your existing skillset.
[00:17:38] So just start to kind of define what a partnership would look like for you as it supports you and your business. The partnership should definitely feel very supportive. So you wanna write, you wanna be very clear when you start to define your goals and objectives.
[00:17:57] The outline is the plan. Again, it's the resources. What do you need? Start to get a little bit more specific. Um, do you need somebody that knows how to set up systems quickly? Are you a marketer? You would love to work with somebody that knows sales because you know that once you teach somebody how to communicate the value, they also have to be able to capture the value.
[00:18:19] So there's so many areas of business where there can be complimentary things. The website designer and the copywriter, right? Uh, coaches and consultants often have a symbiotic relationship, but you just want to outline how you can contribute to the partnership and what you expect from the partner in return.
How to evaluate potential partnerships
[00:18:41] Mikki Wilson: In a presentation I just did, I talked about marriage a lot cuz it really does the partnership. It is a marriage of people coming together for a bigger picture, um, and to yield a better, brighter future. But much like dating, we should know what like the deal breakers are and things in advance so that keeps us out of any extra stuff towards the end.
[00:19:05] So targeting is really just finding your profit partners that align with your business goals and your target value. So think of this as your target profit partners as opposed to your target market. You just wanna make sure that you line up together.
Reputation equals revenue, so you need to assess the person you want to partner with
[00:19:21] Mikki Wilson: And then the surveying part is just assessing their reputation, their capabilities, um, and make sure it fits with your objectives. Reputations equal revenue in some cases. So I just tell people, make sure you check the person's track record. This is not, partnerships are not meant to get into, jump into like overnight.
[00:19:42] You really wanna connect with the person you wanna cultivate the um, relationships. A lot of communication has to happen and then it's kind of, for me, a gut feeling like, I feel good about this person.
[00:19:56] And then you just create the things around you to protect that relationship as it grows to be profitable.
The importance of relevancy in choosing partnerships
[00:20:03] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. Well, what's really important about your framework too is you are not starting with a person and saying, oh, I really like this person. I want to figure out a way to work with them and trying to like force something, right? You're looking at, I would like to add this to my business model. It would help me and it would help my clients. And then you're kind of figuring out, okay, what does, what could that look like? And then going out and finding the person that fits into something.
[00:20:30] When I look for guests, generally I have an idea of a topic I wanna talk about, so I find a guest to fit that instead of. Oh, I really like this person. Let's try to come up with something that we could share on the podcast that isn't going to be as good of a fit because we're forcing it.
[00:20:48] Mikki Wilson: Yeah, it it, especially with podcasting, relevancy is a great like word, right? It should be relevant to your audience, relevant to what's going on in the world. So I say with partnerships, it should be relevant to you for sure, but definitely relevant to the audience.
The importance of an aligned audience
[00:21:03] Mikki Wilson: One of the things I evaluate is making sure my audience, um, aligns with my partner's audience. And that ends up happening through the core values and everything in everything anyways. But I really love finding the portion of their audience that I can really serve because I know it matches and they've not yet discovered me. It's the same for me as well, my audience. I know what their problems are, so I know other areas they can be served in too.
[00:21:34] In doing all the outlining and creating your strategy, I would say one of the most important factors besides, you know, checking the track, record, clear communication. You really wanna make sure that the audiences match. They don't have to be the same exact audience, but there's gonna be this subsection, this gray area where they come together and there's some crossover in there and that helps open the door for so many other opportunities as well too.
[00:22:03] But yeah, it's that relationship of just making sure you're really serving who you're meant to serve, and then you can figure out how the skill sets come together or what else needs to be.
Work with someone who puts people before profit
[00:22:14] Mikki Wilson: But really, the most important part about partnerships in general, or actually one of the key, um, factors for a successful partnership are two partners that put people before profits. Because if we're always focused on the profit piece, when things stop working and our people are unhappy, it's almost like you don't know how to solve the problem because you're looking at it from a profitability point of view, as opposed to a problem solving point of view. And the whole point in partnerships is to solve problems in a bigger and better way.
Common pitfalls when considering profit partnerships in your business
[00:22:52] Samantha Mabe: Yeah. So if somebody's listening and they're like, okay, this sounds really good, but I'm worried like there are some drawbacks because this is a different way of doing business, we haven't seen a lot of that. What should they be prepared for? Like what are some of the downsides or the traps that people fall into?
Be clear on the outcome you want from the partnership
[00:23:10] Mikki Wilson: We've kind of gone over this, but I'll state this again, not being clear on why you're partnering or what the outcome of the partnership or the collaboration is.
[00:23:25] I also think one of the pitfalls is we're going to hear the word partnerships a lot. And come up more and more. Um, collaboration? Yes. But we've always known what collaboration is. So I want people to think when they hear partnerships, to think of collaborative partnerships because you are really not negotiating contracts and formalizing things until you've tested out a few things with this person.
Don't expect partnerships to solve your profitability problem
[00:23:54] Mikki Wilson: The big pitfall is thinking that partnerships are structuring part of your business and giving over a piece of that business to somebody, or these just very, very deep levels of strategic alliance. Those are all great and dandy. I am just introducing the power of partnership and collaboration for people who are considering that as a business model for cash flow.
[00:24:19] So I tell people, partnerships do not guarantee profitability. Your business model guarantees profitability. So when I talk about partnerpreneurship in this term of, um, profit partners, profit partnership, it is part of my business model to work in collaboration with people at different levels.
[00:24:44] So the pitfall is do not go into partnerships solely thinking that's a solution to your profitability. Because partnerships do not guarantee profitability. So go back to your business model and you really wanna keep that in mind when you're looking to work with people.
Try out co-creating before jumping into bigger partnerships
[00:25:01] Mikki Wilson: The last thing I'll say quickly, if you are interested in partnership, you're like, okay, I don't know what this looks like. This feels like a lot. Start with co-creating.
The different types of partnerships
[00:25:10] Mikki Wilson: Start with co-creating. Find a couple of your business besties. Maybe the three of you have digital courses, and they would all compliment each other in a package. Talk about how you can package your courses to serve your client in a much deeper way than if they were just to get that one piece of content as opposed to three. And then there's more value in that.
[00:25:33] And my big thing is circular community within our online community. Particularly is that I want everybody to win. Partnerships should be win-win situations. So just start with co-creating, talk about what collaborating looks like. You can start to play and test, um, products and offers without yet having to worry about, okay. How are we splitting? You wanna have talks about how are you splitting money and what systems you're using. But I encourage people, if you're really looking at partnership as part of your bigger business model, start with co-creation. And you can Google that. There's a million examples of how people can co-create together, but that's how I look at the phases of partnership.
[00:26:22] Co-creating is if you're interested and you wanna play around and say, Hey, what can we put together that actually has value? And then you test your market. You put it out there, the market will tell you, oh my God, we love this. We haven't seen anybody doing this.
[00:26:36] When I piloted that dual coaching program, I hadn't seen two coaches inside of one program with two different expertises serving clients super deeply. I hadn't necessarily seen that yet in my experience. As soon as I produced that, I started seeing some other people doing that, and I said, it makes sense, right? Why wouldn't you have a coaching program with two coaches if they have complimentary expertises?
[00:27:02] So the process of co-creation is really just the basic way of saying, let me see if I like how this feels.
Collaborating involves launching something new with a partner
[00:27:11] Mikki Wilson: Collaborating is the next step in. Okay, let's sit down and let's really like launch something specific together that benefits us both once you collaborate successfully and you'd like that and.
Make sure to formalize your partnership once you decide to move forward
[00:27:23] Mikki Wilson: You see a potential for something much bigger, that's when it's time to come sit together with your partner and look at the bigger, bigger picture of negotiating and formalizing.
[00:27:36] What is the percentage split? I ask people all the time, would you rather 50% of a watermelon or 100% of the grape? The watermelon to me represents partnerships, so again, it's more value, it's bigger, it's more substantial. There's more to work with. It doesn't matter if you split the watermelon 80/20, 60/40, 50/50. It just has to feel good for both partners. Not all partners want to do 50% of the work. Some of them are like, Hey, if you're happy with doing 70, I'm happy with getting 30.
[00:28:09] So it's those types of conversations and then that's when I say, do not just have a partnership and run profitable partnership programs or events or whatever have you, without having your legal stuff together, your financial stuff together.
[00:28:32] Because what you don't want is there to be some kind of hiccup hiccup where now you and the partner are, are at odds. Because everything you built can start to crumble, especially if your audience and your community starts to see conflict or lawsuits, right?
[00:28:51] We've seen this in our online coaching world, so it's like what prevents all this? Great contracts. And just making sure that we protect ourselves and the people that we work with because it's so much easier, again, when you have open communication and you're very clear on the plan. It almost prevents conflict because there's no holes or a gap.
[00:29:13] So I say start with co-creation and then walk your way towards partnership. Um, and I am not a legal expert, but I'm telling you, if you're thinking partnerships, find you're legal contracts business bestie and so I go to her as soon as things start to get really serious.
[00:29:32] But right now I play in a playground of possibility to see what works and to see kind of what the market needs for now. So I'm really in that innovative piece, like how are we solving the problems of tomorrow, but developing the content and the courses and all the good things for it today.
[00:29:49] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I like the idea of starting with something small. Bundle your products together, have a webinar, and like I think most people are pretty familiar with that level of collaboration.
[00:30:02] But it gives you a really good feeling of, okay, is this person going to show up? Are we going to hit the right spot in the market? Are they going to be like my high school lab partner that did none of the work and just copied my notes down? People have had so many bad experiences. It's a way to test that out before you're jumping in with two feet.
[00:30:24] Then you can kind of build on that and say, okay, well this works really well. Our audiences clearly liked it. Let's see what we can do from here.
[00:30:32] And then, you know, of course you've gotta get your legal stuff in order. But I like that you mentioned it's not always gonna be 50 50. It, it is up to you as partners to figure out how much work you wanna do, how much value there is in what each of you is bringing. And then you've just gotta lay all of that out so that if you decide to make a break for some reason, it's, it's going to be more amicable. You can do that well.
Mikki's partnerships and innovation around how to work with other businesses
[00:31:00] Mikki Wilson: Yeah. Yeah. I did not even follow the process that I've written for other people. I kind of had to learn from my own mistakes to be able to present a clear path for people to be able to write a strategy and to know what the process of engagement looks like.
[00:31:16] But I laugh and I wanna be fully transparent, is I have no contractual obligations to my partners right now. Um, a lot of them are actually, we have some kind of pre-existing relationship, whether I have been a client of theirs or they've been a client of mine or, um, we are friends within the same community.
[00:31:35] But I'm starting to creep up on our dual coaching program, my partner and I, that we talked about being a business all by itself and how do we build a business around that? Because then you get into your systems. It's like, okay, where's the money coming out of? Does it make sense for it to come out of Dot Connector Consulting if this programs something entirely built outside of Dot Connector Consulting?
[00:32:00] So, Full transparency, I'm in my area of figuring out what works for me. Because my business strategy is based off of intuition, I just have to have this natural connection with people I wanna work with. And then it's kind of playing around in that co-creation and collaborating to see what we develop.
[00:32:22] One of the most recent collaborations I think I'm gonna walk into is I have all this great content, but I don't build courses. I don't do video editing. I could do all these things, right? But they would take me forever and it's not my expertise.
[00:32:38] So I have two, um, business friends that I work with. One does video editing. The other one loves putting together Kajabi courses. I have all this content. So I reached out to them and I said, Hey guys. Would you be interested in the three of us coming together? I have courses that I would like to develop. You have talked about maybe wanting to turn this into a service. Could we possibly come together and combine all of our expertise?
[00:33:10] I'll walk away, yes, with a product, right? My p romise to them really is this is where I take what you helped me create and go out and tell people how this was created because you're a Kajabi expert, because you're a video editing expert, and because I'm a person, I'm a an educator in real time. Let's combine these. I can quickly get tons of content out to my audience, but then I can also show my audience the power of collaboration.
[00:33:43] So that is just another example of taking service providers who have specific specialties, but then combining that with something I might need.
Partnerships can be profitable even if they don't produce revenue
[00:33:53] Mikki Wilson: So partnerships are profitable even when they don't produce actual revenue. So, For my friends out there, please get clear also not on what you want from the partnership, but what are you looking to gain from the partnership? Is it profits or is it something more? And that's when we go into the innovation again too.
[00:34:17] So there's so many different ways to partner up. You can just, I encourage people, your business besties, become clients of theirs. That's the best way to learn about their capabilities and how you feel about their client process. Barter and trade, if it's within, um, your wheelhouse, uh, to be able to do that.
[00:34:37] I will close by saying this. It really came to me when somebody said, Mikki, I'm not an entrepreneur, but I feel like I'm a person that could survive in partnership. And that really weighed on me. I think that they just don't see a business model where they have to be the person doing a hundred percent of everything.
[00:34:57] And if that is you, the solo CEO out there you are creating great, great impact and value. I would challenge you to at least play in possibility and think of could I provide even more impact and value if I worked in tandem with someone? And that does not mean they have to own your business. That just means you can create really cool things together.
[00:35:27] Samantha Mabe: Yeah, and I love that you don't have to approach this from, I'm bringing on somebody, they're gonna be like, own 50% of my business and they're gonna have to help me make decisions.
Partnerships give your flexibility in business
[00:35:36] Samantha Mabe: Like this is kind of, it's a separate thing. It's like, like you said, with the person you're working with, we're considering does this become it's own thing? It's not taking over either one of your businesses and what you can do and how you're gonna show up and serve. And so it doesn't restrict you into only doing one type of partnership or only doing this service for everybody.
[00:36:02] Mikki Wilson: You can have so much more flexibility now within your business. Like if you just felt like you were stuck in a corner. This is all the services. I just hit a ceiling. Considering being able to collaborate and have fun or just play with someone in that area of possibility, it's amazing how it will open a whole new set of doors to how you can serve people with your business.
[00:36:29] So, so yeah, all my fellow solopreneurs, step outside of the box, go play with your business besties. Uh, you'll create great things together, and if not, you'll still learn very valuable lessons throughout that process.
[00:36:44] I think it's so important, especially as online entrepreneurs, solopreneur, service providers, even just playing in the possibility allows us so much personal and professional growth. It doesn't always have to be about the profits or even solving the problem, but just seeing like what is possible inside of this business that we control.
[00:37:08] Samantha Mabe: Well, because we're not inside of an organization where you're. Collaborating with people naturally, where you're inside each other's brains and you're like getting that back and forth. And so this is a way to do that. That's it's a step beyond like, okay, we're just biz besties and we voxer each other all the time, like you're actually trying to do something together. And I think that can push you more than just a text message between different people.
[00:37:33] Mikki Wilson: Yeah, there's layers of support, right? Sometimes we just need our biz besties to brain dump on and hear things. But after a while it starts to feel like, oh, we're always kind of coming back and forth and we have these commonalities. That's actually like a great cornerstone for, hey, Maybe you're meant to do more together, since you seem to be able to relate in all these different ways.
[00:37:58] It doesn't always, I think, have to be front facing too. You can, can collaborate on a way that's just like, Hey, I'll keep serving my skillset genius from behind the scenes. Um, and you can go out and take all the credit or you can go out and take all the credit and then give me my cut. Or you can just pay for the thing and then go out and use it.
[00:38:18] But there's, the conversations are the most important part about the collaboration because I really think there's probably not anything we can't create, it's just: why are we creating it? Is it, does it meet one of our goals? Is it a smart goal? Meaning like, does it match for profits or is it a heart goal? Just I want to solve more of these types of problems for more people. Once you're crystal clear on that, just kind of going through the process to get to the partnership.
[00:38:52] It's like dating. Please enjoy the dating part before you actually get to the marriage part. There's so much fun in that part, but sometimes we just stay focused on the longer term partnership.
[00:39:05] Partnerships could last for six months intentionally. They could last for 60 years. The great part about being an entrepreneur is you both get to write the rules in this, um, in this opportunity.
Connect with Mikki
[00:39:22] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming and chatting about this. I know it's giving people a lot to think about and explore and innovate with, so I am excited for them to listen.
[00:39:32] Where is the best place for people to connect with you if they want to learn more, if they wanna hear more from you, if they just wanna see what you're up to.
[00:39:40] Mikki Wilson: Absolutely. There's always two good places and I tell people, use the one that you show up on the most. Um, Instagram at Mik connects dots, and I'm sure we'll throw that somewhere, but it's m i k connects dots. Um, and you can DM me. Um, I have links in my bio. All that good stuff.
[00:40:00] Otherwise, just check out dot connector consulting.com um, because we've gone on there, we've freshened up some things, but I'm going to be listing upcoming events. You can sign up for my weekly email series.
[00:40:15] If you just wanna get to know me if we've not connected before, um, I've added, I just opened reopened on my website, coffee chat. So feel free to book a coffee chat with me. We can connect if you're interested about collaborating or just talking more about what partnership looks like for you, feel free to book a chat with me.
[00:40:34] Samantha Mabe: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Mikki.
[00:40:36] Mikki Wilson: Thank you. Thank you.
