Category Archives for "Partnerships"

Does it make you cringe a little?

For years growing up in this somewhat ‘male-dominated’ world I continued to hear the words, ‘you’ve just got to hustle Pauline’.

For a while, I believed it. I felt that if only I could reach more people, have more conversations, listen to more problems and solve them, that all would be well in the world.

Now, remember for most of my working life I’ve been creating Strategic Partnerships to fill large-scale business/branding/marketing type education events. The challenge with events is they have a very clear deadline…and if you haven’t hustled then the room isn’t full and that’s a horrible feeling that you have to own.

As you can likely appreciate doing this for more than 12 years added it’s fair share of stress into my life!

Firstly, what’s it’s ultimate purpose? If you chunk it up high enough it’s about making sure you’ve got clients, which of course is the fuel for any business. But what does that actually get you?

As a business owner, it ought to get you to your goals which could be either lifestyle related or heading you towards “World Domination”.

This will depend on your values in life…so what are your values?

 There are so many exercises for determining your values but I like this ‘2 question method’ the best because it gets to the truth.

Q1. What are you currently spending your money on?

Q2. What are you currently spending your time on?

If you take a look at your activities and your bank statements you’ll get a pretty clear picture of what your values are right now.

That could come as a shock to you because we all like to aspire to values and we may even think we are living them but if you’re not spending money and you’re not spending time then chances are that you’re also not directing focus or attention either.

So guess what?

But all is not lost…

Now that you know what your values are and how to take action to re-align them, let’s take a quick look at what I like to call Hustle or Connect…

 Now if you’re in the Hustle mindset, chances are you are in the World Domination category and my personal opinion is that it’s not sustainable. Sure it will work for short stints but in the end, you will most likely burn out unless you have a team that likes to hustle as much as you do.

The challenge with Hustle is that it’s such a push force on the Universe, it takes a lot of energy and time. I personally feel it’s a very masculine energy which is challenging for a woman to mimic for an extended period of time. In fact, it’s challenging for anyone that doesn’t have a never-ending supply of testosterone – including some men!

Now don’t get me wrong I do believe in a short fix hustle if the Strategy and Preparation haven’t gone quite as planned.

My preference by far and away (which could seem a little Utopian to you) is to take the time to build the right Strategy from the outset. Then with the right planning and implementation, the only thing we need to do, to truly drive our business using Strategic Partnerships is to Connect and Collaborate.

There’s a different energy with that word Connect, isn’t there? 

It’s more nurturing, softer, caring, feminine. It has a drawing force, not a pushing force and luckily for us, it’s something we can do naturally when we are grounded.

Think of how you feel in your heart just measuring one word against the other.

HUSTLE…. Tight, constricted possibly even frantic

CONNECT…. Calm, soothing, genuine, considerate

So as an ex-Hustler and converted Connector let me share a few insights to help you.

Firstly, part of the Strategic Partnership Strategy I teach is to get someone else like a virtual assistant to do the legwork. So you are left with a list of qualified potential partners and their direct phone number.

Assuming you have this in hand the Hustle versus Connect could look like this.

As an extreme Hustler you think of your pitch for your product or service, pick up the phone to call the person – whilst it’s ringing, load their website, scan it for the important stuff, when they pick up, you make small talk, qualify them further with some pre-planned questions. They generally want to get you off the call as soon as possible and to be fair you have other calls to make so you end the call agreeing to send something over to them and pray that the email template you’ve sent 50 of today does the trick….eeew!

Take two.

As a Connector, you take the time to check out their website, social profiles and any videos they might have on youtube. You get a feel for the person first, you find something that you can genuinely compliment them on, you might even help them by letting them know you found a typo or a broken link. You may even be connected to them already so it’s worth mentioning that person if you know them well. Then, when you make the call you’re not thinking about you, you’re thinking about them and how you can collaborate.

That’s what makes all the difference, it becomes about them and not you and your product or service. Sure you need to explore and find a win-win scenario if it’s possible but if it’s not, you are much more likely to end with a referral if the other person has felt truly connected to you.

As a Connector you’ll likely use rapport to become more in sync with them, not sure how to do this then head to the Work With Me page to find out more about my free short video course.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, have you been Hustling or Connecting?