I... is NOT in TEAM

Small to medium business owners often talk about how to get more out of their marketing program without spending more. 

Who doesn’t love a freebie, right? What they often don’t realise is that those ‘free’ opportunities are sitting right under their noses.

It’s about partnerships. Partnerships, that create a TEAM with another business owner.

And as we all know, there is no "I' in team. A genuine team dynamic benefits both sides, or, in the first instance, maybe even just the other part, and not you immediately. We might hear some say, ‘we don’t want to make others rich’, but what’s true is this. Good business, the way business should be, is generous. It values long-term relationships and potential over the balance sheet from this month to the next.

In Japan, we’d call this ‘tane o umeru’. Planting seeds. Every time you offer a little piece of advice to a start-up, share a post from a small business on your stories and tag them, recommend that new coffee shop that opened, or call around to get a local business in the newspaper, you plant seeds of potential. You are starting partnerships.

As with the celebrities I have worked with, I have found that it’s those who are starting out, the fresh faces, the start-up business owner, and, curiously, the top-of-their-gamers, the true supermodels and those in the Oval offices (perhaps not now, but go with me) who are the most generous with their time and expertise. Who isn’t? It’s the creamy middle, the ‘year 9-ers’ of the business world, that haven’t quite hit the top, so they are clinging to their time and brains for dear life.

But that’s not going to allow them to grow. It’s like Dory says to Marlin in the whale at the end of Finding Nemo – let go. We need to let go and be generous with our time, talents and treasure to others in our business circles. If someone comes to you asking for a donation, give it. But don’t give it willy-nilly. Ask for a social post, a poster in their shop, a Google review in return. Move away from the delete button and create a dynamic that will benefit you both. Win-win is always possible when you take the time, and make the effort to find that solution.

And if you ask and you get a no? And then another ‘no’? Well, that’s just not your tribe. Don’t give up. Keep planting seeds, keep offering, and keep sharing, and the right ones will grow where they are meant to.

The best way to grow your business is to be there to help others grow too. You’ll become known for that, and in my book, that’s good business and an even better way to live.

So to borrow Miss Janet Jackson’s question,

What have you done for [other businesses] lately?