Introduction
Welcome to the Coaching Hive podcast. I am so excited to be here with you today because I love being here with you on the Coaching Hive podcast, but also because today is special. Today is all about collaboration.
In today’s episode, we will talk about:
- The power of collaboration.
- How it can benefit us.
- Why it’s so important to work together,
- How we can overcome those moments of introversion or just plain “I don’t know what to do” or how to reach out moments.
- We’ll talk about the future of collaboration and what it can do for your business.
As we talk today, I’m going to share one example of how I am currently at this exact moment, at the time of this recording, collaborating with 10 other entrepreneurs from around the world to bring entrepreneurs like you more resources.
If you are ready, if you are excited, and you want to talk about collaboration, then let’s get started.
The Power of Collaboration
Collaboration. We all know that collaboration is in theory good, but we have all been a part of a collaborative effort where we had to do everything, and someone else sat back and did nothing.
It leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you think about collaboration, if that’s what you remember. Chances are it happened in middle school, high school, college, or all of the above. But collaboration doesn’t have to be like that.
When you are picky about who you collaborate with, the benefits of collaboration are absolutely astonishing. So why do we work together?
The Importance of Collaborating
Why is collaboration so important? Let me talk to you a little bit about that first. With collaboration, you don’t have to be the expert on everything all the time. When you collaborate, it means that when something is outside your wheelhouse, you can get input and help from someone else. Sounds good, right? You no longer have to be the expert on everything.
Collaboration also means that you share the burden. So if you are trying to build something new, trying to create a course, trying to expand your reach, it isn’t something now that you have to do all by yourself, which means there’s some accountability built in. When there’s collaboration, there’s an opportunity to learn from others, and there’s an opportunity to put some of the weight on other people’s shoulders. You are sharing that weight versus carrying it all yourself.
So if we think about benefits, we have the fact that you don’t have to be the expert. We have the fact that you can share the burden or share the weight of what you’re doing.
And honestly, one of the benefits of collaboration is that you get to learn. If you know anything about me, you know how much I love learning. In fact, I think that’s my number one strength on the Strengths Finder is being a learner.
When we collaborate and we’re not the expert on everything and we’re sharing the weight, what happens is we actually learn from others, not just concepts, ideas, and content. We’re learning processes; we’re learning systems that someone else what is working for them. We get to learn from others, which means the next time we do something on our own, there’s a little bit more precision to it, a little bit more ease, and a little more simplicity.
The Challenges of Collaboration
Collaboration clearly is beneficial, but collaboration is not without its pitfalls. I told you at the beginning of this episode that we all can remember a time when we were on a group project where we were supposed to collaborate and it went sideways because someone was this social loafer. Someone didn’t do anything, and someone else, probably you, had to step up and do everything. It felt exhausting, overwhelming, tiring, unfair, frustrating, angering, you know, all of the things. You didn’t know if you could get it all done yourself. There are some very real challenges to collaborating. There is the possibility that someone isn’t going to do what they said they would do and we’ll talk about how to navigate that possibility in just a moment.
So we have the social loafing that happens, which is one of my favorite psychological terms for saying someone doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do.
There is also the challenge of finding people to collaborate with. How do you find the people? How do you find that person or group of people? One of the ideas for finding people to collaborate with is something that I did very recently in the Entrepreneur Resource Bundle that I’m going to share with you at the end of this episode.
I posted in a few paid groups that I’m in and said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about doing this bundle and I wonder if anyone would be interested. So let’s hop on a Zoom call and talk.” And I got a lot of interest. And what happened from there is that I got to talk to every person I was considering collaborating with.
That conversation goes back to the first point that I said about one of the challenges is that people don’t always do what they say they’re going to do. I had an opportunity to talk with each person and get a feel for whether or not they would follow through and if this was going to be a good collaboration that would work out in all of our favor.
The challenge is fairly easily solved by taking time to get to know the person you are potentially collaborating with, not just saying, Hey, I need someone to collaborate with and taking the first offer.
Finding people means you do have to reach out and as an introvert, I know how hard that is, but I’m telling you, I created this bundle that I’m going to share with you with 10 other entrepreneurs off of one social media post and one extra conversation that I had with someone else who was not in that group. Even for my most dedicated introverts out there, I think this is still possible.
Collaboration means you don’t have to be the expert. You can share the weight, you can learn at the same time. You can overcome collaboration challenges by taking some time to get to know your potential collaborators, posting a call to action in some of the groups you’re in saying, “Hey, I’ve got this idea. Here’s what I’m thinking. Are you interested in participating or being a part of this or working together?”
When you do all of this, when you take the time to post, when you take the time to talk, collaborations go really well because collaboration is the way of the future. We cannot get everything done all on our own without any help from other people.
We are as humans, even though here in the US we live in a very individualist society. As humans, we are a collective bunch. We are better suited together. We are better suited to support one another than we ever are to work individually. This doesn’t mean you can’t have your individual business or your things that you’re doing. You can. But doing those with support, with collaborations, makes it that much better and easier.
One thing that Stu McLaren always says that I constantly repeat, you’ve probably heard me say it, is that we are better together. We are better together.
The Entrepreneur Resource Bundle
Let me share a little bit about this bundle that I’ve been hinting at. You’ve heard me talk about the last few weeks on the podcast. The Entrepreneur Resource Bundle is an opportunity for you as an entrepreneur to learn from other expert entrepreneurs who have walked the path and are now down the path a little bit of the way, so they know what you might need.
We have pulled together 11 resources so that you don’t have to go out and search all of these different places to find what you need to build and grow your business. We’ve put all of the resources in one place and for the next few days, if you’re listening to this at the time of the recording for the next few days, this bundle is available free of charge. And after that time, it will go back into the vault.
Honestly, most of these entrepreneurs who have given so freely of their time, resources, and expertise are going to start charging for what you can get in the bundle right now for free.
But this is a collaboration. We have all worked together to support one another, get these resources pulled together for you. And that’s the beauty of collaboration. We get to work together, learn from one another, and support one another. In doing that, we meet new people.
One of the things this collaboration has brought to my business and me personally is that I have gotten to work with people throughout the world. We have contributors in many different countries participating in this Entrepreneur Resource Bundle, which means that by collaborating, I am building my business in a more diverse manner, which is something that’s really important to me.
Collaboration has a lot of different benefits. It’s something that if you are an entrepreneur, and I’m going to assume you are, if you’re listening to this podcast, you have to do it right. And in the day of so much being available online, you don’t even have to leave your home office or kitchen table if that’s where your computer is. You can collaborate with Zoom, Google Meet, Facebook Messenger, and you can start building partnerships.
Action Items
Now, I have a few action items for you today.
Usually, I tell you just one thing, but today it’s a little different because I want you to take two separate actions.
The first one is that I want you to grab the Entrepreneur Resource Bundle, and you can get that at www.coachinghive.com/moira/ At the time of this recording, it’s only going to be available for a few days, and then it will go into the vault. It will no longer be available free of charge. So grab it now while it is available.
The second action item that I want you to do is reach out to someone this week to collaborate. I don’t care if it is collaborating on a social media post where you post on their account, they post on yours, or you collaborate to write a joint post. Something simple like that is a great way to start. If you are feeling a little bit more ambitious, you could hop on their podcast and do a joint episode or write a joint email to both of your email lists and talk about your areas of expertise, how they mesh, and how you are supporting one another.
In other words, many ways to collaborate aren’t overly time intensive. Certainly, they don’t have to cost you anything and can start building your business in new and exciting ways that you haven’t necessarily thought of.
Those are your two action items. Grab the Entrepreneur Resource Bundle at www.coachinghive.com/moira/ and create one collaboration this week. This week reach out to someone to collaborate on something. I’ve left it intentionally open for you. I gave you a few ideas, and that is the beauty of this collaboration is what you want it to be.
In my case, I was ready to collaborate with several other entrepreneurs to build something important for our fellow entrepreneurs who are just getting started out or who are looking to reinvigorate their business. We know how easy it is to get stretched thin, trying to find resources and getting out there. This bundle is designed to help reduce some of that overwhelm and frustration, saving you time and money to get your business going. That’s where I was in wanting to collaborate at this moment in time, but that’s not where I’m always at, and that’s not where you have to be. Certainly choose what’s right for you.
Conclusions
Let’s summarize really quickly before we wrap up for today. Collaboration is probably one of the most important things that you can do for your business. It will help you grow, build, sustain, learn, and grow without having to be the expert on everything and anything inside and outside your business.
It will allow you to share the weight of some stuff across multiple shoulders instead of just your shoulders. And it allows you to learn from other experts in your space as they collaborate with you. You’re learning their systems, processes, and ideas, and as they collaborate with you, they’re learning your systems, processes, and ideas so that you both have a new perspective and new tools in your toolkit.
As an entrepreneur, I understand that sometimes collaboration can feel challenging or tricky, but it’s as simple as a Facebook message, a Facebook post, a simple email to a colleague, and reconnecting and asking how you can work together. Maybe it’s a joint email, a joint post, or a shared podcast episode. And when you intentionally build collaborations versus just casting the net and taking whatever you get, you’re not going to deal with some of the things we dealt with in middle school and high school, and college. As an entrepreneur, you can choose your collaborations wisely with intention, purpose, and meaning.
I told you today it was going to be good. Go out, collaborate, and grab the Entrepreneur Resource Bundle, and I look forward to seeing you back here next week for another episode of the Coaching Hive Podcast, where a focus on mentoring and community removes the overwhelm of building your successful and profitable business and adds in a dose of momentum.
Until next time, have a healthy, safe, and happy week.
