How to Partner for More Sales and Traffic

I paid $15,000 for this strategy. And it works.

In the Founder Labs Mastermind, we had a question around how to do partnerships for traffic and sales.

As is typical, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, because I spent $15,000 to learn this lesson, and it’s a doozy.

But, the details of strategies like this aren’t good for our bi-weekly sessions, so I decided to do a special session.

And we got detailed too.

Not just some mamby pamby strategy session. Let’s talk how-to’s with spreadsheets, example emails, how to start even with zero audience, and more.

In this article, I’m going to share the strategy and the tactics.

Here’s the high level:

1. How to build your avatar

2. How to brainstorm the list of potential partners

3. How to sort the list

4. What to offer the potential partner

5. How to contact each potential partner

6. What the goal of the outreach is

But, as they say, “the devil is in the details.” So, let’s get our hands dirty.

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1. How to build your avatar

I wrote a piece on How to understand your audience better (to make more money) on my newsletter dedicated more toward content creators, but the principle is the same.

I’ll give the distilled version here, for founders, not just creators.

Here’s my cheat-sheet:

Create your own version, but here’s some things to think about:

• Demographics (age, gender, income, education, location, marriage status, etc)

• Fears

• Goals

• Content they consume

• Hobbies

• Who else they subscribe to

• Offline buying behavior

• Beliefs & values

• Other places they hang out / do online

• Habits

• Motivators

• Where else they spend their time

• Work status

• What they do on the weekend

• What they wish they were doing

• What kind of person they want to be

Keep going with these. Get past the demographics to the psychographics. To the fears, hopes, current state, desired state, and what they consume.

Let me say that again…. what content do they consume already?

→ ENOUGH THINKING. DO THIS: Fill out the details on the above bullet points (and more). Design your theoretical ideal customer profile, or “avatar.”

2. How to brainstorm the list of potential partners

You’ve got an understanding of who this person is, at least theoretically. The most important part, for this process, is to know what content they already consume.

The people and companies who produce that content have the audience you want.

This is what’s known as OPA - Other People’s Audiences. These are the groups you want to partner with.

Here’s some other questions to consider when brainstorming:

• What is the market you serve? Who else serves that market?

• What is the problem you solve? Who else solves that problem?

• Who is your target audience?

• What other problems do they have?

• Who are the sub-groups of your market? Who serves those people?

→ ENOUGH THINKING. DO THIS: Write a list of at least 50 potential partners into a spreadsheet:

• names / companies

• their main websites, blogs, links to podcasts, YouTube channels, social links, and/or links to apps

• go find their email or other contact info

• the type of company they are (podcast, YouTube channel, newsletter, app, service, community, SaaS, author, etc)

• their audience size relative to you (smaller, same size, somewhat bigger, way bigger)

• your familiarity with them (I know them well, I sorta know them, I don’t know them)

• their familiarity with you (they know me well, they sorta know me, they don’t know me)

3. How to sort the list

We’re going to create a rough lead score with the details above. We’ll sort it with that scoring.

→ ENOUGH THINKING. DO THIS:

1. Add a new column called “Lead Score” to the sheet.

2. Use the following table to give your answers a value

   

3. Put the sum of all the values into the “Lead Score” column for each partner.

4. Sort the sheet based on the “Lead Score” column

4. What to offer the potential partner

This may seem tough to come up with, but it should be quite simple.

The litmus test is to try to figure out what the partner doesn’t have that you do.

You might not have an audience, so come up with something else.

If they have a blog, can you write an awesome, in-depth blog post so they don’t have to, that would make them look amazing and their audiences swoon?

If they have a podcast, could you offer some bit of insight or entertainment their audience would love?

The goal is to do all the work for them, and make them look amazing and/or serve their audience.

Here’s some other examples:

5. How to contact each potential partner

WARNING: Don’t skip this info. How you contact partners matters, and the bigger they are, the longer it’ll take.

Pick an anchor:

Consumption

• Tell them you read their blog post, email, podcast or saw their webinar

• Tell them you have bought their product

• Tell them you have gotten a specific benefit from their content

Promotion

• Tell them you shared their content

• Tell them you shared their product

• Tell them how much you like them and brag on them

Connection

• You found them via someone they already know

• You saw them featured, linked, promoted to or mentioned by someone you know

• You can get an introduction from a mutual friend

• You have been to the same conference

• You have been an affiliate for the same person

• You have promoted the same content

• You have been featured by the same person

• You know them or have met them in person

• Find a site that you both link to

• You are in the same space, have known of each other but have never met

• You reference someone they know b/c you have worked with that person

• You ask if it's ok to connect them to someone they should know

Hint: My favorite way of contacting people is to subscribe to their newsletter and hit “reply,” or better yet, contribute to their Patreon or buy something small from them and reply to the receipt you receive.

Now, construct your email/contact with the following structure:

1. Relational hook

2. Relational hook

3. Image/screenshot/evidence

4. Your offer - as short as possible, what’s in it for them, not a bunch of details

5. “Interested?” (That’s it. Nothing else!)

Example Screenshot

This is an example of when I contacted Nate Buchanan, from Kara and Nate, back when they had about 1M subscribers on their YouTube channel. I was a nobody, had less than 1k subscribers, so virtually no audience. But, this was my pitch email…

Notice the multiple hooks.

First, I’m replying to their Patreon receipt email. I bought something from them and it’s a direct line to their email address.

Second, we bought their video editing course.

Third, we published a video based on it, and we loved the process.

Fourth, my offer was a travel discount. This helps their audience and makes them look good in front of them. I also offered promotion, even though we didn’t have much of an audience.

→ ENOUGH THINKING. DO THIS:

• Construct a message for each of your potential partners. Take your time. Do this right and it will pay off in the end. You’re doing quality here, not quantity.

• Send it!

• Follow up > 6 times. You heard me right. This is an important nugget. Follow up is where the money is when you’re cold contacting partners. People who fail at this process typically fail right here - not enough follow ups. If it feels weird, pay a VA to do it for you so you don’t have to think about it. But do it! I can’t tell you how many times I get deals I wouldn’t otherwise have gotten simply because I followed up 7 times.

• At the 7th follow-up, tell them it’s your last time reaching out. Every now and then, they’ll be thankful you told them so because it might have been on their mind to reply but they got distracted. That 7th time, when you tell them you’re done, you might be giving them FOMO. Or, you’re getting out of their hair. Either way is a win.

6. What the goal of the outreach is

The goal of this outreach is simple.

Get a “Yes.”

That’s it. Nothing more.

Are they interested? Yes or no?

This is why we only say “Interested?” at the end of the email. There is nothing else for them to do other than reply with one word.

If they do say “Yes,” THEN you can schedule a call to discuss details. Explore what a partnership might look like (remember, you’re going to pitch doing everything for them because it makes it easier for them to say “Yes” to the deal too.)

→ ENOUGH THINKING. DO THIS:

• Send the messages already!

And hey, if you want to dive deeper into strategies like this for growing your agency with recurring revenue, or getting your SaaS business unstuck, grab some time and let’s chat.