Subscriber Samir asks:
“How do you persuade someone higher up on the totem pole to partner up with you? Every time I pitch a guest post, seek webinar partners, or organise a virtual summit, I feel like a Bollywood mother trying to marry off his socially awkward 35-year old son into a mogul’s family.”
Well, if I were a Bollywood mother trying to marry off my son, here is how I would go about it:
I tell my son, “You will marry the girl I choose.”
He says, “NO!”
I tell him, “She is Bill Gates’s daughter.”
He says, “OK.”
I call Bill Gates and say, “I want your daughter to marry my son.”
Bill Gates says, “NO.”
I tell Bill Gates, “My son is the CEO of World Bank.”
Bill Gates says, “OK.”
I call the President of World Bank and ask him to make my son the CEO.
He says, “NO.”
I tell him, “My son is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.”
He says, “OK.”
This is exactly how politics work…
It’s similar to negotiating a multi-party structured finance deal as a lawyer.
You get everyone to conditionally agree to a result they want, and once the circle of promises is complete, you call in on their promises.
You could use the same principle to pitch an article to a major media outlet or to interview a celebrity in your niche.
In fact, why not hit two birds with one stone?
I’d do my due diligence first and find out which publication this celebrity wants to be on. I’d identify which of his competitors have already been featured there, and any post-mortems they wrote on their results.
Then I tell the Big Dog: “Would you agree to a 30 min interview, if I can get it published on the front page of [prized publication] with a link back to your site?”
Big Dog says, “OK.”
I call the Prized Publication and say, “I can get you an exclusive with [Celebrity]. You interviewed [Celebrity’s competitor] earlier this year, and it was a huge hit. I think this one will be too. I know you’re busy, so no worries if you can’t fit it into your editorial calendar. I’m going to call [Prized Publication’s biggest competitor] next, but we’d rather publish it on your site because of [genuine] reason.”
Personally, that’s too much wheeling and dealing for my taste.
And I hate cold outreach. So I only partner with people I’m actually friends with.
That’s why I haven’t touched virtual summits with a 10-foot pole.
Yes, joint ventures are a shortcut to the top.
But I’d rather do my own experiments, and run my own ads with my own money - and I’m a good enough marketer to pull it off.
I like doing things my own quirky way, instead of spending all my energy networking and compromising.
Business is more fun when you play to your strengths.
If networking is your thing, great. JVs are the way to go.
If marketing is your thing and you can run profitable ads like nobody’s business, great. The world is your oyster.
But what if neither of those things comes naturally to you?
What if your zone of genius is in doing what you actually do, and not in the marketing of it?
Then I have the solution:
I’m releasing a new programme where I’ll teach you how to sell your product through word of mouth, so you can grow your online business (without spending all your time on networking or marketing).
You’ll get your customers to sell your stuff and spread the word for you.
Dropbox did it. Uber did it. Airbnb did it.
And so did Evernote, and every smart company who came out of nowhere and took the market by storm.
Why not you?
(And thankfully you don’t have to be a Silicon Valley tech company.If you sell to humans, then it works. Period.)
Anyway, I’m going to do a “Founding Members’ Run” first with just 10 ambitious people.
If you want to hear more about this, sign up for the VIP Wait List and be in the know:
