How collaboration can exponentially amplify your messages

Kirsten Back Author

Making the principle of collective intelligence work for you & why solopreneurs should collaborate to stay relevant

Have you noticed that the rules in the playground of marketing (including social media) have changed profoundly?

That “solopreneurs” form partnerships and collaborate more than ever?

Big names like Mel Robbins, Amy Porterfield, Jenna Kutcher and Brendon Burchard, have formed partnerships that support each other’s growth.

They are broadcasting together, promoting each other, creating shared events etc.

Behind that, is a fairly simple idea:

Our world is changing faster than ever and you as an individual, will find it hard to keep up with the change happening all around you AND grow your business at the same time.

In order to become more agile and effective in a complex and fluid environment, one set of eyes and ears is not enough anymore – and your current skills might not be sufficient anymore.

Adopting the concept of collaboration to stay relevant

If you are a “solopreneur” or small business owner like me, then you are working primarily on your own. That allows you to be agile, make fast decisions and respond quickly to any changes – IF you are aware of changes.

Staying on top of the developments on one platform is time-consuming enough – staying on top of multiple platforms is a Sisyphus task.

But if that wasn’t enough, as an expert, you need to stay on top of your area of expertise, develop further, and keep an eye on everything that has an impact on your business. (Crucial things like your clients’ changed needs etc.)

You don’t need to be an expert in every area related to your business and be informed about everything that is going on in the world.

However, you do need to know what has a high impact on your business and how that influences how you show up and market your business.

(Hint, hint – content and copywriting, anyone?)

It is wise to make a priority list of the systems that you use in your business and how changes in any area could potentially impact that system.

That could be algorithm changes on your social media platform or updates on your email automation tool. It could be economic changes or new government guidelines (or like we all have experienced – a pandemic).

This week, I noticed that LinkedIn wasn’t publishing my posts. My newsletter disappeared and the notifications that LinkedIn sent out about my new posts ended in a black hole. (It was a temporary glitch!)

Considering that LinkedIn is my major social media platform and that I am soon launching a content and copywriting membership that I promote on LinkedIn – that glitch has consequences.

The solution: Collaboration

Collaboration means developing relationships with other small business owners that can alleviate your situation.

That means that you still need to find a way to broadcast your message despite being impacted by any limiting circumstances.

Although I was unable to post, I was able to drop the link to my membership in the comments of a few posts that my connections were sharing.

Not ideal – but better than having no exposure.

But even when there are no tech issues or platform glitches – it pays off to collaborate with other small business owners to amplify your message.

By appearing in interviews and podcasts or showing up in panel discussions or taking part in challenges, you get access to other business owners’ networks and platforms.

When you collaborate and share your knowledge with other entrepreneurs, then you get access to multiple other audiences.

Collaborating with others doesn’t only fill the gaps on a bad day, it’s a strategic tool to exponentially grow your online exposure and share your messages with audiences that you won’t have access to if you weren’t collaborating with others.

Making the principle of collective intelligence work for you

There’s only one of you and you have only one brain. Sometimes that brain gets stuck or is having a bad day.

When you network and collaborate, you can draw on the collective intelligence of the people you are networking with. You support them and they support you.

The collective intelligence of your whole network is far bigger than the intelligence of one individual (YOU) acting alone.

But not only the pool of intelligence – the pool of knowledge, skills, and expertise is unbelievably valuable too.

If you have a membership or run a regular mastermind, then guest experts add to the value of your services. You can add their knowledge through lives, workshops and challenges that add to the information that you are able to share just by tapping into your own brain.

Other experts add new perspectives, inspiration, experience, and insights that you cannot gain just by yourself.

By collaborating with a diverse range of people and personality types, you can add skills, knowledge and “flavours” that you are not able to acquire and share if you were entirely working on your own.

That shared intelligence does not only benefit your clients, it also benefits you - because you also learn with every interaction. And it benefits your collaboration partners who get more exposure through joining your network.

Collaborating with other experts gives you and your audience access to a completely different set of knowledge.

Review your understanding of status

One of the reasons why we share content is that we want to gain the status of a knowledgeable expert. We want to be perceived as the “go-to” person in our area of expertise.

The thing is – by inviting other experts to share their knowledge, you are not lowering your status in the hierarchy of experts – we are loaning our expert status to another expert to tap into the richness of their knowledge and to collaborate with them as equal partners.

That fosters collaboration and ideation and creates bigger value. When we share the limelight, we encourage others to contribute and get access to the intelligence and knowledge of a bigger group of experts.

Right now, many experts are hosting panel discussions, broadcast interviews and expert conversations because they understand that our audience’s brains crave novelty and appreciate greater value.

By sharing the stage with other experts you are becoming part of a collaborating community that will value you for your contribution and that will positively influence the perception of your brand.

And – I love talking with other experts because I always learn something that is relevant to my business and development and I create a network of people who possess skills that I need to work on.

With that said – if you want to work on your content and copywriting skills – then check out my content and copywriting membership by simply clicking on the image!

Categories: Brand Messaging, businesskills, Content Creation, Copywriting tips, Engagement, Influencing, Marketing, Online Presence