Collaborative Partnerships

by Cara Lumen

Imagine that you are half of a team of horses.  Your teammate never quite puts her shoulder into the harness when you are pulling something together.  She is slow to start, and often wants to go off in her own direction.  And you know that you are not being supported; that you are actually carrying the major part of the load.

And yet you can’t do it alone.  It’s a two horse deal.

But one day you luck out.  You have a new team mate.  This new horse is eager to go.  The minute you start she’s right there pulling her weight, working with you as a cooperative partner and is obviously glad to be a part of the team.  What a difference that will make in your day! And in the work you can accomplish.

Partnerships need both partners

Whether we’re talking relationships here or business partnerships, both you and your partner have to do more than your share. You have to use your individual strengths for the good of the whole.  I love the term Collaborative Partnership.  Collaborate is about more than just cooperating, it is about joining energies with that other person until what you create is greater than what either of you can do together. 

The Right Collaborative Partnership Will Send You To The Moon!

I love blogging and I’m a business coach with huge knowledge in internet marketing. content and curriculum development and signature product development.  My business is about helping people build their business from the inside out,  And since I love blogging and writing in any form, I always look for ways to bring that into my business. So at the first opportunity I helped a client move into WordPress. She wanted control over her pages.  I made it happen but I can only go so far with the technical part of WordPress.  As I was struggling to make that part happen for my client I realized I needed to find someone who thought doing that part was more fun than I do.  I remembered a woman who had been in many of my courses who said she loved helping people create blogs on WordPress. And the light bulb went off!
I emailed her to ask if she would be interested in partnering with me, she said yes, and in 48 hours we had our new web site up – in WordPress of course.  It has been a long time since I’ve worked with someone with whome I am so evenly matched in energy.  She popped onto the site work and I started writing content.  She knows how to do keywords really well and I could quickly set up autoresponders in my shopping cart. We fired emails back and forth and got on the phone a few times.  She’s a writer too so there will be an active blog on our site and I have ideas to add even more opportunities to our new business.

Here comes the over the moon part

But here’s what I want to share.  OUR ENEGIES FEED EACH OTHER! I get to do what I love and she gets to do what she loves.    Isn’t that the point of it all?  She has a new idea of something she can offer and I pulled in an idea that I want to help people do but didn’t have the technical energy to figure it out.  We both put ourselves rapidly into play and made things happen.  We both knew what we were doing and did it efficiently and effectively.  We not only pull our wagon together but we both are putting all of ourselves into it. And we are on the fast track!

Collaborative partnerships change your expectation

My vision has dramatically shifted and so has hers.  Because she loves and can do the technical part I get to focus on what I love to do – the coaching and teaching  and writing part.  So I feel relief at no longer having to try to figure out something technical I need for my clients, I can use that energy to create bigger and better concepts for my clients content and marketing strategies.  And because of this collaboration, I can offer my clients what I could not do before, an outstanding WordPress presence with content that attracts people in droves.

I feel like I have been untethered. I am a helium balloon setting sail.  I have let go of my tethers and embrace the winds of change. 

Pretty good for just finding a new partner and starting a new collaborative business in 48 hours.  Check us out at http://magneticblogbuilders.com  







©2010 Cara Lumen