Collaboration Is The Key

“I’ll get by with a little help from my friends,” sang The Beatles – and they made a great point!

Like minded people around us can be a massive influence on our success levels – which is why I want to express the importance of collaboration.

Collaboration essentially means working with others to create or produce something together – and it’s a vastly underused tool in the beauty industry.

Many brands work together to help each other out – because when you hear about a product or service from a trusted source, you feel more confident in it. For example, if you were getting married and you visited a venue and they gave you a list of suppliers, you’d be more likely to trust those suppliers because they’d been recommend by someone you already have a relationship with.

So a few more fellow professionals out there singing your praises can go a long way.

When we work together we can achieve more

Here’s how to collaborate:

– Establish a target

Compile a list of your ideal target market.  Include age, sex, distance from your salon, likes, dislikes and so on.

– Utilise local businesses

Write a list of all businesses that would attract these same clients.

These may be clothes shops, make-up boutiques, shoe shops, hairdressers, tanning salons, gyms, fitness instructors, skin clinics… The list is endless!

– Say hello!

Don’t email, don’t call, just pop in!  Let them see your happy, friendly nature and introduce yourself.

– Give them a gift

Explain that you have a local business and you’d love to work together to generate more business for you both. Offer them a free manicure or pedicure to show them what you do.

– Get to know them

Tell them about your business, how passionate you are and show off your wonderful treatment skills whilst they are with you.

Ask them about their business, how busy they are and ask about their story.

– Present an opportunity

Ask them if they’d like to work together – where you can promote them to your clients and they’d do the same.  Suggest any treatment collaborations too if it suits – for example, you could team up with a tanning salon and offer a voucher for tan and nails – so the clients gets great value for money and experiences two great businesses.

Exactly how you position this is up to you and will depend on the businesses involved.

– Pass their details on

Be sure to blog, post and talk about them and help them grow – they will be happy to reciprocate the favour.

Remember this is a two-way street!

– It’s a numbers game

Five new businesses that send you five new clients means 25 new people through your door; a potentially very lucrative new influx of clients, gained for very little cost except some time and smiles from you!

Give collaboration a go.

As well as new local clients, you’ll enjoy a lovely local community of small businesses, all working together, support when you need it and a real feeling of achievement!

Have you managed a successful collaboration with another local business?   I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

This article has been adapted from a piece I wrote for Scratch Magazine.   You can read the original article here.