Guest post by licensed Right-Brain Business Plan® Facilitator Cass Mullane

I like to consider people peers instead of competitors. After all, we’re striving for the same thing: success with our businesses. Rather than exclude others, I try to think about ways to partner up so everyone benefits. One way I know to improve the odds of success and to defray the expense of marketing is to partner up with other people.

Here’s an example. My studio mate and I wanted to do a special holiday event offering gifts and art for under $100. We spoke with two other artists about joining forces for the event. Our goal was to attract a different buyer into the building with the dual purpose of inviting them to purchase for the holidays and introducing them to our facility. Then we thought, “What if other artists participated with us?” We could certainly expand our marketing reach and have a much more exciting and viable event.

The facility I’m lucky to occupy is filled with more than sixty studios and over eighty artists as well as classrooms and gallery spaces. What started out as four artists thinking about doing something special in our studios for the holidays, ended up as an event with nearly half the artists in the building participating and thousands of dollars in sales that may not otherwise have happened.

Here’s how it transpired:

• We invited other artists to participate
• We asked for a $10 contribution from each artist to cover printing and to be able to fund a few $50 gift certificates
• We created a passport that visitors would take to each studio and get a stamp in order to be eligible for the gift certificate drawings
• We enlisted the support of the facility and the staff
• We sent out periodic reminders to the artists suggesting ways to market the event

When the weekend of the event arrived, we were facing several inches of snow and it was bitterly cold with a nasty wind chill. Not exactly optimal for drawing people out of their warm homes and into cold cars! Had each of us worked in isolation, we probably would have been able to hear crickets chirping in the empty hallways. But that’s not at all what happened! The group marketing effort paid off and we had a full parking lot during the entire event. People came, brought their families and spent time chatting and shopping with the various artists in their studios. People made connections and conducted business. Plus, the overall feeling was one of happiness and festivity. Not bad for a day that started out at -4 degrees!

So who can you partner up with? Think about what you’d like to achieve, what your goals are. Look for others with similar goals and think about what you can do to leverage your combined talents and resources. Can someone leverage social media? Who can help with graphic design? Who has access to your ideal clients? What special gifts do you bring to the party? When you partner up with the right intentions, everyone stands to benefit

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Cass Mullane’s calm, comfortable approach consistently yields positive results for clients. Her business and personal coaching practice, www.ProsperCreatively.com, specializes in delivering solid left brain business skills to right brainers and creatives in a fun, visual way. She’s the author of Cool Stuff Jar which is slated for publication in Spring 2014. You can also visit Cass on Facebook. Cass is one of our licensed Right-Brain Business Plan® Facilitators.”