Twenty

With 19, that tech business that I got involved with to help flatten the curve and as fast and as exciting, it grew and scaled within 2 months and crashing just as fast. It It got me thinking about partnerships, collaborations, joint ventures, and the experience showed me the value in who I am and how I showed up. This is 20, a podcast mini where I share the top five things that I learned in 2020. And in this episode, I talk about collaborations. And one thing that was happening within the entrepreneurship space was the word pivot, was changing your business, looking for new opportunities, and just getting through this year, staying positive.

There were so many experts in the room in this in this specific example. There were marketers, funders. There were media personalities. There were tech entrepreneurs. There were consultants.

There were I mean, it was people in public office. And, you know, I look at myself, and who am I? I'm a tech entrepreneur. I'm a podcaster. I have this yearning to make impact, to share my story, to connect people, to inspire people.

And I realized, you know, within this organization where people were trying to claim their role, and I just wanted to help out and collaborate and do what I can do because I am a fast mover. I am a good communicator. I realized that, you know, this is what I bring to the table. This is what I wanna do, and this is how I want myself to grow with this organization as it comes. Because, ultimately, these were, you know, a number of individuals coming together with good intentions.

Although good intentions can only take you so far if you don't have the right, I guess, structures in place. Right? The right controls in place, the right business intact with a key leader because, ultimately, the downfall was that there were too many cooks in the kitchen. And collaborations and partnerships is an interesting thing. Right?

Because as I look at some of the biggest companies, you know, they grew because of collaborations, whether it's collaborations with, you know, finance, you know, raising rounds of money. That's a collaboration. Whether it's finding a proper partner to bring into your company, so which we did in Slingshot, to bring in a salesperson and or even hiring the right consultants and coach that you need. That's also a collaboration. And the beauty about collaborations and what I was able to learn through this year is how to listen when you're coming together with new people, new business opportunities, and to create joint ventures.

Collaborations is the key into the speed to split yourself up quickly, to provide more stake, to help you move your vision and your mission forward. Right? So, you know, not only 19, as I saw, was a huge collaboration, a huge initiative. You know, I had through this year alone, I would say, another one was Capital to Cash where I was collaborating with my speaking consultant, and we were looking to to put together something called Capital to Cash where we were putting together our networks, our know hows. I she was bringing in the 20 years of speaking industry where she knows her clients and her industry is hurting the speaking industry.

And how could we provide insight and help them? And so she had this platform and this idea, and I had the technical know how to put these together and spin it up quickly. So that was a great collaboration and a great project. It was a 1 month project, and we were looking to to launch that into the world. And ultimately, we launched, we got a sale, but realized, you know what?

Maybe it's not a good fit. Why don't we just shut it down? So collaborations is interesting too. Right? Because you wanna make sure it's a win win for everyone, and always look out for these collaborations.

I had another collaboration with a friend of mine, Mike Smith, where, you know, we were we had met in similar circles, but when COVID hit, I reached out to him because I think I wanted some camera inside camera tips. He's, he's one of the top 5 marketing agencies in the in North America. His specialty is video, but he understands branding. And we ended up collaborating near the end of the Q3, coming into the Q4, where he was able to assist and collaborate with me in how to up level slingshots, brand marketing, and brand vision, and how to change the conversation, and how to create the funnel, which was much needed because I had old, insight, old strategies that not only that I know, but my competitors know. So collaborations are key.

But the one thing that I'm really learning from this year is to go into collaborations with a clear understanding of who you are, the value you bring, the value they bring, and to ensure that the end product is win win. And it's not just for now, it's for the long term. On the next episode of 20, I go deep. I talk about passion. Finding my passion during a year where everything was going upside down and what it took to really find out who I am, What I love to do.

And to find alignment and flow as I head into 2021.