The Power of Collaboration - Sue Pats

Unpacking the myth of the lone wolf, this episode dives deep into why collaboration is not just an option but a necessity for business success. We're joined by Sue Pats, founder of NewBeginningCom, who has transformed her journey from solo struggles to thriving through partnerships. Through rich discussions, we uncover the common fears that prevent many entrepreneurs, especially men, from seeking collaborative opportunities. By sharing her insights and personal experiences, Sue illustrates that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.

Listeners will learn about various collaboration strategies, from cross-promotions to affiliate agreements, that can rapidly enhance their business prospects. We emphasize that true success lies within a community, where sharing resources and support leads to mutual growth. The conversation encourages shifting perceptions of competition to see it as a healthy motivator rather than a barrier. 

Join us as we harness the power of collaboration to pave the way for not just individual success but a collective journey toward accomplishment. Whether you're feeling stuck or ready to take your business to the next level, this episode provides essential insights and actionable steps to thrive together. Don't forget to subscribe, share your collaboration stories, and connect with us on social media!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Welcome
• 5:00 The Myth of the Lone Wolf Mentality
• 37:00 The Power of Collaboration
• 1:10:00 Overcoming Fear and Asking for Help
• 1:50:00 Practical Tips for Collaboration
• 2:20:00 Guest Insights and Conclusion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hey everyone, welcome back to Mind Over Masculinity. You know, everyone that we have all heard the saying if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go all together. Yet so many of us, especially men, cling to the idea of the lone wolf grinding it out kind of solo, refusing to ask for the help and seeking competition as the only way forward. But is that really the best approach? What do you think think their listeners do? Let us also know as well. Uh, before we start, I also I thought like this is a great uh way to start because, uh, what do you think? It's also very important, so do let us know as well. So today we are breaking down the myth of the lone wolf, why collaboration isn't just the smarter choice but the only choice for lasting success. That's a great topic, dear listeners, and to help us unpack this, I have someone who knows exactly what it's like to go from struggling alone to thriving through the power of collaboration. So joining us is Sue Patz. So welcome to the show, sue.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Lovely, lovely. So, sue, before we start, I'll quickly have to introduce to all of our listeners. Dear listeners, sue is the powerhouse behind newbeginningcom, a platform that is dedicated to helping solopreneurs turn their struggles into the success, and she's been in the trenches, faced the uncertainty of no sales and figured out how to transform her digital business into a revenue generating machine. Yeah, and now she's on a mission to make sure others don't have to walk the same rocky road alone. So, sue, welcome to the show. 'm really, really excited to dive in just come thanks for the opportunity.

Speaker 2: 2:07

I always look forward to come to your shows because you are doing a really great work. You are working on the topics which are really needed. They are vitally important and still totally ignored. So you are doing a great work.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Keep it up thank you, thank you, so so, so. So, like I mean, the discussion topic is very, very great and I believe it's very important, as I also mentioned in the beginning, that uh, it's it's a great question to understand everyone's approach. What is the best approach? Um, so, we'll quickly start with this. Like, uh, I mean, why do you think that so many people, especially men, uh, uh, kind of romanticize the lone wolf mentality? Is it just ego or is it just something that is deeper at the play?

Speaker 2: 2:57

yeah, it is mostly ego. Also, they, uh, yeah, maybe they want to prove themselves that they can do it and they also want to prove to others that, okay, they are so great, but as a human being you are never going to be perfect. But together everyone can achieve way more. So that's why you need a team and if you go and attend any webinar seminar even real estate they, okay, build your business on other people's money. But in our digital business, we say build your business on other people's audiences, because that is the smart way to go, because none of the solopreneurs actually come into the business with like thousands of dollars in the bank to invest into their business. So they need to choose prudent strategies to grow and many solopreneurs they quit their business before they launch their first product. Many entrepreneurs don't see second year in their business. Those who see second year don't see fifth year in business and if they start working on collaboration borrow other people's audiences it will be such a fast track to success that they won't even realize and means basically, they don't have to invest money into draining strategies like ads and all, because you know they can drain money like crazy.

Speaker 2: 4:23

So collaboration is the greatest way and many people have question how? What are, what are collaborations? How can I collaborate? So I have created a free e-course. If anyone wants to access that free e-course, I can give free e-course. It says 27 tips to collaborate. So you can choose any of these tips or you can just choose one or many more and you can collaborate, and it is. It is such a breeze. With solopreneurs, they can achieve revenue really faster and they can succeed, yeah, without any hurdle. It will be a yeah, money making machine with ease exactly, very true.

Speaker 1: 5:09

I, I totally agree on this. I mean, um, we are conditioned to think that asking for the help is a kind of, or is a kind of sign of weakness, or yeah, but in reality it's the one of the smartest move that we can make. I mean, uh, yeah, and I mean it is very true that, and I love, like how you reframed it, but because it's not about the losing control, it's about gaining strength through the um, right connections.

Speaker 2: 5:40

So yeah, and actually it is not asking for help. You know, because I think you have to change the mentality. Because you are not asking for help. It is a win-win-win situation because you have some kind of contract between the person you are collaborating with and it can be like a commission after they generate the revenue, or it can be cross promotion or it whatever it is.

Speaker 2: 6:03

So you are winning, your collaborator is winning and then the collaborators audience is also winning because they are getting access to the great offer which you have created, which you have generated. So it is a win-win-win strategy. So you are not actually putting yourself down, you are not asking help, it is just creating win-win-win strategy. And it is a smart strategy. Say yeah, of course these are really good strategies for solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, small business owners. But you see, when big businesses they are collaborating. Yeah means now in our uh, this country, trump and elon musk they are collaborating and they are actually billionaires they are collaborating. So why you should feel yeah means asking for collaboration. It is you're demeaning yourself or you're lowering yourself.

Speaker 1: 6:57

No, that is the smart way to go exactly, exactly and and um, like many people think that of business and life in general as zero-sum game. But you win or I win, but you, you have, uh, built newbeginningcom around the idea of collaboration over the competition. So what shifted your mindset on that?

Speaker 2: 7:31

Yeah, because you know, collaboration is very easy and initially people have lots of imposter syndrome when they're creating offers and they're looking at their competitors and they're saying, oh, that person is in the business for so many years and oh, I'm, I have similar offers and I may not even actually succeed. But remember you have your audience and not everyone is going to relate to Tony Robbins, okay, even though he has a multi-million dollar business. You have your own audience. They are following you, they are watching you, so they are looking for you to create offers. So it is not even in. Even you think of competition. Competition can be healthy and remember, you have your own audience and they are looking for you to help them and you can relate to them. They can relate to you. So, first of all, keep the competition away and competition is good because, in a way, you can follow the competition and you can improve yourself. Second, if you have a competition, that means the offer is already validated. So it is not. You are really inventing something new and you are looking for validation. So competition is also good. But the collaboration is better because, how it works, you can work with people who have a common ideal customer profile.

Speaker 2: 8:59

For example, I have a membership and, but I want to give the holistic experience to my members, but I'm not expert at everything. Yeah, surprise, surprise, no, I am not. And the moment I think I become expert or perfect, god will call me. So I'm not even looking forward to become expert and perfect at everything. So how I'm going to looking forward to become expert and perfect at everything? So how I'm going to give holistic experience to my members, that I'm going to get the guest experts who are coming and who will be sharing their expertise so that I'm filling the gaps? For example, I love to write, but that doesn't mean I'm good at copywriting or I'm really great at SEO related articles and posts and all I mean I do it, but still I'm hiring, outsourcing that part of job. So those people means basically come and help my community and I can talk about anything means basically, um, basically see how you have podcast even I have podcast and people come on my podcast and they share their expertise.

Speaker 2: 10:12

For example, yesterday there was a someone who came and he shared his expertise about trading. No, my family does trading, my husband does trading, my daughter does trading. That doesn't mean I have any knowledge about trading, I just watch them. But if my community wants to know a little bit about trading, yeah, he can come and he can share his expertise and if someone is interested, they can look into his offer. So it is a collaboration because he's also looking for a similar customer profile. So this we both of us have the same icbx ideal customer profile so we can work on collaboration and we can bless our audience. And here everybody wins. So I win, he wins and our audience wins. So collaboration is a great strategy and so there is. I cannot say that we have competition, but if we have competition, that is also good because you can learn from your competition. But focus on collaboration. Competition is good for growth of your own self and collaboration is good to grow in every possible area in your business, your collaborators, business and in your audience's life and business exactly, very true.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So, uh, yeah, and and like uh, how do you navigate partnerships without the fear of giving away too much to others in the same space?

Speaker 2: 11:49

Actually I think I'm giving away too much because, for example, if someone becomes an affiliate with our offers, I'm giving away 50% and nobody gives 50% commission for the kind of offers I have. For example, I have really high not really, but high-ticket offers. They are like a couple of thousands of dollars and if someone has those kind of offers they give like a 10% commission. I rarely see 30% commission for high ticket offers, but we give 50% commission for our all offers, for low ticket, high ticket, ticket, all kinds of offers, because we consider that whoever is becoming our affiliate, they are putting their heart, they are putting their sweat, they are putting their blood. So they are our partners. So we give that. So we actually we are not scared to give away a lot. And the company who set up the affiliate program for me asked me are you sure you really want to give 50 percent and no cookie and lifetime? I said yeah, I want to do that because that was my main vision when I got started into this business helping solopreneurs. But there are many other strategies. For example, if you have a fear of giving away too much, you can just do simple cross-promotion, and here there is no money exchange as such. It means you promote my offer to your audience, I'll promote your offer to your audience. It means basically, we are just cross-promoting. So there is a collaboration, something called freebie swaps. So we can just do the freebie swaps and we can grow our email list. So we can do blog swaps, we can do podcast swaps. Then we can do various other swaps skill swaps, for example. If you don't have that much of money lying around to outsource, you can do the skill swaps. For example, if you don't have that much of money lying around to outsource, you can do the skills. A skill swap. Second, I say okay, I will do this work for you. Why don't you do this work for me and do that and just have basic understanding? For example, if you are doing freebie swaps, don't go into partnership with someone who has a email list of 50 people and if you have a email list of 10, 10 000 people, then it doesn't match up because yeah, I mean you can do the math, so just just see, means you agree on terms, because then later on we don't want any conflict. And yeah means we don't want to have any relationship problems, because whatever partnership, collaborative partnership we are getting into, we want it to be long term. We don't want anything short lived. So once we establish the relationship, it has to be long term.

Speaker 2: 14:48

And I really like how you are promoting Whoever comes on your podcast. You have those sponsors on your website and then you can promote their offers all the time you are doing collaboration. A week means basically you are expert. So you are asking me, you are humbling me because you are expert. I'm learning so much from you and I'm looking forward to collaborate big way with you because you have reached to the places where I'm looking forward to go and I am not sure whether I will have as many shows as you, because you are doing amazing work. You are a really great example for collaboration. I think people in your community they shouldn't go beyond looking for you. You are really a great example, avik.

Speaker 1: 15:47

Thank you, thank you so much and, yeah, definitely would love to collaborate. For sure, collaboration is something which is, which is very, very needed. And, uh, dear listeners, what we are discussing today is the actual scenario which is present, definitely, which is without collaboration or without team support, or without everyone's help, it's very difficult to go alone. So, it is very true, thanks for sharing this. And so also like there's a lot of fear that is tied to asking for help. So, whether it's fear of rejection, looking weak or kind of feeling like a burden, so I mean, what's a practical first step for someone who is struggling with this right now? What do you suggest?

Speaker 2: 16:38

Yeah, fear of rejection is there and nobody likes to be rejected. You know Means, of course, and and that is actually very inherent. And how can you avoid that? You know, first of all, if you don't ask, the default answer is no. If you don't ask, default answer is no. So that's means basically, if you ask, there is some chance of saying yes. And even if you get no, no might be next opportunity, you may look for a different collaborator or you can follow.

Speaker 2: 17:16

For example, when I talk to people about collaboration, sometimes people are not ready. They say, okay, why? Why don't you contact after three months and we'll see? And collaboration should be done really strategically means don't send spammy email and just don't tell somebody. Why don't you promote my offer? So don't do that.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Basically, you show first interest, that, okay, I want to work with you, I want to collaborate. Is there any way I can help you? So if you start that way, you are a giver, okay. And if they refuse to take your help, whose loss it is? It is not your loss, because you are a giver. Giver never loses anything. Giver actually gains even if that person gives and even if that person doesn't take. Giver wins in every possible scenario. So here you are not losing anything, second of all. So don't start that, okay. Why don't you promote my offer? Don't start that way.

Speaker 2: 18:24

Second of all, you can have a casual meeting. You can have a zoom meeting or anything where you can get to know each other and where they stand and what they offer. For example, I had two meetings just couple of days back and one meeting. It didn't work out. Second meeting it worked out really well and one meeting didn't work out, but it's just because our ideal customer profile was totally wrong. She had chosen me to talk to her at her summit and when we got together. So she actually took initiative when we got together in Zoom and then she started asking me what are your offers? Who is your ideal customer profile? And I started telling her I work with solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, small business owners, and for her summit, the audience was only the middle management in the corporations. So it was a totally mismatch of ideal customer profile and we didn't go forward.

Speaker 2: 19:29

The moment this opened up our conversation, we realized that it is not a match, but we didn't actually just threw towel and gave up on each other. We started asking each other okay, then I? Then I asked her okay, what are your offers, tell me, what do you do, and all. And then she started explaining and then both of us realized that you know the offers which she has. I was looking for those because you know means basically she takes people from who have million dollar business to multi-million, so I was looking to scale that way. So then we ended up our meeting, me becoming her client.

Speaker 2: 20:13

So do you think she lost anything? No, I mean, we didn't go for collaboration, but she got a new client who is going to pay high ticket price to her, and then the second one basically we just agreed upon freebie swaps and we decided how we can do freebie swaps and on which day, and we just decided to give the swipe copies and lead magnets to each other. So that was actually totally a win-win and it went on really well. So you know, if you start slowly, if you offer help or and if you go for the casual meeting before you really jump into collaboration, there is no fear of rejection. There is no, because you are not losing anything and you will be gaining always.

Speaker 1: 21:06

Yeah, yeah, exactly, very true, lovely. So, uh, also, I mean, uh, if you, if you had to give just one piece of advice to a solopreneur, solopreneur, uh, feeling stuck, what would it be?

Speaker 2: 21:23

yeah means today's topic is the ideal if they're feeling stuck and, uh, it depends. First evaluate where you are stuck and what you are looking for. You evaluate what you can spare, for example, if you are looking to outsource and if you don't have budget, yeah, you can choose the collaborative opportunities like a skill swaps, cross promotion, where there won't be any money exchange or freebie swaps or podcast swaps, affiliate swaps. So those kind of things you can do. But if you are looking for someone to promote your offers for example, whenever I have my monthly master plus, I get affiliates big time because I just explain these are the offers I have and I give 50% affiliate commission People immediately okay, sign me up, I want to sign up as your affiliate. So first evaluate where you are and then you look for a collaborative community. For example, I have a free collaborative community where people can collaborate with each other and you ask for help and people will be willing. There are hundreds and actually going closer to thousands of solopreneurs, entrepreneurs on Facebook group like a joint venture collaboration. So you can join that free group and you can get free help. So you can join that free group and you can get free help and I also actually put a collaboration interest form in my every email so that you can fill out that form and people who are interested in you can. Of course, you mentioned the parameters, what you want to collaborate with, your categories, and people will contact you. So look for the first free opportunities. And then, once you can relate to the person who is providing you the free resources, then you get into their paid program, because I never tell anyone okay, join my program because my membership is paid. There also I provide help, but there I provide my time, also my free resources. Yeah, we, I do provide help, do promote your offers, but you may not find one-on-one time with me in my free offers, because it is very obvious. But in my paid offers, of course, you will find direct help from me. So, find the free offers, just see if you can relate to the founder, then actually commit. You can even start the free trial. I have free trials for all my offers. So you start that.

Speaker 2: 23:55

Be very prudent, be very wise where you do the investment. And investment is not just time investment, even money investment, all kinds of investments. Those are really crucial and critical. So be prudent and be wise and of course, you can find a mentor who can guide you in that, but otherwise also there are lots. There are lots of help available. There are lots of non-profits available. There are actually even you can find grants. There are lots of things and right now miss. You are actually almost over the time.

Speaker 1: 24:31

But so just to become part of free community, get the help and then afterwards if you want more help, yeah, that is available okay, that's lovely, that's really lovely, great, so, um, so this has been such a powerful conversation and you have completely shattered the lone wolf myth and shown us the collaboration isn't just an option, is the key to lasting success. So, uh, so, before we move, like, uh, so like, where's the best place for the listeners to connect with you?

Speaker 2: 25:04

yeah, you can look at my website. It is a newbeginningcom and any new is spelled a newbeginningcom and it is you there. I have a full menu where I have all the freebies and free resources so you can actually go through. You can gather the free resources. I have bunch of free resources and you start studying them and if you, if you can relate to those resources, if you can resonate, yeah, then basically get started.

Speaker 2: 25:37

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn and various social media platforms there also, you can look at. But LinkedIn I got my name verified so I had to write my full name and my full name is really long. You won't find me under Supads. You will find me under Sumedha Patwardhan, but on LinkedIn I am there. Even I have various YouTube channels. So if you look for YouTube channels and the new beginning, you will find various YouTube channels. I have various business YouTube channels, podcast YouTube channels, shorts YouTube channels, travel YouTube channels, so you can look for that. I'm planning to start a health YouTube channel very soon, so you can find over there. Yeah, instagram, facebook, everywhere it is there, but these are the main channels. You can just look for it and just grab free resources. And in any way, if I can help you. I would love to help you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 26:34

Lovely, lovely. That's really lovely. So, uh, dear uh listeners, uh, remember that a true strength isn't about doing everything alone, but it's all about knowing when to stand on your own and when to stand all together. So, until next time, keep pushing forward, keep lifting others up and keep building a life that actually fulfills you. So, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 27:00

Thank you.