The Secret to Long Term Partnerships Most People Miss: The Debrief Call

What if the key to stronger, long-term partnerships isn’t what happens before or during the collaboration but what happens after?

In this episode, we reveal our “secret sauce” that we’ve used for years to build lasting, high-performing partnerships: the debrief call. We break down why most people skip this step, how it impacts your results, and how simple post-partnership conversations can unlock better alignment, stronger relationships, and a more successful future collaborations.

We also dive into the importance of tracking data, asking the right questions, and using insights to improve your strategy over time. If you want to stop guessing what works and start building partnerships that consistently grow your business, this episode is a must-listen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Welcome back everyone to partnerships on purpose. So today we are going to open the curtain to something that um we have done for five plus years and we see almost nobody else doing it in the partnership world. I don't know why this is. So true. It's so crazy. Like this is like, I guess this is like kind of our secret sauce. Do you think this is like something I do?

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I do. And it's so funny because I didn't realize that we were the only ones doing it until we actually decided to do an episode on this. And I was like, Oh my god. I'm like, nobody else does this. Nobody else does it.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah. So so okay. Today this is it. We're gonna share it with you. We're gonna like everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Everybody better be sitting down.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

All right, sit down, take notes, ask questions. All right. So the secret sauce, the thing that is our superpower, how we create long-term relationships forever with everybody for all the things. Uh that's kind of intense, but it is yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

I was like, you're really setting the stage there.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

It's such a big deal. Everybody's like, oh my god, what is it? Oh my god, what is it? What is it? Okay, here he goes. You ready? It's a debrief call. So crazy. Okay, so a debrief call. Now, if you've been in partnerships or you're starting partnerships or whichever, let me just set the stage about how this typically works so that you are in the know and we can give you a reason why a debrief call is so important. So when you have a conversation with somebody else, you sit down and you have a connection call, right? You sit across from somebody, kind of like Anne Marie and I. Hey, how are you? What's the weather? Where are you from? How's it going? What do you do? How can I help? Blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Do you have a dog?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Do you have a dog? It's a very important question. If you're a dog person, Anne-Marie always asks. So you set a connection call. And that's great. You want to get to know somebody. We are huge proponents of having somebody on the other side who you feel aligned with, you really jive with. It's important. Sometimes you have to get on a secondary call. And usually on that secondary call, you're setting up some kind of partnership deal, right? You've already decided in the connection call you like each other. Our audiences are aligned. There's something we can do here. Let's do another call. So you get on the second call, and I don't know if we have a name for this. I don't know if we have a name for this call, this first.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

No, because we usually do it all in the one call.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yes, we do. But we're very skilled. So we're very skilled. We can do it in one call. Sometimes people need a second.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Let's just call it the partnership call. The partnership call. Connection call goes into a partnership call. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

There you go. On the partnership call, you decide, yes, we would like to do a deal. I would love to promote you to my list. I would love to have you on my podcast. I would love to support your launch. And in return, I will do something that you're looking for. I will be featured in your book. I will be on your podcast. Whatever it is, you create this initial deal. You create this relationship. You have a starting point of doing a partnership, what we would call a partnership swap. Now, swap is like kind of eh, but we like to create a relationship and start reciprocating visibility of other people's audiences. And that's where you create that deal, is on the partnership deal. Now you go through that whole deal, right? You get to be a guest on somebody else's podcast. You're in the book, you're featured in their community, they're on your launch. All of these different things can happen. We do this all day, every day. So if all of that is Greek to you, just comment and we will touch base with you and open it up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

That's so bizarre that you chose Greek.

unknown 4:41

Greek?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

I don't know. Greek is very Greek to me. Maybe it's Italian. Don't speak Italian because I know you can, and that would just really shoot me. Okay. So you have this entire deal that you've created, and um, you created a partnership deal. We're this is what we do all day. We're inside of our membership community, we train people on all of this, and we want people to get to that point. We want them to create community with each other, and we want them to promote each other, and we want them to create visibility. And then after that is done, you'll have this beautiful thing that we alluded to that is called a debrief call. Now, Anne-Marie, we just talked about this. You have been on in between the two of us, thousands, thousands of partnership calls before. Thousands of calls. How many times have you ever been asked to get on a debrief call from somebody else?

SPEAKER_00 5:40

I can't even think of it now. And if there was a number, I could probably count it on one hand.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Okay. But so of thousands of calls, we've got possibly five. Now we do have one partner, and this is kind of where I learned this. Multiple, multiple years ago. I'm gonna say back in 21 or so, I was working with a client of ours, absolutely love, love, love them. Um, they did debrief calls often. This is probably where I heard it. They're the only other ones that we can think of out of thousands of calls that we have done that do regularly do a debrief call. Now, Anne Marie, can you tell us what in the hell is the purpose of a debrief call?

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah. So you've done all this amazing stuff. Now, where do you go from there? If you don't schedule, and listen, it could be a debrief call, it could be a follow-up call, it could be a whatever you want to call it call, a reconnection call. At the end of the day, the reason you're getting back on the call is to talk about how did the partnership work or not work, right? And the reason that is important is because if you don't have that conversation, then you can't plan, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

You can't I can I interject something because you said something really important. Okay. How the partnership worked or didn't work. You don't just get on debrief calls with the people that did really well for you, promoted work, brought in all the leads, did all the conversions, made all the commissions. You get on the call with everybody. Absolutely. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

So yes, and the reason for that is it's a two-way conversation, and sometimes it didn't work, but it didn't work for the reasons you think. So it's important to have a conversation with somebody to say, okay, you know, is what and and I always ask people, right? Like they'll share results with me, or they'll say, hey, it was really great to have so and so um, you know, on my podcast, or, you know, and I'll say, okay, great. Like, you know, how does this, how did this person um, how can I say, I'm not gonna say compare to someone else, or but how did these results compare to other partners that you've had? Right. Um, and people will say, you know, yeah, it's pretty much aligned, or you know, no, it didn't work. And then we have a conversation. And if they say it didn't work, well, why didn't it work? Right. Because when we had our connection call and our partnership call, everything aligned. It was like, okay, oh my God, this is great. Like there's synergies between, you know, um, the members, the clients, the partners, the offers, the businesses, right? So I think it's important to say have that conversation with the person. And sometimes some of the things that are coming up in these conversations is like, oh, okay, well, you know what? It worked last year, but it didn't work this year. Or worked last time, but it didn't work this time. But why? What happened? Right. So now we start to have a conversation around, you know, digging deeper into understanding why. And sometimes it could be because the promotions were too close together. It could be because of the timing. It was around a holiday, right? I had a conversation with somebody this week, and we were talking about um, you know, doing something in early July. And she said to me, She was Emery, she was um, it's 4th of July. And I'm like, you're right. Like, okay, it's not gonna work for your people, right? So so now you're starting to have those conversations, making those assumptions, figuring out where does the partnership go from here? What is the next step? And um, if you listen to some earlier episodes, um I usually tell people, let's go on a first date. That's what my connection call is. Yeah. It's like, let's go on a first date. Um, and then I like this is the call where you say, Are we gonna go on another date together? Right? Like, where do we go from here? You know? So I think it's really important to have those debrief calls because it's an opportunity for you to have a convert conversation with a partner. Um, and just, you know, say, Hey, where do we go from here? What do we do from here? Right. I love all of it.

unknown 9:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah. So what Amory's talking about is the call part of it, right? Like, what do you talk about? How you discuss like the details of everything. Now, the operations person in me, I'm gonna layer on something. We do ask for stats, we do ask for numbers, we ask how things are, because as much as we like people, it's intuition backed by data, right? Like everything is. So, yes, you're gonna get on a call, but before we even get on this debrief call with somebody, and this is another part of our guess our secret sauce, we ask them uh for some specific numbers, right? How many emails did you send? How many leads possibly? We ask them what they did. The numbers just allow us to have a talking point to compare to last year. Because here's the thing we love people. We love them. And maybe last year we love them just as much and we want to support them and we know it's great and we love their offer, and we send it to our email list and it falls flat, and we're like, no, it's not you, it's gotta be them. Let's do it again. And we love the people part of it, but that's only backed by the stats that are there. So inside of our community, we talk about this all the time. We have spreadsheets on this stuff. Like, what kind of stats do you track? But just at a high level, ask them for for some really important conversion rates that um mean something to you and your business. Possibly that is leads coming in, possibly that is views coming in, possibly that is emails that were sent, whatever it might be. Registrations, registrations, like there are yeah, or commissions that were how much commission money was sent, you know, whatever it is, just ask for those important numbers and understanding that when they send them back, they're probably gonna ask you for those numbers as well. Yeah. So do your tracking. Um, have a business that is set up that it is backed by data. And that way when you have conversations, the excitement of the person that you really want to talk to isn't clouded by the fact that the data wasn't super great. Because sometimes those numbers, to Anne-Marie's point, yeah, this year maybe it didn't work, or this time maybe it didn't work. You do it a second time and it doesn't work. Now we're looking at something right. We're looking at it to say, like, what was it? And is this something that we can shift and we can change? Um, I'll give you an example of this. I had a we had a client that we were working with for a while. I got on this call with his partner over and over and over again, and we promoted something twice in a row. And and I'll just say that it was like a masterclass, right? He he was doing a masterclass, we were promoting it, we did our whole deal, we were we were making a great deal happen. We did the masterclass again, and it fell flat again. And I was like, I know your list is good. I've seen it happen. I know that all the numbers are good. And I'm like, and it worked three years ago. So what did what is happening here? And what we ended up doing is we ended up sending a checklist the next time instead of a masterclass, and it worked like gangbusters. Because what we did is we gave the audience a different type of offer. It was something that was easier for them to ingest, it was easier for them to say yes to, and it was an easier entry point. It takes him longer, if you talk about business strategy, it takes him longer to convert those leads. But for our audience, they were a yes because it was something that was quick and easy. That doesn't happen for everybody, it doesn't happen for all deals, but you have to think about it and get creative. That's the thing with everything that we do. It's about long-term strategic partnerships, and it's about getting creative with how we can serve the people that are in our communities and not just settling for the numbers didn't work. And and the funny part, and you you had this story earlier, you were telling me about how uh you asked somebody about who their best partners are and they had no idea. Like, you want to talk about that a little bit?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Yeah, absolutely. Um so you know, the the important thing is if you know you're getting on a debrief call with somebody, come prepared. Um, and sometimes um, you know, we get a lot of emails, and sometimes you can ask for stats. Um, and sometimes you'll get them, sometimes you won't. But if you have a debrief, a reconnection call, a post-event, whatever the case may be, you know that you're gonna be having conversations about results, right? So make sure that you're checking. I hate to say it because we could say it because we're on our own podcast. I hate when I get on a debrief call and people are like, I don't know. I have to check with my assistant, my VA, my I'm like, why, why, right? Like you should know these things. If I'm getting on a debrief call, I have my stats and you know, I have everything in front of me. So I know, you know, how our clients, members performed, whatever. Um, you know, so it's really, really important to have that. But you also have to be able to answer the question. So I get on a call and I'm like, okay, great. Um, it's a debrief call and it's okay. How did we do? Right? This is how you did. How did we do? Oh, I don't know. I'm like, okay. So I'm like, okay, where'd I go from here? Okay, so why don't you tell me who your best partners are? Because sometimes what you'll notice is in having those conversations with people, their best partners might be your best partner. So you're like, okay, maybe there's still some possibilities here, right? Maybe we're just not doing the right thing. Like you said, maybe it's not a webinar, maybe it's a lead magnet, maybe it's a checklist, maybe it's, you know, what whatever the case may be, right? So you want to be able to ask those right questions. Um I think it's important um that you come prepared. I think it's important that you know who your top partners are, what works, what doesn't work. I think it's important for you to know what your list wants. Um, and that is a whole other conversation. Um, we do a lot of work in our community on that, right? Um, your your list, clean, you know, we want to make sure that you nurture your list, we want to make sure that you clean your list. I always tell people if you could segment your list, oh my God, that's like gold. I think in the past, I think there's only one business owner who I knew had a segmented list, and it was so amazing because every time I would get on a call, I would be like, we have a segmented list. And people are like, oh my god, that's so amazing. So if you could segment your list, segment your list. Um but where was I? Okay, yes. Um the other thing I want to say around this is stats, data, this type of information should not only be collected at the end of the deal, the swap, the transaction, the exchange, the partnership, whatever word you want to use. If you can track this while it is happening, it is so much more valuable. Um, because you're now in a position to actually say, okay, great, you know what? I have these partners promoting me. Let me go see what's happening during this promotional period, right? Um, and I think we can talk about leaderboards and and things like that. Oh, that's a whole other episode. I think, you know, what I love to do is I love to say, okay, who's promoting at this time? Let me go see what's happening. And sometimes what I notice is nothing's happening. And I'm like, oh my God, like the the sirens go off, and I'm like, okay, well, I have to reach out to this person, right? Because something's wrong. Either they forgot, right? Which I hope that's which is often it.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Like, let's give benefit of the doubt. People just forget.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Yes, yes. And that's not what we do around here. No, um, you know, so either they forgot, either sometimes things are not working, links are not working, right? And we've seen that. We've seen that where it's like, oh my God, some like, and we've had to have like our back end teams go in and fix things right away, right? So I think if you have the opportunity to track how a partner is doing, um, or ask the information, you know, on uh from your side, then do it because then you're in a position to say, okay, this is great, this is working, you know, and you're nurturing the partnership and relationship because you show you're showing that you're invested, right? And you're like, okay, great, thank you so much for your support. You know, just want to say great. So if you're able to give your partners that, do it. Um, I think it's it's a great thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah, absolutely. So tactily, tactile, like how do we actually do this? Um, in our world, we have a spreadsheet that we use, and on that spreadsheet has all of our different uh stats. When we train our members on how to do a launch, it's a different type of spreadsheet. It is a daily check. And in our world, um, we have a VA that's supporting that launch. Um, we suggest that happens. It's a person. Um, there are a lot of really savvy people out there who can make AI work and things. This would be like a dashboard that you set up, whatever it is. Like use what works in your business. For us, we like human people. So we have human people. Um, they're set up with all the right technology to find all the stats, but we have a human who's in there checking the stats, making sure that they're working. And if not, that human is reaching out to our partner and saying, hey, this isn't working well. And and there's always this beautiful thing. You're like, ah, it must be the internet, those tech gremlins, them like you can always say, it must be that. It couldn't be that you forgot and that you just didn't promote because you would never do that. You know, we we always like to give the benefit of the doubt. We can we can point to the tech things because technically they're not real people. Um, but it gives you a reason to reach out. This is something else. So stats, data, checking while you go, all of it is so, so, so important. And it will create a really healthy partnership on both sides. Because for you to put your name on somebody else's promotion is huge, and vice versa, for them to do it for you. And that's why we we lean on do what you say you're gonna do because it's huge. We are we've talked about this before on podcasts. We're in a trust recession. This is how we maintain trust is to keep other people accountable in what they said that they're gonna do, and then to do that for ourselves as well. So uh we're talking about debrief calls, we're talking about all the things that um are super important that I don't know other people talk about, which is just crazy town to me. Um, but it is it is the holistic part of a partnership. It's how we have um this huge stat within any of our members and any of our clients is all around what are your top 20% of partners? Yeah, you'll never know that if you're not tracking and you're not having conversations with people. I can't see how it's possible. It will be a gut feeling that could not be backed by data, which is not good for business anywhere around. So just know we are huge proponents of a debrief call. Um, we want to make sure that we're keeping the partners that are good on our list. We want them promoting all the time. It takes you far less time to nurture a current partner than it does to go find a new one. It's the same with sales in your business, it's the same with anything else with lead gen. If you can keep that partner coming and excited and supporting you, like all of those things, we want to do that. And we only do it if we're having conversations afterwards. So this is huge. I hope it was helpful for people to just hear about our theories and our thoughts and what we do. If you have questions about, you know, what we actually track and and how that looks and how we do debrief calls, like let me know because um we have some training on that and we would love to share it with you for sure. And re anything else before we finish up?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

No, I think I think you summed it up perfectly. Well, that's so great.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Well, thank you all for being here with us. We will see you on the next episode of Partnerships on Purpose. Have a great day, everyone.