How One Summit Generated $75K and a 10-Year Collaboration

In today’s episode, I’m joined by Deborah Hurwitz, an award winning composer and Broadway music director who now coaches ambitious professionals in overcoming perfectionism and procrastination. Today, Deborah shares how her first online summit generated approximately $75,000, helped her uncover a profitable business model, and sparked a nearly decade long collaboration. We also talk about what makes a pitch stand out, how to build genuine relationships online, and why 30 seconds of courage could be all it takes to start your next profitable collaboration.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Why solopreneurs need collaboration, feedback, and real relationships to create work that connects with their audience
• How Deborah turned her first Productivity for Perfectionists summit into a profitable online business before she had an established brand or audience
• Inside the initial invitation that helped Deborah launch a $75K summit and sparked a decade-long collaboration
• How to prepare better podcast and summit interviews by connecting a guest’s expertise to the specific promises you are making to your audience
• The green flags Deborah looks for in collaboration pitches and the common outreach mistakes that make her immediately lose interest
• Why finding your next collaboration could begin with a simple conversation with someone already in your network

Your next big business partnership could be closer than you think. If you’re ready to start pitching aligned creators and building profitable partnerships of your own, download my free Collab Scripts at heyletscollab.com to get outreach messages you can personalize and send with confidence. 

Connect with Deborah:
Watch Deborah’s Free Training Video “How to Get Big Things Done”
Register for Productivity for Perfectionists
LinkedIn
Instagram

Links:
Website: https://heyletscollab.com
Instagram: Hey, Let's Collab (@heyletscollab) • Instagram profile
FREE Collab Scripts: Collab Scripts - Hey, Let's Collab
Collab Starter Kit: https://heyletscollab.com/kit
Blog: Blog - Hey, Let's Collab
YouTube: Hey, Let's Collab
Pinterest: Hey Let's Collab

Transcript

Nadalie Bardo 0:00

Hey, it's Nadalie and welcome to the Hey Let's Collab Podcast. This is a podcast about how successful creators grow through collaboration. Every episode, we unpack one specific partnership from the first pitch to the final result. This gives you the full blueprint on how to collaborate with confidence and grow your business through aligned connections. Ready to get started? You'll love this week's collaboration. Hi, hi, everyone. So here we have today we're exploring. I think you would agree with me, Deborah, that this is an aligned connection that has spanned several years, right? Absolutely. You and me? Absolutely. Right? So we've good stuff. We've had drinks in LA. We've had drinks in tons of things.

Deborah Hurwitz 1:15

True. You're one of the few people I've actually met in person in this shindig.

Nadalie Bardo 1:19

Oh, I love that. And we will meet again. But first, if this is the first time you have met Deborah, allow me to formally introduce you to Deborah Hurwitz, who helps ambitious professionals overcome perfectionism and procrastination using her signature packed system so they can finally complete the projects that matter most to them. An award-winning composer, conductor, and recording artist whose work includes Cirque du Soleil, Jersey Boys, Sesame Street, and The Tonight Show, she blends creative excellence with practical coaching as CEO of Cobalt Coaching. Through her programs, speaking, and online shows, Deborah empowers perfectionists of all stripes to rewire limiting patterns and achieve the success they crave. And I can attest that this is true. I have seen her at work and I'm just like, woman. You are incredible.

Deborah Hurwitz 2:19

You are incredible. I I take that very seriously because you are no slouch, my friend. So I really do appreciate that. Thank you.

Nadalie Bardo 2:28

Yay. I love to open by asking, what does collaboration mean to you?

Deborah Hurwitz 2:35

It's a giant question. And given my background, it's uh both very broad and very deep. So I my bread and butter for 30 years was Broadway, which is the most like the ultimate collaborative art, right? You cannot make a theatrical production on your own. Like even if you're a one-woman show, you still need somebody to like run the lights. You know what I mean? Like it's it is it, and and Broadway, you know, the Broadway shows that I did was with the original companies in Biss Saigon, Mamma Mia, Jersey Boys. These were like my main bread and butter shows. And I ran those shows, like I conducted them, right? So it was I was in a a high leadership position. But there were at any given moment, literally 50 to 100 people doing high-level professional work for every second that the audience experienced, right? So sets, lights, costumes, backstage, props, quick change, the actors, of course, themselves, actors, dancers, singers, the musicians, the designers that create everything that you're that you're seeing, right? Um, the dudes like at the stage door letting people in or not letting them in, right? It's just, it is such a massive collaborative art. And I made records, I made movies, like these are all massive collaborations. And what what it means, what collaboration means to me, true collaboration, is when you are bringing your best stuff to the table, what you love, what you do, where you have proficiency, expertise, high competence or excellence. And you're getting to bring that along with others who are bringing their version of that. And together you're creating something, a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. That to me is collaboration. If there's a win-win in it, right? I I am getting as much or more than I'm giving, right? And I'm getting to give what I want to give. Like I'm getting to express, I'm getting to contribute, I'm getting to, you know, have an impact where I think something matters or a change matters or a transformation matters, or something's getting created or delivered. Um, so that was in the show business world. And then I brought that over, it's kind of no accident, that how I built my coaching business, initially by accident, like I was in a very dark place in my life, which we do not need to get into unless you want to. But there was like kind of I was just upside down and inside out on a lot of stuff. The Circus Delay show that was supposed to be the big break for me in LA. I'd worked well in New York for many years, but this took me to LA and it was gonna begin this whole new chapter. Show was supposed to run for 10 years, closed after two. I was hitting a midlife crisis, I can all sorts of stuff at the same time. And I was starting from scratch in a lot of ways. And I didn't know what I was gonna do, but I did know that I needed to find a different way to make money and not hate my life. And I came across uh a way of doing this thing that became my first summit, Productivity for Perfectionists, which you've joined us several times, including this year as we record it, um, which I love because again, our collaboration is so fruitful. The overlap is so strong, the win-wind is so strong. And this model, um, and my story that I'll that I'll share that you've asked me to pick like my favorite one, right? It goes all the way back to the beginning in 2017. I really didn't know what I was creating, but I knew that I was doing a collaborative project where I was going to ask experts in the field of whatever my topic was, which I didn't even know when I started, to solve problems together with me in front of our respective audiences. And I got that concept. Okay, raft of experts run interviews, they tell their people about this interview they're doing with this cool chick who's coming from show business and now working with productivity and sign up and watch for free. And I was like, I totally get that. I had no idea what was going to come out of that. Like, I that collaboration was truly a pure collaboration where I was working with a coach in a program, but as I did my first summit, I did not yet have a business. I was not calling myself a coach. I was a burned-out musician with a string of entrepreneurial failures where I just didn't enjoy or really fully succeed in any of them. And I had no idea what I was gonna do, but I did do the work to dig into the topic of productivity for perfectionists. I came up with that title. I had no idea I was hitting the mother load of something. I had no idea I was creating branding that would last 10 years. I had no idea about any of that. I just went deep into what problem is really in my heart and gut that I too still need to solve, where I've solved some aspects of it. I've done big stuff, big resume, big successes. But there's other stuff like doing my records, not just making other people's stuff look and sound good, right? Facing the blank page, doing the hard things, not procrastinating on the things that actually mattered to me. I could make things look really good on the outside, but I kept burning myself out and feeling sold out and empty on the inside. And this was an opportunity to really go deep into the problems and let go of my own perfectionism to show up real and vulnerable in service of the audience alongside these experts. And that to me was very enlivening and exciting. That concept was cool to me. And on the back end of that summit, I made shit up as I went along. And on the back end of a summit that I invested $10,000 in a program to learn how to do, I made about $75,000 and suddenly went, holy crap, I have a business. So it was all about the collaboration. It was it was only a collaboration. It wasn't even a collaboration.

Nadalie Bardo 7:51

Yeah, I love that. I feel like if you're listening to this, two big takeaways for me. One, you don't need to be a one-person show. I think as online creators, we are almost conditioned to be everything in our business, everything to our clients, our readers, our audience, our customers, whoever it is. And maybe we don't need to. I think that's an exciting idea. You don't need to be a one-person show.

Deborah Hurwitz 8:19

And in some cases, I'll even take that further because I'm always listening for the perfectionists in the house, right? And our the lone wolf perfectionist, or really whether you're perfectionist or not, lone wolf. I can't afford to hire anybody. I have to do it all myself. I have to figure it out, I have to be in control of it, I have to make sure it's right. Like these types of things where we I know how to know how it works, like right. I have to understand it before I outsource it. Hear that a lot. All of that, right? And I just want to offer, no matter what your resources, time, money, bandwidth, etc., no matter what your personality makeup, I'm the person that has to do this or not. You actually cannot do it all on your own if what you are wanting to do is in some way interact or connect with people. You must get feedback. If you toil in obscurity trying to make something perfect before you show up anywhere, you will never actually get to anywhere that you find satisfying or fulfilling. It's like, you know, in in theater, we never had an opening night before we had dress previews and and and soft opens and, you know, press nights and lion's dens and all these different things where it's like we would have somebody in the audience telling us what we had. Not telling us, like, give me your opinion, but telling us like by their reaction. Oh, there's gonna be an applause break here. This is where the audience wants to applaud. Oh, there's laughter here. Oh, there isn't laughter here, right? You get information when you show up with whatever it is you're working on. And that information, that feedback is vital. So sometimes it's not even a collaboration like I'm working with somebody or I'm hiring somebody or somebody's hiring me. It's sometimes it's just, it might be me, I'm solopreneur, I'm one woman show, whatever, but I'm in a dance with who I'm aiming to connect with, whether that's clients or audience or fans or whatever. And I need to be in that dance early on so that I actually know what I'm creating, who I'm creating it for, and who I am in that. So even the one woman show or the solopreneur thing, you're it's still a collaboration with your intended recipients, and that's really important.

Nadalie Bardo 10:14

Yeah. I love that. And the second thing I was gonna say is you don't need to know all the answers to start, right? Like you just knew that you wanted to talk about perfectionism and productivity. You took that idea, you grabbed a few people who were experts in it, and you just ran with it, knowing that as you take the steps, it's almost like, I don't know, in like frozen, where she's like running across the lake, you're creating the steps as you go, right? Yes, like you're manifesting it and figuring it out.

Deborah Hurwitz 10:47

And I think the Gen X version is the Indiana Jones movie that everybody, like, you know, under 40 does not know. But but there's an Indiana Jones movie of 80s, 90s, something like that, where uh he thinks he's looking over this chasm into like a gorge thousands of feet below. And there's some cryptic, you know, it's in the Indiana Jones thing, like some cryptic message. And it's essentially a leap in the netshell appear message. And he has to, the mechanics of whatever this thing is, he has to actually take a leg and step out onto what he thinks is just thin air that he's gonna fall, but it's this like incredibly crystal clear surface that it's like a glass bridge that you couldn't otherwise see, and he scatters dust, and you see that there's this whole bridge across the gorge that he can then walk. But it didn't appear for him until he took the leap. And I think about that all the time because that is, it feels like we're stepping off a cliff to our deaths. But what we're actually doing is building the bridge to where we want to get to.

Nadalie Bardo 11:45

Amazing. And I'll just fully confess that this podcast, at the moment we're recording this, this is just it. I am just talking to people about a topic I'm excited about, but I know there is a bridge across the chasm, and it will it will appear exactly, it will appear for sure.

Deborah Hurwitz 12:02

Well, I'm honored to be one of your first guests, and of course, I normally turn down startup podcasts because there are so many out there, but I would never turn you down, Nadalie.

Nadalie Bardo 12:10

It's gonna be a good one, I promise.

Deborah Hurwitz 12:12

Yeah, I believe it. So it's a very helpful topic.

Nadalie Bardo 12:14

Was this thank you? I I what I find exciting about collaborations is that anyone can do it. Like you can just be starting out, yeah, or you can be a decade into this, and you can still get value, grow your business, understand yourself, understand your customer, connect. Like, there's so many, I feel like there's no drawbacks other than you gotta be brave enough to do it. Yep. Right? Anywho, let's let's get to your juicy story. What is the specific collaboration we're unpacking today? Yeah.

Deborah Hurwitz 12:49

Okay, so my friend and mentor and colleague, Samantha Bennett, is such makes such a fun through line for this topic that you're talking about. So on the theme of I had no idea what the heck I was creating when I started, even before I did my first summit, even before I hooked up with the hooked up, you know, yeah, hired the mentor who walked me through that first year and showed me, oh, there's something I can do here that's repeatable and is a solid business for me. I was, I was doing a network marketing company, otherwise social, otherwise known as social networking or MLMs or whatever. It's a solid business model. I don't diss the business model, but it's very specific. You either have to have like a total hero relationship with the product, or you have to really love recruiting and coaching salespeople. Like there are ways in which the business works and ways in which it's handled less than ethically, but I actually reached a pretty high level in this company. I was what they call a regional vice president. I was driving the white Mercedes, I was doing trips and speaking in front of rooms, and I still felt like I was scrambling and struggling. And there was a lot of pretending going on, which was very much like my show business career that I was burned out on. So it was not the right fit for me. I was not really ultimately meant to be a brand ambassador for somebody else's brand. I needed to do my own thing. So, but I was still doing that business when I went to this networking event where I was just like meet as many people as possible all the time, every day. You know, that's where I was. It was the definitely, it was like always, always, always, always be networking, always be closing, always like all that. So I went to this networking event, eyeballing potential consultants or clients for my business circles. And this was like a high-end Swiss skincare and protein shakes company, basically. It was just like I was selling personal care products and recruiting people to sell personal care products. And so I didn't really give a shit about it. I just like I didn't really care, but I was desperate, tr desperately trying to like, you know, make the money, get the foothold, do the business long enough that I didn't have to do the business anymore, which became my first clue that I needed to just stop it altogether. But I say all this to share, I was not like dialed in. I knew what I was doing, I knew who I was looking for at all. This was going to a networking event with a bunch of women, trying to build a business that had absolutely nothing to do with what I'm doing now and nothing to do with what I did for 30 years before that. But I was open to just whatever was enlivening to me. I was starting to turn the corner on this depths of depression and panic and desperation and all the things that had been driving me for a while. And I was starting to feel into like, okay, what is there in life for me? Like, what might I be doing? You know, and at this luncheon networking thing, I met Samantha Bennett. Sam Bennett is what she calls herself as an author. And she had written this book called From Procrastination to Creative Genius in 15 minutes a day. And I was like, what the what now? You can write books on that. And it got me thinking about so many things. It really I do credit her quite openly and publicly with these kernels of ideas that became productivity for perfectionists for me. These ideas, and you know how I how I work, these focal points, the pillars of working in short, consistent bursts, trusting yourself and building the skills to trust yourself, meeting creativity and intuition and all that right brain stuff with left-brain structures of organization and accountability. Like these were the seeds of it that I got from her and the idea that she was a published author talking about procrastination, doing things in 15 or 20 minutes a day, prioritizing creativity, all these ways in which I just, it was in I didn't know what I didn't know land, right? Like 5% of our operations are conscious, 95% of our operations are subconscious, and most of that 95% is I don't know what I don't know, right? We think, oh, here's what I know, and here's what I don't know, and that's the whole thing. That's 5%, right? And then there's all this, so so it was a time of discovery for me. And I got a little girl crush on her, and she was so vivacious and fun and bright and funny. And of course, I bought her book and I kept in touch with her. And then when I hired this mentor and I was gonna do this summit, I realized, oh my God, if I could get Sam Bennett for my summit, oh my God, that would be so amazing. And I we were talking before recording about finding those emails. We're talking nine years ago, right? But uh I'm gonna find something for you. But I I you know followed a formula through this program. Sh in that inside that program, it was called a generator email. I call it an invitation email now, where you're inviting the expert to come and take a closer look at your project and see if it's worthwhile for them. Yeah. And it really is a win-win because you know, the the presenter or producer of the summit, me, is creating graphics and writing copy and showing up in emails and social medias and and and and social medias, uh, and you know, amplifying and edifying the expert, right? Like when I interview you, Nadalie, I'm like, give me all of your wisdom, and right. And it's just like a lot of appreciation. I think when it's done right, like it's a lot of appreciation, it's exploring your expertise, highlighting, you know, so so it's a win-win for the guest expert, and then uh and then it's a win for the person who's presenting the summit because they're getting an expert sharing that interview and sharing the your existence with their audience and saying, go check this thing out, right? And it's all free, so it's a huge give to the audience, lots of value. These things are a lot of moving parts, quite expensive to create, right? A lot of bandwidth, and it's totally free for the audience. So there's a huge give there, which for me was very healing after these years of just sell, sell, sell, sell, sell, you know. So she said yes, and I was over the moon, and I spent so long preparing the interview, right? But I did the interview and it was just so great. And it really was, it was that sweet spot. This is what I would say about in terms of collaboration and choosing collaborations. It was that sweet spot between here's someone where she and I are colleagues or peers at a certain level, right? Like I have a show business career that uh exceeds where she was in show business when she turned to authorship, right? And I have insane productivity skills in certain ways, but I was doing it in the muscle and hustle through and burnout kind of way, not in the way that she teaches it. So there was a, we both brought experience and expertise to the table that were really complimentary, and it was a good interview in that sense. We were both delivering value to the audience, but it was also right on the leading, bleeding edge for me of what I was learning and needed to learn. So I got to be sort of part co-expert interviewer, part audience to her, like genuinely soaking up what she was saying. And I say, like, when you're going for collaborations, go for that. Like, where's someone you're genuinely excited to talk to or ask questions of or hear from? You know, when I when I used to coach my consultants in the business, like who do you genuinely want to have lunch or coffee with? Like as opposed to, oh, they might be good for this, they might be good for that, right? It's like, who do you genuinely want to like hang out with for half an hour, get to know better, crawl around inside their brain, learn about their life, right? That's where the authentic, aligned collaboration comes from. You genuinely genuinely want to be there. It's not what can I get from you? What can you do for me? You know? So that made that uh that interview really worthwhile. And I absolutely adored her. I continued to adore her, I stayed in touch. She did uh she's done this year's 10-year anniversary productivity perfectionist summit she's done. She's done a handful in between. I've bought all her books, of course, and quoted them and used stuff that uh with you know a proper attribution. And I've gone on two of her barefoot perfect retreats. So in person, gone to Crete and Mallorca with her and her partner, Amy Ahlers. They were on these beautiful kind of like midlife what's next retreats. And I've been a top candidate for that uh twice now. So it's a beautiful, long-term, fruitful collaboration and friendship. You know, and now I'm kind of following around on LinkedIn because she's a LinkedIn learner, like superstar with a million LinkedIn learner students or something like that. So, you know, as our respective businesses and lives have evolved, we've continued to level up the collaboration and find new areas to meet and greet and collab. So it's really great.

Nadalie Bardo 21:02

Hey, pausing the episode because I really wanted to tell you about my collab starter kit. It has everything you need to start collaborating, even if you've never done it before and don't feel expert enough. With a step-by-step guide, outreach templates, tracker, and more, the kit takes you from I know I should be collaborating to I'm ready to send my first pitch. It's available at Hayletscollab.com for $36. But if you sign up for my free collab scripts, you'll unlock a special discount. Link in the show notes if you're ready to start collaborating with confidence. I love that. I actually have a question for you. How did you become such a good interviewer? Oh. Because as someone who has been in, I think I've been in probably 50 summits at this point. Vast majority of them want pre-recorded trainings, and then many of them will give you the comp like, okay, we can do an interview, but rarely is it actually an interview. So yeah, if you have any tips for anyone listening who might want to do the interview route, whether it's like for podcasting, for summits, yeah, what is your sequence? Thank you.

Deborah Hurwitz 22:26

I receive that I receive that gratefully. It does always make a difference. I do get positive feedback on uh from my interviewees on the fun they have and how they feel seen and heard and the best stuff pulled and all that kind of stuff. Um, so I do appreciate that. And actually, it's it's pretty simple. And I'm gonna plug my my first summit course, which I have inside my mission accomplished program, because I go through this in uh in quite a bit of detail in terms of prepping interviews. Um, but what I what I do, no, nobody taught me this. It just sort of showed up for me as a way to go, and it's become a bulwark for me. Like, just like productivity for perfectionists, I didn't know at the time that it was gonna be a thing. Same with the interview prep process. The more positive feedback I get, the more I'm like, let's just keep doing that. So, and by the way, rinse and repeat, totally valid, right? For the perfectionists in the house who are like, I have to totally reinvent the wheel every time. No, you don't. So, what I do is this my summits all have taglines that are three-part taglines. So, this year, for example, is how to stop procrastinating, calm the busy brain, or quiet the busy brain rather, and get things done that count. So, those are the three promises of the summit. So, what I do, and I don't need to go very deep to get good stuff. I go through the experts, bio, free gift, website, you know, what are they doing? What are they showing up with? What are some of their keywords and catchphrases? What are some of their claims that are like, wow, really? Um, like paradigm shifts, right? Like where, oh, you think it's this, but really it's this, sort of that like discovery that they're providing, or a phrase or a trademark, like something that's kind of their thing, their body of work, an approach they've got to making your life better in whatever way. And take the overlap of that stuff with the promises of my summit. So, to what extent is their work, and again, don't need to go too deep, their website, their LinkedIn posts, their socials, what they're sending me on their own promo form. Here's what I want to say about myself, right? Like just top-level stuff that you can find in 10 minutes from a public-facing standpoint. And I go, okay, how does, how are you gonna help us stop procrastinating? What are some key phrases? What are some ways you work or teach that is gonna be helpful to my audience who wants to stop procrastinating? Okay, what do you got that helps us with busy brain? Now, busy brain is a wide swath, right? So that can be nervous system management, that can be quieting the inner critic, that can be stewing and brewing, ruminating, fretting about the future, what ifs, all kinds of perfectionist bugaboos? That can be imposter syndrome, that can be people pleasing, right? That sort of thing. So what do you got that's gonna help us quiet the busy brain? And then things that count. What do you have that helps uh help us just get things done? Basic productivity. What do you have that help us distinguish what matters from what doesn't? What do you have that have that has us go, okay, I want to learn how to like trust my intuitive hits or trust my creativity or trust my yes? I say this counts. So I'm gonna say yes to this and no to that thing over there, even though that thing over there might feel like a should, right? And so I'm gonna pull, I know what I'm wanting to empower my audience to do and feel and see and hear. So I'm looking for how can I keep that promise to them? I'm gonna help you stop procrastinating, I'm gonna help you get things done to count. How is this expert gonna come in and help us with those things specifically? And then I so I just get a starting point. And it's 20 to 30 minutes tops. And I'm not even including bringing in AI. Now it could be three, three seconds tops, right? But that's just me looking around and then me going, okay, stop procrastinating, busy brain, things that count, or whatever my, you know, I have 10 different taglines over the last 10 years. So I have a starting point. You say some phrase I pulled from their website, right? And my perfectionists are always thinking, so what would you tell them in this case? Like that sort of question, right? So I could try to drill down and get specific. And then inevitably, in those specific little meeting points between the promise I'm making to the audience and my experts' expertise, they will then give me their broader frameworks, aspects of their story. They'll introduce stuff by way of answering the question, and then I can pull on the threads. Okay, oh, I heard that, oh, I heard that, oh, I heard that. And then, so that's the summit prep part. And the other piece is no, you do not have to ever have done an interview before, but I'm not gonna lie, it helped that I've been a professional performer since I was 12 years old, right? Like when I first chose the program to do, like learn how to do summits, I had I was coming from running a Cirque du Soleil show with literally thousands of moving parts. My station alone included multiple computer and keyboard rigs, tons of stuff running tracks, headsets, pedals, talking to stage, talking to crew, talking backstage while playing Danny Elfman's insanely hard piano parts, right? Like, I mean, it's it was nuts, right? And tons of tech and and 70 people on stage and 3,500 people in the audience, and it's all live and it's gotta be fucking perfect, right? Compared to that, recording some Zoom interviews and sending some emails is not a big deal, right? So compared to my professional experience prior, it was a walk in the park. And I don't think that a sum a summit or some of these bigger events with all of these moving parts is the right move for someone who has never ever been on camera, never ever delivered any sort of talking to anyone or teaching for to anyone, right? Never uh promoted or requested or recruited, right? I I was a self-promoting artist for 30 years before I then did the network marketing business where I succeeded even though I was unhappy, right? If you've never asked anybody for anything, you know, maybe this is not the best first rodeo for you.

Nadalie Bardo 27:54

But that said, there are ways. Yeah, I was just saying like there are easier entry points. Like maybe do an Instagram live series, do a Facebook live series, right? YouTube videos, like you don't have to put on a production.

Deborah Hurwitz 28:08

Exactly.

Nadalie Bardo 28:09

You know?

Deborah Hurwitz 28:09

Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's like, so saying all of that, I don't want to discourage anyone from putting themselves out there in a smaller way or just taking like, okay, this is something I feel like maybe could be cool, but I'm so scared. That's the thing you want to do for sure.

Nadalie Bardo 28:26

Okay, so as someone who has hosted, you know, so many of your own events, I'm curious about invitations you've received in your inbox and what makes you want to say yes. So, what have been those green flags? Like you see the email and you're like, I want to say yes to this. Like, what makes you say yes?

Deborah Hurwitz 28:47

Yeah, thank you. Great, great question. Okay. Um, so things have changed over the course of the years I've been in business, right? And it's appropriate that you'll just say yes to everything when you're first starting out, and then you start to get more discerning as you get more invitations, as your calendar time gets more valuable, right? So when you're first starting out, just fucking say yes to everything. Like honestly, just say yes to everything. Sorry, say yes to collaborations that are true collaborations. Don't say yes to every request for a call from someone who's trying to sell you something and it may or may not be relevant to you. Don't say yes to all that. Like, I get so many cold pitches in my inbox. Let's have a call and talk about, you know, outsourcing your accounting team. I'm like, you have no idea who I am or what I do. Let's not, right? Goodbye. Right. But a real request for your expertise or you showing up someplace, a podcast or a summit or whatever. When I was first starting out, I was looking for do I have something I can offer? Right. And I want to be clear that women really, but especially perfectionists, high achievers, high performers, we underestimate what our contribution can be. Often just your story is enough. You don't need to have tons of track records, testimonials, million-dollar business, whatever. Just if they've come to you, look for why it's actually relevant. Look for what you can contribute, like legitimately, that you might be undervaluing. You know, sometimes we'll we'll say no to something because we think, oh, I'm not good enough for this, or I don't have the right level of contribution or expertise or experience for this. You almost definitely do have what you need to do it. And say yes to the practice, say yes to this 30 seconds of courage or the 30 minutes of courage, right? So a little bit of an aside, you just go say yes to more stuff than maybe you should say you think you should say yes to when you're first starting out to get the experience, the exposure, et cetera. At this point, and really for the last several years, here's here's what will have me say yes to something. I see clearly that it's not just a copy paste, right? They're not just inserting my name into a generic invitation. I understand that you got to cast a wide net these days. We, you know, I personally, even with my experience and my network and everything, have the the yes rate has gone down just because the noise floor is higher, right? It used to be like I would hear back from most people I emailed and I would get yeses on like 40 to 60%. Now there's tons of people I don't even hear back from, and it's more like a 20-25%. So I'm sending a lot more emails these days. Be prepared for that. The noise floor is higher, right? I was hoping, oh, by the time I've been doing this for 10 years, I'll just be able to snap my fingers and people will line up. But the world changes fast, right? And tech and email and electronic communications, collaborations, the sheer number of people doing whatever, right? These things change. Not a bad thing, it's just change you want to be able to accommodate. So, um, so I'm looking for what rises above the noise, what rises above the fray. How are they speaking to me? How are they um really looking at how I'm a fit for them? How how are they showing me that they really see me as a value add to the process? Or if it's gonna be a generic cold pitch or whatever, is their thing something that I think is really cool? Is their audience an audience I want to touch? Is their topic a topic where I've got rich, juicy expertise that's gonna blow their audience's mind? Right? If it's just so so if it's a a fantastic fit, a person I've already heard of or know, or someone that when I go, you know, take a look at what they're doing, I'm like, yeah, this person's up to some cool stuff. I'll say yes. Um, if the if it's maybe someone who's on the earlier side of things starting out, and it's really more of me giving to them in terms of like they're just building an audience, like I was, I think to back to when I was just building an audience, right? It's like people said yes to me when I didn't have the audience to offer them. I had the overall event audience to offer them, but I didn't personally have the audience at that time. And I think back to that, and I have compassion for that, you know? It's like, so I don't just say no out of hand if it's a first summit or an obviously early in their entrepreneurial life person. Um, but I do need to see some sort of alignment. Either they're doing, they're doing the heavy lift to meet me where I am, see me, welcome me, that, you know, just like it, this is you're gonna, you're gonna handle things professionally and properly here, right? Or what they're doing is just such an incredibly dynamite fit that I want to get in there and be a part of that thing. And there's some smaller factors like format, is it a live thing? What are they asking? What did they need from me? You know, promo requirements, that sort of thing.

Nadalie Bardo 33:35

What's the lift?

Deborah Hurwitz 33:36

It's a lift, exactly. And and so if it's a low lift and high value to me or my audience, absolutely yes. If it's a higher lift, but it's someone I respect and admire and I want to get into their world, then it's a yes.

Nadalie Bardo 33:48

And then on the flip side, what's you it pops into your inbox and you're like, yeah, no. You know, is there a big red flag where beyond like it's not personalized, it's not a good fit? Is there anything that just like at this point, like a decade in, decade plus in that you're just like not for me?

Deborah Hurwitz 34:12

Yeah, well, I you know, there are so so so so so many cold pitches from would-be salespeople who are positioning the ask as a collaboration, right? And and it's so that I when it's when it's obviously an attempt to sell, then I just delete. I don't answer. And it and when it's obviously like a form attempt to sell, right? Like there's a there's a thing going around on LinkedIn right now, and I literally get 20 of them a day, like no lie. Um, where some where they they show up going, so and so from my company put you in front of me and said you we should really talk about what an insert topic I have no interest in that has nothing to do with my business, right? And or you know, would you like a hundred inbound calls a week? Like, no, I'm trying to get you calibrated.

Nadalie Bardo 34:57

That sounds terrible. That actually sounds terrible, right? I don't work in a call center.

Deborah Hurwitz 35:02

This is uh this is not like calls in no, I would do not want all those calls in my gallery. Uh, you know, but uh but but the and they'll forward, it'll look as if they're forwarding an email from hey, just came across Deborah at Cobalt Coaching. She looks like she could be really, you know, blah, blah, blah. We should we should really ask her if she'd be willing to lend her expertise to our the lengths that they're going for this con email is like crazy. And what's funny is, you know, somebody's teaching this, and or somebody you know, somebody put out a course or somebody put out a here's how to do it, and thousands of people are doing it, and several dozen of those are hitting my inboxes every day. And it just, it's a like an immediate tell, right? It's like, oh, you're following some sort of formula and you have no idea who I freaking am. So the level has of those has risen. The sheer number of those has risen. Give definitely half of my inbox every day is just cold pitches that are irrelevant. Um, and I will say frankly, that I am annoyed at this trend of you have to reply to tell them to stop. You can't actually just unsubscribe. They'll keep following up unless you reply back to say unsubscribe or stop, which is like, no, don't make me lift. Don't make me talk to you when you have cold pitched me. You've evaded my inbox. You know, no respect for my time. You weren't invited, and now you're demanding an answer so that you stop emailing me. Like, that's fucked up. I'm sorry. So I just delete, delete, delete, delete.

Nadalie Bardo 36:31

But when there is a request-I hit spam first, then delete. I just hit the spam flag, and if they repeatedly email me, I set up an automation where like all their future emails will just go to my junk folder because I don't want to see it again.

Deborah Hurwitz 36:44

Yeah, that's you know, it's a great idea. Filters and automations like that are a great idea. For me, it's just faster to go ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, delete. But yeah, um, but I do get, you know, proper invitations, podcasts, and and so my again, I I say say yes to everything initially, but at this point, I kind of have a policy of I don't do first summits or podcasts that don't have their first 10 episodes yet, you know, like unless it's you. Unless it's you, exactly. That's right. Um, and that's why building real relationships is so important, right? Like I have a couple hundred partners, real collaborative partners in my business that I've built up over these years of doing summits. And those relationships are precious, right? Because ultimately, at the end of the day, socials, AI, whatever, at the end of the day, business is still gonna get done with relationships, right? Lives are still going to be forwarded, enhanced, enriched, happening in relationships, despite AI girlfriends and boyfriends, right? And it's like, you know, the the the when so when somebody meets me at the level of relating to me, then I'm gonna meet them back, you know? And if somebody so if it's somebody who gives me a personalized invitation and you know, they seem really great, but it's just their first rodeo, I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm not doing first summits, but tell me for your second or third, right? Or sometimes I would be willing to take a look, but the promo dates don't line up. And and often people email kind of at the last minute with that, right? It's like, give me a little more notice next time my promo calendar is booked about three to six months in advance. So, you know, that kind of thing. So I'll gently nudge here's how to do it. Yeah, here's how to do it. Do it like that with me, and maybe I'll say yes next time.

Nadalie Bardo 38:29

Hold up. Sorry for the interruption, but I really wanted to tell you about my collab pitch generator. It's helping creators just like you skip that awkward staring at a blank page, not knowing what to write phase, and get straight to the crafting personalized, ready to send pitches in minutes. It's available at payletscollab.com for $27. Link in the show notes if you're ready to finally hit send on your pitches. So, what would you say, like if we could have a small coaching moment here to someone who's listening, who's an online creator, and maybe it's a very isolating experience. And they may say, I don't have any real relationships. Because if you think about it, it's kind of a magical thing to build real relationships with people you meet on the internet, right? And what would you say to someone who feels nervous about it, is maybe being a perfectionist, like sure, dealing with like afraid to reach out? Like, what would you say to that person?

Deborah Hurwitz 39:42

Thank you. Well, let me just lean in and be a little tender for a second. So, first of all, like I get it, I hear you. It's not easy, you know? It's not easy to feel isolated and afraid, struggling, insecure. What am I doing? Here I am, staring at a screen, trying to make sense of this portal to the rest of the universe, and there's so much data and so many people, and it's just little me and right, like so. I really get that. Try on, it's never true that you have no relationships. You know, we used to say this in the network marketing business. Everyone you know knows a hundred people you don't. Even if you don't think and and if you are if you are aiming to bring a business online, or you are aiming to bring yourself online, or you are if you are doom scrolling Instagram feeling like the loneliest, saddest person on the planet, you're able to reach people. Right? Now it might feel terrible and scary, and it will if all you've been doing is consuming, consuming, consuming, and now you've got to actually put something out there, even if it's just a DM to somebody you think is cool on Instagram, right? It will feel heart stopping. It will feel terrifying. You might even want to throw up, but nothing wrong with that. That's actually an appropriate set of feelings to have when you are moving from just consuming to producing, from just receiving to creating. When you are taking a chance. So a few different things. First of all, have 30 seconds of courage and send the message. Have 30 seconds of courage, send the text. Have 30 seconds of courage, pick up the phone and actually call for Gen X's. And they're like, what are you doing calling me? Don't call me, text me. Right? So, whatever the preferred method of communication for the person you're trying to reach, whether that's a potential collaborator, a potential client, a potential mentor, whatever it is. There are a million ways to find people and reach them. Then there are the people that you actually know. Right?

Nadalie Bardo 41:39

The networking. Say again? I was just saying, like, go to the like you did, show up at the meetup, the network, and just hi, my name is Hi, my name is.

Deborah Hurwitz 41:49

And you don't have to have the perfect elevator pitch at all. Hi, my name is working on an elevator pitch. Would you let me practice on you for 20 seconds? People will love that. People love to help. Nobody wants to be sold, everybody wants to buy. Nobody wants to be yanked around, everybody wants to help. Right? So it's like if you are vulnerable and authentic, not messy, not like you know, bursting into tears with a stranger, right? But like, show off like I gotta be honest, it took every ounce of courage I had to get out my door today and am here, and you just have some good energy and nice earrings, and I'm sort of trying to figure out my elevator pitch. Would you give me 30 seconds to say a couple of things to you and just blah to be like, absolutely yes, thank you? I got these earrings, right? Like, you know, absolutely yes, right? So I have 30 seconds of courage to make some sort of move to connect with someone and say something honest. Now, as far as, and that's with strangers, right? So you have relationships, you have potential relationships or or real relationships with anyone that is out there in the world that you can see, touch in some way. Then there are the people you already know, right? And eat people that tell me, I don't know anyone. Like, how many contacts do you have in your phone? A couple hundred, a couple thousand, right? How many uh people do you follow on socials? How many people are you are you subscribed to on YouTube? Who's in your family? Who's your local barista? Person behind the the counter at the dry cleaners. Like, I mean, honestly, you know people. You know lots and lots of people. Who'd you go to school with? What did you do in the first five years of your career? Where did you work? Who did you meet? Who did you date? Right? Like, you know people. And even if those people are not necessarily your next collaboration, you start with those conversations. There's a lot of names for this, this very official marketing language, like chatterbox campaign, warm market campaign, right? Your warm market is just people you know, people who are already in your orbit. And there are lots of coaches and mentors out there. I don't know whether I believe this or don't believe this, but I think it's a nice thought and there's nothing wrong with it. Your next best client is already. In your orbit and you just don't know who they are yet. Right. Your next collaborator, your next partner, your next promoter is already in your orbit and you don't know them yet. Or you don't know who they are yet. You don't know that that's that person. And I've had that experience when I do have the courage, right, in any of the businesses that I've done, to go, who do you know that might be looking for a new way to have breakfast? You know, who do you know might be looking for a new way to get stuff done? Who do you know who might be looking for a custom song for a special occasion? Right? Like that, just all these different things that I did over the years. And more often than not, I at least get an energy hit of, oh wow, that's cool. I can't think of anybody right now, but let me keep it in mind. And then I'll get referrals later. They bank it. Right? And sometimes I get, oh, you gotta talk to my sister. She's getting married and she's looking for bidgie, right? Like it's like those things will pop, but you have to ask. You know, and one of the you gotta talk to my sister people came from someone I was sure was gonna have nothing for me. He was in no way, shape, or form a candidate for anything I was pitching, asking for, needing. But he was a cool guy who I had a long-standing show business collaboration with. And I was like, all right, what the hell? I'll just let him know what I'm doing. Like, you know anyone? He's like, Oh, you need to talk to my sister. She loves this shit. And I was like, What? I even know you had a sister, right? So you just don't know what's gonna happen once you have the conversation, but you must look for the availability of the connection, look for the possibility of the connection. Don't dismiss anyone. Remember, everyone I know knows a hundred people I don't. And then have 30 seconds of courage to initiate a conversation. Don't try to be polished when you're not. Don't try to know your shit inside out when you don't. Be real, be honest, be respectful, right? Like don't talk somebody's ear off for 10-15 minutes going, I'm not sure what I'm talking about, but I'm gonna talk. No. Be respectful, right? If you ask to practice your elevator pitch on somebody, really make it 30 seconds and then go, what do you think? You know, or whatever, right? Like be respectful of people's time and bandwidth and energy, but ask.

Nadalie Bardo 46:06

Okay, y'all. I feel like that's the perfect collab script for this episode is to have 30 seconds of courage. Just reach out to someone you know, or say, hey, my name is can I practice my elevator pitch on you, or I'm interested in this topic, or do you know someone who could need this? Right. I love in a I feel like in a world where we're so online and connected, there's something so needed about just talking to a human in like face to face, like hi.

Deborah Hurwitz 46:44

Absolutely, yeah.

Nadalie Bardo 46:45

I love that. Thank you so much, Deborah. This has been wonderful. Yay! How can everyone connect with you? Do you have something they can sign up for?

Deborah Hurwitz 46:55

Yes, tell us all the things. Tell us all the things. Um, so yeah, I mean, I'm sure we'll have like links in show notes and everything. The but the best way into my world, and it's like high value. I have this wonderful new training video, how to get big things done without needing to fix your habits, your mindset, or your impossible schedule. Right. So all the things that come up, and I teach three secrets in this video about how to make decisions, even if you're a second guesser waffler, how to get things done in very short amounts of time, even if you've got like big, daunting, this needs tons of time sort of projects, how to double your free time without bailing or failing, where it counts, right? Like all these things where it's like, I would like this, but I can't because that. And it solves those problems. And it's a training video that's 100% free. Of course, I make offers at the end of it if there's a way in which you want to continue to work, and it's a very low-cost entry to come into my world, and you get a lot of personal attention and coaching from me and my team. So please check out the video. It's a quality training on its own, even if you don't buy anything, and I'd love to support you and serve you.

Nadalie Bardo 47:57

I love that. So the link will be in the show notes. Just click the buttons, y'all. And if you are tuning into the Hey Let's Collab podcast, which of course you are, don't forget to also press those buttons, subscribe, you know, get the collab scripts, join our worlds, because this is just one of the many conversations we're gonna be having about how you can build real relationships and true partnerships, I think that can honestly change the trajectory of your online career, even if you don't even know where you're going and you're just getting started.

Deborah Hurwitz 48:33

True story. Yay! I'm so glad you're joining this, Nadalie. Really well done. Thank you.

Nadalie Bardo 48:38

Thank you. It's so fun. So, anyways, y'all, until the next episode. Thanks so much, Deborah. Go connect with her and thanks for listening, everyone. Thanks for tuning in to Hey Let's Collab. If you're looking to kickstart your collaboration game and land that dream partnership, check out heyletscollab.com and download the free collab scripts to get started.