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Better Together: How Cross-Promotions Elevate Small Businesses · The Boujee Multipreneur

• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Bougie Multipreneur.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Hilary Heschauer Jones.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today's podcast is about cross-promoting and really building something together with you and other small businesses in your community.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if you know me, you know that I love connecting with other small business owners, whether it's like the chiropractic patients that I have coming in my door with a coupon for this or that, or all the events that I run and I have run for almost 18 years now.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love highlighting small businesses, especially women-owned small businesses in my community.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that is one way I've really exploded with my businesses.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna talk about cross-promoting today with other small businesses, give you some examples of like why it works, how to do it, how I do it, and some new trends that I've heard about that you could start right now.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So this will be a short podcast.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you like it.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: These are the type of things that I do with my business clients.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I coach, it's um HHJ consulting, and these are things I work on because you can't know everything and you can't be good at everything, right?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm good at.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm great in the community, I'm great with business and building business and events and things like that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you need help, reach out to me later.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So why would we want to cross-promote?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it makes sense, right?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: That we want to engage another audience and we want it to be similar types of uh clients, right?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where it's they recommend us, we recommend them, and then instantly you earn credibility because your chiropractor recorded recommended or your dentist recommended this chiropractor, right?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a shared audience, and those are like the best patients or clients.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Am I right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: What I also love about cross-promoting is that it's really budget-friendly.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not so expensive like putting ads in the paper and et cetera, or on social media putting ads.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to pay for exposure like that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's genuine too.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's collaboration together and it's not competition.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it really builds loyalty amongst like your patients or clients, like they feel like it's something special.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if they love you already, they're gonna love this other business, right?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of my favorite things that I did is I had a friend who started a massage therapy business.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, like she's great.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I used her personally, but there's so many around here that I mean, people could go anywhere, just throw a rock and hit another massage therapist in my area.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, let's do a promotion where let's say your massage is$100.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then give me um like 10 quote gift cards or whatever, where um you discount them to me.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we're gonna sell these gift cards for$50.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what I did is I approached patients and I put this on um my special Facebook group where um I have a the special deal with this new massage therapist for$50.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can get an hour massage, and I'll pay for the other$50 because it's normally$100.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, I looked like the great person that I was paying for half of their massage, and they got it at half off.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, technically, I did not pay the$50 to that massage therapist, that was just part of the promotion.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted also to look good, I didn't want it to look sealsy, I wanted it to seem like I really was, and I would, and I have before paid for massages for my patients that I love.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: But this I wanted it to be like they needed to put some skin in the game, so to speak.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The the patient needed to pay the$50.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then the massage therapist, she needed to give up a bit.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so we decided with half.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what that meant for her is she got an influx of like already great and loyal clients, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because I knew them, they came to me, I recommended her.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was the best win-win for her because she didn't have to place an ad for$500, right, in the newspaper.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: She just had to give up, quote,$50 per person.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: But these people were going to be lifelong clients.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at the odds and outweigh that, right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: She did really well with that.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she continues to have year after year those same clients, and that is worth$50, let me tell you.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I would totally give up$50 to have a really great new patient at my one of my chiropractic offices.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Have two of them, either one would be happy, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really a win-win.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about who you can cross promote with, right?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you're like, well, I don't know, massage therapist.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's just an example.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another example that I'm working on right now is cross-promoting with a sauna business.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she also does IVs.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that those are the similar type of like ideal clients or patients.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are like someone like me, a chiropractor, and you are um trying to find someone, what do your current clients' patients want?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Where do they already go?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do they use?
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: What do they need, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then ideally, you want to make sure you use them first because you want to like give a great testimonial, but it is a win-win.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And now I do find that because I've done this several times, that sometimes I I kind of feel like I'm always the one putting on all this stuff, and they get a lot of great business.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't often get business back from them.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So it might be something that you want to like talk about at the beginning.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm happy to do this promotion.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get a lot of great clients because I love my clients and they're loyal.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but in the end, also like let's do something reversed where it's the same thing you promote to your client base as well.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: So think about that too.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, try to make it not one-sided.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't really always feel that way.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm it's not like I'm gonna stop doing it, but you just might want to watch that.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you're someone like me that gives, gives, and gives, and people take, take, and take.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you need to step back and make sure that um you aren't giving too much.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So moving on.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So another thing we could do is you could cross promote on social media, right?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the obvious one.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's new trends um in Instagram where the you can collab on posts and it shows up on different accounts.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I did this cute one where, and you might have seen this on Instagram, like you wave at the camera, you show your location, and then you put it's on the ground and you like quote, step on the camera.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then when the camera is revealed again, it's at another business and they take their foot off and they show you their office, and then they put their foot down.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We did that with I think six to eight like female-owned local businesses, and we had such great um like feedback on that, and the insights were great for that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Real.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So if you could do something like that, that's super fun.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: What I did is I just asked the the few people and I had them send me just their raw clips like that.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm lucky enough to have a social media manager, so I just set all the clips and they created that, but it can't be that hard to piece together all these little clips, put the name of their business, and then um tag everyone and have them all like post it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's really great.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's cute too.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it shows like a fun side of the business that is not always like, for instance, chiropractors, it's not always just about chiropractic and the subluxation.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, have a little bit of fun and show that you are out there in the community working with other like-minded businesses too.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: You could create special offers on social media too, where like show your receipt from this business and get$10 off your adjustment.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that could be something cute like that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or show your chiropractic visit appointment card or something and get a free dessert sample at a bakery.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just, you know, be creative and it doesn't have to be um health related, right?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You could be getting um a cup of coffee for free after your chiropractic adjustment, or or vice versa.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So um, especially if there's someone that you like or it's a new business, like how you know, just sit down and chat.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how could you guys work together?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, think about if you guys are in the ideal location and with the ideal clients about the same, you know, then it could work really well for you.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't all have to be all health related.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You could have like QR codes with partnerships where they have links directly going into the offices or the other businesses.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: You could put that in your office, you could put it on social media.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then one of my favorites to do is to host a little like pop-up events together.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: If, like I said, if you know me, you know I'm like the queen of community events, love holding events, whether it's five people or a 50.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you could do, like, for example, chiropractors, you could do like a sip and stretch class or something like that, where you either you could sip um coffees from a local coffee shop or a brewery or a winery or something like that.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: You could hold a little stretch class.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you could have like, um, I've seen at a lot of events that I go to, um, like bigger events where there's like 10 plus vendors, they'll have community passports.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's kind of cute both on both sides as a vendor and as a participant, where you get like little punch cards and you go around to the different businesses, and then you at the end you put your community passport in like a punch bowl and they draw it to enter to win like the big prize.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is kind of fun to do stuff like that, and it does get everyone coming to your business.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Lately, I felt that people are like excited to come to your little booth area versus like 15 years ago.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that it was more like, can you punch this?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Can you sign this?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then they would move on.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: But lately I've had some great events, and it could just be the event coordinators themselves, like how great they do at running it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: But people have been really into the little passport punch and it's fun.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen it in all sorts of environments.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So look up a little community passport and you can see like an example of that.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what about even if you swapped like a Facebook or Instagram live, or you swapped a guest spot on each other's podcast or something like that, you know, like a little mini video could just be, you know, here's a guest blog, and then you swap that, like just some shared content for each other.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that would be really cute, too.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So always in general, um ask the patients or your clients to do like a photo where they go and redeem something, and you could even run like giveaways online uh for who did the photo with the other company that you partnered with, you know.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you could create even so when you're doing events again, because I love events.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: What about if you have like an event and you create like a joint package where you worked with a local gym and you got so many sessions with them, so many chiropractic sessions, and then that was like a package.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen that before.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: That would work great too, and you could do that with different types of industries too.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then also have you looked into your local like influencers on Instagram, you know, make sure you follow and um comment on those things, but you just need to get some engaged people, see how you can work together with the um influencers.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, could they do a little promotion and you offer some free services to them?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, it just depends on the influencer.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But look outside, see who's out there.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And let's say I've heard this before from my clients.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I just don't know who's an influencer.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: You better ask around then because people know who the influencers are on Instagram, let me tell you.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think in my neighborhood alone, I know of two, and it's not a very big neighborhood.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's like a hundred houses.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you could use like I've heard of some digital referral cards instead of like the old school like paper punches or cards, but I guess there's apps, and I haven't looked into this, but um, it's called loopy loyalty.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna look into that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or maybe you just have like Canva make you a digital coupon of some sort, so just in order to like track and promote to make sure it works well.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that might be a little bit more in-depth and detailed, um, but something else to look into.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really feel that the cross-promoting really helps us like grow out a little bit more outside of our little circle and it's staying in the community to really like work together.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it keeps it fun too.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like life is short.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why not have fun while we're doing all this business stuff, right?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I would say is today try to think of like one to two businesses that have similar clients or patients, like a similar audience to yours, and reach out to those business owners or managers this week, right?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ask them something small, maybe, you know, maybe don't jump into a giant event that you want to plan together.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: But could you do a joint Instagram story together?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Could you do a shared giveaway or could you cross-promote flyers with each other's offices, something like that?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then build into something bigger once you found your little circle too of great business owners.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, let's do an event together.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'll host a small event in my office, you host a small event in your office, but you're gonna invite each other's um patients or clients to come so that way they can see the other person's space also.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's fun too.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, you know, getting outside.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't always have to be in your chiropractic office, it could be in the gym that you're cross-promoting with.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, here's a little motivational quote that I found.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I thought was really cute.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it says, remember, in business and in life, we rise higher when we rise together.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so cute.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know what you think and um message me if you have any questions or ideas, or if you want to work with me one on one with some uh business coaching.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here for you.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you stay bougie and make that money.