271. Thinking of Collaboration

Embracing Collaboration – A European Insight 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Mentoring with Geraldine and the Bite-Size Podcast. How the devil are you? So, here I am, still in Europe, the race is coming up very soon for my husband, who’s running in the Amsterdam Marathon. I am not running in the Amsterdam Marathon. I’m not running anywhere. I walk quite quickly and I walk long distances, but I don’t run. The nuns told us when I was growing up not to run, that we shouldn’t run. They were like, stop running. I think, actually I’m pretty sure, they were saying don’t run in the corridor, but I’ve taken it as a life mantra to not run anywhere. So we can just blame the nuns.

But today I have been, as you know, last time I was talking about going out and looking at different shops and what I’ve noticed here is there are a lot of collaborations. There’s a lot of collaborative. Um, workshops and artisans working together and they’re collaborating. And I think it’s really important that we broach collaboration again, that we think about our collaboration and how we can collaborate with others to enhance what we do, who we are and our space. All right.

So I’m seeing it everywhere here in Europe and I’m loving it. I’m really enjoying the vibe of the collaboration. I have the Monday clinical group and we all collaborate together. We support each other. Everybody gets time in the conversation when you arrive on the Monday. Everybody gets to speak. We all get to collaborate in supporting each other in the answers.

Crafting Collaborative Relationships 

And here, I mean, I’m talking about shops here, I’m talking about studios, I’m talking about artisans, but in a way that is still us. As practitioners, we are artisans because without our intuition and prior knowledge, we wouldn’t be able to support our clients as well as we do. And we also, without friends and groups in which we can collaborate and ask for support and ask for answers, we would feel really alone. But what I mean about this collaboration this time is going that next step.

So you can join me in one of my groups, absolutely love to have you, or What about looking at what you do and looking at the things you don’t like doing? So maybe you’re a naturopath and you don’t like writing meal plans, recipes, but if you go and put it in one of the social media groups, like strictly educational, strictly practitioners, you might put in there, Hey, I’m a naturopath who hates writing these things.

Is there a nutritionist out there who loves doing that, who would like to collaborate with me? And then you can create that collaboration with that individual. You’re creating a group. You’ll have lots of people reply. Yes, I love that. You’ll have other naturopaths reply. Yes, I love doing that. But you might want to specifically pick a nutritionist because that’s not your focus.

Maybe you don’t use any nutritional supplements. Maybe you’re a herbalist at heart and so that side of things you want to leave to someone else. So you could collaborate in care with your clients with someone else. Collaboration is reaching out to me because you think that you’ve got something to offer in a podcast. I have lots of people reaching out to me who want to be in the podcast, but maybe that’s you. Maybe you’ve got something, you’ve written a book, you’ve done something, or you are doing something that you want to share with others. And so you reach out, that’s collaboration.

The Art of Collaboration – Nurturing Growth 

So collaboration has many, many forms. And I want you to think about who can I collaborate with? In what way can I collaborate with them? What is it that I need in my business that I’m currently not doing? That I’m perhaps avoiding. I mean, a simple collaboration is getting someone else to do your website, isn’t it? You’re collaborating with them, but then that job is done. It’s finished. But it might be that person also creates blogs and then you’re collaborating with them because you’re giving them the information for the blog, they’re writing your blog, but meanwhile, perhaps they’re giving you clients as well.

So when we collaborate. Collaboration can take many, many forms. Like the artisans I’m seeing here in the shops. I went into one of the shops who does a glass blower. So there was all this glass blowing in the shop. Everything you could buy in the way of glass. But he had lots of other artisans working there as well. So although he was there, Um, working on glass, making small ornaments, that’s what they’re called, small ornaments.

He had pottery in the store and he had some silk screen printing as well, so it was beautiful. And so he’s collaborated with those artists, he said, put your stuff in here. Obviously he takes a cut of that. Now chances are, do not have a shop or a shop front, but you might have, if you’re seeing people one to one, there might be other things you can sell.

Exploring Collaborative Business Models 

So it’s all very well if you have an office space and you can sell things in there, but you don’t have a lot of passing traffic or you’re only there maybe one or two days a week. There’s not much point selling food because it’s going to go off. My massage therapist sells those flip flops, the ones that have the, called Archies, that’s right. She’s diversified. What she’s doing. She’s not necessarily collaborating, but she’s taken in, I mean, that’s a big company, but she’s taken in a product to sell to others. So maybe you can think about something that won’t go off quickly or can be returned after a certain length of time. So maybe you could work with someone who creates teas. And so you become their naturopathic advisor to their tea company, but they’re the ones selling the tea. And of course, then you have a few that you sell in your office. What collaborations can you do? Who can you collaborate with? What is it that you can see a need for?

If you can see a need for something, then maybe others do too. You’ll have to do some market research. We’ll have to see, is there truly a need for this? If I bring teas into my office, are any of my clients actually going to buy them, or am I going to end up giving them away? If I collaborate with a tea company, can I then sell them at markets, or will they expect me to be at markets selling them?

The Art of Strategic Collaboration 

So when we collaborate, we have to think, how does this help me, but how does it help them too? What do I get out of this, but what do they get out of this? For a tea company, having a naturopath who advises them, that’s probably kudos for them. So that’s a good thing for them, but then they may already have a naturopath, so they don’t need you. So they might need a nutritionist because they do other teas that have, or they, they do, you know, protein powders or something. So, how is it going to help both sides, that collaboration?

Artisan, one of the artisans, he said that, well there was a woman in there, and, and I was like, this is really nice, and she said, oh yes, they work on a Thursday if you want to see them working. I’m like, no, I’m not here on Thursday. Leaving tomorrow. There’s a collaboration in that they were in the shop front certain days of the week. Each artisan then covered the shop. So to sell the products. So they’re saving on wages because the artisan is working in the shop doing their artistic endeavors as well as selling everybody else’s content.

Exploring Collaborative Spaces 

But what collaboration can you do? What collaboration is out there for you? The local library. They often have a space and they like people to give talks in there because libraries need to be relevant. People aren’t reading paper books. So lots of other things are happening in local libraries. So what can you bring to the local community that, you know, you’re collaborating with the local community. It’s, yes, there’s collaborations with a different modality. There’s also collaborations with different centers and different spaces. There is. How are you improving your business through that collaboration and how will they improve theirs? Where can you see yourself with your superpowers supporting what you do, right?

So I’m a talker, not a writer. So someone said to me, can you write a blog for me? I actually get somebody else to write it, or I speak it, now, I can speak it of course, and then get AI to write it for me if I wanted to, but chances are I’d actually send it to a blog writer to do it, here’s all the ideas, here’s what I’ve got to say, please put this into a written format. Because it’s not my thing, and I know that if someone asked me for a blog, I’m never going to get it out, it’s never going to get done. So, we’ve really got to think, how can I? Support someone else whilst they support me. And what’s even in this relationship? It does have to be an even collaboration. It might be that you have to pay them for the collaboration because it’s not even, like the blog writer.

The Symphony of Collaboration 

She’s not getting anything out of that. I’m saying it’s my blog. So I’m going to pay her for that. But there are lots of collaborations where it can be free. It’s our time. It might be that you collaborate with people from college to have a session once a month where you go through clients, you talk about what’s going on in your business. You’ve got a group of people you can almost let rip to and tell them how you’re going and, and they tell you how they’re going. So collaboration comes in many, many forms and you just need to list out. All of the things you don’t like doing, all of the things you love doing, who you’d like to collaborate with.

I mean, you might want to collaborate with, I don’t know, Brené Brown. Probably won’t happen. However, it might, if that’s on your vision board, that’s where you’re going, and you’re working towards that in a very specific and strategic way, PR company. But when we collaborate, there are so many opportunities. It’s thinking, what do I need? Who do I find that with? Can I collaborate with them? Or is it just a purchase opportunity? How can I collaborate with them so they’re promoting me while I promote them? So the local library, you’re promoting the local library because you’re giving a talk in there and they’re promoting you and you’re giving the talk. They will perhaps earn the money from the talk if it’s a paid talk and you won’t earn anything or they might give you a small stipend or something. But that’s fine if you’ve got 60 people sitting there, hopefully you’re going to convert some of those people to come and see you as clients. So that’s a collaboration.

Closing Thoughts on Collaboration and Growth 

So really think about it. Collaboration is really important. Working with other people in a collaborative way so everybody gains from the relationship. is what’s important. So do think about that and how you can incorporate it into your business. It might be you don’t want to collaborate. It might be that you’re happy as you are, and that is cool too. But do keep an open mind when people approach you about collaboration. What can you get out of this? What more can be achieved through this and how will it help both parties, not just the one party. So I’m going to leave it there today. Nice short one, quick one, because I’m going to get back out to the shops. So I hope you have an absolutely brilliant rest of day and I look forward to catching up with you on the next cast. Thanks so much for joining me today. Don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the podcast for the weekly episodes. If you’d like even more support and learning, then the Academy is for you. Here you’ll find part two of the herbal discussions, more clinical learning, and case studies to support your clients in practice. Bye for now.