Turn Connection Calls into Referrals, Partnerships & Revenue Part 2 with Shannon Grainger | 025

Welcome to the Grand Connection Podcast. I'm Susan Jarema, your host for today. And today we're continuing our conversation with Shannon Grainger, known as the Million Dollar Deal Maker, co-founder and CEO of Big Impact HQ. I'm excited to continue this conversation from our last episode, because Shannon's deal flow framework truly makes so much sense, especially for heart-centered entrepreneurs who want to grow through meaningful connection and collaboration instead of transactional networking. As we partner together within the Grand Connection ecosystem through mixers, strategic introductions, collaborative promotions, giveaways, community building, I've seen firsthand how intentional conversations and aligned partnerships can create incredible opportunities for everyone involved. What I also loved about Shannon's framework is how naturally it aligns with our own Connect, Create, Collaborate framework here at the Grand Connection. Connection starts with trust and intentional conversations. Creation happens when ideas, opportunities, and alignment begin to emerge, and collaboration grows when we take intentional action together. In part one, we explored the foundation of the deal flow method and talked about preparation, trust, values alignment, and authentic relationship. We covered D and e discovery and establish today we're going to continue the conversation and dive into the second half of the framework, including how to assess aligned opportunities, build mutually beneficial partnerships, lock in collaborations, and create long term referral and revenue systems through meaningful connection. If you haven't listened to part one yet. I highly recommend starting there first, as Shannon lays the groundwork for everything we're going to explore in today's episode. So, let's jump back in with Shannon. Nice to see you again.

Hi, Susan. Thanks so much for having me back.

Oh, great to have you here. And before we continue, can you briefly recap the deal framework for listeners joining us today, in case they didn't go back to part one.

Yes, yes. So, overall, we're talking about the magic of partnerships, joint ventures, referral partners, strategic alliances, affiliates. There's lots of different terminology for all of these different things, but for the sake of this conversation, when I'm talking about partnerships, what I'm referring to, or even deals. Okay, some people are like, what's a deal? What we're referring to is another collaborating with another business owner who shares the same or similar audience and ideal client that you do, but you solve different problems, right? But you're going to make good joint venture or collaboration partners with those types of people, and so this deal flow framework shows you what to do before, during, and after a 30 minute connection call, and how to turn that 30 minute connection call into Moolah, my friend, specifically over $100,000 in Moolah year after year after year, so ultimately these are really high leverage strategies, so you can work less, make more, and make a bigger impact together with your partners.

Exciting. And there is a lead magnet. We talked about lead magnets in the previous episode, and I also have my lead magnet, lead magnet in the show notes. I'll put it in both of the show notes. You have a lead magnet or your gift for everybody today, which shows this framework. There's a nice infograph, and we talked about in the earlier episode printing it out and sticking it up on the wall, so that you can use it as your guidance during your 30 minute connection calls.

Yes

In the show notes.

Yep, it's in the link, is in the show notes. And if you happen to be watching on YouTube, it looks like this, okay? And if you're not watching and you're listening, maybe you're out walking your dog, or you're enjoying some coffee, maybe you're running on the treadmill, that link is right there in the show notes that you can download. My gift to you, and essentially it's going to be like kind of like a little cheat sheet of what to actually do during the 30 minute connection call, right? Like, after you've listened to these two podcast interviews here, you're like, "Okay, there's a lot of information, just download, download the link, print it off, and that's a little cheat sheet to help you out.

Yeah, I love cheat sheets. Yeah, I actually had a course I took once in university, where you were allowed to make a cheat sheet, and I wrote so small, the smallest writing ever. Good thing my eyes were better back then. Anyways, I digress. So, we've talked about D and E, so that is discovery, so that's doing your, your research ahead of time, and then establish E. So, establish is to build the rapport and connection in the call, and those important questions you ask. Can you remind everybody what the most important question of the day

Yeah, most important question as you're in the call, you're building connection and rapport, you want to ask them when you're partnering with people, what's most important to you. And you're eliciting their values, you're listening for their motivating factors, are they money motivated and they want the affiliate commission, that's totally fine, we want to know that, or are they impact driven and contribution motivated, and they're looking to partner and have an expanded reach, either way it's all good, or maybe they're in it for the reciprocal and they're like, hey, Affiliate Commission is great. I'll take that, you know, but I'm really looking for partners who can reciprocate.

Yeah, and I love that, and I've - it's actually make it going to make a difference in my conversations, I can tell, because I haven't been doing that. So, this will really help set the stage for making sure that we follow through on what we commit to, and I can offer what they are looking for too, or find out if they're not the right fit,

Exactly. Yes, yes.

So, let's move on. We've got a.. so you want to talk about the rest of the deal framework?

Yeah, yeah, the deal flow framework. Okay, so here we go. We're in the third step, which is assess. A is for assess. Okay, so in the assessing phase, you want to find out who is their ideal client. Okay, that's one of the questions that you're going to want to ask during the connection call. Who is their ideal client? And I'm listening for, do we have a same or similar avatar or ideal client, and how clear are they in their messaging? If they're all over the place and they take 10 minutes just to answer that question. I'm like, they're not that experienced when, when they, when it comes to business and marketing, so they're going to struggle with promoting me. Okay, like that's what I'm listening for. So, Who's your ideal client? Then, who's an ideal joint venture partner for you? Who's an ideal collaboration partner for you? Okay, we want to know, have they done partnerships before? Like, who's an ideal fit again? How clear are they, and do I fit that profile? I'll give you an example. One of my VIP platinum clients, Penelope Jane Smith, she specifically works with women entrepreneurs, and she helps them to get financially free in five years or less, clear avatar, right? We all are like thinking of people, we can see those women entrepreneurs that are tired of working so hard, they want to get financially free. Well, she helps them with that. Okay, so that's very clear. And then a great ideal joint venture partner for her is somebody that helps their clients to make more money, maybe they are a marketing expert, or a social media expert, or they do copywriting, or AI, or websites, like they help their clients to make more money in any capacity. The reason that's a good partner for her is she teaches them how to keep the money that her partners are helping them to make, she helps them to grow it, how to invest it, how to save money on taxes. Okay, that's an example. So, boom, how long did that take? Susan, less than a minute to share.

Penelope is one of our partners at the Green Connection, and it's perfect because she's not doing what I'm doing. She doesn't run networking events, she doesn't do edgy networking. She helps people manage their figure out what to do with their money afterwards. Perfect combination, like it's very much aligned, and she's, she's aligned in values too. Like, we've, we've had a great, great, some great conversations, and we're able to support each other, and we were quite.. yeah, I think we're clear in our communication on how, how the partnerships will work too.

Yeah,

So, yeah, I think she's speaking in the fall, so she.

Yes,

Yeah,

I know, I know, amazing. You'll be seeing her come to one of the Grand Connection Mixers. Okay, so here's another magic question. How many of you would love to have more speaking gigs? We all want more speaking gigs. Yes, okay. So, if that's you, listen up for this magic question. Alright, so in the assess phase, essentially what I'm doing is I'm assessing all the resources that are at the table, is what I'm essentially doing. Okay, so I'm like, so tell me, like, do you have group programs? What's your main offer? Tell me about your high ticket offer. How much is it? What's the name of it? What's the promise? I'm assessing again, how clear are they? What's their funnel, and when I, when they say, 'Yeah, I have a group program, right? So, maybe you were in a connection call, you're talking to Penelope, and she's like, 'I have a group program, it's a year-long program called Financial Freedom Accelerator. Okay, awesome. I'd ask her, 'Do you ever bring in guest experts in that group program of yours, Penelope, okay? And she's like, yeah, yeah, when it's the right fit, and they can, they add value to my members, yeah. Of course, I bring in guest experts all the time. Okay. Note to self, I don't jump on it, of like, well, can I be one of those guest experts? Like, again, that's kind of like, can I, you know, I know it's

Too early, it's too early in the day,

Early, it's too early, right? Like, don't get married yet, just like, hang on, okay? Just, you know, so be cool, manage your state, manage your energy, but inside you're kind of like, yay, like that's a potential stage where you could come in and be that guest expert, okay? So, I like to ask, Who's the. A client who's the ideal joint venture partner. Tell me about your programs. Tell me about your funnel. Do you have a high ticket program? How much is it? What's included? You know, just high level. You don't need like every single detail of what's in their program, but just very high level. And then you get to ask, do you bring in guest experts for that group program, how often do you bring in guest experts? What does that look like? Okay, so this is really where again you're assessing the resources that are on the table, and then you can ask them, like what format. When here's another magic, there's a lot of magic questions as I'm talking about this, Sue. So I'm like, okay, all these are magic questions. Another magic question that I like to ask is, when you, what do you like your partners to promote? Okay, this is super important, because if they are asking you to promote their high ticket program to your email list, it's just not going to work. Okay, you know, it can be like the best alignment, you can love each other, the values are there the ideal client, like all the things measure up, and if you send an email for a $10,000 program, nobody's buying that. Okay, that's just not how the game works. How the game works is you're going to need top of funnel, I like to call it tofu, top of funnel assets that are free assets, like a lead magnet, which we talked about in part one of this conversation, of, you know, downloadable checklist, a free gift, you know, an easy opt-in, a lead magnet, maybe a masterclass, or a webinar that's free. Okay, if you do have any, like, events, maybe you could give out bonus tickets just to your

partner's email list, or you know, very low ticket, you know, like 197 or lower. Alright, that is what is going to do best with any partner's email list, even if they're the best digital marketers in the world, and you know they know how to drive traffic and all these things. It's going to work the best if it's free assets that they can send to their list, so I always like to ask, what do you like your partners to promote, and again that really tells me their experience with this game, because if they're like, well, I'd like you to promote my high ticket program, then I might do some educational marketing, and I might actually kind of go through what I just shared here, you know, it's just that's just not going to work. Okay, what I have found that works best is, you know, a downloadable lead magnet. Do you have something like that? Do you have a free gift that I could promote? Do you do any webinars? Right, so sometimes I'm kind of coaching them through it to set them up for success, and also set me up for success.

You also need to find out how they're tracking, yeah, because sometimes the lead magnet isn't tracked to the big program, so that I don't.. that's an awkward one to ask, because they might not even know.

Well, how you could ask that is, like, you know, so what CRM do you use? What tracking software do you use, you know? If they look at you like deer in the headlights, that might be a red flag.

Yeah,

But if they're like that, I'm, I'm with, I'm with Go High Level, we'll, you know, we'll be giving you the swipe copy and the affiliate links, like I'm like, okay, they've, they've done this before, you know. And then you can always ask, and I think it is good. It's like, you know, what kind of affiliate payout do you pay? What kind of commission, you know, that you should be getting a commission, even if your impact and contribution motivated, you're still going to need to customize the swipe copy and put it into your CRM, or pay your team to do it, you know. So, for me, the affiliate commission is a nice thank you for taking the time to do that, and you know, work out the deal and the logistics and stuff like that. It's for me, it's not like my huge motivating factor, to me it's about alignment and impact, and we have a cross promo, that's what's important to me personally. But you know, the affiliate commission is a nice thank you, so it's totally fine, and I do recommend that you have that conversation of what kind of affiliate commissions do you pay out. What does that look like?

Yeah, no, that's a, that's a good and nice easy way to say to ask that question, that that sometimes could feel a little bit awkward, because you, you don't want to be about the money, but you want to know that it's being tracked, and

Yeah,

And I know that people, even in our community, like we have the tracking, we have a referral program, and there's sometimes some overlap, and there's the rules around it, because everybody's reaching the same people, right, and I'll get a time where somebody says, well, I brought that person in, and it's tracked to somebody else, and you're, yes, you got to deal with that too, so affiliate, that's a whole world of affiliates, and we'll have Chuck Anderson, he's a Grad Connection member, on to talk about the world of affiliates, I know you know it well too, but he's a member of the community, and that's all he does, is affiliates think so,

Yes, you definitely want to make sure there are affiliate links. They don't have a CRM that produces affiliate links, like, then don't partner with them, okay? It's got to be tracked through a link, it can't just be like, oh, well, I referred Susie Q, and now you owe me a commission, no, no, no, no, no, no, it needs to be professional, we're going pro here, and we're using links, because, just like Susan said, multiple people are on multiple email lists, you know. So you might have a partner that says, "Well, I referred Susie Q, she's, you know, she's my best friend, and I referred her. Well, then you can go into the CRM, and you can see who, what link did she click on? Whoever's link she clicked on, that's who needs to get the affiliate commission credit. And then there's a whole world of like first referrer, first cookie, lifetime commissions. I prefer to do it that way, like so. If you're a little bit more advanced in this conversation, you're going to understand what I'm talking about. If you're like Shannon, you just said cookie, and now I can't think of anything cookie. rowdy, what? Okay, that's totally fine. You know, don't worry. Well,

The tofu got me. I was thinking about dinner.

That's funny. That's so funny. Yeah, it's like, what? So, first cookie is basically like, whoever clicks on the link first gets the affiliate commission, whether that person buys now or buys five years down the road, whoever clicked on the link first, they get the affiliate commission. I like to do it that way, because they're the ones who brought the lead into my system, and they were the first person that introduced them to my world. So, I feel like the fair thing to do is to give that person the affiliate commission credit. Some people will do last cookie or last referrer, so whoever clicked on the link last. So I might have referred somebody to Susan three years ago, but John Smith referred them last, and he gets the last click credit, okay. So, there's two different ways to do it. I like to do first cookie, first refer, and then in your connection call, that makes like a nice little selling point. Oh, by the way, we do lifetime affiliate commissions because we're long-term relationship builders and we believe in cultivating relationships, right? So, I'm I'm bringing in my values again, I'm using it as a selling point. Most people don't offer lifetime commissions, so it makes my program unique and different and special, and people really like that.

That's a strong, strong commitment to the relationship.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ours is ours. You have to stay a member to still be continuing

That's fair. Absolutely, absolutely, yep. Okay, so now we're in, we're in the assess phase of the call. Alright, so then they're going to ask you most likely the same questions. Who's your ideal client? Who's your ideal partner? What do you want me to promote? If they don't ask you, then you know, definitely offer that. That's part of the deal making to make sure it's a good fit. What kind of commission do you pay out, right? All of that. This is this is the conversation that you're having in the assess phase. Then you're like, yeah, this is a good fit. Then you want to go ahead and lock it in, lock it in, which is L of deal, and now you're going to move into stage swaps, promo swaps, emails back and forth, right? I like to do as much as possible what I call a layered partnership. Okay, a layered partnership. What a layered partnership is, is we send out emails, that's like an email swap, we do a stage swap, I get a speaking gig out of it, you get a speaking gig out of it. Maybe they have a podcast. I have a podcast. We could do a podcast interview. I have a YouTube channel, and maybe you have, maybe you do a lot with, like, Instagram lives. Okay, boom, boom, boom. So, how many layers can we fit in and have a lot of different points of contact that each of our audiences can hear from each other, because that law of frequency kicks in again, right? Oh, yeah, I saw, I saw the podcast interview, right? Like, actually, we're doing this right now, aren't we, Susan? We're doing a layered partnership, we're doing the podcast interview, right? Then I'll be speaking at one of the mixers to the speakers, right? So then some of the speakers will hear this podcast, as well as see my talk with the speakers mixer, you know, and then, and then you get my, my free gift, the downloadable deal flow method. Okay, so as many points of contact that you can get in. Now, if they don't have a stage, or you don't have a stage, it's totally fine,

you can just do an email swap, that's fine, but if you can get a few other points in, then that's what I call a layered partnership, and it deepens the effectiveness of the whole campaign.

And in our previous episode, I had a - I had with Elisa Bogart, she did - she's a launch strategist. Um, you probably know her,

Yeah, I've heard that name, actually, yeah.

Yeah, well, I'll send you an introduction.

Okay, good.

Sure. And you know, we talked about integrated partnerships, so she used that word for these type of doing it in more than one way, you know? Maybe possibly speaking in your mastermind, or maybe a chapter in a book sometimes ends up happening. Is okay, I'm doing a collaborative book, you know, this for me. You kind of, you know, you're, you're doing a little bit of mental math on what everything's worth, the lists and stuff like that, but you can, you can see ways through a good structured conversation how to find the ways that you can partner and work together. Yeah, and it's, it should be somewhat even, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like, you essentially, the goal here is to create a win-win partnership, right, a win for you, a win for them, and really it's a win-win-win, because it should be a win for your mutual clients as well. All right, that's what that's what we want to create. If, if I'm the one winning and you're losing, that's not that's not conscious capitalism, that's not conscious business, right? So it's not going to be sustainable long term. I might win with one promo, big whoop. Okay, no, no, we're in this for the long haul. So I want Susan to win just as much as I want to win. All right, it's a win-win partnership. And then we both want our mutual clients and our mutual communities to win.

Yeah, and if you're listening and you're going, I don't have a list size right now, there are ways you can still find a win-win collaboration. Have you had that come across your, your path before?

Yeah, definitely. You know, so work from where you're at. All right, you know, so it can be really easy, like, well, I don't have this, I don't have a YouTube channel, I don't have a book, I don't, I don't, I don't. Okay, so just like, you know, let that all go, like bless and release, and look at the assets that you do have. All right, maybe you're, you're a really great teacher, and you can go into someone's community and help their clients. I had a client of mine, he taught one of his joint venture partners how to meditate, and it changed your life. Okay, like think outside the box of what other assets and value could you bring to this other human being's life. It might not necessarily be in business, it might be, you know, maybe you have a great relationship coach, and through the rapport and the connection, they told you, how well I'm going through a divorce right now, right? You know, you could give, give them a session with your therapist or one of your coaches or something. So think outside the box. It doesn't always have to be, you know, well, my email list size is this big, and yours needs to be the same size, and you know, bigger is not always better. Sometimes the conversions with a big ginormous list is actually way lower than raving fan clients. Okay, clients can promote your masterclass, and they can promote your lead magnet to their family, to their friends. You get a very high conversion rate from raving fan clients. So, work with what you have, and then build up to kind of the next step. If you have a small list, you're like, okay, I need list built. That's that's one of my motivating factors right now. When I'm partnering with people, I just want them to promote my lead magnet, so I'm growing my list, and that's that's a great way to start.

Yeah, and and you can also, like, let's say you're speaking on somebody else's summit, or something like that. You can do DMs to people, very targeted DMs, that people that you know would be interested in that topic that you're doing. You, if your list is small, those work very well. And I've had a lot of people in our giveaway and our summits at the Grand Connection, members that have been part of it, and they've said, "Well, I don't have a list, right, and they've, they've brought in more people on the leaderboard than the people with big lists, because they were a little more action-oriented and targeted in what they were doing.

Yes

You can find those ways. Yeah,

That happens all the time. Yes, yes, I love,

And then there's the frequency part too. You could amp up the frequency, instead of just doing, you know, two or three emails, or one email that you might do as part of a partnership is, is you do, you do, you put it in for a whole month, yeah,

Yeah. Another, another option that we'll do with, like, some of our, like, much bigger list size people, we're partnering with Marcy Shimoff with the Year of Miracle. She does a big launch, she was in The Secret, right? She does a big launch every December, the year of miracles, and she has a very sizable list. And so, what I do with her is, we'll do two promotions in a year, compared to her promoting us one time. Okay, you know, and they're happy to do that. They're like, "Oh my god, you'll promote me twice, wonderful. Okay, so get creative, you know, think outside the box, all right. So that's everything in the lock it in phase. Is there anything else there, Susan? That you have any other questions on lock it in?

Well, how about the follow-up part when you do it? So,

Yes, okay.

We're gonna follow up with this afterwards, so that two months later everybody remembers.

Yes, exactly. Okay, so then, so we've made our agreement in the call, like our verbal commitment. Okay, I'm going to do this, you're going to do this. Ideally, you even have, like, your promo calendar and the dates. Here's another hot tip: I keep my launch dates, I have a post-it note, I have a pink post-it note on my computer with my launch dates, because my goal is to lock it in. I'm a deal maker. I'm coming in with that mindset of if it's a fit, if the alignment is there, we are making a deal in 30 minutes. So, of course, I'm prepared. All right, if I have that mindset, I'm going to have my dates, I'm going to have my promo calendar, I'm going to know when I can promote, when I have my own internal promotions, where I can't promote someone else, I have all of that organized before I even get on this 30 minute connection call, and so then that way they're like, oh, send me the dates, I'm like, no problem, babe, I got it right here, I'm ready to go, here's the dates, do those work for you, okay, so it's similar, most of you know enrollment, right? Because you got clients, so at some point in time you've had a client give you a credit card and pay, all right? Right. We all know this, and we're like, okay, I'm ready for your credit card when you are. The sale is not locked in until you run that credit card, okay? It's not official until you run the payment, okay. So, in the GV and the connection call, it's not a sales energy, but the lock it in is getting the dates. Getting the promo dates is essentially like getting the credit card in an enrollment conversation, okay. So, if they don't have the dates of when they can mail for you, then in the follow up that you're going to email them, you're going to be collecting those promo dates, and you're going to be kind of like, okay, what are the dates, what are the dates, all right, but you're going to need to know your promo window of when you want them to mail out, so you can be as

organized as possible, all right, so let's talk about what needs to happen after the call, okay, so we can make sure that everything that we committed to verbally actually gets done, and we remember all the things, okay? So, remember, I said you're going to need an AI note taker, so this is where you're going to go back to your AI note taker, and you're not going to like use, like, the whole big long, you know, I use Fathom, there's all these different ones, and like, there's like a huge long thing, you don't need to send the huge long every single word, but what I like to do is I say, "Hey, Susan, great connecting with you on Zoom today. Here's a recap of what we worked out in our call together, and in the email subject line, I like to say JV recap, Susan and Shannon, so then if anything, if we need to reference that at any point in time, we can just pop into the inbox, JV recap, Susan, boom, there it is, there's the agreement that we've, that we've committed to, and then I can take my AI notes, and I can say, okay, here's what I've committed to, here's what I'm going to be promoting, here's the dates I'm mailing out, this is what Susan's committed to, right, what she's promoting, dates now. Maybe I didn't have the exact promo dates that I could mail for Susan. I like to put that in a different color, of like, I'll let you know the dates I need to check on x, y, and z. I might have a speaking gig. Let me just get back to you. I'll get back to you by next week on that, you know. So then we can see the follow-up. Super important, train your VA to handle the details and the logistics, so when they see a JV recap email in your inbox, they know exactly what to do. Empower them to gather the copy, it's called swipe copy, the affiliate links to send all that to your partners, empower them to do that, and have all the organization and the links, and signing them up to be affiliates, right? Like some of you are like, my lord,

There's a whole checklist for this, and one add on in there is when it's a speaking one, I actually send the calendar invite, so they get it, and make sure that they've accepted that, so that I know it's in the calendar. It's so easy for people to say yes, yes, yes on a call, and two months, three months later, they've forgotten about it, and it's totally.. it's happened many times. And now I get that calendar invite out for that, and I've seen people do that for the email things too. They send out the calendar invites for when, when you're going to send your email, so it's in your calendar.

Yes, yeah, we do a launch calendar, and we give them the option, it's like an ad calendar on the launch page that they can click it, and then it would go right into their calendar if they want that. So then I'm not just like, you know, because it's a lot of.. we run a launch for about three weeks with, you know, three different assets, between the lead magnet, the masterclass, and the event. So, some people want all those dates on their calendar, and other people get really pissed off. But for a speaking gig, absolutely, or a podcast interview, there's a date, there's a time you need them to show up, you're providing the audience. For them, the last thing you want is like you have all the people there and the speaker doesn't show up, like, oh my god, okay, so yeah, all of those logistics you want your EA, your VA, some kind of A, that's not you understand

the system yourself, because you've got to make sure that it's being followed by your team or your tools, right?

Yes,

Understand it, map it all out, draw it all out, so that you know what's going on. Have those checklists in place, so that you can check in and make sure that it's working the way you want it to work. And the follow-up, I big reminder for sending out reminders to your partners, because they forget they're in their own world, they don't live in your world, they need reminders, and you know there's a nice way to word them. I love having somebody else send them, like if you have somebody that's helping you with your joint ventures, maybe it's your VA, or maybe it's somebody like you do that for some other people too, right? It comes across very professional, and it's not like you're pushing them and saying, hey, you didn't send your email yet, right? Right, you just send it's coming from somebody on the team, just an update. Here's a leaderboard, here's where we're at, here's the reminder of the swipe copy. Don't forget, this is a collaborative marketing program, and

Yes,

And they get that reminder, and we do find that, you know, stuff goes to spam, so the odd time when you, you're measuring and you're seeing what's working and what's not, they might need a little DM or a text message too.

Yes, yes, and the more advanced you get with this whole game, you know, essentially you're going to have, you know, anywhere from 20 to over 100 partners all mailing out at the same time. Okay, most of my launches these days are close to 100 partners, so the systems behind the scenes need to be tight, and so if you're overwhelmed and don't know where to start with the systems, after you opt in for the free gift, the downloadable deal flow method on my thank you page, you can actually book a one on one speaker breakthrough session with me, and I help people dive into their affiliate systems, the back end, the organization, you know, your affiliate funnel. If any of this is just like, okay, I want to do partnership marketing, this all sounds great, but you lost me at logistics, I know it's a lot.

No, it's a lot. And I've been in this world for six years now, and when I first started, I didn't know, you know, what was going on. People talked about JVs, and I'm like, no, I think I know what that is, but I didn't know all the systems you needed to have to make that work. Yes, I wasn't like I would come into those calls and be that person that you would be saying, oh, she's not really JV ready, and I wasn't right, but right, we are more ready now. We have the systems in place, but it's a journey, you're not going to have them all to start. And sometimes the first way to JV is to do some podcast swaps, you know, it's a great way to start building those relationships and sharing audiences immediately, and it will grow from there. People start asking you, and then you get the stuff in place you need, and you have a call with Shannon. You come to a grand connection, you watch some of our recordings on this, you listen to our podcast, and in a year's time, you're going to look back and say, "Oh my god, I've come so far.

Yes, yes, yeah

That's that's the journey, right? It's a grand journey, and we're all learning all the time. You know. I love it. I love the framework. It doesn't stop after the conversation. You got you got the whole follow-up, you got recaps that you do, logistics, you're got your tracking results that will happen during, during the actual partnership when it's rolling out. So, what systems or habits help partnerships continue growing over time? Are there any missing pieces we've forgotten to talk about here?

Well, you know, you want to make sure that your back-end systems are really dialed, like we've been talking about. Okay, you mentioned a very important word: metrics. Metrics, okay? So, you have to have affiliate links in a CRM after the launch is over. I have actually, I call it an innovation flywheel. Okay, so there's before the launch, I'm having connection calls and I'm lining up affiliates and partners to promote. Okay, then we do the launch, right? So I'm communicating with them and I'm letting them know their stats and their opt-ins, and way to go, leaderboards, all that. Then, after we complete the launch, it's super important to track the stats, the metrics. Okay, and you know, earlier in my business development journey, like, I wasn't the stats and numbers and metrics, it wasn't that sexy to me. It was kind of boring. Well, guess what, my friend? Now it's very sexy. Okay, the data is so sexy because it's so different oftentimes than what I think worked or didn't work. I see the numbers, I was like, oh wow, you can see which partners performed really. Out, which ones didn't go so well, which speaking gigs converted, what didn't, what to do again, and what to bless and release, or maybe there was one partner that didn't really, it didn't really go so well. Have a debrief call, maybe you really, you vibed with them in the connection call. So, like, okay, what happened? Well, I got sick, and I was only able to mail out once, and I really wanted to mail out at least three times. I'm so sorry. Okay, those things happen, and it's fine, but having like circling back and having a conversation on like what actually happened, and that's why you're going to need the stats and the metrics, and so once you have that data, then you go into the optimized phase of like what you're going to do again, what you're going to release. Okay, and so one of the practices, going back to your question, Susan, with like what systems and habits, so that's

like the backend systems, but then also you always want to be bringing in new partners, so going to events where you're networking for joint ventures and collaborations and partnerships. I really love going to JV specific events, like partnership specific events, because then everyone is focused on deal making, and like they're JV ready, and you know they're at least in the conversation, versus if it's just sort of like a general business mastermind or something, you're meeting friends and you're making, you know, meeting good people, and that's fine. You can still take them to a connection call and all the things, but when it's a joint venture partnership type event, specifically like that, really, you know, you could walk away with 30 or 40 collaboration calls, you know, and partnerships just from that, so you always want to be bringing in new partners and then optimizing the existing ones, and then my final tip with that is cultivate the existing relationships, don't just focus on new people, new people, right, you still have the existing people, you want to cultivate those relationships, so one of the things that we're doing these days in my, in my partner, in my launches is like we're sending out birthdays to our top 20 affiliate partners. I have all those stats, I have all those metrics, right? So we send out a nice little birthday gift, you know, thinking of you, and thanks for being, thanks for being a great partner. We appreciate you, you know. So, again, those are kind of the extra bells and the whistles, you know. And I wanted to give different tips for, like, whether you're just getting started or you're more advanced, hopefully you're getting a couple little nuggets to take things to the next level.

Oh my gosh, this has been a great conversation. Once again, let's tell everybody where they can get the tell them about the gift.

Yes, okay, yep. The free gift is the $100,000 deal flow method. That's going to the link is going to be in the show notes, so you're going to want to download that, print it, put it on your office wall, so you have a little cheat sheet during the connection call, of like, okay, wait, what did she say again? What am I doing? I'm assessing. How am I getting speaking gigs? It's going to be all right here on the deal flow method sheet for you.

And share your website.

And then my website is www dot big impact hq.com

And how do people find you on LinkedIn?

Go to LinkedIn, and I'm actually Shannon Law Granger with my maiden name, Shannon Law Granger, on LinkedIn and on Facebook, but LinkedIn is probably the best place to reach me.

Well, I want to thank you for this amazing episode, part two. I have learned so much, and I know all of our listeners have learned a lot too. Have your one on one with Shannon, if you're thinking about starting to do some JVs and want to get some help on that area. She's a great person to talk to. The biggest takeaways from this conversation is that successful collaborations rarely happen by accident. They're built through trust, clarity, follow-up, alignment, and genuine care for creating mutual success. And before we wrap up, let's leave everyone with one simple action they can take away today. Think about one collaboration opportunity you've been meaning to follow up on, and take that next step. Send a message, book a call, and continue the conversation. Momentum often begins with one intentional action, and if you are looking for a heart-centered community where collaboration and relationship building are part of everyday business growth. We'd love to welcome you into the Grand Connection. Grab your guest pass at Grand connection.ca and also grab your Grand Growth bundle at Grand connection.ca forward slash gifts. And don't forget to grab Shannon's gift to begin applying the deal flow framework in your own business and networking opportunities. Until next time, keep connecting, keep creating, and keep collaborating, and keep being part of something grand.