How to Make Every Collaboration Run Smoothly From Start to Finish

Running a collaboration can feel like juggling a hundred moving pieces. Whether you're hosting a summit, joining a bundle, or planning a joint venture, staying organized can be the difference between a smooth experience and total chaos. In this episode, I'm joined by an incredible panel of creators who have collectively participated in and hosted countless successful collaborations. You’ll hear from Kara Laws, Anna Crosby, Rachel Mohl, and Liz Stapleton, about the systems, tools, and habits that help collaborations run smoothly, what to do when things go off track, and the practical lessons we've all learned from hosting and participating in dozens of collaborative events.

Here’s what we get into:

• The systems we use to stay organized and keep collaboration deadlines from slipping through the cracks
• Why clear communication is one of the most important collaboration skills
• Practical ways to reuse your bios, promotional emails, applications, and collaboration assets so you're not starting from scratch every time
• How to set clear expectations with contributors and hosts to reduce confusion, improve participation, and create a better experience for everyone involved
• How tracking your collaboration results, learning from every event, and making small improvements each time leads to stronger partnerships and better outcomes
• The mindset shift that will help you stop overthinking collaborations and start taking action, even if your first few experiences aren't perfect

Remember that every collaboration teaches you something new, helps you build stronger relationships, and gets easier with experience. Don’t forget to connect with these amazing creators through the links below! If you found this episode helpful, please take a moment to give it a like and leave a rating. I’ll see you next time! 

Guest Links:
Anna Crosby: https://genicollective.com/

Kara Laws: https://launchedacademy.com/
https://www.instagram.com/launchedacademy

Liz Stapleton: https://elizabethstapleton.com/
https://www.instagram.com/creatoropshub/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/creatoropshub

Rachel Mohl: https://www.skool.com/@rachel-mohl-4361

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. So you want to run a collaboration, or maybe you have been invited to participate in one and you're feeling stressed about it, right? There's so many things that can go wrong. Heck, Mercury could be in retrograde, and technology can stop working. It's a thing. Seriously, every time AWS crashes, Mercury is in retrograde. So let's talk about how we can avoid tech fails and being disorganized and all the other bazillion things that can go wrong, from sending the wrong link to showing up at the wrong time. Alright, y'all. So let's go around the room and just share to kick things off. What's one thing that you do to ensure that every collaboration you're a part of runs smoothly? Anna, how about you start us off?

Anna Crosby 1:28

Absolutely. Oh gosh. Uh so the very first thing that I do is I put all of the dates on my content calendar. So I am an email marketer, I email is my primary channel. So I have a content calendar with all of the emails I'm sending. That's the first place that everything goes on. As soon as I know the dates, they are on there. And uh because without that, you get wired in the details, you get, you know, busy with your everyday emails, and then those deadlines can really sneak up on you, and then you realize, oh crap, I'm supposed to send a solo email about this bundle, or I'm supposed to tell my people about the summit, and it's tomorrow, and then you scramble. So I like to avoid that. So everything goes on my content calendar right near my most important piece of content that I produce.

Nadalie Bardo 2:14

I love that. Add it to a calendar. Rachel, what you got as your number one way to ensure collaborations run smoothly.

Rachel Mohl 2:24

Yeah, so I um so I used to use Google Sheets, but I recently discovered Airtable and absolutely love it. Um I really like that I can add like all the details of each of the collabs, but then there's also like a calendar view and a Kanban view, and it's really nice because you can really see them. Um and then also I can connect it to shareables and send it in my emails when they're live.

Nadalie Bardo 2:51

Love that. Okay. You said Airtable and my mind thought Liz Stapleton.

Liz Stapleton 2:56

Yes. I was like hand clapping over here. Um, so yeah, I absolutely do use Airtable to help me stay organized, whether I'm the host or participating. So when I'm participating, I have an Airtable base that I call my visibility ops hub, where I log everything I've applied to, everything I'm accepted to. Basically, anything that's in the application gets put into the Airtable record. So I'm not wondering what did I submit? Or what was the description I used in? Plus, then it's easy to reuse things later. Um, and so everything gets logged in there, including like what the promo requirements are gonna be, when is the deadline that I'm gonna find out if I got accepted or not, and so on. And so I utilize that when I'm planning out my monthly emails, which is primarily how I promote. I'm I'm slowly, slowly, slowly getting better at social, but um emails where I primarily promote. And so I go in and I plan out my emails for the month and all the promotions I need to do. And I do do, you know, um, I think I don't quite do it the same way she does, but it's a really well-known that Damas four by four footers, if you guys have heard of those. Um, and so I have Airtable dynamically up with kit MCP and I think it's codex, dynamically update my footers so that it's always showing whatever is live um at the time when my emails go out.

Nadalie Bardo 4:09

I I would like to I would like to introduce y'all to the wonderful KM Laws of launched a you are a sponsor of my bundle and you're incredible.

Kara Laws 4:23

Thank you. Okay, so my number one is that I don't have final approval of anything because nobody finds your mistakes like other people. And you think that you did it right, and you're sure that you put the link in, and you read it a thousand times, so you can't see typos anymore. So I do not have final approval. I have to send it to my team, or when I didn't have a team, I was like, dear husband or mother dear or somebody else read this and click all the things and do the process because when we created it, it's really hard to find our own mistakes, and everyone else is like, that's not even a sentence.

Nadalie Bardo 5:01

I can't see typos. I literally can't. I can't see them. Like, unless I have this is why I need like grammarly to be like highlighting things and like I need it to like pop up and be like, girl, fix your mistake. Because I I just can't see them. And I need to work on that, but these are really great tips. Does anyone have anything else to add when it comes to like I would love to know if you have like do you check in? Because I think you know, we all mentioned um the importance of having the calendar. Do you have it send you notifications? Is it part of your weekly routine to be like, okay, what's on the docket for this week? I'm just curious as to how you're using those calendars to keep you on track.

Liz Stapleton 5:55

So I have a morning debrief that AI pulls together for me that tells me things like if there's any customer support tickets that I need to take care of and any events ongoing that I'm part of. Like chances are I've scheduled my promo, but I can go and just make sure everything's working and, you know, check that stuff's going well and if I'm gonna like do a social post or something, because that's usually more off the fly for me. Um so yeah, I kind of have all the different calendars from all my air table bases and all the things going on put into a report each day so that I can see what's going on and check in and make sure everything's going smoothly.

Nadalie Bardo 6:27

Okay, I know we're just at the start, but Liz, I feel like this is where you should tell us a little bit about you because when it comes to Airtable and just being on top of stuff, I think of you. So introduce yourself.

Liz Stapleton 6:42

Uh sure. So I'm Liz Stebleton and I run multiple brands, but I think the main one in terms of collaboration that I'm known for is my creator Opsub, formerly brought blogger Breakthrough, where I ran a summit with 50 plus speakers every year solo by myself. Um, I'm still solo. I don't want to manage a team. I'll, you know, managing AI is plenty for me. Um, but yeah, so I focus on systems and organization and automation because I am digitally disorganized, thank goodness for automations. That's how I stay on top of things uh and building out new systems. So that's really kind of where I focus.

Nadalie Bardo 7:13

Yes, you are so excellent at it. So connect with Liz if y'all need help with that. Okay, um what about the rest of you? How are you using this calendar? Because I think some people listening might be like, yeah, I wrote it down, but I still forget. Or I'm worried something will fall through the cracks.

Anna Crosby 7:36

So one of the things that I've learned is that some people are airtable people and I am a Notion person. And I feel like those are two very different types of brain things. Um, so I could definitely talk about uh what I have built. I've built a dashboard in Notion that pulls um like all of the information from different databases across my Notion workspace on one page. And it's the one page that always stays open. I'm looking at it every single day uh and throughout the day to keep track of what I need to be doing. It pops up any deadlines, it tells me what the next content that I need to create is. And actually, Kara, um, I was really interested to hear that you hand off the checking to somebody else. Um, I feel like I'm gonna have to do that because I also cannot catch my own mistakes because I think obviously I am perfect and I did everything correctly, right? You do! You are perfection. And then when I get the email in my inbox, I'm like, wait a minute, that's not right. So, yes, I think I will definitely think about who I can volunteel to help this. But yeah, my my whole thing is uh being able to see everything in one go. That's how my brain works best. Um, and I've that's why I kind of settled on Notion. I've tried uh other tools, um, and it's not to say that the tool is everything, but for me being able to see what content is going out every single day. Um I don't usually email every single day. I email mostly three times a week, but I like to prep them ahead in advance. I don't like to panic right on the same day that they're going out. That's how those mistakes usually happen. Um, but yeah, I look at it every single day and just make sure that the content that is going out later this week is content that I've already um scheduled, set up, double checked as best to my ability. Maybe at some point in the future I'll have somebody do that for me, but that's how I do it.

Nadalie Bardo 9:45

Yeah. It's funny though, like for myself, I'm not a see the full picture everyday type of person. I've noticed that maybe it's a flaw, maybe it's a superpower, I don't know. But like I say I can only care about two things at once. And as long as I I do, of course, know big picture things that are coming down the line, but like if I'm, for example, working on my bundle, I'm working on my bundle. If I'm working on my podcast launch, I'm working on my podcast launch, and I have my list of tasks for that thing, and I just I can't I can't even I it's like the other stuff doesn't even exist. But fatal flaw, perhaps.

Anna Crosby 10:31

I don't think so. I wish I had that. I wish I could only focus on one or two things at a time, but yeah, that's stuff that does not happen. My brain just doesn't work that way, so you know, have to try and deal with it. Yeah.

Kara Laws 10:46

And I use my Google Calendar a little bit differently. Like I live and die by my calendar, but when I'm doing a collaboration, we have a collaboration calendar that we invite everyone to. So all of my deadlines and all the times I need their stuff, you know, because nobody gives it to you. That's half the job, is like, I still need your headshot. And all of that goes on to their calendar as well. And I really like that because the people who are calendar people twitch a little bit because it's on their calendar and they remember to do it. So, like, I don't use it to track my stuff as well. Like, I know that it's there, but I use it to help reinforce that y'all have to give me your crap. And then that works out just a little bit better for like, you know, a quarter of the people.

Nadalie Bardo 11:26

Yeah, I feel like I remember doing that for when I would host my summit. Like, there's the reminder that this is the day your video is due. And then Google Calendar would block me though, because they were like, you are inviting too many people to these calendar events. And I would do that for my joint webinars. Like, Liz, you've probably gotten that email from me once where it's like, send testimonial to Nadalie. Like, this is the link to the form, like the the event link is the like form that I need to like fill out with the details.

Liz Stapleton 12:00

Do you I mean I because I'm not a calendar person. Like, I if there's like more than three things on my calendar for a day, I'm like, um, and I mean like they could be like hours apart. Like, I'm just not a calendar person. And so I always do reminder emails that I automate. And so I'm just curious if you guys have found one works better than the other.

Nadalie Bardo 12:18

Like you email yourself?

Liz Stapleton 12:20

No, I automate following up with people of like you haven't submitted this. Uh yes. And it sends them an email as opposed or I do a hey, just a reminder, sessions are due in a week. Or hey, reminder, you have we haven't received your recession, it's due tomorrow. Like those emails get automated because I'm not a calendar person, so I never really think to like I think I've tried a calendar like once, but I was like, I don't even look at it, so I don't how can I expect them to?

Kara Laws 12:47

I do a lot on your own. And then the emails too, because you're gonna miss people no matter which system you try, because then you have calendar people and not calendar people, and email people, and other people who didn't check their email for 17 days. And so, like, I gotta do both.

Nadalie Bardo 13:06

I have a question. Are you raise your hand if you're a zero inbox person? Or do you have like a Okay, never mind?

Liz Stapleton 13:16

I don't see anything. I mean you can take a zero unread zero. Yes, I guess.

Nadalie Bardo 13:22

Unred zero.

Liz Stapleton 13:22

That's that's regular. Yeah. Okay. But like clear out. I only actually go through and do the responding maybe once or twice a week, though. Um, I like set aside like one day a week where I really sit down and respond to everything. Because I've got, again, I've got all these automations that are like, okay, I know that needs a response or that doesn't, you know, and I can look at it my own time. Um, I use the Google Workspace studio for flows that will like route your emails so that you know what you have to deal with.

Nadalie Bardo 13:51

Yeah, I'm a fan of I use Mac mail and I just have all my email addresses in there. And there's a lot of automations. If like this word is in the email, it goes into this folder and it just clears out uh the inbox a little bit. And I always have that one folder that's just like collaborations. So anytime I'm like, wait, I have that event. What's what was that email again? I just go to that folder because I know all the details are in there.

Liz Stapleton 14:19

Yeah, Mac is pretty good. It's awesome.

Anna Crosby 14:22

Yeah, I'm a huge fan. Yeah, my email software allows me to create a permalink to an email. So whenever I get an email from one of you wonderful people hosting bundles and summits, um, I will create a permalink and put it on my Notion dashboard with the rest of the information for the event. So that way I don't have to hunt for the email because my inbox is a black hole. I hate going in there. I know this sounds really weird because I I'm an email person and I love talking to people with email, like through email, but I don't enjoy checking my email and sorting it and figuring out what things go where. Um, so yeah, that's how I do it. I set up uh permalinks.

Nadalie Bardo 15:04

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. Anna, you're in tell us a little bit about you, more about what you do.

Anna Crosby 15:49

Yeah, sure. So um I am Anna Crosby. I'm an email marketing strategist. I help people create connection and community with email. So um I teach people how to uh break away from a newsletter-based email marketing model um and instead focus on having conversations. So uh that's kind of my big thing. I love talking to people in email, like I said, um, just not checking my personal email, which feels weird. But anyway, so that's that's what I do.

Nadalie Bardo 16:21

Yeah. I love that. And do not reach out to Anna asking for inbox organization tips.

Anna Crosby 16:28

Yes, do not. If you need help writing your marketing emails, if you need help getting people to respond to your marketing emails, definitely reach out to me. But don't ask me how to organize your personal inbox. No. Yeah.

Nadalie Bardo 16:43

This is so let's transition to this question, which I think is perfectly kind of on the flip side of things, you know. Um, if a collaboration starts feeling messy, behind schedule or unbalanced, what's the best way to get it back on track? And I would just add, like, what do you do when you, oh my gosh, I'm so behind? Like, this session is due tomorrow, or I should have sent those emails a week ago. How do y'all handle that?

Kara Laws 17:16

Um, I'm not backtracking. So, like, if I needed to send that a week ago and it didn't get said a week ago, I'm not sending it. Like, I'm not gonna. If I realize I'm in trouble and we haven't done everything right and things are crazy, I'm starting with where I am and creating the timeline from there. I can't worry about the things that didn't happen because they already didn't happen. And so we have to just move forward. So I kind of recreate my timeline moving forward. What can I do today? What does it look like next week? Those things moving forward instead of trying to do everything. It's like, okay, well, I have four weeks left or three weeks left, or whatever it is. What can I do with this?

Nadalie Bardo 17:51

Yeah.

Liz Stapleton 17:53

I would just add uh a kind of same approach, right? If I I've missed it, I've missed it. But anything that doesn't go wrong or any kind of hiccup I run into, I make a note of it so that I can plan out better or anticipate for it next time or create better. A lot of times it's I need to create better speaker informations where I mentioned this or I mentioned that. I'm like, you know what? No background music. I need to make a note of that because that was super annoying to have to deal with, you know, whatever the case may be. So anything that's like caused me some friction or that I missed, I make a note and so that I can kind of figure out a way to automate it next time is probably what I'll do.

Nadalie Bardo 18:32

Yeah.

Rachel Mohl 18:32

Rachel, what do you do if things are like I have a part-time career, so I kind of freak out about deadlines, so I won't do something unless I know for sure I can get it done way ahead of time. Um, like I was just in a summit a couple months ago, and I think I was the first one by a month that had their presentation done. Just because I don't want to be that person that's way behind. Um But with that said, I focused in on a project yesterday and forgot to send an email. So just send to it today. Um, and then yeah, just make a note of it.

Nadalie Bardo 19:10

Yeah, like sometimes I I was wondering, like, for myself, based on what you said, Kara, about like the past is the past. Um I think sometimes I'll just I'll I'm more like Rachel, where I'm just I'm just gonna send it now. Like it's not the ideal time. Like, sure, I should have been promoting this thing three weeks ago, but hey, we're here now. It's just going out now. And like whether or not that's when I'm supposed to send emails or not. Um, I think I've just like for this one brand of mine, I'm like, I'm just whenever I feel like sending the email, that's when I'm gonna send the email, or it's just like never gonna be sent because I'm realizing myself is like not sticking to the schedule. So right now the schedule is not to have a schedule. So yeah, like I just hits just just do the best you can. Because at the end of the day, that's literally all we're doing. Is like we are just duct taping and like fueled by coffee and just trying to do the best we can. And I think, you know, most of us don't have like a huge team. Like maybe some of us have gotten to the point where we got like the AI's bots on our side, but it's okay if you're not there yet, you know? Uh yeah. I think, you know, um, based on all of what everyone is saying, it's like just use the tech that you have. You can like if your tech is a literal notebook, because y'all, this is my go-to. Something just it it feels so right to just like cross things out, and I just can't get that feeling with technology. Um, and that's my system. And like I wake up, I write down the few things I'm gonna do, I do them, and that's it. So just do you. And Anna, you want to say something?

Anna Crosby 21:06

I do because I also want to say that we've we're forgetting that we're all humans and we can just communicate to each other. So it's something like I've uh was in a bundle, I think like that was supposed to have already happened, but the host had some life problems or health issues, and they just reached out and said, Hey, here's what's going on, here's why I haven't been in touch. And it was totally fine. Like it was, you know, nobody that I'm aware of was upset, you know, that deadlines moved back for or moved back. In fact, I was actually relieved that the deadline has moved back because I wasn't sure what was going on. So yeah, I feel like even if you're a host or a participant, if something went wrong, you dropped a ball, I feel just reaching out to the other person and saying, hey, this is what happened. This is, you know, what my plan is to go forward. Is that okay? Is that not okay? Um, what can we do from there? I think that's one of the un most underrated uh strategies. Like it's not even like a strategy, but it's uh this underrated thing that we don't like think about sometimes. But um, like that's that's what I always fall back on is to just just communicate.

Nadalie Bardo 22:27

Yeah, let people know what's happening. I think, like, yeah, agree with you. Communication is huge. What's not good is just ghosting people and leaving people to wonder, like, what's going on? Like, hi, uh, I like I don't have your stuff. Like, what's like just don't leave people hanging. I think it doesn't matter like what the situation is, whether you're a host, whether you're a participant, like if you need more time, just ask for more time. If you're unclear about something, ask for clarity. You know, just I think it's okay to ask questions, to update people, and to be real as hell about like what's going on. And yeah, like I think we're all just humans trying to make it through. And collaboration is about us doing this together. So we can't have collaboration without communication. It just doesn't work at all.

Liz Stapleton 23:29

Someone throw that on a sticker.

Nadalie Bardo 23:31

It just doesn't work, you know? Yeah. Um, I love this, also love this question. How do you keep everyone on track when there are deadlines, deliverables, and multiple people involved? When there's so many cooks in the kitchen. And yeah, we have talked about a few things, right? Like the email reminders. Liz is a pro at using her air table to automate the reminders for everyone who hasn't submitted materials. You know, like for me, I'm all about just the communication. And like, like right now, the bundle, when we're recording this, the bundle has wrapped, and I want the data. So I'm gonna keep following up and following up in different ways. So, you know, like the first two times, it was an email blast to all the contributors. My next move is gonna be a solo email to everyone where I'm like, hey, I saw you got this many clicks. How many signups did you get? Just hit reply. Thank you, love ya. That's gonna be my next one. Yeah, and I think it's just gonna be like the communication, providing all the details, all the deadlines. I love like my thing for if you're in anything with me, the bottom of the email, you are gonna have the timeline. This is happening this day, this is happening this day, you are here. And I just think like reminding people next time I'm gonna make it a calendar they can subscribe to you.

Liz Stapleton 25:03

I think on top of the like these are the dates, which I think is always great. And I add those two, and I think I kind of picked that up from you, was I've started adding, here's everything you've submitted. So you're not, I'm not getting the what link did I submit, or what did I say was my CTA? I either like literally have it all spelled out there, or I have a link where they can view everything they've submitted so that, you know, they don't have to go digging for the copy, or I'll yeah, for a while I was like, you received a copy of your application, here's a subject line, like you can find it that way, you know? Um, but I've been upgraded since to be like, here's everything you've submitted, um, so that you're not asking me questions about it because that's just a waste of both of our time.

Kara Laws 25:44

Yeah. I think that's super smart. I love bundles where they can show me what I've done because I'm busy and forgetful. And so if I don't, I don't want to have to ask them. So if I can just click in and know what it is, and then your timeline at the bottom of your emails where you're like crossed at what we've done, and you're like, you guys are here. Thank you. Thank you, because we know what's happening next. And so that communication, being able to click into things and know where I'm at, or if things worked and check my link, all of that is so good to help keep everybody on track, like just having your own crap together so you don't have to answer all of the questions and people can find it for themselves, I think is really important.

Nadalie Bardo 26:27

Yeah, and I would just say, like, don't hide the link. Like, I was recently in uh something and it's like they're like, submit your thing, submit your thing. And I'm like, Where? Like, I shouldn't have to scroll through a whole group to find a Google Doc, to then scroll to the bottom of that Google Doc to find a link to the link. Like, I'm like, just make it a button, like put it in my front of my face. Like, I think we can make it super hard on people and hard on ourselves. You know? Am I the only one that happens to?

Anna Crosby 27:06

Or I'm like, where is the link? Definitely not the only one. And um, I've been seeing a trend where bundle hosts have like a hub for the bundle or the summit that has like all of the information. And bless you, all of you Airtable savvy people, because the ones that use Airtable, you can literally just select your name from a drop-down, and then all of the information that you've submitted, all of your links, like all of your affiliate links just show up in like a little filtered view for you. Um, I don't know how to set that up because I don't know how to use Airtable, but if you guys know how to use Airtable, I know it's possible in that. And that's just such a big help for me as a participant, because even like even though I do have my own notion page for every event I participate in, sometimes I forget to paste the information, or I'm like, oh, I'll paste it later. And you know how that goes. Later never happens, and I forget about it. So having that hub link and I can just look up all my stuff. Oh, that's great. That's the best.

Liz Stapleton 28:10

It's also why I so appreciate if they send me a copy of my application. Like, oh, like it's such a simple thing to set up on the back end when you're the host. But as a contributor myself to stuff, like it's so helpful because sometimes I do for like I get distracted and I forgot to copy, you know, like make note of everything I put in. So helpful.

Anna Crosby 28:28

Yes, absolutely. I know that you did that, Liz, and I always appreciate that about your events. Yeah, love that.

Nadalie Bardo 28:35

Just give the people the information. You keep a copy of your information, I think. Information, communication, clarity, these are the things that are going to help any collaboration run smoothly. I love this question that was submitted. How do you reuse and repurpose collaboration content so you're not reinventing the wheel every time you're featured somewhere? Anyone have any good tips on this?

Anna Crosby 29:04

I absolutely do. I reuse my stuff everywhere. So the most obvious one to reuse is your bio, your links, all of those things. I used to type my name and my email address and my website link, and I don't do that anymore after I made a mistake in my own name one time, but with quiet typo. So I now have everything on a card that's linked everywhere that I can just copy and paste. I copy paste my name, copy paste my email address. That way I know there's almost no chance of typos or mistakes. Um and um, but yeah, I just keep track of everything like that, and I make sure that I have a reusable place. Um, for my bio, um, I have a main bio and then I have a part of the bio that I change depending on the event. So that's also really helpful because I don't have to think about what I want to say about myself from scratch every single time. And finally, the the thing that I reuse the most is my promotion email templates. So of course, every event is different, there's a different topic, uh, there's a different focus, maybe your submission is different, but the structure of how I talk, like how I introduce the promotion, how I introduce my specific product, is almost always the same. So I use those as templates and I store them. And then when I'm going to write my emails, I'm never writing them from scratch. That's something that I teach for all kinds of emails, is that should never be starting from scratch. It should always start from something that you've already written. Um, and if you are using AI tools, then that makes it even simpler because you can have a file with all of your summit and bundle promotion emails and have AI write new emails using your existing material already that sounds like you, that you don't have to edit a bunch of times and tweak until it doesn't sound like Chat GPT or whatever. Uh, and I feel like that's just um the biggest chance for reusing your own material is by just keeping it all in one place that you can access later.

Nadalie Bardo 31:18

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 paylet's collab.com for $27. Link in the show notes if you're ready to finally hit send on your pitches. I have a Google Doc that I have my bio, the variations of the bio. I have all of the descriptions for the common gifts that I give away for each brand. So I don't because I feel like for me on the forms, that's always the thing that trips me up. I'm like, what's the description for this thing again? Like I know the name. Um, and I'm like, I don't want to write a new description. So I just keep that stuff easily on hand. Photos, graphics, all of that. Um, Rachel, what about you? Because you are ahead of time, always getting things done early. So for the procrastinators in the room, help us.

Rachel Mohl 32:35

And you guys mentioned quite a bit, especially that headshot. I have my headshot on my desk desktop too, so you're not like trying to search through all your files and stuff. Um, another thing is a lot of people talk about landing pages. And um, I used to use like kit landing pages, but I actually found just using my sales page, I use Zilvi for it. Using my sales page and having a coupon embedded is so much faster. So I just use my sales page, that's already pretty.

Nadalie Bardo 33:07

Yeah. What was your the tool you said you used for sales pages?

Rachel Mohl 33:11

I use Zilvi. Um I wanted a drive car, but it didn't really work out. Okay.

unknown 33:17

Yeah.

Liz Stapleton 33:18

Zilvi was on an appsumo or something, right? Am I wrong?

Rachel Mohl 33:22

Yeah, it was on Appsimo and it still has a lifetime um deal, so I like the lifetime tech. Yeah, don't we have that?

Nadalie Bardo 33:32

As long as they keep lifing. Oh, sorry. I was just saying as long as they keep lifing, but carry on.

Kara Laws 33:38

I've gotten overboard. I hate filling out those applications to join a summit or anything like that. And so if there's any new question ever, I have a spreadsheet for every question I've ever been asked for any summit with the answer so I can copy and paste it in because I I hate it and it's such like a time suck. And then I only have six things that I give away in uh bundles and summits, and I just rotate through them so they're far enough apart. The one I did for this one is my Market Like You Matter course. And over the last like two years, I think we've brought in over a thousand subscribers just from that one thing. And I literally have nothing to do at this point. I just copy and paste in the information about Market Like You Matter and send it in, and it's a hundred percent ready to go every time.

Nadalie Bardo 34:26

Can I put you on the spot? Yes. How many signups have you gotten from?

Kara Laws 34:32

I know that I have not told you that yet because I'm not sure off the top of my head because it mixed with another bundle. But I think it's about 350-ish. I think that's about where it is, but I did not get to see the exact number. What's that? Are you happy you uh became a sponsor?

Nadalie Bardo 34:49

Awesome.

Kara Laws 34:50

Yeah, no, I think that's I think that's great. That's 30% almost from what from the total signups, right? You said you had about a thousand signups, is that right?

Nadalie Bardo 35:01

Oh no, I meant uh for the event it was two thousand four hundred. Uh but your I think your link got over a thousand clicks. Okay. Okay.

Kara Laws 35:13

See, so then I'd have to spend it. But if I and that's why that's why I need to redo it, is because I'm not a hundred percent sure what it is. That's almost twenty percent, that's 17%, which still is good. It's not amazing, but it's still good, uh, especially in a bundle as big as this one, that's not bad at all.

Nadalie Bardo 35:31

We still got time. We still got time, yeah. Yeah, um, but yeah, I love that. Like, I hate having to like redo anything. So if you are listening to this and you guys are like, how can I keep myself organized? Just have like a master doc of all the things. You know, when it comes to recycling training, for example, like I have two feelings about this. One, I recycle things all the time, but I try to make sure that if I'm recycling a training, that training isn't gonna pop up in like three other summits in a short amount of time. Because I feel like I don't know if what's up with the summit space lately, but I will go to a summit signup page and like maybe I'm not in it, maybe I am, and I'm seeing a lot of the same faces, and I'm seeing a lot of the exact same sessions, and that kind of irks me. Um, like I do think, yes, 100% we should be able to recycle and repurpose. But I do think, like, especially when it comes to trainings, like uh maybe not every single summit should be the exact same one. Uh, because then what's the point? So yeah, thoughts on this, anyone?

Liz Stapleton 36:49

So as a I yeah. Oh for it.

Anna Crosby 36:52

Oh, okay. Thanks, Liz. Um, I definitely think summits are different than bundles in that respect. I feel like bundles are kind of like more meaty resources that you have. So those take maybe a little bit more time to create. But summit presentations are only 20 minutes, and I've always gotten the best results from summits where I have tailored my presentations specifically to the focus of the summit, um, which doesn't mean that I don't reuse my ideas, right? Um, it's still my own work and everything, but it has a slightly different angle that I feel like I've gotten more responses and more engaged people on my session when I did take the extra time to, you know, tweak a little bit what this slide says and to kind of record a new training versus just kind of reuse a previous one. So just wanted to mention that from the side of participating in bundles. I do know that a lot of uh bundles and summits lately have started putting in, you know, this must not have appeared anywhere in the past six months, which I think is great because as somebody who also looks through bundles and summits uh as a participant, not necessarily if I'm contributing, uh, I like to see fresh things from the people that I really like. Um, and I try to give that same courtesy to my audience and other audiences from the people doing the collab event. Yeah. Sure.

Liz Stapleton 38:24

So I was gonna say, like, as a summit host, I absolutely want to see new sessions. And I think I've started putting in like, you can't have taught this in the same, like the exact same thing a month ago. You know, like that's just that's not useful. As someone who also presents, I will say I have reused presentations. But so for example, I actually did, I spoke at AI Unlocked, which was Jem Ubuntu Carter's and AI Exposed, which was Monica Fro's. Um, and I did the exact same topic, but because the AI changed so fast, the actual content ended up being different. So I've never just like recorded and then submitted that same recording for everything. I always end up recording fresh for the event. I might reuse slides. Chances are I'm gonna change a few things up. It's not ever gonna be exactly the same. I'm constantly learning. So if I learn a new tip, that's gonna go in the newer session. Um, but I ended up being because my workflow had completely changed between the two, even though the topic was the same and I was essentially showing the same thing. I was showing it with like an extra like layer, keeping in mind of like data privacy with AI and how I did that. So, you know, I'm I'm not opposed if you're doing something like that. And I always say, like, if you have a question or you're not sure about something, just reach out to me and we can talk about it and I can help you figure out if it's gonna be a fit. Um, but I definitely will reuse things. And it depends too on if I have time to come up with something new, right? So it depends on what's already on my calendar. How short of notice is this? Is this a friend that just like needs another speaker and I'm helping them out? Okay, well, I'm probably gonna like go reuse something. I have lots of things I can reuse. It doesn't have to be what I did, you know. Um, but it's just it kind of just depends, right? You gotta have time if you're gonna create something brand new. And so how far out is this person planning? I've been seeing people that are like, the summit's in two weeks. Do you want to participate? And I'm like, kudos to you. My anxiety cannot take that, but kudos to you. Um, so yeah, I I think it's you know, it's a fine line, it's a balance, and I it kind of is a it depends type of a thing. Never the exact same recording though.

Nadalie Bardo 40:30

Yeah, for sure.

Rachel Mohl 40:32

So I actually do brand new summit presentations for every single summit, except I will check with the hosts and then I will repurpose them into mini courses. Um, so then they become like a bite-sized course. So when I'm making the summit presentations, I think about how I'm gonna make it into a course later and then add in bonuses and stuff into the course.

Nadalie Bardo 40:54

I love that. Thinking ahead. I will say that, like, maybe for summits, let's not be recycling the exact same presentation, but there are different ways that you can reuse the same song and dance. So, for example, I have a master class that I pretty much have memorized from start to finish because I have hosted it so many times. But here's the thing: I'm doing it for different audiences, and typically only once a year. Sometimes it's longer than a year. Um, Liz knows this. We've done my song and dance for your audience, I think three times now. And of course, I within that year it is updated. So it's never the exact same webinar or master class, but you can take your show on the road and bring it to different audiences. I think the same can be said in many ways for podcasting. A lot of the times you have the same talking points, you're you've got the same message, and you're just bringing it to different audiences. You can do that in people's memberships, in people's communities. So I think there's definitely room for recycling. Um, if we talk about email swaps, right? You have the one freebie, maybe a couple freebies, and you're just bringing it to new. Oh, you want this? Awesome. Oh, hey, I got like you don't need to always redo. So I think it's good to also keep that in mind. I think we can maximize our energy um by repurposing our message. Yeah.

Anna Crosby 42:40

Anything to add, anyone? It's kind of an exercise in creativity, too. Um, I like I like summits that have a unique angle because then that makes me think, okay, well, how can I adapt this thing that I always talk about? You know, I talk about no newsletter email marketing. How can I talk about that with an audience that's focused on collaborations? How can I talk about that with an audience that's focused on workflow, right? Um, it's a different angle that keeps me thinking about what people need to hear and how they need to hear it. I feel like it makes me a better marketer thinking of all these different angles instead of just reusing the same thing to everyone. Yeah. I love that.

Liz Stapleton 43:25

Yeah. And I mean, people have to hear things multiple times before it sinks in, right? So you repeating yourself like you gotta do it.

Kara Laws 43:33

I think it's really easy to get stuck in a process of constantly recreating and starting from scratch and doing it again and again and again, trying to like appeal to every different audience. But if you like are standing really solidly in your brand and you know what you're selling, you really can attract the people in that audience who relate to what you're doing and who need what you have. And so I think it's I I Important not to just be a record that just keeps going, but also it's super duper important to make sure you're not just starting over again and again and again because so many entrepreneurs are just stuck because every time they get out there and start marketing, they're starting from ground zero every single time. And it's so hard to build a good audience. It's still hard to build your product and uh establish your brand when you're starting from ground zero every time. It's it's a great way to say stuff. So that's like a really basic thing to kind of just pay attention to.

Nadalie Bardo 44:35

Kara, can you tell us about you?

Kara Laws 44:38

Sure. Sure. Yeah. My name is Kara Laws. Uh I teach business foundations, how to make sure you have a really solid foundation for your business so that it can support you without making you completely crazy. I have started seven businesses. I've sold five of those. I still run two. And I've been a business owner for 20-something years. I've been teaching business education for eight. Um, we have clients coast to coast and in six different countries, and we just help make sure you're building like a business business and not like a product or a service, or just start it over again and again. That's our goal.

Nadalie Bardo 45:16

Or a hobby. That one doesn't make you money. I want you to make money. Love that. Love that. How do you set expectations so there are no surprises or disappointments later? And as someone who just hosted a bundle, was first time hosting this specific bundle. I definitely feel the pressure of this, where I don't want anyone to be disappointed. And I'm gonna do everything I can, like to make sure that everyone like walks away with a win. So, how do you all do that for your own collaborations? Whether we're talking about being the host or being the participant, you know, what's what's a way that you're making sure that everyone is winning?

Kara Laws 46:10

Yes. So so as a participant, um, I know my industry standards. So, like sometimes you go in there and you're like, oh my gosh, 2,000 people signed up for this bundle. Why didn't I get 2,000 people signing up for my own email list? Except you have to know what the industry standard is for the conversion rate, right? So I told you earlier that's like almost 20%. That's fine. That's like a really good average right there, especially for a bundle like the one we just did that has so many people in it. So if you know what the industry standard is for actually converting for whatever you're doing, that's gonna help so much as a contributor. Because then you can gauge, oh, I'm doing okay, or I'm doing really well. And sometimes what you think is a failure is actually really, really well statistically. You just didn't know the data.

Nadalie Bardo 46:59

I love that. Data, data, data. And I think a way that I like uh as the host of that bundle, I am gonna do my best to communicate to everyone on average how everyone is doing. Because we are all silos in a way. And it's like if you're just looking at your number, like you have no, there's no like benchmark there. You don't know like where on the curve you are, and like also not knowing perhaps why you aren't getting the conversion or the outcome that you may have expected. And like, I think me being the host, I'm taking that responsibility to figuring out why, for example, someone isn't getting that outcome. But yeah, I love that you mention the benchmark. And I think that's important for everything. Like, Anna, I'm sure you could speak on that about emails because I think you know, we can be like, oh my gosh, only three percent of the people opened and click or clicked on my link in my emails and we're like, that's the worst, right? Or, you know, like my sales page has a three, or I think I keep saying three, four percent conversion rate, or like, you know, it can feel so personal and like we suck at this, but then you know, you're you you Google and you see that like heck, like on average people are doing, I don't know, like 1.5% and it's just a numbers game. And I think when you realize it's just a numbers game, um, I think that makes me feel better. Liz?

Liz Stapleton 48:36

Um, I was just gonna say, like, first of all, to make sure no one's surprised, communication. I think we've really driven that home. Like, communicate. Um, and then another thing I like to do for my summits is at the end, I send out their data of like your session got this many unique views or this many impressions, and I include what the average was across the entire summit. So they can they can see, you know, where they lined up. Um, and I always get people being like, I've never had this sent to me. And I was like, it's not that hard. Um, and I think it's just getting easier and easier as data makes it easier to compile data or AI makes it easier to compile data. I can talk, I swear. It's Friday afternoon.

Nadalie Bardo 49:14

I love that advice. It's so good. I'm gonna steal that from you, Liz. The averages of how things are going. I'm definitely gonna send everyone. Yeah, like my leaderboard has a thing where it will compile for everybody, like both sides of it, how their promotion went and how the claiming is going, right? So I think there's like two sides of that. Um, and just having that information visible, like I had super fun creating a leaderboard, for example, that showed how things were going. Um, because yeah, I I just personally don't always want to have to log into like Thrivecart to like see what's going on. Um Liz can go on about that, but yeah. Um, Rachel, any thoughts on this? Expectations.

Rachel Mohl 50:06

Okay, so for expectations as a bundle host, setting up expectations from the start, like on your form. Um, one other thing that I found, I just hosted a bundle in May, and I had hosted about five bundles last year, and a lot of them were like seasonal bundles, so as long as you had something fall themed, you could be in. Whereas this one was like very focused on PLR, MM, MRR, um like party templates and stuff. And it was a lot easier to tell people like, hey, this does not apply. Um, can you please repres resubmit or I'm sorry, I can't include you. Whereas when it was like a vague topic, um, it was very difficult to tell people if it didn't apply. So be focused and be up front.

Nadalie Bardo 50:56

Yeah, a hundred percent. Like tell them. I think, yeah, like I I for myself, I'm always like, hey y'all, just a reminder. This is what you agreed to. One solo, one this, one that. Like, I think um even just reminding people, because hey, we're humans, we forget we don't all put all this stuff in our calendar or have AI making daily briefs for us, right? Like, we need to be reminded. And I think there's nothing wrong with reminding people. Um, hopefully not, because I do a lot of that. And yeah, I just agree, communications, being clear from day one, day zero, right? Like this is the application form. I think if anyone's sending pitches, uh be clear in that email what the big expectations are in terms of promotion, in terms of deliverables, in terms of dates. I shouldn't have to hit reply and say, hey, when is this? You know, I think just have the information in there, right? And have it everywhere. So it's not like, you know, at the bottom of a Facebook group in a Google Doc, at the bottom of a Google Doc at another link. Um, nobody wants to go on a scavenger hunt for clarity. It's unnecessary. We're all busy, right?

Liz Stapleton 52:23

Give me my link too, which you do this really well, Nadalie. I think I think everyone here does, but I've definitely I'm in something where I had to go hunt for it. And I was like, especially because it was in Thrive, the only place it was was in Thrivecart. And I was like, I gotta go find you on the page, which means finding you on page six, and then I have to go hunt through your products, which okay, at least you gave me that that I can, you know, control F on once I find your products page. But I was like, oh, like I can't stand it.

Nadalie Bardo 52:54

Yeah, I think just giving people the link. And for anyone who's listening and is like all about summits, for example, I am I'm kind of like pro no login pages. And that's just me. I'm like, if I'm hosting something, I don't want someone to have to log in. I don't want someone to have to like use a password. Like, this is just the link. The video is just gonna be there. The contributors, CTA is just gonna be there. I'm not gonna sneakily not use it and instead include my affiliate link because hey, I've had that happen at summits where my link is not there and they have inserted, you know, a link to something else. So I think just being clear, least amount of clicks possible, I think is also some good advice. Um, Rachel, can you tell us a little bit about you? You said you ran five bundles last year on various topics. Introduce yourself. Well, outro do yourself outrodo yourself at this point.

Rachel Mohl 53:58

Okay, so I feel like I might be the odd one out here. Um I kind of took a really long time to figure out what I wanted to do. So I started like with printables and then got into business courses and stuff. Um, but now I'm a PL art creator. Um, and I mostly do like mini books, um, party principles, templates and stuff, um, and then some games and some fun different templates that you might not see anywhere else.

Nadalie Bardo 54:28

I love that. We are a great bunch. So I hope everyone who has been listening has learned about communication, organization. I like to end these panels. If we could just quickly go around and maybe just a couple words of advice to someone who's, you know, thinking about doing collaboration and maybe just needs that little bit of encouragement. It could be your party line. No uh, no worries with that. But any advice? Final words?

Anna Crosby 55:06

I guess um, I'll go first. Uh, I have a lot of um, a lot of people in my audience who have maybe tried collaborations before and they have just kind of, you know, swung and missed, uh, or it didn't go well, or they didn't have a great experience, and it's just kind of when I talk to them about it, they're like, well, I tried that and it doesn't work. And it's like, well, maybe it worked two years ago, but it doesn't work now. But I think the fact that this podcast exists, that everybody is still continuing to run bundles and run summits. Um, I think my biggest advice is if you had a not so great experience, that it is really a numbers game, that you can find people who you really vibe with, you can find events that really fit your niche and what your products are, what your expertise is. You just have to keep trying and look for it. I don't think that you need to just rule them out as something that doesn't work because clearly it does. You just have to find the one that's right for you.

Liz Stapleton 56:09

Yeah, I love that. I can go next. So I'd say plan make a plan if you want to do a collaboration, but also set a deadline because you can plan until the cops come home, but you will learn so much more when you're actually in it, you know, and making those notes of like, oh, I wish I would have done this so that next time goes smoother. Um, and the other thing I would say is if, you know, it's not working out for you, one of the best little business pieces of advice I ever heard was don't write something off until you've tried it three times, right? Tried launching it three times or tried participating in three times, right? Like I've hosted a lot of events, but I've also been in a lot of events. And there are some that I will never go back to for various reasons, right? I've had bad experiences. That's just life. You're gonna get, you're gonna have some good ones, you're gonna have some bad ones. I'd say the vast majority have been good. I've primarily grown my business through collaborations. I don't tend to run ads. Um and so it can be a great way to grow. And I think it's just especially in this online space, so nice to have that community of people that you know that you meet. Like Nadalie and I, I don't even know how many times we've collaborated between you being in my summits, me being in your summits, you teaching your class, like, you know, it's just nice to like connect with people that get it. And so that alone, I think is worth giving it another go if you're having trouble.

Kara Laws 57:26

Yeah, I love that. My parting thoughts um are going to be that it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you do. And so you can keep learning this again and again and again and get stuck in this learning loop forever, but you're gonna learn the most when you implement it. And you probably know more than you think that you know. And endlessly learning isn't actually going to get you where you need to go. You need to start implementing. So start moving forward, start doing it. It's gonna be messy the first time and the second time and the third time, and it's gonna get better. And you're gonna learn something every time you do it. But if you just continue to learn and not implement, it doesn't really matter. So you gotta do it. Great advice.

Rachel Mohl 58:10

Hey, just show up. Um, try, keep trying, keep track of the bundles that do well, but really show up because then um people will start to recognize you, they'll start to recognize your products, your brand, and you might also get like other contributors and hosts and stuff that wanna do other collaborations and even like sharing affiliate links and stuff. So show up. Yes.

Nadalie Bardo 58:36

Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Anna Crosby, Rachel Mole, Liz Stapleton, and Kara Lawz. Thank you, thank you so much for showing up for saying yes, not only saying yes to the bundle, but saying yes to this podcast recording. I know I've gotten so much value out of it. I am going to definitely review the show notes and be like, okay, this is how I can do even better. And if you are listening to this and you are like, okay, I think I'm ready. I feel ready. You are ready. All right. And be sure to hit that subscribe button because collaborations are live and well. Moo, moo, moo. It's time. The cows are mooing or the cot calling home or whatever it is you said, Liz. And yeah, I just hope that this will be a resource that can help you to not only take action, but to get that growth in your audience, in your business, in your bottom line that you're looking forward to. So yeah, hit subscribe. And if you want to connect with any of our incredible panelists, their links are going to be where the links are. I think that's show notes or the blog posts that will go along with this. So thank you so much for tuning in. See y'all in the next episode. 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.