3 Ways Collaboration Can Grow Your Business

I’ve got a question for you,

Would you rather have a million dollars or a million friends?

Now before you answer it, let’s clarify what I mean by “friends.” Because I’m not talking about “people you like” or “people you hang out with.” I’m talking about true friends. 

My wife Elena gives a great definition:

“A true friend is someone who shares your core values, supports and defends you, and inspires you to realize your highest potential.”

So with that in mind…

Would you rather have a million dollars or a million friends?

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.

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Okay, answer time.

If you said “a million dollars,” then you'd better hurry up and read this letter before you ruin your career or your life. Because one of my biggest regrets in business and life… is that I didn’t realize which one was truly more important a lot sooner.

Never choose money over true friends. Because friends are far more valuable than the digits in your bank account. Honestly, I’d take a million friends over 10 million dollars…because a million friends can give you so much more value than a big stack of paper printed by the Federal Reserve.

You’ve probably heard me say this before: Other people have everything you want in life. You just have to convince them to share it with you. 

You want more money? People have it. You want more time? Other people have it and can give it to you. Want more resources? You can leverage resources from others. Literally, everything you need to achieve your dreams is out there, available from other people. The key is to reach out and collaborate with those people for everyone’s heightened success.

And this isn’t a dream world because I’ve done it myself.  I went from a nameless nobody in the early 2000s to Forbes #1 Marketing influencer, CEO of 16 companies, and manager of over $4 billion in real estate. I did it all through one big change in my business strategy: collaboration. If it weren’t for collaborating with others, I’d probably still be calling on random businesses around the country, pitching sales seminars. 

Look, collaboration is the new currency… because other people have everything you want.

Who you collaborate with will determine where you go in business. It will also determine how much you accomplish and how much wealth you accumulate. 

You know how mediocrity is contagious? Well, so is wealth. 

Collaboration isn’t just wildly effective. It’s also one of the easiest, cheapest, and fastest ways to start growing your brand, business, and wealth. This is especially true today with almost universal use of social media.

The power of collaboration is insane.

It’s even more insane if you don’t do it. So if you’re still on the fence about it, let me break down the 3 ways collaboration can 10X your business:

Way #1: Collaboration amplifies your message

As a business owner, you’ve got a message to share with the world that will improve lives. Your #1 obstacle to doing that isn’t your competition… it’s obscurity. If people don’t know you exist or what you can do for them, they’ll never buy from you.

So your job first and foremost is to get the word out to as many prospects as possible. Let them know about who you are, what you do, and how their life will be better with you in it. And the best way to do this (especially if you’re small) is through collaboration marketing.

Look, you don’t need to start from scratch to build a massive audience. You can leverage other people’s audience to grow your own with minimal cost and effort. Sometimes it costs nothing. All you have to do is get in front of people and provide value. 

My GrowthCon events are a great example. 

I don’t just host these events to bring thousands of 10Xrs together. Of course, that’s part of it. But think about it from my perspective. When I pay Steve Harvey hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak on my stage, all of Steve Harvey’s fans enter into my world. They know my name. I’m getting valuable exposure to a brand-new audience.  It’s the same with others I’ve brought onto the GrowthCon stage like:

• Kevin Hart
• Snoop Dogg
• Dana White
• Mike Tyson
• Megyn Kelly
• Donald Trump

I didn’t just bring them in to help me sell tickets. I brought them in so that all of their audiences would be introduced to me. The fact that each of them was coming on my stage is almost like a silent endorsement. It’s a sign of approval to their audience that I’m the real deal… that I’m worth their time and attention. Because each and every one of them wouldn’t come on stage or appear at my event if they didn’t think it was worth their time or if they thought it would hurt their status with their own audience.

Here’s another example. When I did Undercover Billionaire, they didn’t pay me anything for that show. I didn’t need to do it. Heck, I didn’t want to do it. But here’s what convinced me that I should… 

…Discovery Channel has an audience of 81 million people. Getting that level of exposure to 81 million people who may not know me was worth far more than Discovery could ever have paid me for it. That’s collaboration marketing.

If you invest in collaboration marketing, you’ll gain access to massive audiences that you didn’t have to “earn” on your own. Plus you’ll quickly start to grow your own organic audience as you get more and more exposure. 

As a result, you’ll get more customers. You’ll get increased brand awareness. And you’ll get an image of your company in the public eye that could be many times greater than it actually is. 

Now, I’m not saying that you try to deceive people. I’m saying that if you nail the marketing game, especially collaboration marketing, you could appear to be the biggest, most prominent, and trustworthy brand in your space… even if you’re a scrappy underdog.

Way #2: Collaboration multiples your time

As a business owner, collaboration is the best solution to not having enough hours in the day. I’m talking about hiring people into your organization to be the team you can rely on — you’re most trusted collaborators united by the same vision. When you collaborate with your team, you effectively multiply your time… and that can lead to multiplying your money. 

You’ve only got 24 hours to work with…right? 

But if you collaborate with 2 other people dedicated to your vision for the business, now you’ve got 72 hours a day to work with. You’ve just tripled your time, energy, and effort. And you’ve done it without working more hours a day yourself.

When I first tried making a name for myself, I was a one-man band. I’d go door-to-door calling on businesses. I’d tell them that I’d train their sales team to increase their revenue. While it did help me get started, when I look back, I have to admit I wasted so much time and energy. I ran myself ragged doing everything myself. And STILL, nobody knew who I was. 

Nobody knew Grant Cardone. Until…

I started growing my team to collaborate our efforts and increase my output. It took me a while to realize this, but hiring people doesn’t cost me any money. It MAKES me money. Because having highly engaged employees dedicated to growing the company effectively makes them my collaborators. It makes them almost like “mini-partners” in the business. Through them, I could multiply everything. 

I started alone. Until I got my core team around me. Now I have hundreds of employees. And the Grant Cardone brand is helping thousands of businesses a day… instead of helping just one at a time.

Way #3: Collaboration 10Xs your dreams

Remember when I mentioned earlier that “other people have everything you want in life.”?

Well, I didn’t realize how true it was and how far that could go until I started collaborating with other business people to partner in business opportunities. 

Once I got sufficiently well-known, I attracted like-minded business owners. They knew who I was, what I stood for, and the types of people I welcome into my world (remember collaboration marketing?). These power players approached me to join forces to take both of us to higher levels of success. This is how many of my companies were born.

Many times people ask me “How do you manage 16 businesses?”

Easy. I use collaboration.

And it goes beyond just the 16 businesses in my empire… because each of those businesses collaborate with other businesses or individuals to create enormous ripple effects that are truly immeasurable. Cardone Enterprises and the 10X movement have impacted so many lives and organizations. It’s not because I’m an incredible human being. It’s because I’ve partnered with incredible human beings and we work together to do amazing things.

Through these partnerships, I’m able to give back to the world in ways I only ever dreamed of. 

I partnered with Brandon Dawson on Cardone Ventures which helps thousands of business owners around the world to 10X their businesses.

I partnered with Gary Brecka on 10X Health Systems to optimize people's health and wellness.

The Grant Cardone Foundation partners with charities and philanthropists world-wide to help underserved people and communities. 

But here’s the thing. 

The more I accomplish, the bigger I dream. The bigger I dream, the more I hustle. The more I hustle, the greater my impact on the world becomes. And the greater impact I have on the world, the closer I get to my goal of helping 8 billion people on the planet to flourish personally, professionally, and financially.

None of that would be possible if I refused to collaborate with other people.

So if you’re a solopreneur, freelancer, or a small business owner, and you’re not doing everything you can to lean into collaboration, you’re killing your business. You will never get big alone. You’ll never serve as many people who need you if you stay small and siloed off. And if you choose to stay small, knowing you could be helping more people… that’s what I call unethical. 

Helping people is your duty and obligation as a business owner. So if you’re not doing everything you can to grow through collaboration, then I hope this issue gets you to think deeply about what you’ve been doing..

Of course, if you don’t know where to start with collaborating or want to improve, here’s a simple strategy you can start right now.

1. Commit to forcing you and your brand into the public eye to expand your network. 

Make the decision to multiply your impact in the world through others.

2. Choose what aspect of your business you’d like to focus on

• Grow your brand messaging with collaboration marketing…
• Grow and collaborate with your team to increase your time and productivity…
• Collaborate with business partners to 10X your impact across multiple businesses…

3. Identify the ideal people you would choose for a collaboration

Get clear on the type of person you’re looking for. Make a list of your ideal candidates.

4. Enter into their world and start getting attention

The opportunities to do this are practically limitless thanks to social media. Engage with their posts and their community. Reach out to them directly or to people close to them. Book yourself on their podcasts. Write about them and share it with them and their audience. 

Even a simple comment on something they post is a step in the right direction. The more you get in front of them, and others see you constantly in their world, the more collaboration starts to work.

5. Never stop

If your business isn’t growing, it’s dying. Don’t stop looking for opportunities to collaborate with others to grow your business and maximize your contribution to the world.

Remember: Collaboration is the new currency.

Heads up, if you're looking for more marketing tips to grow your business I'm hosting a 2-day ALL VIRTUAL INTERACTIVE event on October 21 & 22.

This is a brand new event where I'll be covering everything you need to know to start and scale a business to 7 figures.

You've got nothing to lose, but a whole lot you could gain. Hit the link below and grab a ticket.

SECURE YOUR SPOT NOW.

Be great,

Grant Cardone