Partner up and share the wealth

How I used strategic partnering to go from knocking on doors

and not getting paid...

to simply hanging out in a partner's store for $100 an hour.

Here's an example of how powerful partnering is...

I was once in a water filter business, because I believed water purity was one of the most important things for your health.

I had only just started.

They had a great system to get new leads that was very effective - it involved going around to people's houses and offering to test their water in their house.

But it was a bit annoying going to random strangers' houses, and I didn't enjoy walking around in the hot sun in Melbourne's sultry summer weather.

So what I did instead, was go down to the local health store, introduce myself to the owner, and offer to do in-store demonstrations of pure water versus unhealthy water to his customers.

What happened during the meeting

He was a bit stand-offish... not too keen on the whole idea...

...because he already sold other water filters in his stores, and didn't want me selling the same thing when he wasn't getting a commission from me.

So I asked how much commission he got by selling those other filters.

He said, "It varies, but the largest is 20%".

So I said, "I'll give you 20% commission as well from any water filters I sell to your customers."

Win-win situation.

He would get 20% of any profits I made from selling water filters to his customers - a similar profit he made from the water filters already sitting on his shelves, so from his point of view it was just like having another brand of water filter in his store.

Plus, he got an interactive display with a well-mannered entertaining sales dude standing in his store getting his customers involved in health products as a bonus.

Win-win situation.

How it worked

All I did was turn up on Saturday morning with a table and the water filter stuff, set up the filter with a glass of normal water and a glass of filtered water.

Our company had an electronic gadget that could magnetise the minerals and metals in the water so they would un-dissolve and float on top of the water - quite a dramatic presentation really.

So I would run this gadget on the normal water in front of the customers, and all these dirty metals and minerals would float to the top.

Then I'd run it on the filtered water, and of course, it stayed clean and fresh because the filter had already pulled out the metals and minerals.

And I simply chatted to customers, and showed them the glasses of water, and explained about the filters.

Customers would ask if they could bring in bottles of water from their homes for me to test - of course I said yes. Or they would make an appointment for me to visit their house to test their water and sell them a water filter.

I also ended up chatting about a huge range of things with different people - like health in general, diet, yoga, meditation, and so on...

I didn't care too much about making the sale -just enough to make it happen, but usually I just chatted along about life (deep, man... ) and so on... and people got interested in the filters on their own.

I ended up making $100 an hour from that partnership.

After making the sales, I simply counted out the cash that I owed the owner for his commissions, and handed it to his smiling hands and grinning face.

And I walked home with a smiling heart and a grin on my face.

Why it worked

The partnership worked for the health store guy because he made commissions without doing anything, plus he got a vibrant energetic presence and a high-quality source of information in his store to make it more interesting for his customers.

The partnership worked for me because I was accessing the most qualified source of customers in the area - health-conscious people at the health store.

I was targeting a concentrated source of the most qualified customers I could access without paying for it.

And I was targeting them in an environment where they were in the mood to spend money on health products..... their local health store.

I mean, 100% of the people who walk into a health store are health-conscious, and spend money on health products.... and some of those are likely to be interested in a water filter, right?

It was easy to do, I made great friends with the health store owner, and met some wonderful health-conscious people, and generally had a lot of fun.

This sure beats walking around knocking on the doors of random people.

And it sure beats paying for advertising.

And it sure beats working hard for very little money...