Have you ever done a collaboration with another small business to drive business to both of you?
Well today, I'm going to be taking that a giant huge step forward and talking about weird unusual
collaborations because they really
stand out and they get media coverage and they get people to go what they get people to stop the scroll and
It's so much more than just we're partnering with a charity to do this thing, which is great
But everybody's doing that now and so we have to step it up a notch and come up with things that
Accomplish those same goals, whether it's got a charitable angle or not and we'll talk about some of those today
But let's unpack types of collaborations that you can consider and you can try any of these or come up with your own
Hopefully this will get you thinking creatively about what you can do
This first one has been on my mind for 20 years
because
When my husband at the time now my husband was driving to Wisconsin for work from Minnesota
He would always pass this billboard that said taxidermy and cheese and he would call me and say hey
Do you need any taxidermy or cheese and we'd have a good laugh and it was just this thing we did
Well, I dug a little deeper into
Why does this?
collaboration exist and
I found this out
According to its website, which is now they just rebranded in 2024
It is now. I'm not sure how to say this AVS studio comm abs a vis a vis
I don't know but Dave Brummel and his wife Sandy started this company together
combining his talent of taxidermy with her father's ten-time world champion cheese making skills and
They made this a successful run for years and years
But her father passed away. She did not they did not continue the cheese making
I don't know why they kept the sign up probably because it's just so well known and it gets attention now
They sell taxidermy and clay the next weird collaboration was born in my own
Classroom which was so exciting to see this happen
So I had this group of small business owners
I was doing a session on marketing and I split them up. I had everybody stand and I said
quietly go stand next to the person who you think is most different from you and
this one pair of men stood out to me and
I wouldn't talk to them and got a vibe for what they were coming up with the one man was wearing a
three-piece suit and
Very button-down looked like he was in maybe his 50s his 50s or 60s
The other men looked to be in his 30s tall big guy wearing a sleeveless shirt
with full
like sleeve tattoos and
Us kind of a scruffy beard and they did on the service look very opposite
But they were both really creative businessmen
so it turns out that
the guy in the three-piece suit owned a franchise of duck donuts and
The other guy with the tattoos owned a brewery in town
And this is a small smaller town in Pennsylvania
And what they came up with during that session of a collaboration they could do together
Was beer and donut tasting flights. Oh my gosh
I would seriously I would drive to go experience this if it weren't so dang far away from Minnesota
So the way that this worked is at the end of most days duck donuts has leftover donuts and rather than throw those away
They decided okay, we're gonna gather these up and bring them to the brewery and the brewery will use these as
inspiration to make
Flavors some of these flavors flavors were made using the donuts somehow
I don't know how that works, but then on the brewery's slowest night, which was I think a Tuesday
They had a serving room and they would serve
Donuts from duck donuts like fresh ones
along with these beers that were paired to go with these flavors and it went
Mad it went crazy and this became so popular
I need to look it up and see if they're still doing this because this has probably been at least 10 years ago now
But what a fabulous collaboration that never would have happened because these guys probably would never have walked
Over to each other and struck up a conversation because they were just so different on the surface
Okay, this next one has to do with beer also. What about beer and bicycling a dangerous combination?
perhaps but
Rag Bride, which is an annual ride bike ride across the state of Iowa the long way
From west to east. I believe maybe sometimes they go east west
but
Rag Bride has this tradition that
At every stop there is something like pie or beer
It's like the best I
These are the only things that I think could motivate me to ride a bike five miles let alone across the state of Iowa
But this has become a thing
So now all of these people it has attracted an unlikely
Crowd of people who maybe never would have done this but now do this because it's so fun and
Some people do the whole ride across the state
Which takes days and you can't along the way
Others just come for maybe one day or one night and they experience this and these are people who probably never would have done
This so brings business to the local communities that they stop in
and
Also brings business to Rag Bride and exposes them and also great PR and exposes them to new people every year
How fabulous is that?
Okay, I think we're on a roll. So let's give you one more beer example beer and dogs
so a lot of breweries have done this we are foster dog parents and
We have gone to these as well. They're called generally. They're called yappy hours where
breweries or bars
open their establishment to dogs or in the summer they'll do it on a patio or something like that and
rescue drop dogs are brought in for adoption and
This is such a win-win. I love this idea so much in Minnesota
We love our patios in the summer to go eat drink whatever and if we can bring our dogs even better
And if we can help dogs that need re-homes
So much better if we can do that while having a beer. Whoo-hoo win win win win all the way around
So what can you do to pair your business with beer or dogs?
Okay, I got to throw in one more just because when my husband and I were engaged and we were
Going around and I was super excited about bridal shops and going and visiting those and he was
feigning excitement as men generally do
that's how you can tell if they're gonna be a good husband
and
He would sit patiently while I tried on dress after dress and veil after veil and he said one day
You know, this would be amazing if they had a TV and beer. Oh
Now I know there's liquor licensing issues with all of this but if there's some way to make this happen
I'm sure you can figure it out for your business
Otherwise go to the brewery bring the things to the brewery if that's somehow possible
Whatever it is that you do think about a collaboration with that and now since I mentioned dogs once
Let's move on to more collaborations with dogs because I think that
some of the best things that you can do is
Are partnering or marketing with kids or dogs
Because or or pets. I mean, I don't want to even mention cats, but I guess they're people's pets. Whatever you guys are weird, but
These are kind of universal things that most people like
One or more of these things kids animals, etc. Or they have kids
Or they're a grandparent. It's just kind of a universal emotion trigger
And so that's why it works in marketing, but as events even better
so a
Client of mine, which is a rural telecom used to be a telecom. They're not called telecom anymore now
They do mobile and Wi-Fi, but they're in a rural community
And they decided that they wanted to do these pop-up events rather than just doing one
They used to do kind of one major event year-round and it was this thing
It was really expensive. It took a lot of time to plan and it was just one kind of one oomph one one thing
That they could get media coverage around and it just didn't have
too long of a of a cycle for PR
so what they decided to do is give that up and
separate into lots of tiny pop-up events where they would just show up at a local business and
Do something there whatever it is. It depends on the business
so at Christmas time they decided to do a pop-in at
This pizza place that had just gotten written up in and had gotten some great press for having great pizza
And this pizza place was having dog pictures with Santa to bring in traffic
What a great collaboration on their own, but this company this client of mine decided, okay
Let's let's do a pop-in and we're gonna just anybody who brings their dog in for this thing
Which is two hours on a weekday night
We're gonna pay their fee to have this done because it all goes to charity and
If they want to pay or donate we'll match it and this was fabulous
it cost them only a few hundred dollars and
The community think of the word of mouth think of the media coverage think of the good will that they built and
They partnered they were associated with this charity
they were associated with this great pizza place that a lot of people love and
You don't think of all heartwarming my Wi-Fi company is so heartwarming
Well, they're changing that one pop-up collab at a time
speaking of dogs again
Here's one that I haven't seen exist. Maybe it does or maybe you can try it
Why not do something if you have a business that does anything outdoors?
You've probably seen videos from like UPS guys or FedEx guys that have dogs that run up to their trucks
And they give them treats and it's just happens on their on their route
Well, what if you're like a house painter or a
Landscaper or something like that and you decide with permission of the owners to do like a dog of the week
And it just gets to be this thing that you're known for on social media
But on top of that maybe at the end of the year you make a calendar
I mean, you're probably gonna do something for your clients anyway
Why not make a calendar of all these dogs who's gonna buy this well anybody who loves dogs?
Anybody who owns one of those dogs you can put
Four or five six dogs on a page depending on how many dogs you have throughout the year or cats, okay, whatever, but
You sell this people buy this or you give it away all the above
And if you do sell it those proceeds can either go to fund your small business in the off-season or
It can be donated to charity or both a portion of all proceeds goes to this charity and pick a local
Charity if you're a local business this matters because
Community is something that huge corporations cannot duplicate
So for example this Wi-Fi client of mine
They are getting encroached on by these huge companies Google Fiber and Xfinity. They're coming to town
because they've already
Penetrated all of the big cities and now they're fanning out and getting their tendrils into all of the rural communities and
This company has been around for decades and it is in the local community
so
Doing things that support the local community. You don't need to always partner with a big well-known
National charity that's great if you do if you believe in like breast cancer research or you believe in
Any national research great, but if there is a local version of that a local hospital a local
Anything that you can partner with to keep that money in your community
That matters to a lot of people in your community and it gives you another talking point
Throughout the year that and it gives you great pictures great media. So this is a win-win-win
I love these collaborations think about collaborations that are a win for your community a win for you a win for
If you collaborate with another business
All around so how can you collab with another business or charity or both and keep it local?
Okay, now let's shift to talking about kids things that incorporate kids
I already talked about like a calendar idea and this was an idea that I shared with one of my credit union audiences
It was like a state association of all these different credit unions and a lot of them serve
Smaller communities as you can tell that's a soft spot of mine. I love rural. I love the underdog
I love I love credit unions because
They compete against big banks. I love the underdog dogs again with the dogs
There is no undercat and there's a reason for that
Okay, so kids we talked about the calendar if you have out if you are a credit union or your car dealership or
Your any type of local brick-and-mortar business
Why not have a coloring contest and I'm not I'm not talking about something that goes year-round
I'm talking about a limited scope so people make your business a destination and it's promoted that
You're you know people can bring their kids in and the reason I like a
Credit union or a car dealership for this is because people if they're getting a mortgage or something like that
They have to wait and if they have their kids with them
It can be really distracting for you and for them
So give their kids something to do if they're at the car dealership
Either buying a new car or getting service done at
car care
facility
Have this coloring contest. It can go year-round. I mean it can be once a month whatever
But again gather these up
especially if this is something like you want to do once a month and
Pick a winner each month in different age groups and at the end of the year do the calendar thing
You're gonna give your clients something anyway
Or this gives you something that you can sell
Either way who's gonna buy this calendar every every parent every grandparent
You have to get permission you always have to get permission. So especially with people's kids
You have to be really careful and I would actually have
get waivers for them to sign that give you explicit permission or
Just use the kids first name last initial and then you're safe and their age
So that that is pretty safe
But either way
Waivers are always safe and you can drum one up quite easily and quickly using AI
Here's another idea of things that you can do that involve kids
How about instead of like a coloring contest you did a crafting session?
This draws moms and kids and this is especially good again if you have like a waiting room think about
dentists
doctors offices think about
Again, like car repair getting your oil change anything where people are waiting and they're bringing their kids
Anything where they can do a quick little craft a car wash where you're you're probably waiting in line in the car wash
Maybe takes 15 minutes 20 minutes. Well make that wait
something
Pleasurable and something enjoyable for their kids which makes the parents really happy and also brings word of mouth
So this isn't as PR worthy, but you can just set up a crafting station in a corner somewhere
Or you can have this be guided and have it be a destination like hey this Saturday or pick a slow day
This Monday night between 6 and 9 p.m. If you come to the car wash
We're gonna have this person who's gonna lead your kids in crafting or even lead adults
We're gonna make a Christmas ornament. We're gonna make a summer bird feeder. I don't know whatever
but think about crafting another idea that involves kids is
this one I love because I
Got this idea from I spoke to a very large audience my largest one ever
4,000 car care like mechanics mechanic shop owners and
I was talking about like what makes your shop different
Why should people come to you and this man? I was saying, you know, what do you have in your lobby?
That's maybe different and not many people had something that was different
But one man raised his hand and he said I have Legos
I have lots and lots of Legos because my son is autistic and he loves Legos
And he can get lost in them for hours and it just makes him really happy and it calms him down and
I said, this is fantastic
Promote this please
You don't have to feel like you're taking advantage of this
You are helping other parents by giving them a place
Where they can go for service and they know that this is going to be a great environment for their kid
So if you do something like this promote it because it it is a great PR angle
Of course, it does make great social media
But also you're providing a service and you're really really differentiating yourself
You can do this as a collaboration with your local library
Or a local toy store where you have like maybe a sensory safe
Playtime that is a certain day of the week or day of the month like hey the first
Tuesday of every month we have this sensory safe area where there's it's going to be, you know
Whatever whatever that looks like that you can accomplish in your
Look in your location
This has a huge crowd of support this will get lots of PR and it will drive lots of really really appreciative parents
To your establishment and even if they can't come they're going to remember you and it's going to stand out
And it's going to build trust because you're doing something really cool
Okay, I saved the weirdest one for last there is this online
It's now a business called death cafe
Dot-com and I got to read this because this is a global movement started in the UK by John Underwood in
2011 where people gather at cafes coffee shops and community spaces or
businesses to drink tea eat cake and talk about death
No agenda just conversation and I think this death cafe comm is just a place where you can register yours as of now
There have been
23,344
Death cafes held in 97 countries
so if your business lends itself to something weird or something to do with death or
Comforting or grief or anything like that
This is so weird and wonderful and
It gives people a place to form community in the weirdest most wonderful way. I love it. I'm here for it
So I hope these have planted some seeds as to what kind of weird unusual
wonderful
Collaborations you can do if you're local especially in your local community
Or if you are regional or maybe you're national and you're still a small biz
What can you do and I know I left out my online small businesses with this one because of all the examples that I gave
Were for more brick-and-mortar type businesses
But there are ways for you to adapt these things people can send in their coloring contest
You know things from their kids they can send in pictures of their dogs a lot of these things can be done
You can still have a death cafe. It can just be virtual
And all of this can be recreated my point is
Think about what you can do that doesn't already exist or
Dear research and maybe it's something that doesn't exist where you are, but it's it's been done successfully somewhere else
Call up that business ask ask what they did what they would do differently
I hope this has been helpful. I know this has been a weird episode. I love this. I'm going to be doing more weird episodes like this
Thanks for tuning in