Yesterday, I left you with a simple question:

How could you generate leads that will trust you almost instantly?

Discovering the correct answer to this question is the closest thing you can have to a "cheat code" for growing your business. But most of the responses that came in missed the mark.

Many were convinced it's all about a certain content format, which led to lots of answers along the lines of…

  • Do webinars!
  • Start a podcast!
  • Create a YouTube channel!

It's true—letting people see your face and/or hear your voice is one of the fastest ways to build trust. But all three of those options still require you to drive (or buy) your own traffic. Which can take a loooooooong time to figure out.

So what should you do instead?

You should use the same strategy Reginald did.

Quick story...

Reginald fell in love with music when he was a child. By age 4, he could already play the piano. His parents were supportive, sent him to private music schools, and gave him every opportunity to pursue his passion. 

But you can probably predict what happened when teenage Reginald decided he wanted to pursue music as a career…

Poof. That support vanished. In fact, his father actively opposed him becoming a musician. So Reginald did what any sensible teenager in his shoes would do—dropped out of high school and left home to chase his dream. :)

He spent the next few years traveling around with a local band, writing songs on the side, and trying to grind out a living gig by gig.

But his big break didn't come by waiting for a record exec to randomly stumble into one of his shows. It came when he started performing at other people's shows. 

In 1970, Eric Clapton invited Reginald to be the opening act for his band at the time, Derek and the Dominos. And Reginald happily accepted.

Imagine the scene:

December 4, 1970. 8,000 raving Clapton fans sitting in their seats at the Syracuse War Memorial. Geeked out of their minds to see him play. The lights are down. Fog machines are on. And out walks Reginald. 

Image
(Syracuse War Memorial auditorium) 

He sits down at his piano and looks at the keys. The same keys he's studied for the past 19 years. The crowd is going wild. That's when they hear, for the first time ever, the opening lines of a song millions of people would go on to love: 

🎶 "It's a little bit funny
This feeling inside
I'm not one of those who can easily hide
I don't have much money, but boy if I did
I'd buy a big house where we both could live" 🎶

The melody you might be humming right now is from "Your Song," currently listed as the 137th best song in history by Rolling Stone. 

Reginald's full name is Reginald Kenneth Dwight. You know him by his stage name, Elton John—the artist who has gone on to sell over 300 million records worldwide and have 58 Billboard Top 40 Hits in his career, including "Your Song."

But it all started on that stage at the Syracuse War Memorial when Elton borrowed someone else's audience by being their opening act. 

This is an example of what I like to call partnership marketing in action. And we've all seen it a million times.

We see it when the opening act takes the stage at a concert.

We see it when Will Smith goes on The Tonight Show to promote his latest movie.

We see it when Oprah brings on an expert in some random topic her massive audience cares about (that's actually how Dr. Phil got his start).

"Awesome, Bryan. So I should just ask world famous bands and talk show hosts if I can talk about my business with their audience?"

Not exactly. :)

I get that these are outlier examples that can make it hard to picture this same strategy working for your online business.

But what you should pay attention to is the underlying concept at work in all of them—borrowing someone else's audience is a MUCH faster way to grow than building your own audience from scratch.

And whether you're aware of them or not, there are thousands of online audiences you could be "borrowing" right now.

Why? Because just like bands need an opening act for their audience, there are thousands of companies, bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, thought leaders, and influencers in your niche who need quality content to feed their audiences.

When you understand how to become that content—how to be the "opening act" for audiences in your industry—generating high-quality leads that instantly trust you becomes automatic. 

In fact, the first year we focused on partnership marketing our daily new email subscriber count grew from 50 to 500 and sales increased by 48%.

So...what do these partnership opportunities look like for YOUR business? Where do you find them? How do you pursue them?

That's exactly what I'm going to show you tomorrow. So stay tuned!

- Bryan

P.S. Want to "skip ahead" and see what kinds of partnership opportunities are out there for your business right now? Here's a bonus as a reward for reading the whole email…

I'm making my team of partnership experts available to literally find a partnership opportunity for you. When you book a free Strategy Call with us, we'll study your business, find an audience that could benefit from your expertise, and then show you exactly how to get featured to that audience.

Go here to grab a spot on our calendar and claim your Strategy Call now!