Not every referral partner is ready to send you business yet, and that's fine. There are four ways to move a new partnership forward without either of you selling to the other one's list.

I start with the five steps that make you a good referral partner in the first place. Know exactly what you do and who you serve. Know who else sells to that same audience. Be an actual human being on the first call. Find one slice of the business to work on together instead of the whole thing. Then build something fresh rather than trading names. Part two is what to do when you like the person but you're nowhere near ready to put them in front of your clients: asset trades, co-branded test events, link swaps for AEO and GEO, and case studies. Topgolf just pulled off the asset trade of the week with an arcade game company, and there's a version of that sitting in your business right now.

Also today: every major AI tool went down this morning, and that is not an inconvenience anymore, it's missed labor. And the AI story of the day is the restaurant that put AI-generated shrimp on its menu and got its window graffitied for it.

In this episode:

00:00 - Building collaborations that are more than swapping referrals

01:54 - The five steps that make you a good referral partner

07:53 - Part two: partnering when you're not ready to refer

08:16 - Asset trades, and what Topgolf just did with arcade games

10:34 - Co-branded webinars and low-stakes test events

11:31 - Link swaps, AEO, GEO and trust signals

12:33 - Case studies as a way into someone else's audience

13:48 - Your homework: work one intro without asking for a sale

15:26 - Sponsor: Foureva Media

16:56 - When Claude, ChatGPT and Grok all go down, that's missed labor

19:59 - AI story of the day: the AI slop backlash is real

26:24 - Sponsor: Minuteman Press of Brookfield

27:55 - Do not spend Labor Day weekend getting ahead

31:09 - This week in the SBOC: new member meetup, Idea Slam, Friday Finish Line

33:50 - The SBOC26 Conference is 12 days out

36:09 - Sending my son to Japan for a year

Resources mentioned:

SBOC26 Conference, September 15-17 in Brookfield: https://event.smallbusinesscommunity.com/26conference

Forever Media: https://fourevamedia.com

Minuteman Press of Brookfield: https://minutemanbrookfield.com

The Money Habit by Mike Michalowicz

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