Here's Why You Don’t Need a Partner to Start Your Business

Katie McManus: 00:00:18

Here's why you do not need a business partner to give you more credibility to start.

Katie McManus: 00:00:22

Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach.

Katie McManus: 00:00:26

And welcome to the weeniecast.

Katie McManus: 00:00:28

You might not know this about me, but when I first started my business, I tried to do it with a partner.

Katie McManus: 00:00:34

And when that didn't work, I tried it with another partner.

Katie McManus: 00:00:37

And when that didn't work, I tried it with another partner.

Katie McManus: 00:00:40

When I first started, I was so insecure.

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I was so worried that I wasn't going to be good enough on my own for people to want to sign up with me.

Katie McManus: 00:00:51

I also had never really done anything alone.

Katie McManus: 00:00:54

I'd always worked in a 9 to 5 with a team, and while, yeah, like, I had my work to do, I was always surrounded by other humans.

Katie McManus: 00:01:04

And if you can't tell, I'm a bit of an extrovert.

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So the isolation of working by myself was really, really hard.

Katie McManus: 00:01:12

And I think a lot of coaches go through this because you go to coach training, right?

Katie McManus: 00:01:17

And you go through these incredible classes where you go through a transformation and then you help other people go through their transformation.

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And throughout that whole experience, you bond on this deeper level.

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And then you go to the next class and you do it again, and then you go to the next class and you do it again, and then you go through a certification process with a bunch of other people, and again, you have this incredible community that you can tap into at any moment, and they're there to grow you, and they're there to help inspire you.

Katie McManus: 00:01:46

But a lot of coaches who go through that process then step out into the real world with their training and their certification, and they decide that they want to start a business, and like me, they start feeling really insecure and really lonely.

Katie McManus: 00:02:07

One partnership in particular that I want to share about is the partnership I tried to do with my friend Kelsey Letko.

Katie McManus: 00:02:14

Kelsey is actually an incredible coach and hypnotherapist.

Katie McManus: 00:02:18

Can't recommend her enough.

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If you're interested in hypnotherapy to help you move past any major blocks, I want you to go to weeniecast.com forward/kelsey.

Katie McManus: 00:02:29

But before she was a hypnotherapist, she and I were both just trained and certified coactive coaches.

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And we were both kind of in the same position.

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We wanted to have that creative partner that we could bounce ideas off of, create programs with, and have someone to kind of boost our own credibility.

Katie McManus: 00:02:50

And so we started a business together that you've never heard of because it didn't go anywhere.

Katie McManus: 00:02:57

So one of the things that I loved about working with Kelsey is like, we would sit down and we'd have these incredible brainstorming sessions.

Katie McManus: 00:03:03

In these brainstorming sessions, we would come up with incredible programs and trainings and ideas for how we could guide our clients, our group clients, through this whole process.

Katie McManus: 00:03:15

I think we both convinced ourselves that in order to be successful, we would need to have a partner who kind of boosted our credibility.

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And I can say for certain for myself that I was terrified of doing it on my own.

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I was so scared of doing it wrong, of not getting clients or talking to people and having them say, you're not qualified enough.

Katie McManus: 00:03:37

I don't want to work with you.

Katie McManus: 00:03:38

You're not worth it.

Katie McManus: 00:03:40

And to me, partnering with someone as brilliant as Kelsey felt like a shield against all of that potential rejection, against all that failure that I was sure was coming my way if I tried to do it on my own.

Katie McManus: 00:03:55

What I discovered instead was the exact opposite.

Katie McManus: 00:03:59

Partnering with Kelsey didn't work.

Katie McManus: 00:04:02

Not because either one of us was not qualified enough, but because we are our own brands, we attract different people.

Katie McManus: 00:04:11

I see this time and time again with folks who are doing some kind of service based business, be it consulting, coaching, even copywriting, they'll partner up with someone who does the same kind of work, they'll think that it adds to their credibility, and then they'll go out and they'll try to sell.

Katie McManus: 00:04:28

And oftentimes it doesn't work.

Katie McManus: 00:04:30

Because when you're out promoting something and you're using your voice and you're talking to your audience, your audience cares about you, they care about your perspective, they want to be in relationship with you.

Katie McManus: 00:04:44

If you then do a little bait and switch and say, hey, here's my partner who is going to be taking over half of this work or all of this work.

Katie McManus: 00:04:52

Now, thankfully for Kelsey and me and our friendship, because she's still a dear, dear friend of mine to this day, we came to this realization that we were leaning on each other to protect ourselves from potential rejection.

Katie McManus: 00:05:05

And because we wanted to have partnership, we wanted to have a creative partner to be able to build something.

Katie McManus: 00:05:10

And we made a very conscious decision to end that project together, but to continue to be friends.

Katie McManus: 00:05:17

And I'm so glad we did.

Katie McManus: 00:05:22

In the work that I do with my clients, it is rare that I come across a business where it makes sense for them to have a partner, because my clients are all providing me service.

Katie McManus: 00:05:35

They are the mastermind of this business.

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They are the brand of this business, and typically the lifeblood of the business that they want to create is relationships.

Katie McManus: 00:05:51

Now, one of the things that you can do if you partner with someone and you start a business together is you design a brand that is separate from both of you.

Katie McManus: 00:05:59

Right?

Katie McManus: 00:06:00

So there are absolutely businesses where this makes complete sense, like restaurants.

Katie McManus: 00:06:05

It'd be really weird to name a restaurant after yourself.

Katie McManus: 00:06:08

If I were to name a restaurant Katie McManus, like that wouldn't tell you anything about the restaurant.

Katie McManus: 00:06:13

For one, like people might have some really weird expectations about what that restaurant's going to be serving.

Katie McManus: 00:06:18

And I won't go into further detail.

Katie McManus: 00:06:20

And I mean, if you're just scrolling through Yelp like it's not going to be the thing that catches your eye, it's just going to be a name.

Katie McManus: 00:06:25

It doesn't make sense.

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And especially if I'm in a partnership, say I partner up with a chef and they're the brains behind the whole thing, it completely erases them from the front facing brand.

Katie McManus: 00:06:37

So it makes sense for a business like a restaurant to pick a name for the restaurant.

Katie McManus: 00:06:42

If you're developing a product, it makes sense for you to develop a brand for the product.

Katie McManus: 00:06:48

If you're developing a business that is a service that doesn't have a personality attached to it, like landscaping or plumbing or poured concrete floors, and you have a business partner, it makes sense for the business to have its own, own personality, its own brand.

Katie McManus: 00:07:04

But when the brand is you, when your personality and your relationships are going to be the thing that brings in clients and builds that loyalty, people do not tend to build relationships with an amorphous brand.

Katie McManus: 00:07:21

Not in the same way that you need them to build a relationship with you to become your client.

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One of the thing that most coaches and consultants are guilty of, and I say this because I did this myself, is we're guilty of trying to come up with a clever coaching business name.

Katie McManus: 00:07:38

And they range vastly from the I don't know what the that means kinds of names.

Katie McManus: 00:07:44

Like one that I chose which was Soul Style Coaching.

Katie McManus: 00:07:48

Who knows what that means?

Katie McManus: 00:07:49

I'm not even sure.

Katie McManus: 00:07:50

It just sounded good at some point.

Katie McManus: 00:07:51

I knew what it meant, but I've forgotten at this point to another, another business name that I came up with which was Take Charge Coaching.

Katie McManus: 00:07:57

Cool.

Katie McManus: 00:07:58

A little more descriptive, but also really generic.

Katie McManus: 00:08:01

How many North Star coaching companies are there out there?

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How many executive planning strategy companies are there?

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How many pro consulting services are there?

Katie McManus: 00:08:12

When you're offering a consulting or coaching service, it really doesn't make sense for you to separate your work from you.

Katie McManus: 00:08:20

No one's going to remember the name of your business.

Katie McManus: 00:08:22

They are going to remember your name, however.

Katie McManus: 00:08:25

And when they think, oh, that person I met at the cocktail party who helps businesses like mine and what was their name again?

Katie McManus: 00:08:32

They're far more likely to get your name right when they try to remember it.

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They're never going to remember your business's name.

Katie McManus: 00:08:37

And I know there are some of you listening to this and thinking, oh my God, well, what if I make the business name really unique and really memorable?

Katie McManus: 00:08:43

They're still not going to remember.

Katie McManus: 00:08:45

So while, yes, I am making a massive case for why you should be starting this business alone, I'm not saying you need to do it all alone.

Katie McManus: 00:09:01

There are ways to have camaraderie and support and community in building the business that doesn't require you to give away 50% ownership of your company, that doesn't require you to anonymize your unique to you brand that people are actually wanting to be in business with.

Katie McManus: 00:09:21

One of the reasons I have so many community calls in all of my programs, and I'm talking like from Monday, Sprint calls where we get you prioritized for the work.

Katie McManus: 00:09:30

Friday Q and A calls where all of my clients get to come and ask any questions that they have sales labs where we really go through their sales process and get them better at selling and coworking is because building a business is really lonely.

Katie McManus: 00:09:46

And one of the most powerful resources you're always going to have if you do it right is have business besties, you know, so like Kelsey, she and I did not work out as business partners, but business besties were incredible for each other.

Katie McManus: 00:10:01

Anytime one of us needs to ask a question, we can call each other.

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Anytime we're freaking the fuck out about something, we get to call each other and panic on the phone and get talked off the ledge.

Katie McManus: 00:10:13

Right?

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Anytime we have a massive win and we just want to call someone who understands what a big deal it is, we get to call each other and brag and celebrate, you know, for the, for the members of my programs, that's what I want for them.

Katie McManus: 00:10:27

I give them access to each other so that they can develop those relationships and get to know each other and support each other and see that they are not alone.

Katie McManus: 00:11:03

So here are a few different types of partnerships that I think you should invest in.

Katie McManus: 00:11:09

Rather than become business partners, become creativity partners.

Katie McManus: 00:11:14

If, like Kelsey and myself, you love brainstorming with another person about programs and ideas that you have for your business, reach out to people that you feel like would be really great partners in this way and just ask them, will you be my creativity partner?

Katie McManus: 00:11:31

And they won't know what that means because I just made it up.

Katie McManus: 00:11:33

But you get to explain to them that you're starting this business and it's feeling really hard on your own.

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And you would really love to have someone that you trust, who you admire, who usually comes with really inspirational ideas, to bounce ideas off and to brainstorm with and to create programs with with their guidance, and that you would love to do that in exchange with them if they think that would be beneficial to them.

Katie McManus: 00:11:57

Another type of partnership that's really fruitful for business owners is the kind of partnership that you pay for.

Katie McManus: 00:12:04

So it could be working with a coach or a business strategist like myself, working with someone who knows the things that you don't even know to ask about and can set you up for success and train you on the stuff that you need to do in order to be massively successful.

Katie McManus: 00:12:24

I will say that in my experience personally and with my clients, this is one of the best partnerships that you can invest your time, money and energy into.

Katie McManus: 00:12:32

It's finding the right person to support you along the way.

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Because here's the thing about working with a business coach or a business strategist.

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They don't have any agenda except your success in mind.

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They're not worried about protecting your feelings like a creative partner might or a best friend or your family.

Katie McManus: 00:12:52

They're also not stressed by the same things that you talk about as your spouse might be.

Katie McManus: 00:12:59

One of the things that I work with a lot of my clients on is got to talk about money.

Katie McManus: 00:13:03

When you're starting a business and you have to explain, explain things that are going on to your spouse, right?

Katie McManus: 00:13:09

Because the life of a business owner is not always a life of consistent cash flow.

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And if you're a two income household and your spouse needs to be able to plan how to budget the money that they're bringing in along with the money you're bringing in.

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Those conversations can get really tense if you're not understanding their fear, their anxiety.

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And it's hard to have those conversations honestly if when you're on honestly sharing about the financial status of your business, you start getting activated in your shame receptors.

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A coach isn't going to be like that.

Katie McManus: 00:13:43

The other thing about working with a strategist is they're not going to take any bullshit from you.

Katie McManus: 00:13:48

One of the things that my clients know I will never let them get away with is making decisions from a place of fear.

Katie McManus: 00:13:55

If I sense that they're being a weenie in any of the decisions that they're making in their business and their life, that's keeping them from going after their bigger dream, I'm going to call them on it.

Katie McManus: 00:14:05

Your best friend, your family member, your spouse might not do the same.

Katie McManus: 00:14:10

Actually, in most cases they probably won't because they probably have a value of safety and security like most people do.

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And when they hear you being risky or what they perceive as risky, you know, putting yourself out there, entering the financial unknown, putting yourself in a position of being rejected, all of their fears get activated too.

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And the tough thing about humans is that like when we care about someone, we want to protect them like we would protect ourselves.

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And so they actually may agree with you when you're making decisions from a fear based place that it's too risky, that it's too much, that the rejection might be too hard because they would want to stay small because they're too afraid to go out and do it themselves.

Katie McManus: 00:14:50

Another type of partnership that you can invest in is an assistant.

Katie McManus: 00:14:54

You know, say there are some skill sets that you just suck at, like admin and organizing your email and scheduling.

Katie McManus: 00:15:01

Then an assistant would be a great partner for you to invest in.

Katie McManus: 00:15:05

Or say you're not great at social media, you're not consistent, you don't think aesthetically, you don't have an idea for a message that you could put out there into the world and think, oh my God, this is the perfect Instagram graphic to go along with that.

Katie McManus: 00:15:18

You know, it makes perfect sense for you to hire someone to help you with Instagram at that point or with whatever social media platform is going to be the best for you to get clients.

Katie McManus: 00:15:27

These partnerships are amazing because for one, you retain control.

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For two, you do not confuse your brand because it stays focused on you.

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It never skews off onto anyone else.

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And of course you get access to expertise that you do not have, that you do not need to work on developing.

Katie McManus: 00:15:47

Because I see you, I see you out there taking all the courses, getting certified in multiple types of coaching methods or consulting tools like the strengths finder, getting certified in all the different coaching methodologies, getting trained and all the tools that you can use as a consulting partner.

Katie McManus: 00:16:06

I see you taking classes on how to do Google Analytics and ads.

Katie McManus: 00:16:13

Like, yeah, those things are very useful to know, but you're never going to be an expert at them because it's not your primary focus.

Katie McManus: 00:16:22

It makes so much more sense for you to bring in an assistant or A consultant who can help you do those parts with their own expertise.

Katie McManus: 00:16:34

It'll save you time, money and a lot of frustration.

Katie McManus: 00:16:42

Now, lastly, there are some cases where it does make sense to have a business partner, which I know I'm completely going back on everything I just said.

Katie McManus: 00:16:49

But it's only when you have complementary skill sets that the business has equal need of.

Katie McManus: 00:16:56

One business that is a great example of this is LB Health by Lauren Howard and Dr.

Katie McManus: 00:17:01

Jonathan Hines.

Katie McManus: 00:17:02

I was actually lucky enough to go to their launch party this past summer.

Katie McManus: 00:17:06

They've launched an online health practice that eventually, very soon will be active in all 50 states.

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Lauren has this amazing mind and experience in building the back end of healthcare practices.

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She knows all of the regulations that they have to follow.

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She understands how they differ in each state.

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She knows how to manage the money.

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She knows how to attract clients and do all the marketing and create partnerships and do hiring and build a team and do all the things.

Katie McManus: 00:17:36

But she's not a doctor.

Katie McManus: 00:17:38

That's important.

Katie McManus: 00:17:39

Apparently when you're starting a healthcare company, right, it's not just the business part you like, you need the people who can provide the care and who have the licenses to be able to do that.

Katie McManus: 00:17:50

So she's partnered with Jonathan Hines, who is a doctor who has passed the board.

Katie McManus: 00:17:57

I think that's how you say it in all 50 states.

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States which if you know anything about medicine in the United States, you know that that is an incredible accomplishment.

Katie McManus: 00:18:07

In cases like this, it absolutely makes sense to have a partner.

Katie McManus: 00:18:10

It absolutely makes sense to develop a brand that's separate from you, that can still have a tie back to your story, to your personality like LB Health does.

Katie McManus: 00:18:21

So for those of you who are just starting out, who think that you are not credible enough all on your own and think that to be able to be taken seriously, you need to partner with someone else who will boost you up.

Katie McManus: 00:18:34

I call bull.

Katie McManus: 00:18:35

I think you're just being a massive weenie about this and that's okay.

Katie McManus: 00:18:39

It happens to the best of us.

Katie McManus: 00:18:40

I've been there.

Katie McManus: 00:18:41

But if you want to be successful in this business, the only way to do that is to stand on your own two feet, to have the confidence of a mediocre white guy and dare to put yourself out there.

Katie McManus: 00:18:54

Yes, you going to get rejected.

Katie McManus: 00:18:55

Yes, you're going to fail.

Katie McManus: 00:18:57

Yes, there are going to be times where things do not work out, but that happens for every business.

Katie McManus: 00:19:02

But I fully believe that you can be successful all on your own.

Katie McManus: 00:19:06

But remember to set yourself up so that you're not all alone.

Katie McManus: 00:19:11

And for those of you who are further on in your business, you've established yourself as a brand, you've had lots of clients who have incredible success stories and there's something bigger that you want to partner on.

Katie McManus: 00:19:24

That's the stage that you can absolutely do this.

Katie McManus: 00:19:27

One of the rules that I set for my clients when they're first starting out is I tell them no more certifications.

Katie McManus: 00:19:32

Because especially for coaches and consultants, there's so many certifications that you can go for that you can add to your resume and you think makes you look more impressive.

Katie McManus: 00:19:42

When really what ends up happening is you start getting confused about all the things that you can do for clients.

Katie McManus: 00:19:48

And because you're in training mode all the time and learning all these cool new things that you're fascinated by and you think are super interesting, it all leaks into your marketing and your clients out there who are so mired in their own problems and their own frustration, reaching their own goals, they're not going to know what you're talking about when you're talking about, you know, some skill you just picked up in a three day seminar.

Katie McManus: 00:20:12

They're not going to find it interesting.

Katie McManus: 00:20:14

They're not going to understand that it's relevant to them.

Katie McManus: 00:20:16

So the rule I set in place for my newer business owner clients is no more certifications until you have worked with enough clients that you see that there's a skill gap that you need to meet.

Katie McManus: 00:20:30

So one of the things that I did for myself, I put a referendum on myself for training for this exact reason.

Katie McManus: 00:20:38

And one of the skills that I realized I needed to work more on was, was all the money mindset stuff, because that was one of the things that my clients struggled with the most.

Katie McManus: 00:20:48

And so at that point I invested in more training on how to coach through money mindset problems and how to reset yourself so that you can live in an abundant state.

Katie McManus: 00:20:59

But I only did that after a couple years.

Katie McManus: 00:21:01

Now, likewise, if you have massive dreams for this business and you want to have an incredible impact and you want to make a lot more money, once you have a solid brand, once people know who you are and they're opted in and they've been your client and you have a proven track record and you're firm in what you bring to the table, you can then see like what other tables would be useful to your audience.

Katie McManus: 00:21:27

Right.

Katie McManus: 00:21:27

One of the things that I'm super excited about is I'm doing this partnership with two former clients, one of which is a coach who helps people get booked On TV shows, on the news, get featured in different publications.

Katie McManus: 00:21:43

She helps small business owners learn how to get themselves in front of thousands, if not millions of new potential clients by just knowing who to ask, how to make the ask, and having the confidence to get up and get in front of that camera.

Katie McManus: 00:22:01

All incredible things that I don't know how to teach my clients how to do.

Katie McManus: 00:22:04

I've never worked in pr, by the way.

Katie McManus: 00:22:06

She's also an Emmy Award winning news anchor who worked for NBC New York.

Katie McManus: 00:22:11

She knows her.

Katie McManus: 00:22:13

She's been the journalist on the other side who's been pitched a gazillion different stories.

Katie McManus: 00:22:18

She knows exactly what will make you a desirable person to book on a new show.

Katie McManus: 00:22:25

Now, while my dad did want me to be the next Kate, Katie Couric, I don't have anywhere near that kind of experience.

Katie McManus: 00:22:31

So I'm really excited to do this, this partnership with her so that I can give my audience access to a service like hers.

Katie McManus: 00:22:38

The other partner that we have is an amazing brand strategist and she's actually helping me go through and redo my entire brand right now to have it be more aligned to me, but also have it be far more recognizable.

Katie McManus: 00:22:52

Because I hate to call myself out, but if you go to my Instagram, Katie the coach, right now, it's kind of all over the place because I'm not an aesthetic thinker.

Katie McManus: 00:23:02

I don't have a thought and think, oh, cool.

Katie McManus: 00:23:04

Here's the perfect graphic I can make for this.

Katie McManus: 00:23:06

I am a writer.

Katie McManus: 00:23:08

I'm good at speaking to camera.

Katie McManus: 00:23:10

You ask me to do anything in Canva, it's going to look pretty podunk.

Katie McManus: 00:23:15

If we're being honest, there's no problem with that.

Katie McManus: 00:23:18

If I wanted to keep my business at its current size, however, I don't.

Katie McManus: 00:23:22

I want my business to do so much more.

Katie McManus: 00:23:27

What will be required to get there is for every single asset that I have in my business to be immediately identifiable.

Katie McManus: 00:23:34

Like if someone's scrolling on social media without even seeing my profile picture or my username, they should see the graphic and know that it's from me.

Katie McManus: 00:23:44

And so again, I'm so excited to be able to bring her expertise and her mind to, to my audience.

Katie McManus: 00:23:53

And of course, what I bring to the table is how do you actually build a scalable business?

Katie McManus: 00:23:57

How do you create an offer that will make you twice the amount of money that you have in the last year?

Katie McManus: 00:24:03

How do you go after clients who will pay even more money than what you're charging right now?

Katie McManus: 00:24:09

How do you create that marketing strategy and the sales funnel to make this happen.

Katie McManus: 00:24:17

Right.

Katie McManus: 00:24:17

Because you can get featured on the news and you can have an identifiable brand, but if you don't have the right thing to sell to the people who are landing on your page, it's not going to go anywhere.

Katie McManus: 00:24:26

If you're at a similar stage in your business where you're seeing there are tables that you would like to bring in to offer to your audience, that would be complimentary, then I say absolutely, go for a partnership.

Katie McManus: 00:24:38

But until you're at that stage, you are absolutely good enough to do it on your own.

Katie McManus: 00:24:44

But again, not all alone.

Katie McManus: 00:24:49

Like, really, it's my diffuser right now.