The Makeup Insider

Transforming Careers Through Strategic Partnerships with Sarina Lowe.

• Vanessa Barney • Season 2 • Episode 76

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In this episode, Vanessa sits down with partnership specialist Sarina Lowe to delve into the intricacies of partnerships, sponsorships, and collaborations. 

Key Takeaways:

  • Differentiate between cash partnerships and contra (product/service exchange) partnerships.
  • How makeup artists, can benefit immensely from strategic partnerships.
  • Building genuine relationships with potential partners is crucial.
  • Focus outreach efforts on quality engagement rather than just follower counts.
  • Clearly outline expectations when receiving products from brands to avoid misunderstandings.
  • Transparency and clear communication are key to successful partnerships.
  • High-quality, creative content can significantly enhance the value of partnerships.
  • Understand your own business objectives and goals before entering partnerships.
  • Research potential partners thoroughly to make informed decisions.

Discussion Highlights:

  • Practical strategies for small businesses to leverage partnerships.
  • Importance of building genuine relationships and clear communication in partnerships.
  • How creative content creation can boost partnership value.
  • Tips on aligning business objectives with partnership efforts.


Actionable Tips:

  • Start with clear goals for what you want to achieve from partnerships.
  •  Be transparent and communicate your expectations clearly.
  • Focus on creating high-quality content that reflects your brand and engages your audience.
  • Build genuine relationships with potential partners, prioritizing engagement over follower count.
  • Always research potential partners to ensure value alignment.

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Speaker 1:

Hi and welcome to the Makeup Insider. I'm your host, vanessa Barney, makeup artist, hairdresser, educator and all-round beauty junkie. If you've ever felt lost or lonely in your makeup career, this podcast is for you. I'm here to interview makeup artists and other industry professionals, to give guidance and be the mentor I needed early in my career. With a new episode every Tuesday, don't forget to hit subscribe so you don't miss a trick, and if you like what you hear, please rate and leave a comment. I hope you enjoy.

Speaker 2:

Today I'm joined by partnership specialist Serena Lowe. Thanks for joining me, serena. Hey, thanks, vanessa. So much Thanks for joining me, serena. Hey, thanks, vanessa. So much Thanks for having me Pleasure pleasure. Are you able just to give the audience a bit of a bio on what you do and where they can find you online.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, absolutely so. Yeah, as you said, my name's Serena Lowe and I am a partnership specialist. What that means, or what my background is, is I sort of worked in account management client services for a very long time and about 10 years ago I decided I really wanted to work in creative marketing. So, very, very long story short, managed to get myself a job at Carlton Football Club in their sponsorship team and I absolutely loved it, really loved working in that space, really loved bringing together strategy, client services, lots of different marketing opportunities, events into this one space to create brand experiences for audiences essentially.

Speaker 3:

And when I was working in that space, I really found that there's sort of a missing gap between the intersection of strategy and partnerships, and by that I mean that there's a lot of partnerships out there that are really great and really great collabs between businesses, but they don't necessarily have a lot of strategy behind them, and that's what I'm really passionate about.

Speaker 3:

I also found that there's a lot of people that fall into working in the partnership space whether that's in big businesses or in small businesses, at whatever level or there's partnership opportunities, but people just don't know how to bring them to life. So when I left Carlton in 2018, I started building the first iteration of my business, which now, in 2024, we're onto the third iteration of my business. It's always evolving and I sort of dipped in and out as well of doing contract work. So I was at RMIT University in sponsorships for about six months and I was at Essendon Football Club for about a year and I've also worked with La Trobe University in the partnership space as well and, yeah, I've been doing a lot of work on my own business and really forming what I now call the partnership life cycle, which educates people on how to do partnerships really well with strategy front of mind so yeah, that's a quick summary of me.

Speaker 3:

I mostly hang out on socials, on Instagram, which is just at my name, serena Lowe, um. And LinkedIn, same at my name, serena Lowe. So yeah, if anyone wants to connect, you can find me on there, always happy to answer DMs okay, I'll link everything in the show notes as well.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that introduction, I would love to just know. Firstly, partnerships, sponsorships, collaborations.

Speaker 1:

Are they all the same?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I know it's like the number one question I get asked and, to be honest, I had to do a bit of research on this myself to figure it all out a few years ago. Look, the way that I describe it to people is that I think that it falls everything falls under what I would call the umbrella of partnerships, and I think a lot of words are used quite interchangeably, if I'm. I think one of the things to really understand first is this idea between cash and contra, so cash being an exchange of benefits for cash and contra being an exchange of benefits for benefits, and so that's really important to understand at first, because I always use a lot of lingo and that comes in a bit when you're explaining the difference between collabs, sponsorships, brand partnerships, et cetera. So, yeah, think of it as the umbrella of partnerships. And then I sort of look at collaborations as often a one-off. Sometimes they're ongoing but, yeah, often a one-off between two brands or two people and that might be to produce something specific. So we were talking just before the podcast.

Speaker 3:

I was at South by Southwest recently and I heard an amazing lady speaker who worked at Adidas and she worked on the collaboration between Adidas and Pharrell Williams, which is actually an ongoing partnership, but they collaborated to create a shoe together.

Speaker 3:

So if you think of those sort of big brand collaborations and definitely you can have that at small business level as well so coming together with another brand to create something for your audience sponsorships are probably the most commonly known under that sort of world of partnerships, um, and sponsorships traditionally are exchanging money in return for brand exposure, um, and so, you know, I think that's really big.

Speaker 3:

In the world of sports or the world of arts, you'll often see that, you know, this football team is sponsored by this car company, for example. You, you know, working at Carlton Football Club for a number of years I worked on the Hyundai and Carlton relationships. I'm very well versed in that space and so, yeah, a lot of the time it's that the brand will pay a certain amount of money to partner with what we call the rights holder, which is the one that's taking in the sponsorship dollars and giving the brand the opportunity to expose their brand essentially to that audience. But what I've really found over the years is that sponsorships are really turning, they're kind of progressing into this world of what we call partnerships or brand partnerships, and I've sort of started using the term brand partnerships, because I think there's so many different partnerships there's romantic partnerships, there's business partnerships. There's so many different things.

Speaker 3:

So I think, brand partnerships is a really nice way to speak of it.

Speaker 3:

And so brand partnerships still having that element of cash, like sponsorships do, potentially having the element of contra where you exchange. But the reason the industry is moving more towards the term partnerships rather than pure sponsorship is because it sort of leans into the space where we're creating something together. We're a partnership rather than I think sponsorships can, over time, have had a bit of a bad name where it's like had a bit of a bad name where it's like we want your money in exchange for your logo to be placed on this, you know, football Guernsey, or this sign, for example, whereas partnerships are a lot more about, you know, almost collaborating together to form that partnership, to really work together to achieve something for both businesses and not just one business's objectives over another, really working on the strategy together.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, that's sort of a brief overview of of partnerships, sponsorships and collaboration yeah, and I suppose something that we could relate that to is you know, recently was melba fashion week, understand? Yeah, I was on the hair team. Yes, the hair team was sponsored by davro yes so davro is a hair care.

Speaker 2:

Yes, like a product. Yes, products, right, yeah, yeah, absolutely. They brought in their creative director and he was the hair director and they had all their products there and I mean, I don't know how it goes down money wisewise, or anything like that. Yeah yeah, I suppose that's. Is that a sponsorship?

Speaker 3:

Absolutely so that would likely be a sponsorship that probably has elements of cash and contra. So contra being the product, the supply of the product, but Davro potentially pays for access to Melbourne Fashion Week and to being that headline sponsor of the makeup team as well, and so that's where I would start talking about it more as like a brand partnership and that leaning into it's. Hopefully, like you were saying, their creative director came in, so it's not just like the product is there on the bench and we're taking photos of it and we're putting it on Instagram, but we're actually finding ways of integrating their creative director into what we're doing and creating really interesting content that shows off the brand but isn't just about, you know, a closeup of the, of the logo, for example. But yeah, melbourne Fashion Week, that's a great example.

Speaker 3:

There's so many, so many sponsors involved and it's something that, like I said, sponsorship can have a really bad name, but those sponsors are what allows the event to happen. That's sort of where the cash comes in to really be able to bring the event to life and ticket sales, of course. But definitely I think tickets would be a lot more expensive without the use of our sponsors and it's a really nice way of bringing the brands in as well. But yeah, hopefully, I mean, I imagine there would have been a lot of rules around how you had to use it and like what, what you were, what you were doing with the product or things like that.

Speaker 2:

I suppose because the products? There was certain hairstyles, so I suppose the rules were around that, um, the um, the key head, the hair person, hair director so I can find the words hair that had come up with the hairstyles and had, you know, had the products that he wanted used, yeah, yeah. So yeah, I suppose it was rules around it, but it was done in a way that I guess you were just, it wasn't. You didn't feel like you were following rules.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, which is so nice, and I think that that that, to me, is a true partnership, where you didn't feel like you were forced to do certain things, but you still recognize that the brand is there and you still recognize that, yes, as you said, the hair director has created these hairstyles with the product, and so I think that that is yeah, it's a really great example of an excellent partnership.

Speaker 3:

It'd be so interesting to know the behind the scenes of it. I think the other thing is like with partnerships, with sponsorships, with that sort of longer term and this is a little bit different to, you know, your traditional collaborations is there's lots of different touch points usually. So there would be that touch point that you saw of the product being used, you know, behind the scenes. But there would also potentially be touch points where there, you know, there might be an offering in the gift bags that the audience members get, or there might be social media content, whether that's posts, whether that's actually a content series. For example, there might be a talk by the creative director for people behind the scenes, like that sort of thing. So partnerships really take into account lots of different creative touch points. Um, whereas I often think of a collaboration as working together to produce sort of one big thing that you then promote. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, sure, sure. I'd love to talk about these sorts of things sponsorships on, maybe like a smaller scale, because with makeup artists I guess we're just one person, right yeah, absolutely you know ways or ideas in which you know a makeup artist could sort of make it work to their advantage, I suppose, yeah, yep, smaller scale, yeah, I guess product gifting is one way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think that that's really important to differentiate between, like what we were just talking about, which is that your big brand, more at the sponsorship cash contributions level, I think at a, you know, a small business makeup artist, hair and makeup artist level, it is about those opportunities that you receive where you might you know you might be offered product to promote to your audience. You might be looking for ways of promoting to and growing your audience. So I think a few ways that it can be done is, I think, a lot of the time, it's most likely going to be collaborations to start off with that might form in or one-off partnerships that might form into longer term partnerships. But, yeah, there's lots of opportunities, like as a makeup artist, if you're looking to use a product, there would be an opportunity there where you can try out new products in. You know if they're being offered to you. I think, as well you know, if you're looking to reach out to particular brands that you want to partner with that you really love, there's opportunities to get free product. There's opportunities to get audience growth, to be in front of new audiences, to extend your offerings to new people as well, or extend your offerings of what you're, and I've got a few examples of this. But to be able to, you know, as a makeup artist you've got a very specific skill set. So by collaborating or partnering with another person or brand, potentially in a different skill set area, you're able to expand your offering. A really great example of that that I sort of thought of it's always one that I come back to is a few years ago.

Speaker 3:

Some friends got together and did this thing called Styled and Seen, which was like a photographer and a stylist, and they offered, for a really affordable rate, to do a very small photo shoot for people in business, essentially, and what you did is you came along, you got, you got yourself styled by the stylist, so you knew that the outfits that you were wearing were really great to represent you and your business. And then you got the photography done with the photographer and you just went in. They had a whole day where they'd hired a studio together. They had a hair and makeup artist, but they weren't part of the collaboration. But, yeah, they hired the studio. They had about six or eight people come in, each had an hour time slot and they overlaid them all.

Speaker 3:

So for um, and I participated. For me as a unit, for me as a business owner, it was a really affordable way of getting my photos done for them as a stylist and a photographer, it was a way of collaborating with someone who extends what their offering is and allows them to open up to new opportunities and new audiences, and so they were able to, you know, be known and seen by the photographer's audience and vice versa, and so I was thinking that's a really interesting example potentially for makeup artists to do that sort of thing like thinking outside of the standard, like thinking creatively, like who could you partner with where your services are complementary, that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Personal branding, how it's such a huge thing now being able to collaborate with you know, a photographer and a stylist, or even just the photographer is just a great way to add to your business right, and another thing that you can get income from?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's just an example to sort of start that creative process. I think the beauty of working in that partnership space whatever that looks like, whether it's brand partnership or collab, short-term partnerships it's really about thinking creatively about how you can do things and how that might be right for your audience, how it might be right, how it might expose you to other audiences. Really, there's so many great opportunities. I think you know other things that I sort of thought of. I mean, the obvious is, if you're a pure makeup artist, partnering with a hairstylist, potentially, um, partnering with specific brands, like makeup brands.

Speaker 3:

Partnering with locations as well, potentially, um, like if there are locations or maybe even, um, you know that that I don't know potentially host events where they need makeup artists, like there's so many different ways that you can do it as a makeup artist. It's about looking at where is makeup used, where are you working, what are you working with, what do you want into your business? What's the reason behind it? And, yeah, and just thinking like brainstorming, Like I love, I mean and you and I have done this together, I love brainstorming with clients Like you tell me, like it's your industry, what opportunities are coming to you, and then, like we can totally brainstorm it, you know, because yeah, there's just so much you can do in that space.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, have you got any tips on reaching out to people, like what to include, how to do it?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think this is one of the number one questions I always get asked and I think it's really important, when you're reaching out to businesses, to just think of them as your. It's like creating a business friendship, so really thinking about what their objectives might be as well, not just thinking about your own objectives, but really understanding and you know you've said this to me previously you know what do you want, what do you want out of this, what do you want in return, you know, for that product exchange or this partnership, I think, if you're reaching out to businesses, thinking of being pretty clear at the beginning of what you want to achieve and what you want out of that partnership opportunity, and going to them really openly saying hey, I'd love to talk about partnerships, are you open for a coffee or are you available for a Zoom call? I think now that we live in this world where we can just jump on, you know, on Zoom or Google Meet or whichever platform you use, it makes it so much easier to just have a quick half an hour conversation and say I think that there's a potential partnership opportunity here. Are you open to discussing it, really focusing, particularly if you're working with bigger brands, but also small businesses as well Like what are you trying to achieve in your business and let's find a way that I can help you achieve that? This is what I'm trying to achieve and this is what I would love to get out of a partnership. But, yeah, how can we do that together?

Speaker 3:

I think that's something that is really often missed and a lot of the time, businesses go into it saying, or individuals I've got this really great idea, I want to partner with you for this, this and this, and it's like you try to become best friends overnight. You kind of have to walk the friendship line for a little while. You know, and I think you know with this digital world we live in, a lot of the time people are like oh, but how do I approach them? And I always just think we've got Instagram, we've got LinkedIn like, make it a friendly message, don't make it a salesy message. If you've got their email address, great, reach out to them.

Speaker 3:

Think about who you already know and who you already have connections with. But a lot of the time, you have no idea that a brand might just be sitting there waiting for that opportunity. They might not necessarily know that you're there or that they want that opportunity, but you tell them what you do and who you are and that you've come up with this great creative idea and they go. Actually, that could be really awesome. Let's talk about it, let's discover it. So, yeah, I think we're thankfully living in a world where a lot of people are much more open to partnerships now, and particularly extending their reach and extending what they offer, because there's so many more specialists in what they do. So it just gives us more opportunity to reach out to more people, I suppose.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure, for sure. One other thing I think is really important if you're asking someone to partner with you, is that you actually do have a genuine interest in them.

Speaker 3:

You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a good point, that obvious in the message email. Actually follow them for starters yeah yeah, so, yes, do your research, do your research, yeah, yeah, what they're about 100?

Speaker 3:

yeah, absolutely. Do your research, know what they're about, know why you want to partner with them. Don't make it just a generic like. How much do we hate the generic instagram, dms or linkedin messages. It's like I just like I'm not interested, you know, like I'm not gonna say yes. But if you send me a genuine message that is tailored to me and tells me about what you like, about what I do, what you want to know more about that you've done a bit of research it really starts establishing that genuine business friendship, as opposed to I'm just sending a blanket email out to everyone. You know who's going to buy it, sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

Now, something we touched on actually before we started recording which I thought was a really great point was I mentioned to you that I received an email from a brand, a product company, and they're offering to give me some of their products. And I always struggle to know. If they're going to give me some products, what do they expect in return? And then I mean I did tell you that I asked them what they expect in return, but then I suppose that the point come up well, what's fair for them to expect in return? And then we had a great chat on that. So are you happy to touch on that again?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, of course, absolutely, and that's a really great point, and I'm so glad you brought it up before we started chatting because I think I would imagine for your audience, that's a thing that happens quite often and that's something that a lot of clients do come to me saying I've had these brands approaching me but I kind of just ignore them because I don't know what to say. I think the way that you went back to them and said what do you yeah, what do you want in return? Let's have a chat about this Great, perfect response. One of the things that I'll always talk to people about in the partnership life cycle is really understanding what you have to offer and what the value of your offerings are to you. So what I mean by that is like thinking about if they come back to you and they say we want three social media posts across your Instagram or, in your case, we want to do a podcast interview with you, really thinking about what the value of that is to you. So that is very dependent on you and how you value say what a podcast episode is worth or how you value what an Instagram post is worth, but as a real basic, it's also coming back to the hours of time that it takes you to put into it and if it's right for your audience.

Speaker 3:

So, understanding that time is money and understanding is the cost to me of creating three Instagram posts and sharing them with my audience. That might take me 10 hours. Is that value the same? Worth that I am getting in product in exchange, and are they? If they're exchanging product with me, are they also exposing me to their audience and is the value of me being exposed to their audience worth that to me? So it's a bit of a's, not like a. You know, unfortunately not an easy response in like a hard and fast, like. It is worth a thousand dollars. The product's worth a thousand dollars.

Speaker 3:

Great, let's do it, yeah it's really about understanding the opportunity for you, and you know, something that I often say is there's not a set amount that an Instagram post is worth, or there's not a set amount that a podcast episode is worth, or there's not a set amount that a podcast episode is worth, because that can vary, like when and I know it's a bit different to the world of makeup artists, but when I worked in football, like one football club valued a product very differently to what another football club valued it at, and it really is also about what you know, what a partner is willing to give in exchange for that product.

Speaker 3:

I think so, yeah, really thinking about what that value is to you and the way that you can do that before these opportunities come about as well, is brainstorming what you have to offer and getting creative with that brainstorming.

Speaker 3:

Like I said earlier, really thinking I could do this and I could do that, and don't hold yourself back, because from the creativity will come the reality. Like you'll look at that and go, okay, cool, well, I could do this with this person, or an opportunity might come up in six months time and you go back to that brainstorm and go well, actually we could collaborate on this, this personal branding shoot together or something like that, because you've done that brainstorming together. But when you do the brainstorming of what you have to offer, understand to yourself what the value is. So I think you and I have probably talked about before. It's almost like a services list in a way, and hopefully that talks to your audience, because I imagine that that's how the world of makeup artists sort of works is like. That's what it becomes if that makes sense, makes sense, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2:

No, I think it's. I think, um, what you said about you know getting creative, doing a brain dump and coming up with some some you know coming up with some ideas, and yeah, you can, just, you can sort of be the driver of your own ship and yeah absolutely yeah, I think that's such a great bit of advice. What about when it comes to sort of numbers of followers and things like that? When does that sort of play in? Does that matter?

Speaker 3:

well, again, it's probably if it matters to you, I suppose I don't think, and by that do you mean like how many followers you have, or how many followers the audience of the other business has, or or both I mean more the makeup artist, more the self yeah.

Speaker 3:

I think this is something I get asked a lot as well is like oh, I don't have a huge audience. Is that going to matter? And I think it really depends what the partnership is about. You know, if the other brand, if their key focus, is reaching new and big audiences, then okay, that's going to matter to them.

Speaker 3:

But a lot of the time, what brands are doing now is finding and if we're talking in that sort of social media world, is finding micro-influencers, micro-content creators, because they have a smaller audience but a very engaged audience and they're a very trusted audience. So it means that if you're posting about anything, if you're creating content about that product, then your audience are more likely to purchase from you or to listen to you or to engage with you. So I think it really comes down to engagement, what your audience is like, what your audience demographics are like, like beyond the sort of metrics of pure followers, but really understanding a lot more about your audience. I also think that there's so much opportunity beyond just doing social media posts and what your audience is like. I don't have a big audience at all, but yet I'm on your podcast because I have a specialty that I can talk about.

Speaker 3:

That is, it's also about finding what what you have beyond that like as a makeup artist, you have a specialty area, you're really good at what you do, so it's how do you bring that into a partnership, you know, um, and how do you bring that to the partner so that it's a benefit for them? So it might not necessarily be about that product being on your Instagram page or being promoted to your audience, but it might be about you creating content that that product can then put on their social media pages, for example. So like things like that, again, that thinking creatively. So don't I always say to people please don't be hindered by the fact that you don't have, you know, 50,000 followers, because, absolutely, if you were purely in the influencer world, yeah, okay, then that's, that's going to be a thing, but it's just not anymore. And so many brands are leading in leaning into content creators, and particularly lesser known content creators as well, and I've definitely seen a lot like just you know, increase overnight just because of the opportunities that they've got.

Speaker 2:

I like that you mentioned that it could be content that could be created to go on their page. So it's not really about your amount of followers, which I've never really even considered that before.

Speaker 3:

And that's that asking. Sorry I cut you off, but that's the asking the other partner what their objectives are and thinking about how you can help them achieve their objectives. And that's about, I think, when you have those initial conversations, if they come to you and they say, well, we want new audiences and we want you to promote it to your audience, and if you go, you know, well, that's not really what you know, I don't have a huge audience, so that's not really what it's going to be about. What if we do this, this and this? And you see if that's something that's of value to them and I think really creative switched on marketing teams will absolutely understand that and a lot of the time, you know, the content creation is something that, yeah, it takes so long and it takes so so many different people to make that happen, so that's a really high value to businesses yeah, I mean, even if you're a makeup artist and you're like I want to do content creation, just start, just start reaching out to people, yeah, yeah exactly hey.

Speaker 2:

I'm happy to make content for you. Yeah, something I don't know.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I don't know really yeah, and like another creative idea for a makeup artist as well, could be working with that brand to go into their offices and do a talk, for example, to, or a makeup demonstration to, their staff or something like that. Like, if that's a value to you, like it's just thinking that creatively, what are the other things that we can do here? Obviously, making sure that that's a value to you, um, but yeah, just thinking like, what can you do with your skillset?

Speaker 2:

It doesn't just have to be social media or, you know, emails or things like that any tips on if they're, you know like, I suppose, being really clear on what's expected of both parties. Would it be sort of an email?

Speaker 3:

yeah yeah, really important on this one and there's a few things to really look out for that are, you know, best practices around that, and that's sort of like you know what you touched on before is the doing your research, really knowing your partner, doing a bit of a risk assessment, so knowing who your partner is beforehand, because whoever your partner is says something about yourself and your business, so that's something that a lot of people miss, and that can be as simple as a Google desktop. You know research. I think that that's something that you know people.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, people miss a lot of the time, and that should probably be done before you start all these partnership conversations, though, but then also, yeah, doing some sort of contract, and that contract, exactly as you said, vanessa, can be as simple as an email that outlines you're doing this and we're doing this, and if you can make that legal in an official contract, excellent, but if it's purely in an email, then that's fine, and making sure that you then deliver on what you've agreed to do is really, really important, because that, yeah, that is so often what I see is missed is you have all these great conversations about partnerships and about getting this partnership across the line, and you agree to do all these things and then one of the partners drops the ball.

Speaker 3:

So the constant communication is really important and, you know, by that I mean, like when I have a partnership, depending on how much has to come to life from that partnership having regular meetings, whether that's weekly or fortnightly, just check-ins, or regular contact, whether that's through WhatsApp or Slack or email, and making sure that each of you are doing what you've said you're going to do in agreed timelines as well, and being really clear on what the objectives of the partnership are coming together, on those objectives overarching. You know of the actual partnership which brings both of your individual objectives together.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, cool. There was one other thing I thought of while we were talking about that, but it's left me. It's left me. Always happens, always happens. I think we've covered a lot. Is there anything?

Speaker 3:

else that you can think of that might be good to add yeah, I think we've covered most things.

Speaker 3:

I think the one thing that I probably haven't said is, just when you start on the partnership journey, just make sure that you spend a little bit of time understanding your why and your strategy. Um, I think that can be a thing, that is, spend a little bit of time understanding your why and your strategy. I think that can be a thing that is missed a lot of the time. But go beyond like just growing your audience, really understand what you could get out of partnerships and why you want to put the time and energy into it. And again, like the what do I have to offer? Brainstorm, it can be as simple as brainstorming. I'd love to go into the partnership space to do X, y and Z, you know, and then you've got an idea of what your objectives are, what your why is. That is just a really important thing that is often missed, but you will come back to it again and again and again whenever a partnership opportunity comes up.

Speaker 3:

And that can, in best cases. That ties in with your overarching business strategy of, like, um, what am I trying to achieve in my business? What? Where do I want to be in six months time? Where do I want to be in 12 months time? I want to be on a heap of podcasts. Okay, that's part of your partnership strategy, you know. So it really stems down into that, from that overarching business strategy and what you're focused on. So, yeah, that's a really important one that is often missed, but a great place to start.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've remembered my question actually. Oh great it was. I think you mentioned about know who you're partnering with, and I think that's something that kind of comes into your why, I suppose. But don't just take a partnership from anyone like really yeah they align with your, with who you are, and with your business, because it's going to say a lot about you yes, yeah absolutely is it. Is it anything else you can add on that?

Speaker 3:

yeah, absolutely. I think, knowing that you're exactly as you said, vanessa, understanding what your values are and who you are as a business and for a lot of makeup artists I would imagine that's who you are as an individual I know. For me as a consultant, very much comes back to who I am as an individual, what your boundaries are. You know something that I do with clients a lot of time is the no-go partners are. You know something that I do with clients a lot of time is the no-go partners. So you know businesses. I work with the Gen Z mental health charity and so there's very much you know no gambling, no smoking, no alcohol, like things like that. But there's also really focused on what that the other business stands for as well. So, really doing that sort of work around who you are, what you stand for, what's a no-go, but yeah, particularly knowing that about yourself and who those ideal brands and partners would be, I think you know it kind of comes back to marketing. It's sort of like of like who would, what would your ideal um, or hate using this word but like your client avatar be? What would your ideal partner avatar be what?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and really understanding a bit about their personality as well. If you're going to partner with someone, their personality really and that means I mean an individual's personality really comes into it, because you have to be able to work really well together. So if you don't get a great feeling from the beginning, then really listen to that. But yeah, risk assessment is just huge. Do a bit of desktop research and understand and know for yourself what you would do with that partner if something went wrong with that partner, so how you would talk about it, you know. And if you've done that research at the beginning, that then becomes really easy to be able to say you know when we partner together, this is why we partner together and this is the research we've done. Things have now changed, you know, and the partnership doesn't exist anymore or something like that. But hopefully that doesn't happen, you know. That's just the scary thing that I think is always important to mention risk assessment and contracts.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah Well, thank you so much, serena. You've inspired me to start thinking a bit more creatively, so thank you so much.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, great. Well, that's awesome. Thanks for having me, vanessa, and I hope your audience took something away from it today too.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Thanks for joining me today on the Makeup Insider. I hope you've enjoyed the show. Please don't forget to rate and subscribe, and I'll see you soon. Bye for now.