A community can help grow your business, and being a part of the right community can expand your circle of influence. Networking and strategic partnerships are great for small business owners, especially women small business owners. But dang if it isn’t challenging! I was excited to see what this course had to offer on the topic since a fresh perspective is always nice. As a bonus, I snagged this course for free! Woot, woot!
Connect to Collaborate: How Being a Part of the Right Community Can Help Grow your Business
Overview
As I said, this course was a freebie that I picked up from a bundle somewhere along the way. For that, I was thankful because as I will elaborate on, further along, this course was a challenge for me to stay engaged with during the process. There were some great nuggets of information about how a community can help grow your business, especially if you are new to owning your own business. Community is especially important for those of us that work from home and need to find people to collaborate with to grow our networks and increase revenues.
Strength
Throughout the video, Vanessa Mullen of Bloom Boldy (I think, more on that later) shares some great bits of advice about finding ways to collaborate with others. She also touches on the fact that we shouldn’t be afraid of collaborating with people in a similar field to us, which is sage advice. Her passion for the topic is evident.
Vanessa also includes some swipe files that help you prepare your first collaboration pitch, as well, which is a great resource.
Area for improvement
By the end of this section, you all are going to think I have a personal vendetta against this course creator, I don’t. I just know, as an educator and a person with experience training adult learners, that there is some room for improvement in this course.
Here is a snapshot of the things that could be improved or tweaked to make the smart advice she has to stand out better:
- Break up the first video
- nobody has time to listen to a 27-minute video on the topic without any breaks
- Eliminate on-screen distractions
- iCloud Keynote was used for the presentation, I know this because she didn’t launch the presentation so you saw the slide deck the whole time
- during the 27-minute video, she scrolls repeatedly around so it was catching my eye and making me miss things she said of value to the learner
- Do not read the slides verbatim
- during the video the information displayed and what she was saying was word-for-word the same with minimal extra information provided
- Overuse of buzz words and jargon
- I am familiar with some of the buzz words and jargon that is used but not everyone is so using basic terms or explaining what is meant by some of the terms could be useful
There were also many deadlinks in the course, which was frustrating since she offers the opportunity to collaborate with her and the community she may have built. I am not sure if it actually exists since I could not find it. So, I guess this isn’t where I will build the community that can help grow my business.
The whole point of collaboration is that you give and take from each other, and that’s how you create things that are totally new.
Virgil Abloh
Who would benefit from this course?
In its present state, I wouldn’t recommend this course to anyone but I would be happy to talk about how the right community can help grow your business anytime! I know some amazing women and resources, hence the blog! Some other great communities can be found on Facebook, I spend a lot of my time in Windy Lawson’s free and paid communities, as well as in Hope Hanson’s free and paid communities.
What’s next?
I have a great e-book review on tap for the next post, so be on the lookout for some strategic talk! I publish new content every Friday, in case you didn’t know.
Also, it is about time for an update on my bullet journal journey. Am I still kicking butt or have a faltered as I have in the past with other planners and journals?
