As part of my word for the year #us, I’m putting a lot of focus on Partnership Marketing. And, I’ve just completed Simone Novello’s Partner Fast Program. (We talked with Simone about Marketing Partnerships here.)

One of the keys to creating an effective marketing partnership is to know what you can provide another business such that they would want to partner with you. This all centres around:

What are your assets?

Business Assets

An asset is anything owned by a business of value. Normally, we think about our assets as being physical things such as cars, buildings, stock, equipment, furniture and fittings, cash in the bank…

For the knowledge worker and the solo business expert another critical category of assets is your intellectual property. Normally, we think about intangible assets as being patents, trademarks, designs, brand value… And, there is one more important element that I’m sure you have lots of…

[Tweet “Find the hidden gold in your hidden business assets”]

Hidden Assets

When I came into the Partner Fast program, I wasn’t clear on what I could offer other people. And, I received the shock of my life when Simone suggested one of the best assets to create partnership for a quick win was content.

Mmm… content… I have just a little bit of content. For example, I have over 800 blog posts, 20 webinar recordings, 20 videos, over 60 podcast episodes, four books, two online courses and over 50 Book Rapper ebooks. Talk about can’t see the forest for the trees!

The only excuse I can suggest is that I’m a content machine and creating high quality unique content comes so easily to me I didn’t value it. And, what a lame excuse this is. Shame on me!

As if this is not bad enough, the tragic blind spot for me is that apart from Book Rapper, which sells via subscription, none, yes, NONE of my other content is currently for sale. This is partly because I took my store down late last year since it was causing problems for my website and I haven’t replace it. Again, another lame excuse!

Wait, there’s more… It gets worse! Like everyone, I could do with the cash flow – that smooth and steady flow of money into my account rather than relying on the bumpy hills and troughs of client payments. Now, I can hear you thinking and rightly so, ‘That’s completely stupid!’ and ‘What sort of business expert are you?’ True. I can accept this. And, I’m now changing for the better. Forgive me.

Your Hidden Assets

Now it’s your turn to turn that harsh spotlight of review onto you and your business. Here’s some questions for you to consider:

• What hidden assets do you have in your business?
• How can you exploit and leverage these assets quickly and easily?
• Which ones could be earning you money right now?
• Which ones, particularly content, could you give away right now to add value to your clients?

ACTION: The place to start is to do an asset audit for your business.

• Make a list of the physical and intellectual assets of your business
• Review each one in terms of the value it could add to your business and the value it could add to your clients
• Create an action – what are you going to do next?

COMMENT: What hidden assets did you find in your business?