Our website is powerpartners.us. It's yeah. Our website is powerpartners.us.
And we have a membership list there. And a lot of our members have been with us a long time, right, Deborah? This is why in December we decided to front burner this business because we weren't really sure how well we were doing for our members, but nobody was leaving.
So we were like, what if we actually front burner this? and made a priority of working with our members. Welcome to B2B Synergy, the Power Partners USA podcast, your exclusive guide to discovering the potential of B2B partnerships. I'm Alan Armijo, owner of Power Partners USA Business-to-Business Introduction and Referral Service. Our members are B2B professionals who team up to provide each other repeat referral business or collaboration.
Today's episode shines the light on ourselves, Alan and my wife, Deborah Armijo. We own and manage Power Partners USA and are here to talk about and provide insight into what Power Partners USA is all about. Hi, Deborah.
How are you doing? Fine. So, Deborah, why don't you start us off and ask a few questions about Power Partners USA? Okay.
So, when and why did you begin Power Partners USA? Power Partners started as an idea or a business concept in about 2013, I believe. Both Debra and I had been active in a lot of different networking groups and chambers, and we were just trying to come up with a different way of doing the same thing without having all of the meeting and drive time. There was a lot of time and cost on networking with people, including going on a regular basis to business breakfasts or lunches, which kind of just got tired of doing.
So the idea was to have a member service and promote and market our members with short videos. That's kind of how the plan started. We knew that having our marketing agency, iTrust Marketing, would be beneficial to our members and that we could market them without having to meet with them so much in person. That started a while back, but since December of 2023 is when we really decided to prioritize things and really ramp up. focusing on our existing members and recruiting new members.
What I see with our members, that's one of the number one issues they have with the other type of networking groups is the effort, weekly breakfasts, luncheons, and obligations. So was that your biggest drawback to going to networking groups? Was that time commitment, Debra? Yes.
For me, it was. the time commitment and not getting, you know, legit leads and the obligations. Over the years, I mean, there was a time where you just, you had to do it.
I still believe meeting in person, but it doesn't have to be every week. And I think the way we have it set up helps us and the members saving time. So how did you come up with the name Power Partners USA? Well.
The name derived from the fact that I saw in the networking groups, there were certain individuals that were teaming up and giving each other repeat referrals. And I felt that's what networking groups were really should be about is the ability to meet somebody who gives you constant referrals, not just one. Because a lot of members in a group don't really have any synergy, but there are always one or two that do.
So I like the name Powerpoint. partner. I added USA because we felt that because we don't have to meet in person, we're not necessarily a local only organization. So we can expand beyond our region.
And we even got the trademark for Power Partners USA. So we're in the several years into that. It's just kind of showing our seriousness of wanting to have a brand. that is introduction service and a referral network.
Yeah. And I, going back to other networking groups, I find that they don't really team you up with your power partners. Sometimes it naturally happens. You can see it.
This is really focused on reaching and getting leads for their power partners members. I've always thought that the power partners throughout my business career was like. somebody that has the same clientele you have.
but they don't do what you do. Like, say, for me, being a graphic designer, like a photographer, a videographer, a copywriter, we all have the same client, but we all have the different jobs to do to complete the work. So that's one of the main concepts for me is for the power partners. But with that in mind, a lot of our clients are also power partners that do something totally different than us. and give us referrals.
So what differentiates Power Partners from other networking groups and or Chamber of Commerces? Well, as we said, no meetings is a big one. We don't always, we also don't have a lot of rules like a lot of networking groups do with regard to enforcing that you bring leads every week. We don't have any, because we don't have meetings, we save people a lot of time.
They don't have to drive anywhere. Another differentiator is that we can have more than one business category in our network. So we can have multiple real estate or financial advisors.
However, we do protect them for a while until they get established and everything. But we noticed that not all business professionals are the same. They all have different specialties or personalities.
Another big one is that we promote our members inside. outside the network. I've yet to see a networking group that promotes their member list and individual members outside on social media or any type of promotion that gives them that extra reach. And we leverage our marketing agency or that capacity to do that for our members.
A new feature we have that other networking groups I have yet to see is our B2B Synergy podcast that we started in December. It's been a big help in getting content and understanding of what our members do because a lot of the businesses can be complex. And the podcast really allows that member to talk about their services in a detailed way. Another differentiator is our PPUSA golf lessons.
It's one way that gives us the ability to meet in person, but it's getting people together on the golf course to take lessons, but a lot of networking goes on there. So... That's been effective for our members who enjoy golf. Well, I just kind of want to emphasize, I like always like the idea that you have these rules or obligations that you had to give leads or you had to show up.
You have, you know, there's a lot of things you're required to do. And the one business category over the years did not work for me because people were coming overlapping to my category. So it was really hard for me to get a lead, especially with technology.
With a printer, I noticed that they started offering graphic design. But even though they were in the print category, they were not going to give up the graphic design work. And because you're obligated, you have to give so many leads a month.
I was getting leads that weren't really panning out. So that was an issue for me. But yeah, and as far as promoting members outside the group, yeah, I've never seen a networking group do that.
That's why you have to show up and be in their face. But that doesn't mean they're going to give you a lead. And also, over the years of the meetings that I've gone to different groups, the format is the same. And after a while, it fizzles out.
where it's not working, where you go week after week after week. So I think the power partners with our marketing and technology knowledge, our format, it really promotes the members, like you said, outside of the group where that does not happen in that we are regular. networking groups. It doesn't even happen in chamber of commerce is you're on your own. Right.
And I think because, you know, it's our business and it's our goals that all our members benefit from it. It's up to us. And we're, we're like the catalyst. We see where leads are coming in or what, what connections should be made based on the content that's coming in. So we take that on ourselves.
So, but we, we know. when a lead or when two people should meet, and we'll make sure those connections happen. We keep a running list. of all the connections that we've made.
And this list is since December, but it is really growing in how we're able to see the number of leads that we get and give inside Power Partners and tracking that so that we can prove that our members are getting leads and that connections are being made. So we're able to document what's happening. So that's... I don't know if other networking groups do. I'm sure they do in some fashion, but we're doing that and we're trying to get better at that for the benefit of our members.
Well, they do track leads, but that goes back to you have to give so many leads of a month or you're out of the group. And with that in mind, a lot of those leads are not really leads. Right. And this is what I'm saying is like our leads are quality leads because you can tell that two people are interested in connecting or should connect with each other or they're asking about something. So a lot of members will ask us, do you have this or do you have a referral for that?
And sometimes it's right in the network and they have missed it. So we're there to catch that lead for our members. And that's, I think, our.
One of the really big values that we give to membership, and it's just being proactive and keeping everybody top of mind and working with the members to keep each other top of mind. I think a big differentiator too is the brochure that Deborah creates for our members. And it gets updated as we get a couple new members more. And so it's always current, but it's a great desk piece so that people are reminded that they can just reach out quickly. Besides what's on our website, we of course have a website, but I think this print piece is really valuable on your desk to realize that we have a strong network of individuals that can help with pretty much anything.
I think that these, I don't want to be like just bagging on them because I belonged to them when I was starting out my business, but I've noticed our membership are a lot of seasoned professionals and they've been there, done that. just like us. So they see, you know, this as a value to them now.
And, and that's not to say that they're in other groups too, but they're seeing the difference, how this works compared to your standard networking group. And I agree with that. So let's talk a little bit about our membership because I do see that our, our membership are seasoned, they're veterans, they have a lot of experience, but Power Partners USA.
We have a number of members in accounting, banking, and finance. So that section of business is very strong. We're good in marketing.
We're good in technology and real estate. We have very strong real estate professionals as well as a lot of legal professionals. So we cover a very wide range of business with seasoned professionals.
Our website is powerpartners.com. us or it was it's yeah our website is powerpartners.us and we have a membership list there and a lot of our members have been with us a long time right deborah this is why in december we decided to front burner this uh business because we weren't really sure how well we were doing for our members but nobody was leaving right so we were like what if we actually front burner this and and made a priority of you working with our members. And the podcast has been really helpful because we're interviewing our members and we're giving them the opportunity, like I said, to talk in detail about their business, but it really pulls out the content.
It helps us understand what they do and then educate others about that. And what I'm finding is that there's a lot that I don't know about other businesses. Like I think I know about different things, but I realized that until I hear these professionals talk, I am learning. I'm learning a lot about the legal world, the real estate world, the financial world.
And it's helpful to me, but it's really helpful that we can explain this on our members'behalf. What would you like to say about our members? What do you like about the makeup we have there? I like how we don't have the mandatory one category. Like you said, like because like you always say, because it looks like.
Two industries categories are doing the same thing, but they're actually do different that do different services or there's an overlap that they were doing handling different services, different clientele. And but like you always protect the current member in case somebody wants to come in, you ask them. So, you know, making sure there's no conflict.
So there's a discussion there. which is nice. Otherwise, when you get into these one category groups, it gets very territorial and it stunts the growth of the group where Power Partners isn't like that.
It's rentally different. Power Partners USA. And there's a lot of room for growth in our members.
We are looking for a lot of professionals to join us because The business model is that we're asking our members, who gives you repeat business? They know. So an estate planner will say like a CPA, a financial advisor, a real estate person. They know that those people give them repeat business. So our job is to find them more.
So in asking those questions of our members, we see that we're currently actively recruiting attorneys in real estate, attorneys in employment law, business coaches, CPAs, people in... And then... elder care services. We're trying to increase our healthcare and elder care membership.
We have some good partners in there now, enrolled agents, meeting planners, insurances of all types, commercial, property and casualty, IT consultants, loan brokers, other marketing professionals, even people that you would think would compete directly with our business. A lot of these businesses that you... think are competing or actually passing referrals back and forth. Still, nonprofits.
Who else would you like to see, Deborah? Is there any members that you would like to recruit? I would like to see a promotional item person in there that we would work with and also refer to.
And also what I've seen in some of the categories, like I said, not everybody does the same thing. Or they, it's something that. a client they normally don't handle or they'll sub it out, I guess you say, to one of the other power partners. So that's what we would do if we need help with a certain size client. So there are like built-in leads for these people that were looking to join us because our power partners are asking for them.
I forgot to mention mortgage broker, hotels, real estate developers, software developers, wedding planners. There's a whole host of need out there from our members that have told us. So that's a good idea of how power partners work in terms of the business model, just trying to identify connections between businesses that are going to give each other repeat referral business and collaboration.
You know, an example of that currently is we have Valerie Condon and Phil Shikurly. And Valerie's a realtor, real estate professional. And Phil is a estate planning attorney. So There's a natural synergy between those two.
They even did a podcast together where they explain how that works. And we want to do more podcasts where our power partners are speaking together and how they work together. And those become very interesting conversations. I really think those podcasts, whether they're videos or audio, they've helped me out really understanding the individual businesses and members.
And if I hear a referral, it's so easy just to forward their information to someone besides a phone number or email. So you just get the whole picture of this person. It's this warm introduction. And there's other ways, too, you know, how we help promote them. If they're not doing a podcast, there's other ways we can.
set up their information, make it a warm call for them. Right, right. That's where I should mention too, this is another differentiator is our Explained Here page on the website. Each member has an account page with their contact information and that page will link to what we called Explained Here, which is their list of short videos of them explaining like who their clients are, how they differentiate themselves. how they work with their power partners.
And if they have a podcast, that podcast is there in its entirety. All meant. to be a sales tool, especially the podcast is really a sales tool because a person can hear that professional talking about their business and can see the expertise in it. But explained here on the website is a growing list of videos that we've taken either from the podcast or in the past we've done videos in person.
It's an excellent way for people to get a lot of in-depth information about that person before they actually call them or. As Debra said, we can use that as a warm referral, use the podcast at a specific timestamp or location and send that link to a person as a lead to hear our power partner talking about just what they need and get that insight. So it's not just, oh, here's an email to call so-and-so. It's really some background and deep information to show that expertise.
And, uh, That's been a really good source of content for our members and the ones that are taking advantage of that have a growing list of content in there. I get like on I see people asking for referrals on different categories all the time on different social media platforms and people will post, oh, call so-and-so. Here's a phone number.
But when I do it. I go, see if so-and-so can help. Here's all their information. I give them their power partners, members, their page, which has everything on there. And I give them the link to their explain here.
And it just really, it's like they met them, they're meeting them in person. You know, the same with the B2B synergy. It's like they've already, they're meeting with them. So you're not getting this cold call phone number. And a lot of business development or relationship development is that first initial meeting.
And explained here, this short videos gives somebody an idea of what the member is about before they actually meet them in person for lunch or things like that. So they're getting some of the initial information out of the way because they took the time to see a video or a lot of our members have heard entire podcasts. And to have a very good understanding of each member without, you know, we have like a monthly meeting. That's a Zoom. Our only meeting is a monthly Zoom meeting.
And there's not time to give somebody 10 minutes or 20 minutes to talk about themselves solely. Besides the fact that a lot of people are multitasking and they don't hear every word. Whereas with the podcast, if you pay attention, if you listen.
You really get the detail of that person's business and you can see where the synergies are, how you guys can work together. Then you have that in-person meeting. And that's what we're striving for with our members is to say, like, we're past the, hi, how are you doing stage? Because, you know, we've got video, we have Zoom meetings and everything like that. We're now in the, let's really sit down at lunch and really talk about each other, how we can work together collaboratively.
And those meetings are taking place now. People are telling us, our members are telling us. Yeah, I think, you know, you still have to have live events, meetings, mixers. It's just, it's also just fun, you know, and it's not taking up our time.
It's not mandatory. But yeah, it's most of the time I'll start talking about golf to the members, the members that golf. Let's talk. That's how you get to know someone.
Well, let's talk about some of those in-person events. I'd like to start with the December dinner social we had, which was really a kickoff for how we're taking power partners to the next level because we hosted all our members for a dinner, like a networking and then a sit down dinner. And it worked out really good. You know, we had like 25 invites, 24 showed up.
And the only reason that. one person didn't show up is because she had gotten sick that day. So that was a great way for members to meet each other in person and proves that our members are engaging. In mid-June, we're going to have a networking social along the same lines, but this time it's going to be the house of one of the attorneys in the network and bringing people to Irvine, to this location to have a mixer type event in person. And as you can see, it's already been six months from one to the other.
The time we know, and as everybody knows, really flies. We have this sense of urgency in between the times we meet in person to keep people top of mind, to bring on new members, introduce those new members, make sure people are interacting. And we'll see, like in the in-person events, that kind of how that synergy has developed from, say, December to June. Well, also a division and extension of the Power Partners USA.
We have PPUSA, GAW, and... It's fun, but we do business networking and learn golf. And the people that have come to the sessions, they just love it.
I mean, it's such a relaxing atmosphere. You're on the course, networking, you're learning golf, which a lot of people want to learn it just for business sake. If they need to go to a tournament, things like that, at least have some background on it.
So it's been really fun. And also, you know, we've made and the members or the people that joined, they've made good connections and actually have done some work together. So that's been a success.
And it's just been a lot of fun, too. It's because it's a networking meeting while we're on the golf course learning the lessons. So it's a lot of fun.
Yeah, people. We do do business on the golf course, that's for sure. And we've developed from beginners to some good golfers, right? They've really got good at golf. So, well, let's take everybody through how our process is with new members, Debra.
We're in a relationship type business. There's somebody who's new, nobody knows who they are. So it's our job to introduce them. to the membership.
They fill out by filling a registration form that asks them certain questions that becomes their first introductory video. But it's always fun to introduce new members to the network. And from there, they start in our monthly meeting, can introduce themselves a bit more.
And in that meeting, our members, we call it member speak, get a chance to, you know, kind of reintroduce themselves and take questions and answers from each other. in that monthly meeting. But in between, we have something called power circle meetings, where we'll take an industry segment like marketing, or in this case, we'll have one coming up on elder care and healthcare.
And those professionals in those fields in our membership will get together. And that's kind of like their best source of repeat business from each other. So that's another opportunity for them to talk and explain their services.
but also find resources or potential power partners to connect with. And this is the home runs we're trying to hit. That's another way that we can develop these relationships.
As we mentioned multiple times, pushing out our members'content on social media is huge. We're leveraging our marketing capacity for our members and putting it out primarily on LinkedIn, right, Deborah? Yes. to bring attention to their short videos or what they're doing and bringing people back to their explain here page, which we're able to track and see that there is interest in what they're talking about. And then finally, the in-person events is the periodic in-person events or power circles is another way that we're developing those relationships within the network.
And also we have a lot online, the website, the members page. We have the members list. We have information. We have their explain here, their podcast. But what we also have is, and it just seems that members are always happy to receive it, is we have a brochure with the directory on it with everybody's.
contact URL to their page. And it seems like you still need something tangible. Plus, so they can also hand out to other people too to promote. If they hear somebody that needs a certain service, they can hand them a brochure if they're in person in a meeting.
And then also like when we go out networking to mixers, we're handing them out too. So it's... It's nice having that tangible list.
But also. I put it always, I try to put it updated because, because it does change. I try, I try to put the latest version on a PDF file up on the site. So you can also download that too. It's got so many members.
I'm like in the, I'm updating it right now. Right. I need to put up the latest version.
Right. One of the. things we haven't really talked about is the website. Since December, Debra redesigned the PowerPartners.USA website at PowerPartners.US.
And what I like about it is the homepage. If you just scroll down that homepage, you can get to any of the items we talked about, whether it's the list of members we have, PDF brochure, explain here videos, individual account pages, a way to get to the podcasts. All of that just by scrolling down the homepage. You also talk about featured members, Debra, and new members are all listed there.
So it shows a lot of activity before you crawl into the site more to get more detailed information. I like the new website. It's very handy for me.
And it looks nice, too. It's very professional. So the podcasts are like a very important feature of the Power Partners USA.
What? Or can you tell us about the podcast? When we decided to start a podcast, I knew it'd be very effective in terms of getting content from our members.
Because like I said, some of these businesses are complex in understanding. So we give that member the chance to answer questions about it and explain it. So it becomes actually a sales tool for that member.
you know, producing a podcast is not necessarily easy, but there's a lot of upside to it. And primarily in getting this content, and because we can break up a 45-minute podcast into smaller segments to post on our social media, to promote that member, bring them back to their Explain Here page, bring them back to their account page, or back to the podcast. The podcast is also because you can...
get the podcasts on Apple and Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, anywhere where you get podcasts. So those are usually audio, but we've taken the extra step of having a video podcast. So our members will just get on a Zoom call like this, and we'll be able to record that.
And I have editing software to make that into a podcast. So it's a very good way for promotional purposes to get video out on. social media versus audio itself. So that to me has been a game changer.
And it's actually a lot of fun interviewing our members and learning more about them. And as we talked about, it's, it's really gives you ideas on where you can give them leads or where they are needing resources for what they do. It's huge.
What else should we say about the podcast, Debra? Well, when I'm thinking about the podcast and posting it on the social medias and having it on our website and the SEO and all that, it really moves our members and their services up in the search engines. A lot of people forget about that or until they, you know, want SEO.
That's unique about our membership, our website. All this brings you... our membership up in the search engines, their services. So that's really important. That does not happen with other groups.
They do not do that service for you. You're, you know, they, once you leave that morning meeting, you're done. And the podcast is, and, and the postings, they're out there. It's, it's out in the world. So, you know, so this, this.
on, you know, online, offline services really helps our members promote their services. Right. That, that podcast really does live on the internet.
And because we can see the statistics on YouTube where podcasts that we did in January are still getting visibility there. The numbers are ticking up and we haven't necessarily promoted those guys in a while. So they're, but they're still getting. visibility. And I think, you know, a lot of people appreciate that just having that, that that promotion out there, especially nowadays with the internet being like so active that, that they can be found.
And, and we, the podcast really gives that to those members. So Debra, you've been listening to some of our podcasts recently. What, what did, what are your impressions of what you're hearing from our members?
Well, it's, it's a lot of detailed information that I would not have gotten in a. a few minutes meeting them and, and it's sitting there. So I could go back. I like how it's broken up in the, the chapters.
So if there's something specific I want to go back to, or if I hear somebody mentioned something I can, you know, refer that section to them. So they don't have to, if they don't have time to listen to the whole podcast, they can listen to a couple minutes. Right.
In producing it, we take the extra effort of. writing show notes, which describes what the podcast is about. As Debra mentioned, the chapters and timestamps allow somebody to go to a section is like, how do you work with your power partners?
Or how do you explain this aspect of the law? And people can just skip right to that and play that portion. I think it's a very unique feature that we give all our podcasts and take the time to do that. Because I know that everybody's busy and with podcasts, you really can't multitask.
You really have to listen to it, right? You can't multitask and listen and get the most out of it if you're multitasking. But if you don't have the time, you can go to certain sections and just get what you want to hear. As I said, I've generated leads for, as I mentioned, I generate leads from listening to podcasts that I've created with our members and find it very helpful to go back and refresh what I learned about that member. And the members who have listened to our podcast, I've heard how they've reached out to that person and inquired about business.
And that's really what it's for. So what's the process for joining Power Partners USA? To join Power Partners USA, just go to powerpartners.us, go to the registration form and fill out that online form. That'll take you to a payment option. Our cost is very competitive.
It's only $4.95 a year. You can pay online. And at that point, we will take it from there in onboarding you with your first introductory video based on what you filled out in the form.
And then start the process of onboarding, scheduling a podcast. interview with you and then developing your Explained Here page. On top of that, we're going to use this content that we're generating from you to market you outside the business and bring you along into our network and find those home run connections for you that are going to bring you repeat referral business. And as we, in doing all that, we start to introduce you to the network.
You can join in some of our monthly meetings to meet other members. And then come to our in-person events that we have periodically.