Instagram didn’t invent the “collab.” It just gave an old idea a new name — and made almost everyone forget the version that doesn’t need a platform at all.
A gym owner in the Two-Brain network once did the math on his own walls.
He measured out the space, worked out how many banner slots it could hold without feeling cluttered, and landed on twenty. He priced each one to cover the cost of printing plus a yearly fee, then went business to business, offering non-competing local companies a spot — a hairdresser here, a physio there, a lube shop by the door. He even created a part-time role just to manage it: find the businesses, collect the payment, handle the artwork.
Twenty banners. One wall. A steady stream of profit that had nothing to do with membership sales — and every one of those twenty businesses now had a reason to send their customers his way, because their name was hanging in his gym.
Nobody called it a “collab.” It was just good business, run the same way small businesses have run this play for a hundred years.
That’s the pattern this episode is about.
The Collab Was Never a Platform Feature
Scroll Instagram for thirty seconds and you’ll find a “collab post” — two businesses mashing their audiences together, hoping some of it sticks. It works, sometimes. But it’s talked about like it was invented in the last five years.
It wasn’t. Cross-promotion — one business borrowing the trust of another to reach a new audience — is one of the oldest growth strategies that exists. The only thing that’s changed is where we go looking for it. Somewhere along the way, “collab” became a digital-only word, and we stopped noticing the version sitting in our own building, with the people already walking through our door.
That matters more than it used to. Statistics Canada reports that businesses with 1 to 19 employees made up 86.7% of all employer businesses in Canada in 2023 — which means almost nobody reading this has the ad budget to simply buy their way to a new audience. What we have instead is trust, already built with a specific group of people. The leverage isn’t a bigger spend. It’s borrowing someone else’s trust, and lending them yours.
Peer Leadership: Help First, Ask Second
I wrote an entire book about this ten years ago, called Help First. Most of it still works exactly the way it did then — arguably better now, since so few people are doing it anymore.
The concept underneath it is peer leadership: finding people — other business owners, professionals, community leaders — who could genuinely benefit from exposure to your audience. Helping them first, by sharing your platform, your list, your room, or your reach. And only then asking them to reciprocate.
There’s a three-stage version of this from the book that still holds up:
- I help you. Directly, no strings attached.
- I help your clients. I extend that same help to the people who already trust you.
- You help me. Because now there’s a relationship, not a transaction.
Skip stage one and go straight to “you help me,” and you’re just doing cold outreach with extra steps.
Skip the Exclusive Partnership
Here’s where most business owners get this wrong. When it’s time to formalize a relationship like this, the instinct is to reach for the word “partnership” — often an exclusive one. One photographer. One supplier. One referral source.
Don’t. Exclusivity is a ceiling, not a floor. Lock yourself to one photographer or one gym or one accountant, and you’ve capped how many pathways lead back to you, in exchange for a feeling of security that mostly benefits the other party.
What actually works is two things:
Open pathways. Deliberately create clear, non-exclusive routes from other people and businesses to you. Not one — several. A pathway doesn’t need a contract. It needs a reason for someone to think of you and point their audience your way.
Leave breadcrumbs. Opening a pathway isn’t enough. Getting referrals is not a passive process. You have to actively lead people down the pathway you built — follow up, make the ask specific, give people the words to use, put a deadline on it. A pathway with no breadcrumbs is just a nice idea nobody walks down.
Four Ways This Works in Real Life
Bring in outside speakers. A monthly guest speaker series — chiropractors, physiotherapists, massage therapists, each teaching a topic for an hour — recorded and published with the speaker’s name front and centre. They get an audience that wants exactly what they teach. Their existing list hears exactly where they’ve been spending their time. This week: name three professionals whose expertise your audience would want. Invite one to teach or guest-post this month, and agree in advance on what they’ll share with their own list.
Co-promote events, not just posts. A “Bridal Bootcamp” run every spring with local wedding planners, photographers, and dress shops — two weeks free with a dress purchase, a gift certificate worth real money for the shop to hand out, a new client already carrying a strong reason to succeed. The same logic works for a corporate wellness day, a health fair booth, or a joint 30-day challenge. This week: pick one event already on your calendar and find one complementary business whose customers overlap with yours. Agree in writing on what each of you promotes, and by when.
Sell the space you’re not using. The banner story above is the clearest version of this, but it doesn’t require a wall — a footer in your newsletter, a slide in your waiting room, a line in your email signature is all real estate someone else would pay or trade to borrow. This week: list every piece of visible space you have, pick three non-competing local businesses whose customers overlap with yours, and offer one of them a spot.
Build a referral board, not a referral hope. A rotating gift-certificate system — two or three service professionals each month, each given a couple of vouchers framed as a thank-you, not an ask — plus a referral board at the front desk for clients who run their own businesses. Stage three, “you help me,” tends to show up on its own once stages one and two are done properly. This week: name three service providers who share your client base. Give each one a voucher for a client of their choosing, and track who reciprocates.
Where to Start This Week
One hour, four steps:
- Build your Pathway List (15 min). Ten people or businesses who share your market but don’t compete with you.
- Match each one to a move (15 min). Guest speaker, co-promoted event, shared space, or referral rotation — whichever fits, whichever’s easiest to start this month.
- Draft your “help first” opener for your top three (20 min). Lead with what you’re offering, not what you want.
- Send one, today (10 min). Not all three — one. Set a follow-up date before you close the laptop.
Real-world collab isn’t a trend. It’s the same audience-sharing logic as an Instagram post, running on infrastructure that’s worked for a century. You don’t need an exclusive partnership. You need a few open pathways — and the discipline to actually lead people down them.
Chris Cooper is the host of BusinessIsGood, a podcast for Canadian small business owners, and the author of Help First. New episodes at businessisgood.com.
