Ask Lis Journal / Income & Entrepreneurship
“Let’s collaborate.”
It may be one of the most overused phrases in business.
Sometimes it means, “Let’s create something together.”
Sometimes it means, “Let’s promote each other.”
And sometimes, if we’re being truthful, it means, “You have something I want access to.”
An audience. A network. A platform. A relationship. A skill. A resource.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting access to those things. Business is built on relationships.
But asking someone for access is not automatically collaboration.
Real collaboration begins when the question changes from “What can you do for me?” to “What can we create together, and what am I bringing to help make it happen?”
Collaboration requires contribution.
That contribution doesn’t always look the same. One person may bring expertise. Another may bring an audience. Someone else may bring funding, production capabilities, relationships, technology, credibility or distribution.
The contributions don’t have to be identical. They simply have to matter.
And collaboration doesn’t necessarily mean free.
Businesses can collaborate and still pay one another. Sponsors can fund collaborations. Consultants can participate in collaborations while being compensated for their expertise.
Collaboration describes how people work together. It does not determine whether money changes hands.
What collaboration can look like in real life
I have built collaborative relationships with several real estate professionals, including Realtors and a real estate investor.
Through my media platforms, I can help open a door to an audience they might not otherwise reach without investing significant time, money and effort into building a platform of their own. They bring industry knowledge, useful perspectives and introductions to people and relationships outside my existing network.
Neither side is simply asking the other for access. We are each contributing access, resources and relationships that took time to build.
The result can be useful content for the audience, greater visibility for the professionals involved and new relationships or opportunities for everyone participating.
That is collaboration: not identical contributions, but meaningful ones.
Perhaps the simplest test is this:
Before asking someone to collaborate, ask yourself: What am I bringing to the table besides the request?
When both sides can answer that question clearly, collaboration stops being a buzzword.
It becomes something much more valuable: a relationship where two sets of resources, ideas and abilities create an outcome neither side could have produced quite the same way alone.
First published September 7, 2026, on AskLis.co. By Lisbet Newton.
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