The Playbook | No. 40

Most partnerships are fake leverage. Two brands with no audience are pretending that collaboration will save them.

I break down the exact 3-part framework I use to qualify every deal, why I turned down 3 “good” opportunities, and how we turn conversations into revenue in under 10 days.

The Playbook | Inside POV

I’ve said no more in the last 30 days than I did in the last 6 months.

Not because the opportunities weren’t good. Because most partnerships are fake leverage. Two brands with no distribution. No audience. No money.

Collaborating will magically create both.

It doesn’t. It just burns time and makes everyone feel productive without actually getting anything done. That’s the shift I’m in right now as I build Impact Golf Studios.

We’re not chasing partnerships. We’re qualifying them.

Every great collab starts with one thing.

A vibe check. And no, that’s not soft.

It’s the fastest way to kill bad deals before they kill your momentum. Because the wrong partner doesn’t just waste time, they cost you weeks of distribution, revenue, and trust you don’t get back.

Every partner runs through this. No exceptions.

I don’t care how good the idea is. If you can’t move attention, we’re not working together. Everyone has ideas. Very few have distribution.

So I ask one question:

Can you consistently put us in front of the right audience?

Not once. Not “we’ll post it.”

Consistently. If not, it’s a no because I’m not building a business on hope.

I’m building on leverage.

This is the vibe check. Do you move fast?

Do you follow up without being chased? Do you think in systems or just one-off wins? I don’t need perfect partners. I need partners who don’t slow me down.

You can feel this within two messages. And if it feels off early, it only gets worse when money’s involved.

If we can’t see how this turns into revenue, it’s not a partnership. It’s networking. There has to be a path to paid:

Something that turns attention into dollars. No path, no deal.

Last month, I had four partnership opportunities. All of them looked good on paper. Only one made sense in reality. The three I passed on had the same problem:

They wanted collaboration without commitment.

A lot of:

“This could be cool.”

Not a lot of:

“Here’s how we launch next week and split revenue.”

Each one would’ve cost me 2–3 weeks of momentum.

Content delayed. Audience confused. Zero dollars in return.

The one I said yes to?

We went from intro → offer → launch in 10 days.

That’s a partnership.

Not vibes. Not ideas. Not “let’s see what happens.”

Execution.

Most people lose here. They stay in idea mode. They overtalk. They under-ship.

We compress everything.

Call → Concept → Offer → Launch.

No long decks. No endless brainstorming. No “circle back next week.”

We pick one clear win:

Then we price it immediately. Because speed is a signal. And the fastest way to test a partnership… is to see if it can make money.

This is the part most people ignore. Everyone wants to “collaborate.” No one wants to manage the pipeline. Jake does.

He’s tracking every lead, every intro, every follow-up. Nothing gets lost. Nothing sits. Nothing dies in the DMs. While I’m focused on positioning and closing,

Jake is making sure the system actually runs.

That’s the difference between:

“We should do something together.”

and

“We just closed and launched.”

You don’t need more ideas. You need someone owning the middle.

Most partnerships fail for one reason:

Both sides are broke on distribution and pretending they’re not.

So they collaborate. And nothing happens. The right partner does three things:

They bring attention. They move fast. They make money.

Everything else is noise.

If you want to work with Impact Golf Studios, read this twice:

If you can’t check all three, don’t reach out. If you can, I’ll move fast because I’m not building a network. I’m building momentum. And I only partner with people who do the same.

What you missed last week:

What is Lifecycle Marketing?

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Jemima Gregson is where finance meets fairways. A Business Development Executive at Rathbones Group and PGA Level 1 Coach, she blends investment expertise with golf culture.

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