Business Reflections Podcast Episode #36 - Building Partnerships: Businesses with Soul 2 Soul

Episode Transcript

Meredith Matics: Welcome to Business Reflections with your host Meredith Matics, and we are here to reflect on the business topics that are affecting you today and how you can better run your business. I have Dr. Gregory Canillas, President and CEO of Soul 2 Soul. Dr. Canillas, can you tell me a little bit about what got you started? What is Soul 2 Soul?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Sure, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Soul 2 Soul is a company that helps people to have better relationships. We provide three products: on-ground retreats for LGBT couples that are in cities across the U.S. 

We also provide some online products. The Love Wins Online and Retreat, which is spread out over two days, four hours over two days. We also provide something called the Symbiosis Assessment, which is for all couples in various stages of their relationship: premarital, just married, married for a few years, being remarried. Anybody that works with them, both heterosexual and LGBT couples.  

Meredith Matics: That's really awesome. So in your work Soul 2 Soul, my understanding is that you've had to really collaborate and make partnerships with other businesses. We wanted to talk a little bit about creating those kinds of partnerships and collaborations with other businesses. To start off, what do you think are some of the benefits of partnering with other businesses?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: The benefits I've learned is that you can have somebody share the burden of the work. I have been a person who for a long time thought I could do everything and then learn. I know, I think that's most people but you know, I can do everything. And you have learned, especially with this business that I cannot do that. So I have partnered with a couple of organizations, a couple of other businesses that have been really great partnerships. 

One for example is a travel agency based in Beverly Hills, California called Curated Global Travel and they do all the bookings for the on-ground retreats and connect me to hotels that are LGBT friendly, et cetera. He has the gentleman that runs it, Michael Shane Stevens has a really good knowledge base about what resorts would be great for the clientele that we serve. That's one of the partnerships that I really value.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah. I was thinking when you said that you do these retreats that are not just local or not just based in like maybe your office, but a real retreat, like going on vacation. You must really have to put it out there with being able to partner with other ones. What has been the scariest part of creating those partnerships? Cause I think that's what we most, all fear. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: I had some issues, early on with some of the other travel companies that I was working with, where they were not following through with things, but that hasn't happened with Curated Global Travel. Sometimes it's just not a match. I believe things happen for a reason and you are connected with the people that you need to be connected to. So it was just a matter of that. Like finding the right partnership and nothing against the people that I was working with before. But this just seems to have worked out better. It's really, I think finding people that share the same value system with you and with your company. Share the same mission. Support your mission and have a really strong work ethic.  

Meredith Matics: Those are all great points. In my business, I do a lot of business to business. One of the things I try to do to manage expectations from the beginning is I let them know from what they're telling me their needs are what sounds like the biggest priority or what I feel is the biggest priority, so that we're not misaligned in the goals. 

Occasionally, they have a slightly different point that is their big pusher for some reason that may not come up in my brain initially as the big item. I may see something else from my experience and they may see something else from theirs. 

And so I think it's really good when you say finding a match is that importance of, even at the beginning of building that partnership, really figuring out if you're a match for what each other's needs are. How did you figure out what companies were right match for you and were not?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Honestly, I think it was trial and error. I come from the nonprofit world. That's very different. I was running a nonprofit organizations and had some of the same issues with like funding and personnel and management of people and events and things like that. But it's very different because there's a marketing piece that is not the same with nonprofits. The clients really come to you because they're referred usually because they're court ordered or come to satisfy a court order. It's kind of a different thing. So it really, it was trial and error for me. It was a shift in ways of thinking. 

I kind of jumped into this blindly, not really knowing a lot about for profit businesses. Interviewed people. Sometimes it was like, wait, you're a great match. I think you're going to work out and then it was not so. It was not so. So I started to learn to ask more questions about the things that we were just talking about. Are our values aligned?  

Meredith Matics: Right. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Are you going to do what you say you're going to do in a timely manner? Or are you going to leave me hanging and having me chase you? Cause that doesn't make for good partnership or relationship whether we're talking about business or romantic relationships. 

Meredith Matics: Well, yeah, and that's also a really interesting point that it really is a give and take and you're sharing your time and your financial aspects and your desires and your struggles and all that. There is a certain element of needing to have that intimate relationship with them. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Exactly. Like any relationship, I also teach in a psychology program I talk to my students about this, any relationship where it's a romantic or familial or a friendship, there has to be a give and take. Both parties have to benefit from it. That's what I've tried to do with the companies that I've aligned with. 

Meredith Matics: Yeah.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: And I get that in return.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah. The symbiotic nature of it is that when you have a business to business partnership, one can't totally succeed without the other and vice versa. You need each other to thrive. I think that's why a lot of people maybe are scared to jump into it. How did you get past the fear of like partnering with another business? Was it just solely out of need or were you like, no, I can do this no matter what?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: No, it was practical. The retreat has many components, so there's a component that really focuses on relationships and helping people to improve relationships, which is my piece where I go in and we do 14 hours when it's on ground workshops and retreats. But there's another element of like the hotel piece and the travel part. I was doing that initially by myself, but as we started to grow and offer more retreats, there's no way I could do it. Just trying to do like the day-to-day operations of business by itself is enough, but having to do some of the other things, I wouldn't have survived without the partnership, to be honest. 

Meredith Matics: What advice or tips would you have for entrepreneurs who are currently collaborating with another business and it's not going well? 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Again, like any other relationship you want to have an open conversation with that person. Be open and honest about what you think is working and what you think is not working. I think you have to give them both. A lot of times partnerships or relationships, something is good about it, but we focus on, we tend to focus on the negative. So really focusing on first, the good stuff. Like, I like that you're doing this, this and this, but these are the things I'm having some challenges with. How can we then come up with an action plan to mend that or to go our separate ways?  

Meredith Matics: I think of some of those people that get into relationships that always have that hope that it's going to get better and it never does. How do we as businesses keep ourselves from getting in that loop with a business partner like, oh, they're doing okay. But if not fulfilled with what they're doing or I feel like they could do better, but you're not motivated enough to be like they are so bad that I have to get rid of them. How do you think it's best to evaluate that partnership and make sure it's staying active for both parties are staying up to par for both parties? 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: I think it's an ongoing conversation that you have to have with your partners, whether that's internal or external. This is working. This is not working. Praise people when they're doing a great job. Reward people when they're doing a great job, but when they're not, bringing that to their attention and not just moving forward without having those conversations. 

It is very much like you have seen, I think what I'm talking about very clearly that, it's like any other relationship. If you don't address it and just move on, is that helpful for you? Is that helpful for the person? I don't think so. It's worth having those conversations, even though they might be difficult and most of us aren't trained to do that. It's necessary and it gives the person the opportunity to correct it. If you never had the conversation with them, they never have the opportunity to correct it and grow from that experience.  

Meredith Matics: Well, and they very well may not be aware that what they're doing is problematic on your side of the business. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Exactly. 

Meredith Matics: So much of each of our businesses are so personal. As I said earlier, we have certain things in our head that are the markers that we want to hit. And we may not necessarily realize that another business we're partnering with may have a slightly different end goal that we're not quite aligning with. 

How do you think business entrepreneurs or business leaders could, who are not used to having that conversation can prepare themselves for that conversation and to bring it up with the other business party in the best manner.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: For people that stumble with having conversations, I think what I always tell them is to write down what you want to say before you say it, it helps to clear the mind. You don't go in there with like anger cause sometimes it gets to the point where the person is really angry and they bring it up then in the anger. You don't really want that to be part of it. In those cases, it's better to take a moment, step back, and then write out the list of things that are concerned for you. Take that list into the meeting or conversation that you have with the partner.  

Meredith Matics: One of the other things I'm going to ask that I feel like I know the answer to, but I think it would be really good for our listeners to hear is this the best conversation to have via email?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Nooooo.. You were very right. You do know the answer to that. Absolutely not. Or via text which people frequently do too.  

Meredith Matics: I was surprised at the amount of text conversations I have with my businesses that I partner with that I'm like, shouldn't we not be texting this? Especially the younger generations that have grown up so much with technology, can we talk about what the importance is of having that conversation? Why, when we're working with a business to business partnership, it is so important to have those phone or in-person conversations. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Yes. We're talking about today really relationships and the importance of relationships. That speaks to that, that you need to do that in person. You need to look the person in the eye. It needs to be face to face, or in this particular climate, at least by zoom, where you can see the person and look at their body language and have that as information, as part of the conversation. You can't see that through a text, you can't see that through an email. Definitely, those are conversations that need to be in person, face to face. It's less difficult to do I think, via text or email, but that's not the best way to have those conversations. 

Meredith Matics: Yeah. With a lot of our business communications now being digital through text, email, slack messaging, there is that option for our goals to be misconstrued by really easy things that may not quite occur to our brains.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Exactly. You can't tell what people are thinking through the email, through the texts or how they're going to receive it.  That's better to have the in-person conversations. I'm sure you know that even in person, sometimes stuff is misconstrued or misread. That being said, that's far better than doing it electronically.  

Meredith Matics: We bring in our experiences from our day or our lives or whatever into that conversation that the other person has no way of knowing what's about, you know what I mean? If you and I were meeting and we're business partners trying to discuss something and you bring up I'm really not liking the timeline of you getting something done and you may not know the backstory of mine is that I only got two hours of sleep last night. I'm doing all I can to be the only one bringing home food to the table and I'm just slightly stressed, but you may not know that. And especially via like email, you definitely wouldn't know that.  The point is, is that with that visual, you can at least take out the deduction of some of those issues that you may not be able to see. 

I think too, with today's culture and in social media and stuff a lot of people put like trigger before they talk about a topic now, which is really good. On a way lesser scale, but like even within business to business, if you and I are having a conversation, maybe I've been yelled at before about a certain thing, or maybe I really put my heart and soul into this one part and bringing up a negative issue of that could be a trigger for me. 

So, how we try to be more empathetic or at least understanding when we're having those conversations so that we can best receive the information from our business partner to help improve the relationship. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: I talk about this with couples who attend the retreats. What you want to make sure that you're doing is listening to hear the person and not listening to respond. Most of us come into situations, especially when they're heightened already anxious and on alert. As soon as somebody says something that we perceive as negative, we jump right back into explaining it or trying to defend ourselves and not really listening to what the person is saying. So really in those conversations, both persons need to be present, mindful and hearing what the person says versus jumping to respond to it.  

Meredith Matics: Right. Is there anything that we could do in our own behaviors to help prepare that or help us be better listeners?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Honestly, I think it depends sometimes on how you define yourself, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert. Introverts have much better listening skills in my opinion, and having taught for like 20 some years and seeing different personalities in classrooms, all who are training to be therapists. The ones who are introvert listen a bit better. Extroverts tend to want to talk and sometimes talk over people. Those are usually the ones who have more difficulty in those situations, not interrupting and not being ready to respond. It's kind of knowing who you are and how you respond to things and being aware of them once you're consciously aware of it. I think you show up differently in those conversations. Does that make sense?  

Meredith Matics: Yeah.  I'm an extrovert who talks over people all the time and I've definitely had to make a mental note of it to be like, no, if they're not done, hold on. Especially when I was younger. I was notorious for interrupting people. Now that I have to build these business relationships, it's really takes the conscious effort to be like, okay, they're done. But then I always worry that I'm paying more attention to that than like listening to them.  

Well, we got a little off topic, but I think this was good because I think these are really important aspects to bring up when building a business relationship. In the world of business, we have this idea that it's, it's just business, oh, you did this. And I did that. But really even then it's, it's not. It's so much deeper.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: It is.  

Meredith Matics: As we close up, I would love to know if you have one piece of advice that you have received that you want to share with our business owners that are listening.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: In terms of advice that I've learned from my own business mentors for your business is to narrow their focus down. I'm taking it to heart. When I started the company, I want to help everybody cause I think everybody, both heterosexual and LBGT couples, need this. Most of us don't grow up, having families where they encourage conversations around love and marriage and sex and finances and all of those things. Very smart mentors who run bigger businesses than mine have said niches equal riches. Narrow it down.  

Meredith Matics: Ooh, I like that.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Yeah. And then once you have established the niche, then you can open it up and expand it and help other people. When you're doing everything you're not going to hit the right target and you're going to miss and the business will ultimately fail. That's the best piece of advice that I've received from a business mentor.  

Meredith Matics: I think that's one of those pieces of advices that a lot of us have heard in passing, but haven't necessarily taken to heart like we need to. When you find your niche and you're able to help those people, the other people will come. Those are finding you that need that. If you can help one, there's others that have the same need.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Once you keep your business in the black, then you can maybe open another business to address the other passion of yours.  

Meredith Matics: I work in medical revenue management and I tell them all the time, if you're not at least paying your bills and keeping the lights on, you're not going to be helping anyone. So don't take on all these free clients because I know you want to help them all, but then when you go out of business and have no business, then you're helping no one. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Right. 

Meredith Matics: At the end of the day, we have bills to pay. Our lights have to stay on. We have to keep our businesses profitable. We need to be able to continue so that we can help others with our needs.  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Exactly. Exactly.  

Meredith Matics: This was a great conversation.  Where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more about Soul 2 Soul?  

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Absolutely. Thank you. We have a website, soul2soulglobal.com. That's S-O-U-L, the number two, S-O-U-L, global, G-L-O-B-A-L, all one word.com. You can follow us on social media or Instagram. It's Soul2Soul Global, number nine. On Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest, it's Soul2Soul Global. Please reach out, follow us, like.  

Meredith Matics: Do all of the above.  Thank you so much, Dr. Gregory for coming on. 

Dr. Gregory Canillas: Thank you for having me. 

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