Lessons Learned from Creating Impactful and Lucrative Partnerships

If you know me or have been following me, you'd know partnerships have been instrumental for me since the early days of my career until now. In fact, even before investing was a buzzword, it was already my thing. It runs through my veins.

And it's no surprise. At just 8 years of age and starting a lemonade stand like most kids my age, I sought ways to collaborate. For instance, when I needed to have a more comfortable space with an awning, I partnered with Jerome Florist for a prime location. This taught me the power of partnership early on.

While some may argue that this was not so significant in shaping my view of partnership today, I’d say that that's all an 8-year-old needed to really grasp the beneficial realities of partnerships and rightly hold on to it years later.

Thinking back at the partnership moves I made even when I was a lot less experienced, I still learn lessons that continue to drive my expertise at securing partnerships with more than 100 brands and bagging over $4 billion worth of investments in my career.

And here's what I mean. . .

. . .11 or 12 years ago, while I was still modeling, I had lots of repeat clients and realized it was not just because I worked well with their teams, but also because I related well to their customer base and the audience they were serving. This turned relationships that, for a lot of people, would be one-and-done engagements into long-term relationships, client partnerships, and brand partnerships.

So, when I started my first winery business at the age of 19, I took these lessons with me. Did that pay off? More than tenfold.

I recorded a major partnership for my brand. Besides being the youngest black winery owner in the country at the time, I had my wines from my vineyard and winery served at the White House at the Governor's Ball in 2010. That was incredible and major, and its impact was resounding on the brand such that it became a household name both locally and nationally.

This taught me a vital lesson about partnership—something I already knew but now saw in a whole new light. It is that authentic connections are indeed crucial for meaningful partnerships, and this proved even more true when I started the LMB Group where I achieved great partnership feats with companies like JP Morgan Chase, Walmart, Estee Lauder for New York Fashion Week, and many others.

The second lesson this brings to mind is that storytelling through partnership and about the partnership is just as important as the partnership itself because that's where the impact is actually created—in telling the story of why you partnered, how the partnership came to be, and why that particular partnership is so important and authentic.

I've always focused on authentic partnerships because the storytelling role is crucial to the success of a partnership. You can pair people and brands together all the time, but if there's no authentic reason or rationale, then those partnerships will not be a success.

That's an important rule and lesson that I learned 15+ years ago. It was also a really big focus of Cannes Lions this year. All of the big brands at Cannes Lions were talking about the importance of not just partnering with creators but allowing creators to actually create the content that they want in their voice with the brand’s product and services so that it actually resonates with their following and their audience. This way, the brand itself gets the lift and the impact it's hoping for instead of really trying to control the creator to the confines of brand direction.

Of course, there are rules in terms of general dos and don'ts, but allowing the full expression of creators is really important in today's day and age. To me, that is a tried and true rule of partnership that I've known for 15+ years—that creative expression and authenticity are always going to matter the most and always be where the secret sauce of seizing opportunities lies, in the places that most people don't feel comfortable venturing.

The broader impact of these partnerships is people seeing how you work, how you show up, how creative you are, how far limits can be pushed, and how far new conversations and taboo issues can be discussed or uncovered in a manner that is still professional, interesting, and intriguing. This drives curiosity and deepens connection.

If these two lessons power your approach to partnership, you'll find that the impact you create will be both profound and lasting.

In pursuit of growth and greatness,

Lauren Maillian