Structured Partnership

With successful partnerships, relationships matter most.   Take time to build new ones and strengthen existing relationships.   That is across your network.   

The New Year is the perfect time to add structure to your strategic partnerships and alliances.  Structure brings success for all parties.

When a strategic partnership works it can lead to a full acquisition.   That seems to be what happened with Ikea and TaskRabbit.

A critical step in building a great alliance is to fully understand your partner’s business goals and his or her personal goals.    How?    Ask directly.   What do you want to achieve on a business and personal level from this partnership?  Knowing this will help get the results you both desire.

Structured Partnership turned 1 today!

It is true, your partnerships and alliances will be more successful with the support of others within your organization.   This may include sales, marketing, IT and others.   Gaining that support is not always easy.   Everyone has their own priorities and goals.   The key is frequent communication and showing how partnerships and alliances benefit the company and other departments.    Partnerships, for example, can help sales by brining in new opportunities and can help marketing by reaching new prospects.    Collaboration with internal stakeholders can make a partnership thrive.  

Emotional intelligence - Capability to recognize one’s own, and other people's, emotions.  To discriminate between different feelings and label them appropriately, to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior, and to manage and/or adjust emotions to adapt environments or achieve one's goals.  Partnership and Alliance professionals must work with a wide range of people, have a high degree of empathy and, yes, strong Emotional Intelligence. 

When a manager joins the company, consider sharing with her or him a brief summary of the partnerships and alliances that are in place.  Also, the strategic goals of the company’s partnership program.  

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When you are considering a strategic partner or planning a way to grow relationships with existing partners always put the strategy first.   What are your goals?    What is trying to be accomplished?   What is the big picture?   Clarifying and communicating the strategy will help keep everyone focused n the results desired and avoid distractions.

Try to involve internal managers form other departments in regular conversations and updates about your partnerships and alliances.  Keeping internal managers apprised and involved can lead to long term success.   Too often, these stakeholders are included at the roll out and then when a problem arises.   Keeping your colleagues in the know can help you meet your goals and keep your partnerships growing.

Having a clear document describing your partnership program is effective in creating strong partners.   They see what your goals are and the responsibilities of each party.   Of course, it can be refined over time.   Start small and make it available to a few partners or prospects and test the waters...

A way to identify potential partners is to examine your current clients.   Look at what other companies they work with.   By definition you are serving the same clients and the same market.   Also, your clients will likely be wiling to sharing with you information about companies they work with that provide great products and services.   That helps minimize the risk. 

Having a quarterly call or meeting to review the status of each partnership is a great way to keep everyone on the same page.   Having structure in place where both sides provide information in advance and come together to discuss the items is a professional and organized approach.  

An initial questionnaire about a possible partner's background, size and resources is useful when evaluating the merit of forming a relationship.   We have a sample at www.structuredpartnership.com for you to review.

It is too often the case that strategic partnership managers are only interested in what is in it for themselves.   By thinking about the value for both parties, partnerships have a greater chance to succeed.