As long as you keep yourself protected, partnerships can change your life (for the better) in ways you’ll never realise.
Very few B2B companies are prioritising partnerships and that’s a shame. From what I’ve seen, people are really cautious about engaging with other businesses and letting them into their world.
It doesn’t help that even the mere whisper of ‘partnership’ reminds us of the avalanche of spam emails, each more pitiful than the last, pleading for your client list like a pack of hungry wolves circling a lone sheep.
But let’s be very clear, that’s not a partnership, not in my books.
Over the years I’ve tried numerous approaches to partnerships, many failed, many were mediocre but short lived. Some were incredible, but here’s how the few great ones were different to the others:
- We started out as friends first
- We made sure we shared the same values
- We were very clear about what each side wanted out of the partnership
- We did not think of it as a service exchange agreement
- We initially focused on teaching each other about our profession
- Then we focused on sharing knowledge to solve non-sales problems
- Trust had built at this stage
- We did little bits and pieces for each other, demonstrating expertise
- Then we focused on finding ways to make each other more profitable
- We doubled each others revenue
I feel like a lot of business leaders give it a go, but there’s no framework. They don’t know what the process should be and it all goes wrong, creating yet another bad experience that risks their brand reputation and the trust clients place with them.
The fear starts to build and eventually the idea of partnership is dismissed as too risky.
Whether we like to admit it or not, as business leaders, we’re all getting things wrong.
Right now, today.
However excellent we think we or our processes and systems are, something better exists outside of our little bubble.
We all have problems that need solving, even if we’re completely unaware of them or would rather bury our heads in the sand – they still exist.
Our ideas could be better, our go to marketing offer could be stronger, we could be wiser and more experienced and more aware of standards and expectations others have that we may be slipping on.
Partnerships open your eyes to new perspectives and possibilities – when done right.
