To continue from the post “Why Good Strategic Partner Fit is Imperative – part 1“.
The real cost in getting it wrong is opportunity cost. Basically the lost time and opportunities in the time spent working on something that doesn’t produce. There are a number of simple things which help in building a corporate partner relationship and making it successful if you look for them and plan for them at the outset.
Parrt 1 of this post was learning why partnerships fail. Looking at the flipside of this, why do some Corporate Partner relationships work?
1. Know your prospective partners. You can tell much about a company in how they communicate. This is why Blogging and Twitter has become so prominent in building relationships. In reviewing a company’s website, blog, annual reports, press releases and general press you can find out pretty quickly if they fit the type of a company that you would like to do business with.
2. The product was good and the company really knew their customer, why they would buy and had the sales materials to back it up. They clearly had good track record in selling their solution and knew their market space
3. The market quickly saw the value in the product and clearly understood why such a corporate partnership made sense
4. The initial training, both product and sales, was very professional and enabled the partner company to be more effective faster
5. The on-site pre-sales support for the first number of opportunities was a great start and it really showed commitment to the partnership. A little hand-holding goes a long way
6. The multilevel relationships between the two partnering companies is great. With regular communication and occasional face-to-face meetings, at CEO and Divisional Head level, VPs of Sales, Marketing, Implementation and Support. Each level understands how each-others business works and it works together. Feedback works at many levels to make up for the missing direct connection to the customer
7. From the outset we all knew the expectations and we knew our responsibilities and with regular calls and meetings with straight-talking and supportive management between the companies, everything was clear and issues were dealt with swiftly. The joint market and customer focus brings clarity every time. Everyone understood that the opportunity was worth the investment.
Much greater success in corporate partnering can be achieved with better understanding and analysis, and I don’t mean over-analysis of what your business really requires and what you expect from a prospective partner.
All to get a better view of whom you should partner with and apply your time and energies with the right companies. Not every company that approaches you is the right one. Its good to be sought after but it better to spend time with the good-fit partner companies.
In Maidsfield, we work to start calling your prospective corporate partners within 5 weeks of initial engagement.
Watch out next week where we talk about how we analyse your target market with our “Ecosystem & Trends Summary Report”, combined with lists of target customers and prospective corporate partners.
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