Strategic partnerships are one of those great networking Strategies. They are common phrases that networkers talk about. And yes, they can really propel your business forward.
The problem is it’s not as easy as it sounds.
Results don’t just come rolling in. Sometimes they don’t work at all.
So strategic partnerships, it’s all the catch cry. It’s really important people get it. That it’s a great idea, but they struggle in it actually delivering results. So our next networking event on Wednesday, the first Wednesday, October is all about creating strategic partnerships and finding you great strategic partners. But the problem happens well before the idea, and there are three key problems that happen in and around strategic partnerships. And I call these the three A’s.
Alignment
So the first one is alignment between the businesses. They don’t make sure they have alignment.
They get greedy. They go, Oh, look at all the people they could expose me to look at the opportunity. I could make so much money. I could help so many people and this detracts from making sure that there’s true alignment in values, approach and what you both want to offer and achieve.
Agreement
So alignment is the first one. The second one is you need agreement.
Agreement is around having structure to what you’re going to do and have agreement on what you’re going to do for them and what they’re going to do for you. You need to make sure it’s a two way street. So getting agreement and really getting clear what yo agree to do. Whilst it’s great to take things slowly quite often strategic partnerships fail because things go to slow and there is no structure to support success.
One of the traps that strategic partnerships fall into is that one of the partners approaches it from a “I just want you to support our customers. I’m happy to just introduce you to them”
The problem with that is it doesn’t last it quickly loses focus for that partner. So it’s really important to make sure it’s a two way street.
The other part of the agreement is actually agreeing on how the strategic partnership will work, who will do what and by when. Have the tough conversations first to make the rest of the relationship easy.
So that’s agreement.
Accountability
The third is accountability.
Accountability is critical to make sure things happen and fall by the way side.
So what normally happens is you have a great conversation about how this strategic partnership could work, what the opportunity is and all the results and the opportunities that you could create together.
After the conversation, you both leave excited, And then what happens?
Nothing. Maybe one catch up, maybe a quick phone call checking in, but this quickly leads to… Crickets.
Nothing.
So accountability needs to be there where you’re checking in on a regular basis. Create the structure from the start. You need to create rhythm for your communication. You need to know what you’re talking about, when you’re talking about it and how that conversation’s going to happen.
It’s not a drain that needs to be an hour a week or anything like that, but there needs to be accountability on how you’re both going to hold each other accountable to make sure that the strategic partnership works.
If the Strategic Partnership is a great idea, then it’s probably got great merit. You just need to make sure it happens. This needs ALIGNMENT, AGREEMENT, and ACCOUNTABILITY.
So these are the three A’s of making sure you get amazing results from your strategic partnerships.
We’ll be talking about these so much more at our next online networking event.
So if you’re interested to find out more: FIND OUT ABOUT OUR NEXT EVENT