Strategic Partnerships.

Knowing how to join forces with another business is a key factor in making any growing company successful. Strategic partnerships are nothing new. Companies have been working together for mutual benefits for a long time for a profitable future, with teams like Starbucks and Google, Spotify and Uber, and McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.

Benefits

• Being in a strategic partnership means access to new customers, embedded in this is an opportunity for free advertisement.
• A strategic partner can provide you with capital, or let you leverage their brand to give you more exposure.
• They could help you win business by offering services that you can’t, while you build out those competencies on your own team.
• When you’re paired with another business, you’ll be able to reach their clients as well.
• This is an incredibly effective marketing strategy, as you’re able to stretch your reach into double the clientele.
• When it works well, a strategic partnership can be just what you need to speed up the growth of your business.
• A good partnership allows you to deliver a better experience to customers.
• It also brings brand benefits of partnering with an iconic leader, and access to their market.
• Along with an extended reach into a wider variety of customers, your brand is now able to expand its horizons in areas previously unexplored.

In the tech world, partnerships are often about getting to market fast, accessing talent and resources as an alternative to an aggressive hiring process. Here are a few valuable lessons in developing strategic partnerships:

Trust

• You’re only as good as the people helping you up, so it’s important to make sure you know that they’re making a worthy investment.
• When people see you are able to work well with others and generate profit, they will be more willing to help out and support your business.
• Creating brand trust spawns naturally from a good business partnership.
• It’s all part of creating a healthy, stable, and productive network.

Honesty

• Trying to do too much at once is something we all experience, and it can be hard to let go.
• Be honest about your own weaknesses and gaps.
• This is especially true when you’re passionate about your idea or product.
• But seeking partners who are experts in a particular area will free you up to focus on your core competencies.
• You’ll be able to focus on the critical activities that keep your business functioning.

Communication

• Once you’ve found a great partner, established a good relationship and figured out your objectives, don’t forget to keep communicating.
• Maintain contact with frequent check-ins to talk through any problems.
• This will keep confidence levels high on both sides, and means you can deal with any unexpected issues or changes swiftly.

Objectives

• Making sure all parties are on the same page greatly improves your chances of a good outcome.
• Understand what you want to get out of a partnership, and have a rock-solid grasp of your partner’s goals.
• It also gives you benchmarks for measuring a project’s success.
• This will make sure that everyone is aligned and has the same or complementary visions.

Research

• Ask your network for recommendations and look for businesses with an established track record.
• You need to be confident that a partner can deliver what they’re promising before you enter into any kind of relationship.
• Always ask to see evidence of results.
• If your instincts tell you that something isn’t right, even when everything looks good, it’s smart to be cautious.
• Finding the right strategic partner is exactly the same as finding your co-founder or key hires.
• You’ll be working closely together, so it’s important to have a good connection. Don’t be afraid to trust your gut.

Understand what makes your business unique. Having a clear grasp of your own intellectual property and the value you bring to a partnership will help you negotiate the terms of any agreement. It also helps to determine when you should work with a partner or do the work in house. HyperEffects writing services are the structural blueprint for your success. We have a highly-experienced team of business plan writers that put your creativity and idea to formulate a plan that may not only yield high profits but also help your partners, teams and investors understand your structure and idea better. Contact us to convert your plan into a business strategy.