As a founder in a business that has navigated the treacherous pathway between scaling or dying, for post 3 of the Learn series I wanted to write a piece on what became our best sales weapon: our partnerships. Early on in Venturesell’s existence, I knew we couldn’t do it alone. We needed to establish reciprocal help arrangements with organisations who had customers that could benefit from our services that we might otherwise not be able to reach. 

Our first task was really getting to grips with who our customers were, what was our ideal customer profile and what does success look like for them? This process was very much following the extremely valuable principle of KYC - Knowing Your Customer. If one knows one’s customers better than competitors, one is likely to have the greatest chance of success in creating and positioning the appropriate products and services. 

The second task was modelling our customer’s potential journey’s out. We wanted to work out exactly where we might fit into their successful journeys and what services might be used before, at the same time and even after us. We wanted to be able to add value and generate revenue across our ideal customer’s life cycles with the aim of building long term customers, who looked at us as both trusted revenue generation producers and advisors. 

Once we’d mapped out our customer journeys, we were in a great position to map out potential ideal partners. The customer journeys had informed us of the types of companies that we might want to work with and our next task was to work out what value we could add to them. Partnerships only work in the long term when the benefits to both parties are significant and measurable. With each company profile, we worked out how our collective potential benefits from our partnership could be maximised. We then prepared our approach to potential partners. Honesty, transparency and setting clear expectations were at the heart of our approach documentation. We effectively were looking at our partners as an extension of our own team and knew that the aforementioned was crucial in building the right team. As with any successful team, clear lines of communication and process are important to establish and we only wanted to partner with organisations who were able to work with us at an optimum level. 

Once we’d approached and the basis of our partnership had been formed, our partners and us implemented and started to measure our plan. Any partnership is based on a number of assumptions which require time in order to measure the subsequent results. This is everything from the internal communications to the external results expected and generated through a partnership. When things don’t work between partners, don’t just stop - review, innovate and adapt. This adaptation process will eventually get you to where you and your partner need to go. By spending considerable time and effort in the first few stages of this process, you’ve already helped ensure that you’re partnering for the right reasons and should eventually reap the benefits. 

Partnerships when done correctly, can transform your business and move it into areas that you wouldn’t have otherwise been able to target. Know your customer, think about complementary services to yours that could help them, plot your ideal partners, plan your approach and go forth and conquer!

Key Points

• First tip - Know Your Customer - what does success look like for them? Where do you fit into that journey? What comes before and after? 
• Think about what is complementary and could take your biz to the next level
• Map out ideal partners based on your key customer profiles. 
• Prepare your approach. Make sure you think clearly around their potential benefit and how this can be maximised. Be honest , transparent and set clear expectations.
• Once agreed, create clear lines of communication and process. 
• Take the one team approach - updates, training etc 
• Evolve the partnership