The Importance of Good Partnerships
Teamwork is an essential life skill that we learn at a young age. It helps us work through group projects smoothly, win championships in the world of sports, and forges bonds among individuals. Particularly in the world of business, teamwork occurs in the form of inter-organizational relationships or business partnerships. Teams need good collaboration and communication to run like a well-oiled machine.
In business, partners are useful for marketing each other, mentoring, promoting, and essentially any other activities that offer mutual benefits to both organizations which they are willing to engage in. For example, a social enterprise may have a partnership in which their partner provides the necessary resources for them, and in return receives marketing from a social enterprise which gives them good CSR. Evidently, with the variety of ways a partner can influence the success of a business, it is important to have good and reliable partners for business development.
Recently, team members at HiRide embarked on a task that would take them all around Waterloo, Ontario in search of partners to be able to promote HiRide in local brick and mortar shops, and in return accept the shops as official sponsors of HiRide.
We were looking for partners whose customer base aligned with one that we were targeting, and whose values were similar to ours. With a plethora of shops in the area, finding places where we could possibly pitch our idea and pin-up our poster was easy. The challenge came with finding the best places. The right places. We did not want just any and every partner. We wanted to have partners who are as dedicated to their growth as we are, who would help us achieve our goals both in the long term and short term.
Many times, we approached shops and were immediately turned away by employees unwilling to act on such a level without their manager around. Sometimes, we were turned away because franchisees could not advertise without permission of the corporation. Other times we would have a handshake deal, put our poster up in the shop, and come back a week later to see our tape marks on the glass door.
The partners we appreciate are those who challenge our ideas and question our abilities. As long as you are fulfilling easy tasks that you are comfortable with, you will never grow. The same applies in business: without partners who test us and doubt our pitch, we will never perfect ourselves. Unconcerned with whether or not these businesses partner with us or not, merely the tips and mentorship that they provide to us are help in itself.
As aforementioned, any partnership requires collaboration and communication to be successful, regardless of how small scale or large scale the companies involved are. We were not about to stop trying to get our posters up in the city though. Despite the fact that we had lost advertising that we had earned with our hard work, we were even more motivated to go get more. It was the classic, “one step back, two steps forward” story of grit.
Among our current partners are Hot Star, Booster Juice, Menchies, Gino’s Pizza, Campus Pizza, Pizza Pizza, Watchtower Restaurant, and Andrew’s Barbershop, some of which are pictured below.
Partnering is a continuous job for HiRide. One thousand friends are not enough, but one enemy is too many. In the business world, you can never have too many good partners, as they help your business grow and reach new heights.