A big part of this series — and more coming by way of podcasts, communities, and more — is defining the term “partnerships”, and what it means to various people, companies and industries.

One type of partnerships are strategic. What I mean — and it might be different from you mean — is top of the funnel, strategic change, moving-the-needle kind of deals.

Pressure to close strategic deals early is a killer to long term potential of your growth as a business.

Alex Glenn shares an apt analogy to gardening. It is so important the entire leadership team understands the long term aspect of partnerships — not just the “gardener”.

New #partnerships managers: DO NOT put yourself on the hook for a quota in the first 6 months of a brand new partner program. Regardless of how confident you are in yourself or your product. And I say this not because quotas are tough or usually unrealistic…

It’s because:

1. A looming quota turns you from an aligned “partner” into a misaligned “salesperson” — and no agency partner wants to talk to a sales person.

2. Partnerships are like your garden — you wouldn’t plant a bunch of seeds then dig them up every few days to see how much they’ve grown would you? No. You plant a ton of seeds and your “water” is co-marketing, co-selling, free accounts, marketing development funds to sponsor their content or events, webinars…. water it for 6 months or until you have 20–50 active partners (submitting referrals) before you go back and ask for anything.

The suggestion: get rid of revenue quotas for those 6 months and replace with a clear definition and goals for: “how many seeds and saplings do you have” with seeds being signed on partners and saplings being highly engaged partners…

All kinds of partnerships are way more than just the close of a deal. Strategic partnerships are often about 1+1=3 — working together to make something better over time than you could have made alone. That kind of result takes coordination, effort, and more than anything else real relationships.

What do you mean by “strategic partnerships”? What are other types of partnerships and deals that fit into this world?

Want to join our Partnership community on Upstream? Valuable virtual events — interviews, 1 on 1s, networking — great people, and everything partnerships: https://link.upstreamapp.com/6cB7r69rFbb

Looking to hire in the space, are you thinking of making a move yourself, want to partner with us? Reach out: dave@recruitedinc.com

Strategic Partnerships: a journey in long term growth was originally published in Recruited on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Initial strategy, outreach, finding internal cheerleaders, proposing the deal, sharing the story with leadership and teams on both sides, coming to terms, negotiating, passing details through legal and other powers that be on both sides, signing, sharing the partnership with the world.

In reality, steps repeat often which also help build the necessary real world relationships that stand the test of time.

Win-wins are the only wins

You can achieve far more together than apart: 1+1=3. Deals must reflect what each side gets. No wants to be partners in a one way relationship.

Whether you are putting together a new Joint Venture (JV), building a SaaS partnership program, or sharing data between companies — each deal must be carefully thought out from each side’s perspective. Understanding where the challenges and opportunities lay — for each side — is key to the value of the entire venture.

Thoughtful collaborations are a must

Just because you can make a case for creating a partnership does not mean you should go ahead. Only with thoughtful analysis, planning and strong execution on where both sides of the partnership feel ownership can you try and ensure success.

Looking at a recent example of thoughtful partnerships, The Female Quotient and Noun Project who came together to:

Joinforces to launch a new collection of stock photos that celebrate empowered women leading at work, at home, in their communities, and beyond.

This partnership creates a more even playing field by building more female-centric foundational tools. These options allows the many designers, makers, marketers and the millions of other users who use Noun Project’s icons and photos to build more amazing and beautiful things for a better, more equitable future. Both sides win.

Signing a contract is just a waypoint

The excitement and relief that comes from *finally* signing a major partnership agreement is not the moment to slow down. To achieve your new goals together there should be regular communication:

Email updates, monthly calls, quarterly meetings, intel on both sides, keeping up the momentum, and ensuring components of the agreement are in check and moving forward.

Governance is just as important with Partners as with Clients

Early on in the partner discussion ensure that you create a governance process to manage, and assess the ongoing relationship. Partnerships struggle to get off the ground after the initial fanfare if no methodology, timeline, or responsible parties are put in place. Just like with a customer relationship continually monitor partner progress and satisfaction. This will give you the right means to adjust the governance processes together according to these learnings.

Partners are People

Never forget that while a company’s name is listed on the contract, branding or website — you are always dealing with people first. Treat your partners right, elevate them with every chance you get, make them look good, arm them with data, and a great quote from time to time, include them in your marketing where possible. At the end of the day remember that you or they may be somewhere else in the future — that relationship will either help or hurt you down the road.

….Of course it should go without saying that you should always treat everyone with respect, calm, and appropriate communications ;)

What partnership story, failure or success have you seen? We would love to hear your experience here on the blog or our podcast.

Looking to figure out the partnership world? Looking to hire or get hired?

Reach out!

— Dave

dave@recruitedinc.com

Partnerships are not the same as Sales! was originally published in Recruited on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the past few years, we have seen up close the growth challenges and opportunities faced by organizations in our space as well as the lack of talent resources for all the amazing people looking to move or grow professionally.

In the few months since Covid started rapidly affecting the global workforce these challenges have accelerated immensely while at the same time so have the opportunities to do good.

It is with these thoughts in mind that we have come together to re-launch Recruited — a boutique recruiting agency. http://RecruitedInc.com

Our core practice areas are Partnerships (business development, sales, marketing, customer success) led by Dave Weinberg, IT (dev, data, security) led by Aric Kabillio — who originally founded Recruited in 2016 — and Executive Search which also includes a focus on leadership in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Diversity & Inclusion (D&I).

On this blog and connected media (social, podcasting, etc), we will be sharing our views on the Partnership space, recruiting, growth, and more. We hope you will join us by actively participating and/or connecting directly when something stirs your mind.

As a boutique agency, our focus will be on:

Service, Integrity, and Quality

If you are hiring, have recruiting or scaling challenges, looking for your dream job, or want to talk about partnering — PLEASE reach out.

Thank you!

Aric & Dave

#talent #leadership #recruiting #executivesearch #hiring #worklifebalance #wfh #officelife #transition #hr #partnerships #founders #startups

Recruited Relaunch was originally published in Recruited on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.