Partners, not Clients
Clients are always right. Partners work together to make it right.
The relationship between PartnerHero and the companies we work with is very important to me. In my previous life, I managed the outsourcing function for a global tech company and I was introduced to the unique PartnerHero culture through this role. The way they worked so closely and collaboratively with companies convinced me to make the jump to work here about 3 years ago. As VP of Operations, I’m committed to maintaining that same culture of partnership in every agreement we enter into. (The clue is even in our name!)
At PartnerHero, each company we work with is referred to as a partner. And just like they aren’t “clients,” we don’t want to be called “the contractor” or “the vendor.” To us, these words signal a separation and detachment that doesn’t accurately reflect how we work with our partners.
This language represents how we want to work. We care deeply about the people and the startups we choose to work with, not just the revenue they bring in each month. This means we don’t just show a shiny vanity report with everything trending up and to the right and call it a day. It might be what our partners want to hear, but it’s not what they need to hear.
Instead, we put in the hard work, and have hard conversations when necessary to make the partnership successful.
My job at PartnerHero is to make sure we live up to the contracts we put our names on. Partners, not clients, are a big part of that commitment. For those who are evaluating what that means, I want to share a little more about how we work with our partners.
It starts from the very beginning…
When we choose to work with a new partner, we put a lot of energy into onboarding them to ensure our mutual success. Right from the very beginning of our relationship, we’re focused on integrating as closely as possible.
Our contract often starts with a visit to the partner’s office, where we become infused with their culture. Rather than just looking at a list of company values or reading their investor package, we want to deeply understand what it means to work at that office. We may work from their office, we submit tickets to their customer support team and we dog-food their products.
If we could literally climb inside their brains we would, but fortunately that technology doesn’t exist yet. Instead, we get as close as we can without being weird.
To us, the culture is more than just a series of buzzwords. It’s the essence that makes our partners unique — and not just another generic company. And when we understand the special mix of spices that makes our partner buzz, we have a much better chance of replicating and contributing to that culture in the outsourced team.
We want to view ourselves as having the same purpose as our new partner. When we hire their new outsourced team, we hire individuals who are aligned with the partners’ key values. For example, an education company might be driven by learning — we want to hire customer support agents who are excited about continuously learning and growing in their role.
This onboarding period, where we become deeply ingrained in the values and mission of our partner company and begin to set up their new team, can take anywhere between a few days and up to eight weeks. Sometimes, to find the perfect people for their outsourced operations, our partners are willing to take their time setting up shop. Others require a quicker launch — and we’re happy to make that happen too.
From the moment we sign the contract, we align with our partners on culture and purpose for everything we do.
When things get sticky, partners have your back
If you’ve never outsourced before, it can be difficult to understand how to deliver the strong culture of a headquarters to a brand new, outsourced team. When you sit in an office, the culture naturally trickles into everyone’s environment. But when someone is 5000 miles away, they don’t get that same immersion.
Often this culture vacuum shows up in the form of unmet targets, low quality work and general stickiness in the new team. When we start to see a separation between our partner’s culture and that of the outsourced team, we need to step in quickly to make adjustments.
This is where we can contribute the most to the success of our partnership. We teach our partners to be purposeful in training and over-communicating their values and culture. Even when hiring the best suited people for the company, without ongoing support, culture can falter.
But this isn’t an easy conversation to have. If a new team isn’t getting to where it needs to be, quality wise, we take full responsibility. However, where a traditional vendor-client relationship would assume that the client is always right, we instead have an honest conversation with our partners about what we both can do better. For example, if the team needs better training materials, or we need to re-evaluate what they’re being asked to do, it requires input from both our partner and us.
We can only meet our goals when we’re working together.
We’re in it for the long haul
Hard problems are bound to arise. We work with people, and all their complicated, people problems. It’s a messy business.
It’s why we’re really picky about the partners we work with. If we feel like a company isn’t a good fit for us to join, we won’t sign that contract. To us, the human aspect of our work is the most important part. If we sense a lack of respect for the potential team members we’d bring on for this new company, we won’t put our team in that situation.
We’re also really excited about helping our partners through their journeys. They’re mostly startups, so we’re not building outsourced teams for what they need today — we’re building for what they need in a year. This is a conversation to have early on, so we can make the right decisions about the type of team to put in place.
Is our partner growing quickly? We want to look for people with management goals and strategic thinking skills so they can grow with the company. On the other hand, if the company is more stable and isn’t looking at a big expansion, we’ll stack the team with people looking for a stable, long term job that will contribute to the existing culture.
We play the long game with our partners.
Partnerships come with their own benefits
You might be thinking we ask a lot of our partners. And it’s true, we do!
However, our partners want this relationship too. Because we operate as partners and not clients, there’s a lot of benefits we bring to the table.
We ensure high quality because our partners are closely integrated with their outsourced teams. With a partnership, you can hold your partners to the same level as your existing employees. We don’t think that outsourcing is a synonym for poor quality, and we commit to delivering this quality even when the going gets tough.
We’re an outsourcer that can build what people want. This surprises our potential partners. They’re often nervous to say exactly what they want from a new operations team, because of their past experiences or their perception of outsourcing. But if you want it, we’ll build it. Need a team of native German speakers? Let’s open a new Berlin office hub. (That actually happened, by the way). We’re growing just as much as our partners are.
Working as a partner, growing organically to meet our partners needs — that’s the PartnerHero special sauce.
Why Partners, and not Clients?
It’s not just a line, it’s truly the way we do business. But why? I could tell you it’s good for the bottom line, or because it helps us attract new partners. (Those are both true, by the way). But that’s not the reason we operate with this philosophy.
We do it this way because it’s what we like to do. PartnerHero is a reflection of who we are as people. We’re creative problem solvers at heart. It’s in our personalities to become invested in our work. If we created a false division between us and our “clients”, we wouldn’t love coming to work every day. And our partners feel the same way about working with us.
At PartnerHero, “partners, not clients” isn’t just a turn of phrase. It’s the reason why we show up at all.
