Do We Actually Still Have To Do The “People Thing”?

I’ve had over 1000 one-to-ones with SaaS Company Leaders and Founders. One of the topics discussed was “How to Leverage Partnerships for Growth.”

I wanted to deep dive into this particular topic because it felt so relevant for founders. I think simply talking ideas out loud is a big start, so the number one lesson taken from the one to one’s was: find someone to talk to who will listen to understand and question you.

My opening question to each of the leaders sitting in front of me was, “tell me what you want to get out of a partnership?” It was, as you would imagine, a similar answer across the board — “more sales.” But is this our first mistake when looking at a partnership for growth? Yeah, sure… ultimately, the whole point of any business relationship is to help achieve the business goals set out in the business plan. But should our opening thought be about what we want from a partnership ourselves?

There are three parties in the partnership. You, the partner, and the no-so-talked-about third thing. Actually, the third thing is probably the first thing to be overlooked, least worked on, and most often not even taken into account. I am, of course, talking about the relationship in the middle. The relationship between you and the partner is the most crucial thing, and how you view and work on that relationship can be helpfully broken down. I wanted to guide you through some learnings I took from the stimulating conversations I have had and talk about what should be “on the table” in partnership exploration.

• A relationship must be built on mutual ground. What are the business goals of your partner, and what are yours? How can you support each other to achieve these goals? Get the business goals out on the table and be honest with each other about why you are entering the partnership.
• The customer will get forgotten. Put the customer on the table. How do you each help the customer solve their pains in a unique way? If we forget the customer, we could easily go backward with sales, even if we move forward with a partnership. How do you partner with people who can add real value to the end customer in a multiplying way?
• Hold each other accountable. Contract verbally from the beginning with your partner to make sure both sides have permission to hold each other to account.
• Measure and document the partnership — what are the key deliverables on either side to adhere to in order to maximize the value to the customer. If you don’t measure it from an early stage, then there could be a lot of back-tracking and catch-up to be played later down the line.
• Don’t just think inside your industry. Partners come in all different shapes and sizes. Ultimately you need to think about where your customer hangs out and where they feel most at home. In SaaS, we often think of other SaaS products we should be partnering and integrating with. It was clear from the conversations that other partner channels would bring the same if not more benefit to the business goals on the table. Communities were one of these- which communities do your customers hang out and talk about things in? How else are they solving their problems in growth, go where they go to find your next partner.
• Be strict with who you partner with. If there is no mutual ground or value added to the customer or business goals, don’t be afraid to cut the partnership loose. Focus on the quality of the partnership, not the quantity. If one of your targets is the number of partnerships, push back and have a challenging conversation with the person who set that target about quality over quantity.
• Finally, never forget the “people thing”. Relationships are built on trust. Build out the solid foundations of trust by qualifying with the other side around ownership of the partnership. Make sure your counterpart can make key decisions at pace when the need arises.

Only when you truly work on mutual benefit, value add to the customer, and label the third party in every partnership will you truly find the right people to move forward with. Working on the bridge (the relationship) between you and the partner will be the key to you achieving growth through a partner network.

The conversations I’ve been having have been enlightening and thought-provoking. I learned more from listening and questioning than I think I could have simply from reading. So please, once you finish reading this article, go and find someone to talk it all out loud with. Create your action points and hold yourself accountable for doing something different to really achieve growth through leveraging your partner network.