3 Tips To Establish Collaborations And Strategic Partnerships

Finding Collaborators and Strategic Partners

Building relationships is key to finding collaborators and strategic partners to grow your business and serve your clients.

Fostering relationships within your industry or with allied professions has many benefits.  As a business owner or professional you often need to call on assistance of others to solve a problem, either within your own business or to better assist your client.  

By making sure you are having purposeful and constructive conversations you will uncover opportunities to explore, expand your knowledge and learn from the experience available to you from others who work with your target audience. However, many business owners and professionals waste time online or at networking events where they focus on transactions, rather than relationships.

Ensure you are regularly networking face to face, or even online, where you have the opportunity to connect and build the “know, like and trust” factor more quickly with potential collaborators and strategic partners, or with those who can introduce you to appropriate people.

How to Build a a Win-Win-Win Scenario

Relationships in business often start from getting to know each other and determining if there is the right fit for potential opportunities to work together. These partnerships tend to work best when the two businesses do not compete but serve the same target client. The outcome needs to be seen as a win-win-win: a win for each party and one for the client.

3 Tips to Establish Mutually Beneficial Collaborations and Strategic Business Partnership

These three tips relate to establishing mutually beneficial collaborations and strategic business partnerships

1. Establish Mutual Understanding

Develop a clear understanding of each party’s goals, obligations and desired outcomes, and discuss potential scenarios to establish what fits inside the parameters of the collaborative program. Do not be afraid to discuss scenarios that might derail your collaboration. Better to work it out before you begin.

2. Agree the Plan

Be specific about what each party brings to the table and is required to do. Map out a month-by-month plan. Agree a start date, end date or, if this is not possible, a point for review and replanning. Agree objectives and goals. How will you measure and track success? When will you meet to discuss progress? Who is involved in implementing the plan?

3. Agree the Benefits

Win-win-win partnerships work because the client receives the advantage of working with two businesses who combine their strengths to meet the client’s needs. Collaboration is extremely powerful if done well. So take the time to really nut out what you want from the collaboration and be clear about the value each of you bring. Discuss what that means for each party, and how the client will benefit. Again, be specific and precise. Talk about how you will communicate and interact with each other and the client to ensure you achieve the win-win-win.

The YTM Business Community has seen many collaborations form between our members. Would you be keen to connect and become a member of our community? Find out more HERE

“Collaborate and Connect” is one of the YTM event formats. If you would like to receive details of our monthly events, and four diverse formats that encourage fresh conversations, perspectives and opportunities , you are invited to receive our event alerts and some conversation starters here.