Strategic Partnerships and Why You Need Them

Let’s start with a clarification – strategic partnerships are relationships between businesses which provide mutual benefit.

These can be supplier/client relationships but are more likely to be partnerships between companies serving the same client base and providing complementary offerings.

3 Practical Steps to Business Growth

As a business built to connect people, recognising the possibilities for strategic partnerships is at the heart of what we do within Your Business Matters (in fact I previously wrote on the opportunities of collaboration in this post ).While some of our members are looking for suitable collaborators when they join us, for many this is a secondary benefit they find without even trying. But what do these advantages look like?

I asked some of our members to identify how strategic partnerships had helped their growing businesses and received some fantastic insights. You’ll see elements of their stories in this post, but I want to start with these real-life benefits they shared.

• Having someone alongside you who understands what is needed for your clients and how things should be done.
• Building a relationship of trust meaning work can be safely referred and clients will always get what they need.
• Having the support of someone who knows your business and you personally someone who can identify ideas for new services or business developments, suggesting challenges or opportunities you may not have considered.
• Having someone to fly your flag when you’re not in the room; they know you well enough to see where you can help others and aren’t shy telling people about it.

With all these benefits, why wouldn’t you be looking to create strong collaborations?

How to Build Strategic Partnerships

Step 1 – Consider what you’re looking for

The first step in creating effective partnerships is understanding what your business needs. The focus here should be on providing the best service for your clients and network, so think about how you’d like to serve them better.

• Are you providing a service often required as part of a bigger project? Consider who else is needed within that wider piece.
  
  For a graphic designer working with businesses as they grow and rebrand, collaborating with a marketing strategist is ideal; each partner supports the client to understand their strengths, their market and how to create an effective brand.
• Take some time to get to know your ideal clients and what is happening for them when they work with you. Are there other experts whose support and knowledge they will likely need?
  
  As a solicitor, contacted when individuals need to make decisions affecting their family, life, or business – these conversations will often involve financial considerations. Being able to collaborate with a trusted financial advisor will benefit many of your clients.  
• As a consultant specialising in a niche area, you may be approached to support clients whose needs are more general or who would benefit from an expert with a slightly different specialism.
  
  As an HR consultant, your area of expertise is employment law and mediation, but you often get approaches from businesses taking on new employees and wanting help. Building relationships with other HR consultants with different expertise provides benefit to each of you – and most importantly your clients.

 Step 2 – Make the right connections

The next step is about finding the right strategic partners.

• Be clear on what a good working relationship needs – what must any partner have (or not have) to make collaboration possible? For example:
  
  Your ideal client should match
  
  Your company ethics and values should be aligned
  
  You may have specific requirements about the size of business, level of experience, or business aims.

As Claire (Graphic Designer at Voyant Design ) said, when talking about one of her strategic partners “she is so passionate about her business and her level of detail and briefing are second to none. She cares about her clients which is also very important to me.”

• For many businesses, networking is ideal for building these relationships. It’s important to explore networking opportunities and organisations which appeal to you and those which will appeal to individuals or companies in the areas you’re looking for.

Helen (Financial Planning at Mark J Rees ) explained how networking supported her strategic partnership “We met through a networking contact. Meeting regularly at a networking event has helped to develop that relationship as I’ve gained a greater understanding of Kishani’s business and how she works and also know we have shared values.”

 Step 3 – Build on the relationship

It’s important to recognise that effective strategic partnerships will not happen overnight.

You might meet many individuals whose expertise aligns with those roles you identified in Step 1, but not all of them will be people who you can establish a trusted partnership with.

As Kishani (Solicitor, Wills Trust and Probate, K4 Law ) said “We know when a relationship is working when there is mutual trust and respect, and both parties are working together in the client’s best interests.”

Shelley (Brand Strategy, Harbour 32 ) agreed, “You get to know each other well and know what we both need to do, to do the right type of work for the right type of clients. I love that we work as partners… Happy partners = happy relationship = more opportunities to work together.”

 Could the right strategic partnership help your business grow?

Are there gaps you’d like a trusted partner to fill? Or questions your clients often ask which you’re looking for someone to help answer?

I’m someone who enjoys the opportunity to learn about people’s businesses and get to the heart of their motivations, one of my favourite roles is that of connector. I totally believe that companies looking to grow, need to find the right partnerships to be successful – and a great place to nurture those relationships is the networking room.

If you’d like to talk about who could support your business journey, or how Your Business Matters could help, I’d love to hear from you. You can book a conversation here https://yourbm.wpengine.com/book-now/ or come along to one of our meetings – you never know, you  might meet some of the people in the post