Choosing partners and building alliances in business is a a great way to capture a much largeraudience and to offer a higher value. be it in products or services, partnerships make thinsg bigger and helo achieve much larger goals.
How good are partnerships though and do they really work ? Well, yes and no.
Tak for example som very successful businesses in the world, such as Costco, Walmart, BestBuy or in services say Accenture. SAP, IBM or any other manufacturer or services provider. All of these have and work closely with hundreds of partner firms providing better value to the end user. Their services fill every niche and crevice that may have beenleft open due to low coverage but partnerships help capture that segment. Great !
Partnerships take a lot of work to work the right way. Majority of partnerships break up r fall through just because there were different expectations between the partners. In the process of showing a bigger image, businesses and individuals sometimes suffer the consequences of an under performing partner, which not only potentially affecst the current results but may haveeven a damaging effect.
Hereare some common rules to lay down the groundwork for partnerships to be successful. Make these a starting point for your partnerships and take it asfurther as you can.
1. Create a partnership if both parties will gain enermous value from it. A large benefit to one party and a smaller benefit to the other will not work in the llong term.
2. Make the responsibilities, duties and expectations clear from Day 01.
3. Draft a written agreement, no matter how ordinary it may seem.
4. Set a timeline for key milestoines and next steps
5. Value and respect your partners