Always make your partnerships strategic

The term “strategic partnership” is used too loosely these days. The fact is that many partnerships turn out to be window dressings for weak strategic plans, and are often neglected soon after they’re formed. Companies spend enormous amounts of time negotiating partnership agreements and creating visions of grandeur for sales that will result from them. Just remember one thing. You can use a partnership to enhance your strategic plan, but don’t confuse the partnership with the plan. Without strategic foundations, arrangements between companies take on a life of their own and eventually end up in the partnership graveyard.

Be prepared to work

Even when they make perfect business sense, successful partnerships between companies take a lot of hard work to grow and maintain. If you aren’t committed to investing significant time and money in your partnership venture, then the results will probably fall short of your expectations. Partnerships are a great way to leverage your resources in sales, product development, or customer relationship management. Please note that “leverage” is the key word here. Zero in still gives zero out. You have to invest your resources to make it work. And you also need to learn how to use your partner’s resources effectively to create leverage.

Trust leads to efficiency

Partnerships are like marriages of convenience -- unions based on business objectives. Of course, a business partnership is even less likely than a marriage to last without a high level of trust between people. Make sure that your partnership gels in an atmosphere of trust. While trust is important for many reasons, it’s absolutely mandatory for a partnership to run efficiently. The ideal partnership works transparently, as if the two companies were one entity. When you trust the people with whom you are working, you can eliminate excess overhead in business processes and just focus on getting the job done. Imagine that.

Partnerships aren’t necessarily forever

Unfortunately, business partnerships are even more complicated than marriages (as hard as that might be to imagine). When you step up to the partnership alter with another company, you may have in mind that you’re set for life. But you need to be realistic. Changes in strategic plans, business environments, and technologies may make partnerships unworkable or even obsolete. In addition, partnerships involve a lot of people on both sides of the deal. That makes the relationships complex and potentially volatile. Work hard to make the most out of your partnerships, but also know when to let them go. You and your partner will both be better off.