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Many large grazing animals, such as rhinoceroses and buffaloes, form strange arrangements with small birds.

These birds are carried on the backs of the larger animals, performing the important service of eating ticks and fleas that otherwise would suck the blood from the larger animal and cause dangerous diseases.

In the business world, there are similar partnerships between large corporations and smaller companies with the same goal- staying healthy and growing together.  The partnerships that last are the ones that increase shareholder value for both organizations involved, providing highly differentiated services faster at a greater value.

Successful partnerships start with understanding why you’re doing it in the first place.  The most common partnership scenarios I’ve seen include:

• Lead Share: overlaying field sales reps in efforts designed to increase sales lead numbers and velocity
• Extending Market Reach: leveraging partners to break into new markets in other verticals or geographies
• Product Development: leveraging joint resources to produce prototypes quicker and at lower cost
• Brand Extension partnerships: leveraging partner via “white label” relationship, eliminating the need to buy from multiple vendors

Once a partner is selected, the focus shifts from “how we fit together” to “how we’ll execute together”.  Strong communication and leadership is necessary for partnerships to flourish.  Here are 5 tips for building successful, long-lasting business partnerships.

Identify the Desired Results
Nearly every partnership starts with the “What’s In It For Me?” dance.  This is important and needs to be thoroughly addressed up front.  Take a page from Stephen Covey and start with the end in mind- find the real drivers and desires around the partnership.  Identify roles and goals, what is to be done and when.  Don’t be afraid to assert yourself, you’re in this together.  Outline the sales process from initial customer meeting to closing the deal. Discuss up front how you’ll divide responsibilities and share rewards.  Once you identify these, you can transition from “What’s In It For Me” to “What Can I Do For You?”.

Establish Guidelines
Specify the parameters in which results are to be accomplished.  This can include any policy/principle that affects the partnership. Establish financial and accounting practices and processes.  Talk frankly about terms of payment, and how you’ll split commissions.

Catalog Your Resources
Identify the human, financial, technical or organizational support available to help accomplish the results.   Make sure you agree on the scope of work. Predict its impact on your processes and staff.

Step Up With Accountability
Set up the standards of performance and the time of evaluation.  Devise a schedule and plan to share necessary business information, including status reports and pipeline.  You’ll be better positioned to see where your partner relationship is working and where it can be improved.  Communicate regularly to share good news and to resolve problems.

Face The Consequences
Specify good and bad, naturally and logically, what does and will happen as a result of the evaluation.  Be true to your plan when the time comes to address these consequences- reward successful partners and let go of the ones that didn’t cut the mustard.

Another important factor to consider here is culture.  Each company has its own work culture, which defines how its people communicate and collaborate to get the job done. Yours might involve more focus on team efforts. Your employees might be centrally located. And you might prefer face-to-face meetings over conference calls. But your business partners might take an entirely different approach.

Understanding your own corporate culture is critical to working well with others. Also take time to get to know how prospective partners approach their work, how their people interact, and how their business processes support their efforts. Taking these steps in conjunction with the suggestions above will put you well on your way to stronger partner relationships.

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