The true meaning of partnership

Hardly a week goes by that I don’t hear the phrase “My partners are not bringing me opportunities.”  This is usually a result of discussions around insufficient pipeline development and activity.  Over the course of my career, this phrase has been repeated over and over again. Interestingly, you don’t hear this from your best sales people.  I’m not saying they don’t have challenges with partnerships, but they simply know how to manage them.  

Another interesting component of the discussion is both sides of the channel ecosystem, channel partner and OEM have similar perspectives.  Typically, neither one is happy with the opportunity delivered by the other side.

This is exactly the wrong way of looking at the problem of building pipeline and increasing business effectiveness.  What exactly is a partner?

The word "partner," defined by Merriam-Webster as:

1.  One that shares

2.  One associated with another especially in an action

3.  Either of two persons who dance together

4.  One of two or more persons who play together in a game against an opposing side partners in card games

My favorite definition is “either of two persons who dance together” but #1 is pretty good too.  In business, my greatest successes have been when a partner and I were “dancing” together to solve a customer problem and beat the competition.  People that know me in my personal life know I’m not a dancer.  In business partnerships I absolutely think that dancing is the way to go.

In business, partnerships are simply relationships with stated or expected positive business outcomes.  Like relationships of any kind, you have to contribute to derive benefits. Imagine being single in a bar and expecting people to approach you when you’re in the corner, drinking alone.  It rarely happens.

Maybe instead of expecting a partner to bring us business value prior to investing in the relationship, we should sit down and discuss each other’s desires and wants.  We should understand the interests of the other party and work on ways to maximize them while meeting our needs.  The best sales people know how to envelop a customer from all sides. The best know that they are the quarterback of their team, and they need to engage any and all qualified resources in order to minimize risk to an opportunity and increase the probability of success. This includes engaging both internal and external partnerships.  

As Steve Jobs stated -“Great things in business are never done by one person; they're done by a team of people.”  Channel partners must be part of that team.  Without them, a business cannot achieve scale and speed in operations.  It simply cannot achieve greatness and the limits of its potential.

Together we are better.  The real question is how do we successfully come together to meet everyone’s goals?

Partners, we’re open for business.  Let’s talk.