Partnerships 101: Learning and Challenging

If you’re anything like me, you’ve heard more established founders or business executives us the word ‘partners’ in no less than 5 different ways.

Literally, I’ve heard it used referring to:
1. Customers
2. Co-Marketers
3. Event Co-Sponsors
4. Service Providers
5. Resellers

So what the heck does it actually mean, and why does it matter?!

Read on to find out what I’ve learned:

Partnerships are, at their foundation, defined as business relationships from which both businesses benefit.

There are levels to partnership - (simplified and roughly in order of rising trust required):

1. Affiliate-level marketing (link-sharing)
2. Co-marketing (think co-sponsored events or pancakes & syrup)
3. Referral partners (i.e. consultants who recommend certain goods or products and receive a commission)
4. Independent reseller (enabling someone else to sell one’s products or goods)

Ultimately, partnership really sounds like any healthy relationship, and based on what I’ve been able to grasp, this is really what it boils down. Healthy relationships in business are relatively rare. They’re often so deeply transactional and competitive, that business leaders of the past came up with fancy language, contracts, and entire teams to strategize and envision healthy, mutually beneficial relationships among organizations and agents within them. Many of the resources I explored, suggested that partnerships should be delayed until later stages of business formation, and that’s the idea I am most interested in challenging.

With trust, and shared customer reach goals, we can do better.

What would a world look like where early stage business leaders and founders could establish trust and collaboration earlier in our respective journeys?

What impact could network effects have on the startup ecosystem for marginalized founders struggling to get the funding necessary to pay for marketing and/or visibility at scale?

How could we innovate in this space?

Please share with any founder you’d like to ‘partner’ with! And I’d love to hear your ideas for a more trusting, collaborative business future!

This is the beginning of a bigger conversation.

In Community,
Desiree

Partnership Resources:

Types of Channel Partners

(video) B2B Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem Growth 2023