Published by:
Ryan Westwood, FORBES
December 6, 2017
We’ve all had them. The introductions that felt too good to be true or the strategic partnership that held lots of promise but no pipeline. I’m talking about the business partnership that could have been truly awesome . . . but fell short.
A study by the CMO Council found that 85 percent of business owners believe partnerships are essential for business success, but over half (60 percent) of those favored alliances fail. “It appears that the problem is related to a lack of governance, as only 33 percent of the respondents indicated that they had a formal strategy for partnerships,” says Donovan Neale-May, founder and executive director of The CMO Council. Along with formalizing the partnership with specific exit strategies, roles, strategies for growth, revenue/ownership divisions, etc., it’s important to treat your partner as you would a big customer. “Partners rarely get the same handling, the same care, or the same attention that customers do,” says Neale-May. “And yet, in many cases, partners lead the way to more customers.”
Many years ago, when I started PC Care Support, we thought about employing a direct marketing strategy to compete against BestBuy/Geek Squad, a $44 billion-dollar brand. As a startup, we didn’t have the ability to invest the same amount of marketing dollars, so we looked for potential alliances, with resounding success. What was first born out of necessity for my startup became a strong business model that I still practice today with Simplus. Our partnership with Salesforce provides many benefits, such as enhanced customer reach, lower overhead costs, innovation, and employee development.
Read the full article in FORBES.