How To Find the Right Partner For Your Business – 8 Things to look out for

Your business has the potential to benefit from the many available options for growth. In my last two blog posts I share the 7 Ways To Grow Successful Business Part 1 & 2, which you can refer to, for more growth strategies.

All such options means we have little excuse in not taking advantage of the strategies to grow our business. One of the strategies identified is to form quality strategic partnerships.

Partnerships can be sought with

  - complimentary businesses
  - customers
  - suppliers
  - agents or
  - competitors.

You might be wondering, ‘what do you mean by partnering with a competitor?’ Business in the 21st century has evolved and organisations are always seeking for strategic ways to compete effectively on the global platform, even if it means partnering with competitors to compete effectively elsewhere. A lot of such partnerships helps a business to potentially compete more effectively with other bigger players in the industry, sector or global market.

Any good partnership should essentially result in a win-win situation for both parties. It is a MUST, however, to clearly set out the object of the partnership and have a written agreement in place. Which should also include understanding and agreeing on whether the partnership is for a specific product line, service, project, time frame, geographical region or for the working together of two whole businesses for the foreseeable future.

Finding the right partner is a make or break for any business, thus the need to do your best to land the best partner. Some pointers to look out for in considering who your partner should be.

1. Both parties must be seeking for such partnership - Although it may not always be the case, that both partners may be on the look out at the same time. It is important to consider the potential partners desire for such a venture and the value they place on the potential benefits of coming together. When a partner is not wholly committed to the venture, they will potentially back out at the least hurdle.
2. A good partner must share in your values, vision and drive - Often times we get excited about the coming together and overlook what the core drivers are, for the parties and how they want to get ‘there’ – the ultimate goal or vision. Conflicting values are recipe for disaster before the word ‘go.’ Every business has or must have its core values or set of principles by which it operates. Barring that, it is set for distractions and a sense of lack of purpose. A partnership stands to thrive if the partners share in the same core values and principles for growth and business success.
3. Right skill set and experience - It is important that the potential partner has the skill set and experience that will complement your skills. Because, the more skills both can bring to the business the easier it will be to grow the business and achieve your goals. For instance, if you are a good designer (clothes, software, etc) and weak at marketing. You could look for a marketing company (clothing retailer or software marketing company, respectively) to partner with. This will potentially enable you to focus on what you are good at and concentrate on improving on your work, whilst your partner concentrate on the marketing aspect of the business.
4. Synergy - You must seek for a partnership that the resultant synergy will far more outweigh the two businesses put together. A good partnership should potentially yield more returns or benefits exceeding the individual outputs put together. What am I saying? To use turnover and profits as an example to illustrate this point. Lets assume company A with turnover of £2.5 million and profits of £1 million, is to partner with company B with turnover of £1.5 million and profit of £400,000. On coming together, all things being equal, they should be potentially turning over £5 million+ with profits of about £2.6 million+ annually.

In the next post I will share the rest of the pointers to help you land the right partnership in growing a successful business.

Share this post with your network and leave your comments. If you haven’t yet got your copy, check out our books - “The Business You Can Start” and “You’ve Been Fired! Now What?” (Ebook edition – Itunes, Kindle, Nooks, Kobo). These books offers you 40 businesses you can start, 30 ways to identify business opportunities, 33 business principles, business systems, strategies, and many more to start and grow a successful business.

Connect with us via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for daily share of business ideas and articles and sign up to our monthly newsletter for inner circle business tips.