You're in charge of a new partnership. How do you know if it's really working?

Evaluating the success of a new partnership hinges on clear alignment & shared understanding of success metrics from the outset. It's crucial that all parties involved have a unified vision of what success looks like, which is why defining and agreeing on specific OKRs is the first step. Once OKRs are established, continuous dialogue is key. Regular check-ins allow us to assess progress, identify any roadblocks early, and adjust our strategies as needed. This dynamic approach ensures that the partnership remains agile and responsive to changing conditions or unexpected challenges. We can thereby ensure the partnership delivers mutual value & advances our collective goals.

Create a shared document/spreadsheet with your partner to track short and long-term goals, co-marketing activities, enablement, and success metrics. Understand your partner's goals and align them with your business objectives for a truly mutually beneficial partnership.

I love what @Sarah Jackson said (above or below, wherever this post falls lol). That "shared document" can and should be shared with multiple stakeholders in both organizations, that may include Sales, Marketing, Success, Product, etc. depending on the type of partnership so that all participants know the plan, expectations and success metrics.

All of the above quantitative goals and alignment are important and prior to that I would begin with fundamentals, qualitative alignment of your partnership. A) Ask and Understand what is success for your partner? B) Does that align with how you define success for this partnership? How can you make this a win-win partnership? C)Establish a cadence, make it interesting. Know your partners beyond partnership and genuinely care to know when to pause and push. Lastly how would you gauze this early on? The qualitative measure of this new partnership will eatablish the quantitative results. Are your partners looking forward to meeting you or coming up with excuses to postpone or cancel the meeting? Make your partnerships personable!

Think of partnership goals like building a friendship treehouse – a collaborative space where you and your buddy share dreams, snacks, and high-fives among the treetops. Define the "no-go zones" and the secret handshake (metaphorically speaking) to keep everything fun and fabulous. It's like crafting a magical fort where trust grows as tall as the trees, and success swings in with every shared goal. Ready to build the coolest treehouse of partnership dreams?

Effective communication is crucial in ensuring the success of a newly formed partnership. To achieve this, it's important to establish clear metrics and KPIs from the outset, track progress regularly, seek feedback from all stakeholders, and adjust strategies as necessary. By doing so, you can ensure that the partnership remains aligned with its objectives and delivers mutual value.

Already before the partnership starts you as the Sales person have to figure out what the client really wants and how you can transform that desire into realistic, traceable and realistic goals such as X leads; X Impressions or X Sales. If you haven’t figured that out yet, talk to your prospect and make sure you align.

Communication is foundation to a successful partnership. Leverage both formal and informal channels of communications to keep partner abreast and driven towards end results. Establish cadence for your partnerships meetings, quartery review sessions, and annual reviews. Ensure meeting objectives and agendas are co-developed and take ownership to share them, including post meeting minutes and action items. Do not forget executive summary and partnerhsip outcomes on a monthly basis. In the event of challenges and roadblocks, identify the dependencies and try to resolve them by leveraging the right parties of owners and experts before escalting to authorities. Many times a quick 1:1 friendly call can avoid escaltions and red flags.

Communication with senior management and field sales teams are the key audiences. But don't forget to share the good news with other teams regularly, including finance, legal, marketing, operations, engineering and others.

Communicating clearly and also being transparent is very important. Also, practice active listening to understand each other's views. Make sure you document all important communications for future reference.

Along with KPIs the use of OKRs (preferably shared ones) go hand in hand with meeting and/or out performing KPIs. Shared goals through OKRs keeps both parties aligned and inherently track the progress against key results. Sounds simple and it can be with the caveat a lot of planning and strategizing is accomplished on the onset of a newly formed partnership.

Set regular cadence to check-in and align with partner on the expected results. Use the catchups to also evaluate any blockers and resources that the partner would need at your end and ensure that you are able to provide it to them at the earliest based on the priority.

Quarterly business reviews are valuable forcing events. Even if you can't have a face-to-face meeting, presenting results over video call is very useful to boost mindshare.

This is so important! Why are there no other comments here? Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. Buy a cake, send flowers, gift cards, food, surprise your partners. Even a small win deserves to be celebrated.

Gratitude, appreciation, and celebrations go a long way in any relationship. This is even more important in partnerships to keep it beyond transactional equation. Setting goals, appreciating the contributions, and celebrationg small wins along the way will build successful and trustworthy relationships. Underlying all transactions exist humans who drive them, so it is imprortant we recognize individual contributions, team wins and make time for celebrations at every milestone. All of this will keep the winning momentum and energy going across the organziations that are key to this success.

Celebrations can come is small packages. Something as small as acknowledging the team members for their contributions and expressing gratitude for a job well done is extremely meaningful. Sincere, genuine and heartfelt words will go much farther than splashy shows that are nothing more than empty gestures.

Feedback: Gather customer feedback to see if the partnership has resulted in improved product offerings, customer service, or user experience. New Opportunities/New Technology: Identify any new business opportunities, or innovative ideas for the products, or services that are required. Adapting to the new options is crucial.

A partnership as the term implies resembles a marriage. Nothing is perfect with both parties willing to listen, respectfully, compromise on situations that help excel the core objectives of the partnership and have fun along the way. Ultimately, it’s about building a united front and grow the business and the bottom lines!

Consider the long-term potential of the partnership, including opportunities for scaling, further collaboration, and strategic alignment. Monitoring all the aspects regularly can help you gauge the health and effectiveness of the partnership. It's also important to have regular check-ins and open dialogue with your partner to address any issues promptly and collaboratively explore opportunities for enhancing the partnership.

Partnerships are about building trust. Have joint activities that create bonding. Have your partner(s) present to your company and bring your colleagues to meet your partners. Have fun. Fun activities are the most memorable.

One thing I always do to ensure partnership success is to talk to internal stakeholders; Sales/Marketing/Customer Success/Product department leaders. Ask them about the partnership strategy to see if they are speaking the same language. If not, you probably are not as successful as you can be. You must ensure that internal stakeholders can discuss how partnerships factor into the GTM motion. If they cannot do that there is misalignment, which will undoubtedly lead to a lack of success with external partners. Remember to always work internally out