How do you identify the right partner for your business?

In addition to thinking about your goals and needs, it is also very important to think about what you will be offering to your partner: - What are their needs? - What’s in it for them? - How can your product or service help them and their clients? - What makes you different from the rest?

Who nourishing morality and integrity like me abd submitting himself until achieve the goals also inconvincible to perform his duties.

One thing to add to that, you need to have in mind an estimate duration for the partnership, and next steps. -Is this a temporary partnership for a common short term goal? -Is this a temporary partnership because of a service that my entity does not provide but is planning to in the future? Or ... -Is this a long term partnership where my entity is responsible for one side of a project and the partner will be responsible for the other?

Something that worked really well for me, is implementing a partner sign up form prior to getting on a call with a prospective partner. The form outlines the key criteria for becoming a partner. If everything on the form aligns, you can open up your calendar. If not, dig a little deeper. Your time is precious and you don't want to waste it on a partnerships that's not a good fit from the get go. If the partnership isn't right, think of ways you can perhaps introduce them to another stakeholder that it may be a good fit for. You never know what might happen in the future or who you might bump into!

When looking for the right partner, you need to use your time wisely and only spend it with those with more potential. Asking yourself the following questions can help you target in your quest: - Do your products / services complement each other? - Do you have the same ICP as your potential partner? - Do you work in the same market and use the same language? - How does their client portfolio look? - Who else do they partner with? - Do they have the right size and the necessary resources?

In my experience it is also very important to identify who would benefit more from this partnership, wear the shoes of your partner and see things from their perspective before you start assessing them, or during. They might have a lot of weaknesses but my entity needs their services while they wouldn't benefit much from the partnership. They might also be full of strengths but approaching them would be a waste of my precious time since there is no real benefit for them. Important note: This approach doesn't mean not to approach stronger partners or approach weak partners, it just adds to the various points to consider before the terms are set and the decisions are made.

After narrowing down a list of potential partners, before reaching out to them, I engage with the Social Media posts of their respective partnerships managers and add valuable contributions. This is a simple yet effective way to connect to them before actually connecting with them. Once I interacted with them a couple times, I reach out to them, refer to a specific piece of content they shared in the past and then I transition to a potential partnership conversation by saying how we could add value. Once we become partners, it is important to know what to expect from each other, listen to their needs, be honest and give to receive.

A lot of the information shared before discussing the potential partnership and starting negotiation rounds will be useful during the discussions and negotiations, for you and also for them. So take notes, and be cautious. Be honest, transparent, respectful and cautious.

The profile of your new partner (reseller, referral, VAR, ISV, etc.) will dictate how far and deep you need to go with the documents and criteria mentioned above.

Two magical words that can make the duration of your partnership "heaven" or "hell" : Setting Expectations. During the negotiation phase, try to always set expectations and leave no controversial point hanging. That's the right time to ask (and answer) the right questions.

Very related to the point above. Before monitoring and having business reviews, it is important to set clear expectations during the negotiation and agreement phase. You can use tools to track mutual progress such as a PRM and have monthly or quarterly business reviews to discuss results and talk about improvements, ideas or new projects. However, in my experience the most effective way to nurture the partnership is to meet them in person every once in a while and use the visit to organize an event together and work on some leads on the spot.

Managing the partnership, you need to maintain the image that was created in your partner's mind during the negotiation phase. That's the image that the partner decided to partner with. That's one side of it, of course the other side would be to make sure the partners are maintaining theirs as well. Look out for any change of attitude and make sure that once any challenge arises, you involve them and discuss it together. A drop in numbers or latency in benefits should be something that you both look into together, as partners. You are working with each other and not against each other.