Prepping For Business Partnerships: A Bird's Eye View

By: Harvey Kraft
Submitted: 2007-01-17 12:43:46
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Successful business development executives increasingly are doing battle in the arena of strategic alliances and marketing partnerships. Nowadays getting the jump on your competition is not half as important as mapping out and deploying a targeted and unique value proposition with particular appeal to potentially compatible allies.

Take the old aphorism: "The early bird catches the worm?" It just doesn't apply anymore. Even in the wild, naturists have discovered that 'early on the job' does not necessarily equate with success.

Consider this analogy:

Worms are slow, but they are expert at hiding. To catch one, birds must do more than just show up early. In the highly competitive world of birds, all the birds are up early. So, in practice, what distinguishes the successful bird from the hungry one is observation and preparation. Smart birds have figured out that worms are most vulnerable when they are in the act of eating.

The clever ones take care to study when, where, and what worms eat. The successful bird takes that data into account when making preparation! For example, one rather successful bird has learned that a certain type of worm finds a particular kind of leaf to be especially appealing. The wise bird has been observed using its beak to place the targeted worm's preferred leaves in the worm's vicinity.

The analogy of the clever bird applies not only in nature, but suggests a powerful strategic option available to you in business.

Knowing your target partner's needs and decision structure gives you the edge over all other early birds. Whether you're a CEO or a field executive with front line responsibility, you know that your prospects are capable of sophisticated camouflage. They are expert at hiding behind gatekeepers, red tape, misdirection, and layers of bureaucracy. So be it! Getting in front of potential partners takes more than showing up early. Executives responsible for cultivating business relationships must be able to increase their penetration effectiveness. They do so by providing prospects with "food" -- in this case, a compelling level of data, analysis and capabilities presented in an extraordinary manner. The results of such highly creative, custom prepared initiatives are dramatic.

Your commitment to a content-based partnership initiative is a win-win strategy:

* Partnership options, sales opportunities and receptivity improve dramatically when prospects are prepped via well-designed initiative tools front-loaded with offers of relevant information.

* Superbly orchestrated interface meetings, powerful creative presentations and mouth-watering proposals (worthy of the partnership's revenue potential) help prospective partners cut back on resistance and institutional firewalls.

* Most partnership executives are more inclined to bite into knowledge that treats them like a stakeholder. This approach improves their ability to evaluate, decide and be open to profiting from a prospective alliance.

Empowering your target with information is significantly more likely to get the deal done at the end of the day.

Increasingly, the Web is proving to be an ideal content delivery venue for initiative purposes. Content configured, digitally distributed partner initiatives are growing, but when it comes to relationship building face-to-face meetings are still essential.

Increased partnering productivity has a significant bearing on:
- finding good opportunities
- executive dialogue
- positive brand perceptions
- reducing the cost of partnership development
- buy-in from gatekeepers and influencers
- negotiating agreements.

It is never too early to start developing and implementing a targeted and effective Strategic Partnership Plan & Program. Feel free to contact the clever birds at Partner | M for assistance in this matter.

For more information go to Partner | M
Read the Partner | M blog Synergy Unbound.
Harvey Kraft is Managing Director of Partner | M -- http://partnershipsmedia.com -- the California-based marketing consultancy offering executive support for strategic alliances and partnering initiatives. Mr. Kraft is a skilled partnerships executive and creative marketing director with two decades of senior experience in the media, finance, publishing and wellness sectors. Previously he directed research and valuation marketing at media business consultants JupiterKagan, Inc. (formerly Kagan Research). He spent his early years at American Express and has assisted executives at Sharp Electronics, Ricoh, CMP Publishing, Macmillan, McGraw-Hill and more.
Copyright 2006. Harvey Kraft. All rights reserved. Permission granted for reprinting by publishers wherein attribution and link are provided.

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