First Fridays are here!
We're kicking off a brand new event series. The first Friday of each month, we'll be partnering up for some awesome conversations and deep dives.
Friday, August 5 from 2-4pm ET, we're exploring some amazing stories and tactics of small partner programs that won big and how they did it.
Don't let the POPO take up your bandwidth
You know the POPO.
Partner On Paper Only.
It's the partner that sounded like a great idea at the time, but it's been six months and you still can't point to any tangible benefit from the partnership.
The challenge is that you don't want to be stingy with partners, waiting for them to create value first. But you can't afford to spend energy on partners that join your program and then do nothing.
Rather than avoiding the POPO by refusing to give until you get, maybe create a cadence where you give a few times and if it's crickets in return, you go give elsewhere.
Jean Oelwang's Partnering for b2b
The type of partnerships Jean focuses on in her new book are historic, the kind that end apartheid in South Africa and bring together the entire world to close the ozone hole.
The same glue that holds those game changing partnerships together can be applied to b2b partnerships as well.
Here are a few quotes to take to heart as you build your partner strategy.
“A deep conviction is like a renewable energy source that keeps you going, even in the midst of challenges.”
When your partnership has conviction and a proper foundation you can work through the hard times because you can trust that your partner is doing the same.
"They've also created the right incentive structures, replacing rewards based on short-term profit with those linked to long-term, shared impact."
Traditional quotas don't work with a big partner play. Create incentives that allow for the long term win. If not you may find yourself dropping a partner right before the leads start pouring in!
There's a ton of other relevant information in Partnering so it won't disappoint if you add it to your reading list.
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