Partnerships are exciting. Although, don’t jump into that decision just yet. Only choose partners who share your values and ethical standards. This criterion helps keep you from being discredited by your clients and other partners. Don’t let wrong reasons like lack of finances, skills, connections, fear of starting alone prompt you into creating a partnership. Here are four key points to consider before setting up a partnership.
1. Align payouts to value
Here is how you align your payouts with your values. If you are struggling to define your values, start by taking a free assessment of value-based budgeting. This assessment will set the ball rolling even if the results don’t show your results perfectly.
First, look at your budget. You are giving you a clear indication of when and what triggers automatic payouts in your partnership.
Based on the progress their leads generate through your pipeline. Pay them using Impact.com’s Salesforce and Hubspot.
If your exchange focuses are more self-service-based, opt to pay at critical stages, for example, during an upgrade, renewal, or subscription.
A partnership’s sole purpose is to bring new value to a customer with better service. More customers turn into more sales, leading to an increase in payouts in the partnership.
2. Find more partners
One partner may not be enough for your business. Always choose partners with complementary skills. Having different strengths doubles leads and sales.
Partners with proven records that directly positively affect your business should be your number one consideration.
Organize the partnership into a general, limited, or limited liability partnership.
Clearly define each partner’s roles and responsibilities. Defining job titles helps eliminate disagreements by giving each partner control over their domains.
For you to have a long-lasting partnership, find common ground on how to raise concerns and openly share opinions.
To grow your SaaS business with partnerships, you need a range of different channel partners. That is:
- Community organizations like chambers of commerce
- Professional service firms and consultancies
- Industry bloggers and content creators
- Integration with other SaaS tools
Visit Impact.com to learn more about their open platforms and discovery tools.
These tools will help you access up to 7M+ potential partners on your own.
3. Prove your partner’s value
Consider your partner’s reputation. Most importantly, be wary of partners that praise themselves without any track record.
Conduct your due diligence. Check for your partner’s success in previous partnerships, review their financial statements. With the help of a lawyer, conduct a credit check to see whether they have ever had an involvement in any form of litigation.
This helps you evade connections with a company involved in shady dealing.
Better still, analyze current relationships with potential business partners you already know and haven’t approached. These can be those with particular benefits to your organization.
This helps you save time and shorten the hustle of looking for partners.
Businesses with a significant social media presence and an extensive list of potential customers should be your go-to. This exposes you to a larger market through the partnership.
To know much value your partners are adding to your business, you’ll need a powerful attribution engine.
We are giving you a good picture of how you are interacting with other channels.
4. Diversify your partnership
Diversification includes an agreement on the business structure and risk exposure.
For these kinds of partnerships, payment models are different. Measurement and management of their platforms differ, and they require this guidance from another department in your company.
Leveraging these kinds of new partners helps your audience grow larger. Through the use of premium publishers, educators, ambassadors and advocates, affiliates, and channel referrals
It’s no surprise that companies with diversified mature partnerships grow nearly 2X faster and generate almost 30% of their total revenue from blocks.
Laying out a risk-averse partnership strategy is wise. It mitigates the concentration risk and provides an increased reach and growth.
Conclusion
Starting a business with a partner has significant advantages. Taking a few steps to vet potential partners strictly will save your company endless hours of work down the road. Drafting a contract determines how long the partnership should last and aligns with both companies’ goals. Both partners should be on the same page during the contract signing.
