B2B Partnerships

Developing B2B partnerships are critical to your success.

We’ve all heard the popular refrain, “No man is an island”. The phrase reminds us humans are interconnected, thrive in community, and benefit from collaboration. The same rings true for businesses.

Some business owners shy away from partnering with other companies, fearing partnerships with another business could leave them vulnerable. To be clear, not all B2B partnerships are successful. In order to collaborate with another company, you will often have to share key pieces of internal information. The keys to developing successful, mutually beneficial partnerships are:

• Strategically picking businesses who align with, and or are, complementary to your business
• Ensuring you and your potential strategic partner have the same motivation and same end goals in mind
• Clearly defining the agreement to your partnership. Even if the collaboration is small, it’s a good idea to put expectations, scope, responsibilities in writing.

Despite the potential for drawbacks, I’d like to argue that by partnering with businesses that align with, or are, complementary to your mission, values, and service offerings your business is able to:

• Boost brand visibility
• Increase lead generation/referrals
• Position yourselves well in your community,
• Collaborate on projects you would otherwise have difficulty executing on your own.

Boosting Brand Visibility

When forming a B2B partnership, both you and your strategic partner will promote your alliance thereby increasing visibility for both of your companies. The mutual promotions can be informal (a verbal agreement about promoting) or more formal (a contract about who is responsible for what promotions, where the promotions occur, and with what frequency the promotions occur). Through mutual promotions, you’ll each attract audiences your business might not gain on its own otherwise.

Increase Lead Generation + Referrals

Whether it’s a natural by-product or a formal agreement, B2B partnerships typically increase lead generation or referrals. The audience and warm leads from your strategic partner will be more apt to trust you as a company because they’ve already come to trust your partner. Again, you’re increasing your brand’s visibility and audience size, exposing you to more leads.

Advantageous Positioning

Oftentimes when businesses are partnering together, their end goals benefit their audience, as well as, the community at large. Strategic partners are able to leverage their partnership by pointing to their collaboration and how it positively impacts the broader community.

Collaboration

Businesses united towards a common goal through their strategic partnership are able to collaborate on larger projects or initiatives that they might otherwise have a harder time executing on their own. Working on these larger projects creates the potential for more initial back and forth as each company negotiates who is responsible for what tasks. But once the delegation is established, the businesses are able to combine human power and resources, resulting in the successful completion of a project or initiative.

Ultimately, developing organic relationships, crafting mutually beneficial B2B partnerships takes time.

But by building community and coalescing together, you’ll be able to make a greater impact and, with the right partnerships, increase growth.

Jump right in to the next post in this two part series: Why Networking for Business Partnerships is Vital!