A Guide to Creating Partnerships for Your Business

A Key Person of Influence is focused on constantly finding new people and organisations to help carry their vision forward. They find a core team as soon as they can, they partner with investors for their capital, they create joint ventures with distributors and form alliances with other well-known brands to make themselves stand out.

Here is a quick guide on getting started with creating partnerships:

Step 1: Think about a big goal for your business.

It's usually something that you don't have the resources to achieve just yet (or so you think).

Step 2: Write down what's actually missing from your business.

It might be cash, but it could as easily be a team, brand credibility, experience… anything you lack. For this example, let's say it's cash, and reverse engineer why you don't have enough cash on hand. Perhaps the lack of money is caused by a lack of leads. If you had an extra 50 quality inbound leads a month coming through, that might solve your cash issue.

Step 3: Recognise that someone has a surplus of what you're missing.

Someone not far from you has already built a relationship with thousands of people who are your perfect target market. Someone owns that database right now, today! Someone already has free products they would happily add to your product range just for the exposure. Someone already has a great brand and is looking for a worthy company or products to endorse. Remember: Someone woke up today with the exact thing you need.

Step 4: Work out what's in it for them.

Before you reach out to propose a possible alliance, work out what's missing for them. What are the headaches they've got that you can help them solve? Maybe they need new leads too, so you could do a cross-promotion. Partnerships are not a zero-sum game: "If I give you a dollar, and you give me a dollar, we both have a dollar. But if I send you a customer, and you send me a customer, we both end up with two customers."

Step 6: Pick up the phone and pitch them.

This is where you get to multiply time and rapidly achieve extraordinary results by working with other Key People of Influence – but you need a great pitch. It's worthwhile learning the architecture of pitching. The way you present a deal has a huge impact on the way it is received. The wording you use, the meeting place, the materials you bring and the way you follow up all impact the quality of the partnerships you form.

How strong are your partnerships? Take this quick yes/no test to find out: https://keypersonofinfluence.com/scorecard/