Strategic Partnerships Will Make You Vital

Popstar, Jason Derulo partnered with Country star, Luke Bryan and the effort went viral. (You can watch that here.)

There’s a reason I’m starting with this.

As outlined in my first three blogs of this series, you can become a high-performing Intrapreneur inside the company you work for by being a vital part of a high-performance team, by defining your own role, by concentrating solely on your main area of focus, and by clearly defining and owning your pitch for maximum clarity and efficacy.

Now to talk about how to:

Grow your company’s database, boost new clients acquisitions and raise your personal stock.

To increase your success and vitality in your role, you need to create powerful partnerships. Create these partnerships with people inside your company; strategic alliances with other department heads (even if they are above your current level or designation) and create partnerships with others outside of your company, too. Network on behalf of your employer. Represent the business at professional and social gatherings. Speak with pride and ownership.

To be an Intrapreneur, treat your employee role as being the CEO of your projects.

Inside of your company, be more visible, be more involved, be more innovative than your peers. Be the one who suggests a new way of doing the same thing. Listen and learn, and then find your voice and use it. Ask intelligent questions and offer alternative solutions rather than just spewing opinionated statements. Don’t be afraid of being wrong, be afraid of being “vanilla.”

Being an Invincible Intrapreneur, the kind that is vital to the growth of a company, means having a voice and leading the charge. The other leaders will be drawn to your fearless actions and innovative contributions. The other leaders will want to partner with you, and that will enhance your position as a company leader. When department heads and company leaders know your name and start reaching out to invite you into their projects and committees, you have reached “baller status,” no matter your current title…and new, exciting opportunities will come to you.

If you are in sales, partner with other strong networkers outside of the company who share your ideal target client. Share resources and make warm introductions for them, when you find their perfect prospect in need of their specific service. Connect people together with reckless abandon and don’t expect anything in return.

In addition, tell your carefully-crafted social pitch to everyone you know, including your family. Your family members can be your strongest evangelists. Do you have family members and friends who don’t know what you do? Of course you do. Change that. You don’t have to constantly talk about your profession, but incorporate what you do into your personal brand through social media posts, published content, video, and more. Create content that represents you in your professional role so that you don’t have to be that annoying person at Thanksgiving who talks about work. Make your personal brand so interesting that people ASK you to tell them more.

Mainly, think about the fact that:

You are in partnership with everyone who touches the business.

This is one of our company maxims that I have embraced wholeheartedly, but I think it can translate for you, too. Build mutually-beneficial, mutually-catalytic partnerships to exponentially increase your circle of influence, and watch your stock rise. You will be a vital employee who gets all the best projects, the best benefits and opportunities, and longevity with the company that is lucky enough to employ you. Then, you may find that other companies start to notice your innovations, too.

Other companies will start to hear your name and want to recruit you.

When that happens, your possibilities become limitless…within your current company or in your next venture. You won’t have to chase new opportunities, they will come to you.