When planning for 2023 or starting in #partnerships, it’s essential to frame in a compelling way 📈 opportunities that your company can gain via partnerships. But how to build a persuasive case?
💬 Check these principles from our workshop with Andrew Beckmann, who led partnerships and BizDev in Expedia Group and Meta and then launched partnership functions from 0 to 1 in Sonder and Hopin.
🗽 Be very clear on what the company's #strategy is.
What are we going for? Where are we in the company's lifecycle?
For example, in Hopin's case, at the time it was all about the P0 priority - making sure that we had a product that met the demand that was coming in. Hopin was very fortunate at the time when I started, that we were in the middle of COVID and Hopin started as a virtual events product.
We had demand coming in, it was more: ”Are we poised to satisfy that demand?” Which pointed me in the direction of how we make sure that we have all the features, to make sure it's our product over all the other ones that may be out there.
🤝 Start building the right relationships, so you can learn more about how other functions are solving for it.
Making sure you get close with the Product and Engineering leadership and hear how they've been thinking about growing the business overall and if they have suggestions for how they think partnerships could plug the gap.
Same with sales and marketing and customer service and building that camaraderie and trust also help make your case stronger when you go to the CEO and say, “I've aligned with product and marketing and these other functions and what I'm presenting you as a synthesis of those conversations”.
🎯 If sales are important, speak in the metrics that they [leadership] care most about
For example, when I was at Sonder Inc., building relationships with distribution partners was important, because we were trying to drive net new bookings. I made sure to articulate the opportunity in forecasted bookings, in the metrics that the CEO cares about.
It would be very clear to him in that case that if we were to partner with Expedia, Booking, and Google, we could grow bookings by X percent, which would translate into a revenue of Y million dollars. Speaking in the metrics that they care most about.
🌓Tease out your ideas as you're going along
The other piece that I found helpful too is, where possible if it's with the CEO, or maybe his or her direct reports, teasing out your ideas as you're going along.
It's somewhat iterative.
By the time you get to the ultimate proposal, you've anticipated any pushback or questions, so it's as solid and buttoned up as possible.