#Partnerships are all about building informal influence 📢 inside your own org and in partner organizations.
The key term is “informal”, so best partnership teams excel in punching above their weight and figuring out how to move to the🗻 high ground from woods and rocks.
A few thoughts on building influence:
😎 Tapping into broader picture
With a bit of creativity, it’s easy to recognize how partnerships are helping the entire org, including sales, marketing and product functions.
Of course you might be disrupting their usual way of doing things in the short term, but partnerships are all about pitching the vision.
But in the long term you’re testing new markets (product), opening new geos (sales) and exploring new ways to acquire customers (marketing).
It’s not about just your function, it’s about advancing the entire organization. So it's a great way to engage all these functions in helping you.
🎤 Role model the behavior you’d like to see
If you’d like your peers to help you, counter-intuitively the easiest way is to start by helping them.
Understand “whys” of your teammates from sales, marketing, etc. What’s important for them and how you can align with their incentives.
Invest in building personal relationships with them and give them credit where it’s due. Praise their help to your function and entire org.
Pro tip
Sometimes, in partner organizations you’re more aligned not with partner managers but with account managers or the product org for example. Don’t be too attached to the names of the function and connect directly with those whose incentives are most aligned with you. They usually move much faster.
⛳️ Use short term wins to keep the momentum up
Short-term wins validate your efforts and maintain a level of urgency. Typically, they should occur within three to six months.
Communicating small wins monthly is better, because you can stay top of mind and also ask for help in your updates.
💡 If done correctly, partnership team could be an opinion leader that drives #growth and transformation.
And according to McKinsey & Company “Smart organizations recognize that opinion leaders may exert more influence than CEOs."
[Source]