One of the fastest ways to grow your business is through partnerships. And the beauty behind it is that you don’t have to have a big team to do it. All you need is to know how to leverage partnerships to expand your reach and do more.
What do business partnerships look like? Well, they’re strategic partnerships wherein the success of one business results in the success of another. It’s a strategic way to build a business, break into new markets and create awareness. For it to truly work, it’s a win-win situation for all the players.
Take for instance Mohawk Kombucha, a brand that sells fermented tea beverages in Kenya. They partnered with Sendy Fulfillment to deliver their products to customers. Making timely and fast deliveries has enabled them to build trust and loyalty, creating great relationships with their clients, earning them repeat and new customers. Since their partnership with us, they’ve been able to sell more and scale the business without compromising customer experience.
The Sendy Fulfilment brand has been bootstrapped by the partnerships we’ve created along the way. So, how do you leverage strategic partnerships to grow your business?
Before diving into this pool, it’s important to know the type of partnerships that make sense for your business. We have 4 key partnerships:
Working with a brand with an established large audience so they do the heavy lifting for you increasing your sales. Think of supermarkets.
Promotion partners don’t directly sell your product but help create awareness and send people to your store/online platform to purchase the products. Think of Instagram influencers or TV & radio shows.
These are partnerships that are more in line with your core values as a business. More of CSR partnerships. Businesses can sponsor local charities, give a portion of profits to a non-profit company, help fundraise for a cause, etc.
The partnerships allow companies to prioritize their core business while outsourcing various operation tasks to boost efficiency. Businesses can choose to outsource accounting, fulfillment, IT services, marketing, or even sales.
You might be sold on getting a partner on board now. But before you sign the dotted line, you need to know what works best to meet your business goals. Here are some critical steps to consider:
Before you get into any partnership, you need to know what growth you expect to gain from the partnership. Without this, it’s going to be difficult for your partner to help you. Know what you want to achieve and make it clear from the on set. This way, your partner will know how they fit in and how they can better help you achieve your goal.
To have a winning business relationship, you have to capitalize on the strength and skill of both parties. Divide the roles based on the strength of every partner. If your business is strong in marketing and making sales while the partner is great in fulfillment, then split tasks accordingly. This way, you mitigate any risks of conflicts along the line.
As we have seen, partnerships are one of the most effective ways to grow and scale your business. We hope these guidelines will help get started on your partnership journey.
