Every agency is working hard and investing in building a pipeline of exciting clients. Imagine if there was a shortcut to get in on those deals?
There is! Partnerships.
We are going to look at transforming your agency’s trajectory by being the go-to partner.
- Why partnership is a key strategy
- Navigating the inevitable headaches
- How to be first choice for the big projects
Partnership power
You’ll have opportunities to grow by creating partnerships, whether formal and ongoing or one-off.
These partnerships are like chemistry. There you are, floating around the agency scene when suddenly you bump into another agency of a different type.
When there’s energy (often from an impending deal), then BANG—a reaction. That results in change: a new client or even a stream of them. Who knows where it could take you?
You should seek partnerships out. If they work, it’s free access to another business’s pipeline of leads. Partnerships can be a key component of your new business machine.
We were a partner to a larger agency who threw us their projects that didn’t quite fit. From that:
- A single client that did half a million pounds in revenue
- The owner of the larger agency joined us as an advisor, and their new ideas and energy took us up a level
These partnership opportunities are worth it!
But…
The first project will be bad
New leads that you’ve got a recommendation for—what’s not to love?
Well, brace yourself for a rough ride.
The initial result of this partnership is almost always a bad project, or at least a headache.
Great projects work when expectations have been set and everyone is aligned on scope.
That doesn’t happen when:
- you’ve never worked together before
- the work is being sold and scoped by people who don’t work how you work
Here’s what normally happened to us:
A large development agency or marketing agency would come to us with a great-sounding project for an ace client.
However, the design phase they’d scoped didn’t have any research and was inappropriate for the problem they were trying to solve.
It’s inevitable really because:
- The work is being scoped by people who don’t have expertise.
- The catalyst for these partnerships is often an immediate need with no room to pre-plan and strategize.
- It’s a chicken-and-egg issue—they have to establish budget and scope in order to know that they can go and find a partner at all.
Worst-case scenario: they’ve actually tried to start the work. Produced some wireframes that you now need to pick up.
It’s tempting to create strict rules about partnerships and dismiss them as a waste of time.
However, without experimenting, how can you discover those valuable new relationships?
Here’s how to turn this into something great
The best way to approach it is with positivity, to use that first engagement to educate, ask questions, expose the gaps in their approach and build trust.
If you can, as long as you can be valuable for the budget, make that first project happen.
You might not get to work in your preferred best practice way
Then, you’ve achieved the 2 things you need to be seen as a go-to partner:
- Established yourself as an expert in that area.
- Be seen as dependable and build up some good will.
Now, follow up by making yourself easy to partner with.
Proactively share the way to sell the service that you provide. Outline the process and more importantly the ballpark budgets required so their sales team can use it.
We often worked with a development agency who had a brilliant way to do this. A project blueprint phase at a fixed price. This meant that any of their partners could bring that into their proposal without even having to be in touch with them.
The prize
The goal is to
- Be invited into the sales process earlier
- Become part of the partner’s qualification process
- Make yourself the way that this partner delivers the service
This takes stress off the partner’s sales team and solidifies a valuable relationship.
You’ll be their got-to 🚀
Partnerships can take you places you couldn’t go on your own. They can introduce you to clients you never would have worked with and streams of leads that will power your growth.
If you believe in diversifying how you get work, then start forming a strategy for how to make partnerships work for you.