Is PARTNERSHIP Really Necessary For Your Small Business Growth? One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a business owner is to try and do everything yourself. To combat this, you should consider Hiring The Right Employees And Retaining Them For Long, but this is an expensive risk. The other option is to outsource or leverage strategic partnerships.

Regardless of the industry in which your business operates, having a strategic partner can significantly benefit your company and therefore enhance growth.

What Is Partnership?

A partnership is a formal arrangement by two or more parties to manage and operate a business and share its profits or losses.

In most partnership businesses, all partners share liabilities and profits equally, while in others, partners may have limited liability. There is also the so-called “silent partner,” in which one party is not involved in the day-to-day operations of the business.

Before you establish a business partnership, you should know the various types of partnerships that are available and how each of them works. Then decide what type of partnership you want. There are three different kinds of partnership that are commonly set up:

A General Partnership (GP) consists of partners who participate in the day-to-day operations of the partnership and who have liability as owners for debts and lawsuits.

A limited partnership (LP) has one or more general partners who manage the business and retain liability for its decisions and one or more limited partners who don’t participate in the operations of the business and who don’t have liability.

A Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) extends legal protection from liability to all partners, including general partners. An LLP is often formed by partners in the same professional category, such as accountants, architects, and lawyers. The partnership protects partners from liability from the actions of other partners.

Now more than ever, partnerships are a consistent part of doing business. Whether it has to do with sponsorships, co-branded products, or selective deals, for many businesses to grow, a partnership is as inevitable as Getting Funding For Your Startup or Business Growth.

But for a small business like yours, does partnership make sense?

The answer is yes, but you’ll need to do some research and planning ahead of time.

 

What are the Benefits of Partnerships for Your Small Business?

For startups or even established small businesses looking for growth, strategic partnerships can elevate your efforts. Here are a few benefits of partnering with another brand or business.

1. Access to Knowledge, Resources, and Expertise

Your small business needs a wealth of knowledge and that knowledge comes in abundance with strategic partnership agreements. This gives you the opportunity to grow and learn from another’s perspective. All of the knowledge would be put into use to further build your brand and business.

Partnership increases your lease of knowledge, expertise, and resources available to make better products and reach a greater audience. All of these put together along with feedback can skyrocket your business to great heights.

You’d likely outsource or hire an expert to handle areas of your business you have no experience in, right?

Partnerships with other businesses can also help fill that gap in expertise. It’s a cost-effective method to explore new opportunities without risking failure simply due to a lack of experience or resources.

 

2. Helps You Reach New Customers

For a small business, growing your customer base can be difficult. You need to identify ideal customers, establish credibility, and showcase value over your competitors. But what if you could do all that at once?

Partnership gives you direct access to an already established customer base. The other brand vouches for you in the process and provides direct exposure that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Depending on who you partner with, this could be an entirely new complementary audience or an expansion of the market you already serve.

3. It Enhances Your Business’ Credibility and Reputation

Partnering with other brands basically gives them your seal of approval. To your customers, employees, and suppliers you vouch for their mission, products, and actions. Luckily, this is a win-win situation, the brand you partner with simultaneously vouches for you.

When firms that share the same goals and vision join forces, the influence and strength of each organization can grow dramatically. Stronger businesses provide better products and deliver more qualitative services to customers, which boosts overall brand equity.

This can be an excellent opportunity to grow awareness and a positive reputation for your business. Not only amongst customers but other businesses, vendors, and professionals. However, this can be a disadvantage – if the business you partner with has a poor public image, so be very careful who you associate with.

4. Increases Revenue

If you’re able to take advantage of any of the previously mentioned advantages, there’s a good chance you’ll also increase your revenue. This can be due to expanding your customer base, sharing resources and costs, or launching a collaborative product, among other things.

Typically, increased revenue should be one of the reasons for approaching strategic partnerships, even if it’s not your primary goal. It can help ensure that your partnership provides the necessary return on investment to make the effort and use of resources worthwhile.

5. Promotes Business Growth and Stability

The goal of all businesses is to remain relevant for a long time and reach its set corporate goals. Having business partners mean you are no longer operating in isolation. You’ll have access to more knowledge, innovation, expertise, and funds. The bottom line is that a great business partnership makes you better, lifts up your weaknesses, and enhances your strengths. Eventually, this is all you need to be relevant for a very long time and help your business achieve its objectives and key results.

How Do You Identify Potential Business Partnerships?

Knowing the benefits of partnerships can only get you so far. Sure, you want to reach new customers, enhance your reputation, and increase revenue, how are you going to do it? And who should you do it with?

Like pitching your business to investors you need to be prepared to pitch a partnership and identify partners that are appropriate for your business. Here are a few approaches to partnerships that you can take.

Find Complementary Products and Services

Identify the brands, businesses, or products that could compliment your business offerings. Now think about your customers’ interests and where the two overlap. It’s likely you’ll find an opportunity there.

As a small business owner, partnering with SuccessDigest Marketplace to help you solve all your online and offline marketing needs will be most ideal. You don’t need to look far to find plenty of new examples being announced every single day.

Find a gap your business can obviously fill or an opportunity to strengthen both offerings through collaboration. That can be more than enough to kick off talks of a partnership.

Find Businesses That Share Similar Company Values

As said before, partnerships can improve or damage your reputation. While it may be obvious to avoid partnering with businesses with a negative public image, it may be less obvious to find partners with similar values.

This is something that helps for-profit businesses find potential partners. If you share a similar mission, company goals, or internal human resource practices, you’re more likely to work well together. Having these elements in common can also make the initial pitch much easier, as you’re already working from common ground.

Expand Your Network

When looking for a potential partner, sometimes the best thing to do is look to expand your network.

Focus on companies outside of your industry or vertical. Still, look for opportunities to create complementary products, but with the goal of expanding outside your customer base and business contacts.

Look for Competitors

If you work within an extremely competitive industry, one with already established players, partnering up can help you take on the competition. Look for smaller businesses to partner with and focus on pooling resources that can bolster your ability to innovate and market. Or look to partner with well-known brands outside your space that can provide unique benefits that your competitors simply don’t have.

As a Small Businesses owner, you need to look for the perfect strategic partnership that complements your activities as it is a sure way to grow your business moving forward. If large multinational corporations like Google, Apple, Amazon, and others still see the strategic partnership as a way to grow and expand their business scopes, then there should be no excuse for any business owner to not follow suit and reap the benefits that come with a well-aligned partnership.

In the spirit of the Valentine’s Day Celebration, next week, on SuccessDigest Marketplace Advertisers’ Catalog, we’ll be celebrating couples who are running their small business together.

If you are interested in sharing your story with us as an entrepreneurial couple, send us an email at [email protected], before Valentine’s Day and we will contact you. Your story will be published in the Valentine Special edition of the SuccessDigest Marketplace Advertisers’ Catalog. What better way to celebrate your spouse and business partner this season.

Till then, I invite your comments and questions and if there are topics that you would like us to discuss, kindly send them via email to us.