Tracy embodied motivation throughout her dynamic career at Microsoft. Why? Simply put…her attitude. Motivation can be fleeting, but in that moment when motivation thrives, it can move mountains. I see partnerships the same way, and when they work, they make changes in the world that are far greater than what could have been accomplished with one person, or one company alone. Tracy’s attitude embraced consistent and persistent motivation. Tracy exuded motivation to those around her, something that was not fleeting, something that stuck, something that was very, very real.

So the message…summon that intensity, call on that feeling you had when motivation made you greater than what you were the moments before you had it. And when you have it, share it with someone else and make the world a better place through that magic. Tracy…we’ll all miss you, but we will not ever lose the magic and motivation you brought and still bring to all of us. People make partnerships and that is a strong motivating force when it’s done right, whether person to person or company to company. Finding alignment in partnerships is key, but really believing and continuing to believe that what you are doing makes a difference, makes all the difference. Have a Happy Halloween, tell your kids to brush their teeth tonight, and compliment someone you don’t know.

All the best – Steve

I have worked for Microsoft for 17 years running complex partnerships and ran the North America Partner Organization for F5 Networks in the security and application networking space. In the 20 years that I’ve been in the business building and driving partnerships the partnership business has never stopped growing. Ever. 

Think about it. Any company, economy or organization can have a tough time. In fact, the whole world is having a really, really tough time now, but with the right partnerships and the right execution plan partnerships create balance, scale and leverage. So when times get tough parterships can create the power you need to seize opportunity where weakness exists and partnerships can flourish. Be willing to admit where you need help and where you own the market and act aggressively to enable the right few partnerships to get you into opportunity your organization could not do alone. Define the strategy AND the execution plan and do it. The bomb dropped, the collateral damage is being cleared and the market is going to start rebounding. Somebody’s going to make ALOT of money in the next few months. So, it’s all upside now. Have the right partners, strategy and plan to be there first.

Steve Hale
CEO, ZenLion LLC
Enterprise Partnership Consulting
Focus, Plan, Attack

So let’s examine why you want to develop a partnership first and foremost. Then we can work on how to build a high impact partnership and how to execute on that partnership to give you more than you can deliver yourself. Which, is the fundamental reason you partner in the first place. You develop partnerships to give your business more advantage, leverage and reach than your organization can produce in and of itself.

First things first. Find mutual goal alignment and shared upside. If the organization you want to partner with can give you advantage and you can give them advantage then clearly define what that is up front. It’s called gives and gets.  This might sound overly basic, but I have seen so many partnerships fail because they don’t get this fundamental premise done right from the get go. Also, even if you have the right goal alignment, the most important part by far, is having the resources on both sides to execute and measure the agreed plan.

When bringing partnerships online and public have a plan that is holistic. Meaning you’ve done 4 things with you partner: 1) Define clearly what are you selling together; 2) Train both sides of the partnership on how to sell the joint deliverable; 3) Build your marketing plan, no matter how basic; 4) Have a clear sales engagement strategy, goal, measure and review plan.

If you don’t have top down support on both sides and a review process that includes senior level executives to consistently and frequenly review the progress of the partnership then don’t do it.  Period.

Ok, let’s start with the obvious.  Every high-tech vendor on the planet is trying to understand how to partner with large systems integrators and consulting firms to get them to recommend, sell and implement their stuff. Great…so we’re all in the same boat.  But what makes your company different, and why should any integrator or solution provider care?

Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way.  1) marketshare; 2) revenue; 3) technological relevance. Grand – if you are Microsoft, Oracle, SAP or Google you can skip the rest of this and go about buying your way into any SI/ISV or consulting portfolio.  But understand, even that approach doesn’t ensure short and long term success. For the rest of the human vendors on earth, strategy and execution (not just money) will be the difference between success and failure.

The bottom line. Winning the hearts and minds of the developers, consultants and engineers with your products or technologies is the only way to ensure dominance of your stuff over another vendor’s stuff in the partnering world.  Period.

Think about it. Systems Integrators and consulting firms sell enterprise solutions. An enteprise solution is not a shrink wrapped software product installed on a bunch of servers or desktops (although Microsoft would love to believe that). An enterprise solution is an embedded application with a set of processes, tools and reporting systems that are embraced top down and bottom up in a company to run the businiess. It becomes part of the DNA of that company. It makes the application a part of the fabric of that company.

You know it when you see it. And, it happens all the time, but often it’s hard to tell who is really wagging the dog when these decisions on critical applications get decided. There are usually a series of complex partnerships that either get created through planned partnerships with the customer, or more likely forced together because the customer demands that several vendors work together to make the whole investment work.

That is why Partner to Partner connections and business/technology development alliances are so important. ZenLion Consulting specializes in developing the cultural make up of these kind of partnerships through partnership planning and execution. Call ZenLion we will help you focus, plan and attack with strategy and executional results.