Finding the right partner — tips from Sven Radavics
- Begin with the project or an idea. It doesn’t make sense to approach anyone with a generic suggestion “hey, let’s do business together”. Being specific with the project details and mutually beneficial outcome is the key. Therefore, you have to begin with thinking through what the project is going to be about: is it cooperative purchase of a classified item in a magazine? Is it a new product where you join your features? Is it a partnership for hosting a podcast?
- Create a detailed description of your expectations. What do you expect from your partner? What kind of commitment are you talking about? Is it about splitting the expenses? Or just a work contribution?
- Outline the outcomes. Describe in every detail what you and your partner will get from this joint activity. Make sure it’s a win-win, that you’re not the only one who gains. Make sure the wins are relevant to contributions: it should be a fair deal. You can’t expect to commit, say 2 hours a day while your partner is committing 8 hours a day, and split the revenue 50/50.
- Think about what kind of partner you are looking for. Is it about particular skills? Or connections? Or market share? Or product they have? Does location matter? Does any demographics matter?
- Use social media and Google search to find a proper match. LinkedIn is a very good source for professional search — you can filter out roles and companies that you don’t need to show up in your search results.
- Reach out and come prepared. Obviously, as soon as you strike a deal there will be a lot of brainstorming about the details of how this or that should be done. But for initial contact you should be the one who is able to answer all the questions.
- Aim for sharing:
- ideas
- resources (for example, you have a designer on a team and you’re looking for someone who’s got a photographer on the team to do a great Instagram campaign together)
- experience
- connections and contacts
You can skip all the steps and get the right match with InTribe straight away.
What do you need to become an InTribe customer and get matched with a partner:
1. Know your target market and be very specific about it. If you don’t know your audience InTribe won’t be able to find a good match across industries that target the same type of customers.
2. Create a brand profile: your brand identity, values, messaging. What you company does and who your customers are.
3. Add contact details.
For now, InTribe admits mostly large and medium sized businesses to build a community of high quality brands who can gain from each other. But with time, they plan on accepting everybody to provide access to partnership marketing to businesses and solopreneurs of all sizes.
