In today's economy, partner relationships play an important role in making a business successful just as much as customers do. The right partners will have a big impact on the growth and success of your business. You just have to choose wisely.
At Vogue Tyre we hold the valued partner mindset with both our customers and vendors. This mindset is what has helped in propelling our success for over 100 years, through both the bad and good times. By being partners, we have been able to hold long-term relationships, which have provided better returns for us and our partners.
WHAT IS A PARTNER?
Partners are an extension of your business. Strong partner relationships take time to grow and they require endurance. When you have a partnership, working together lessens the worry about competitors like you would in a vendor relationship. With a partner, as much as you are two different beings, you have a common goal, which is satisfying your clients.
Here are some things to note when it comes to partnerships.
TRUST
Trust is the most important thing in a partnership. It needs to be established from the get-go. Getting a good impression from the start is important. Phone calls and emails should be returned/answered, meetings held on time, and the key decision-makers should be present during conference calls. For instance, a potential partner who doesn’t show up to a scheduled conference call, will most likely not meet deadlines in the future, and will always have issues with delivery.
When you get to know and understand each other’s business, it will go a long way towards building trust. Open communication and both partners being open to having discussions and meetings is the first step.
If you are unable to meet with a partner or vendor in person, you can always use teleconferences and screen sharing tools. This will open up your partner options, eventually, you can find the time for a physical meeting with your partners and vendors.
EXPERTISE
When it comes to choosing someone to work with, obviously, your first pick will not be someone new in the industry. When selecting partners, check and ensure that they are experts in their field, and they deliver on their words. Are they able to back up their credentials?
For the partnership to work, you need to be on board with their services or products and have confidence that they are one of the best service providers you can partner with.
RESPECT AND RESOLUTIONS
A partnership will not work if one party feels disregarded. Addressing issues early enough and identifying expectations and targets is respectful to your partners. If one party disrespects the other, the relationship is bound to end.
If you ever feel that things are going in the wrong direction in a new partnership, take the necessary steps to resolve things and get the relationship back on track. Conflicts and issues are not a sign of a bad partnership. The inability to identify, address, and resolve situations with mutual respect, however, are signs of a bad partnership.
Remember, it is not easy to find good and experienced partners within a niche, so when you find one, put in work on keeping them.
COMMUNICATION
Partnerships, like all relationships, thrive on communication. So, when communication stops, then the business relationships will go stale, and worse mistakes will happen.
If you don’t properly communicate, how will you get the job done successfully? From the start, set out how you are going to communicate, how often you both expect updates, emails, phone calls, and physical meetings.
Figure out how your partner communicates and learn to speak their language. This will go a long way in sustaining your partnership. You can go a step further by finding someone who will manage your relationship and offer other points of contact should they not be available.
GROUND RULES
To avoid any misunderstandings, it is always a good idea to set firm ground rules. Although this may feel restrictive at first, it will help in building your trust. You can relax the ground rules once you have both figured each other out. Your ground rules could be things like, how to communicate with clients, when you expect reports to be delivered and how you want products or work to be managed.
VALUES
When it comes to what matters in a partner and vendor relationship, values are very important. Do your business values match up? It may be hard to find partners that match your values. Ask about values upfront, you may want to move to a company with a proven brand name. As opposed to a company that only exists to grow and get acquired in the next few years.
WIN-WIN
When building a long-term partnership, it is important to ensure both parties are mutually benefiting. All of the trust, communication, respect, and understanding will crumble if only one of the partners is succeeding. A win-win mindset is what ultimately drives success and growth. At Vogue Tyre our 100-year success has not been solely based on our efforts. It has been achieved because of our great vendor and customer partners.
When our partners succeed, we succeed, and successful partnerships are long-lasting. If your relationship is adversarial, you will only find short term rewards, and eventually, that customer or vendor is going to stop working with you. You will then, have to go out and acquire new customers or vendors. That turnover is expensive and time-consuming.
SUCCESSFUL PARTNERS = YOUR SUCCESS
These are some of the most important things in partnerships. They are not rocket science; they are simple rules you should live by. Like any other relationship, in a business relationship, you will always need trust, communication, and mutual respect.
Treat your business partners with the utmost respect because whether you acknowledge it or not, they contribute to your overall success.
At Vogue Tyre, we are looking to grow our partnerships with like-minded, successful tire distributors, and dealers. If you are looking to grow your business with a partnership like a relationship, please reach out to us and we can discuss partnering to grow with you.