Partnerships and collaboration are crucial to getting things done in today’s culture. And great organizations partner well. If you want to grow your organization, project or initiative, then finding, building and sustaining great partnerships has to be part of your plan. Nobody succeeds in a silo. To survive and ultimately thrive we must effectively create partnerships with many around us. It doesn’t matter what we do, where we do it, or how well we create a product or offer a service. We don’t succeed without the right people on our teams. I have come to believe that to survive and ultimately thrive we must effectively create “partnerships” with many around us, from family to colleagues to society in general. The following are some fundamental principles to building better business partnerships…
Don’t Forget To Grow Your Relationships or Celebrate Wins
What better way to celebrate a relationship or a win than sending over a coffee bar and smoothies at your partners office. Make arrangements and then go over to say thank you in person also. Take every chance you can get to grow the relationship. If the relationships is solid and the offering is good then the sales will follow!
Be Direct
It is clear, straightforward, and involves the two-way, free-flowing sharing of thoughts, feelings, and ideas. There is no pretense or hidden messages in direct communication; its purpose is quite simply to get or give information from one person or group of people to another. Direct communication leads to direction, the path you set as a leader. Even if it was possible, nobody wants to follow a muddled message. Every word must be deliberate and directed. Don’t be tempted to reach out without direction because that can deter or even destroy your overall agenda. Talk may be cheap, but it can be worthless if uttered without direction and even cost you a client, a deal, or your whole business.
Think Ahead
Isn’t it great to be around positive, optimistic, kind and forward-thinking people? I mean, who wants to be surrounded with negative, pessimistic, backwards-thinking people. No matter how successful you are, you won’t continue on that golden path if you stop anticipating what’s next, which is a job too big to do on your own. You need to surround yourself with forward thinkers. Make sure your people are ready for changes, even the most unprecedented challenges. Changes are constant. Since you can know that what you’re doing today will be wrong tomorrow, you need to forge trusting, resilient teams, a constellation of partnerships. You will eventually end up with income, net worth and an attitude that matches the flock you hang out with.
Inspire and Influence
The most successful leaders are able to inspire and influence everyone: their executive team, employees, customers, clients, partners, investors, and many others. Many ideas for enterprises might arise. It is useful to brainstorm as many as possible, including wild ideas and very ordinary ideas. It is only in the process of research and development that these ideas will be tested to see which ones can be made real. Inspiration cannot happen without clear communication. The best and brightest will be toppled if they can’t inspire others. It takes a dynamic person with a positive, honest, forward-looking attitude to inspire and influence the people involved in building and growing enterprises and communities.
Design Thinking
Design thinking refers to creative strategies designers utilize during the process of designing. Design thinking is also an approach that can be used to consider issues, with a means to help resolve these issues, more broadly than within professional design practice and has been applied in business as well as social issues. Design thinking in business uses the designer’s sensibility and methods to match people’s needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity. Like any community, a healthy ecosystem must be nurtured to achieve continual success. A sustainable ecosystem is the structure you form around yourself. Those interconnections allow you to bring in individuals and groups, exposing you and your team to ideas and perspectives you wouldn’t have encountered otherwise, allowing for cross-pollination.
Nobody Grows and Succeeds Alone!
When all is said and done just remember nobody succeeds in a silo. It doesn’t matter how smart or savvy we are when it comes to technology, product development or any single skill. Whatever we venture–personal, professional, philanthropic, political, or private–we must remember the people involved in and essential to our success. Learn from our own mistakes and mastery, and learn from the people around us: those we admire now and those we may learn from just by listening. We never know whom we may inspire or influence, or who may inspire and influence us. Today’s stranger may be tomorrow’s partner.
Some Additional Tips
Please keep Valet Coffee in mind when you are planning your next event! Specialty coffees and smoothies are always a hit and appreciated by guests.
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