Partnership Metric in a Promo
Metrics to Measure a Partnership
Main Themes and Key Insights:
The document outlines six critical areas to evaluate before entering into a partnership, moving beyond surface-level compatibility to deeper operational and strategic alignment. The core themes revolve around:
Strategic Alignment and Market Fit: Ensuring the partner complements your business without direct competition, and that there's a clear, quantifiable market opportunity.
Operational Compatibility and Leadership Alignment: Assessing the ability of both organisations to work together effectively, from management styles to communication and governance.
Demonstrated Performance and Reliability: Evaluating a partner's past success and commitment to previous collaborations.
Clear Communication and Mutual Understanding: Establishing concise and clear communication from the outset, particularly regarding value propositions and shared goals.
Most Important Ideas/Facts:
Customer/Account Overlap (Avoid Competitors, Seek Complementarity):
- Core Principle: "Don’t partner with your Competitor."
- Actionable Insight: Map your target accounts against a potential partner's customer base. A high count of overlapping or complementary accounts, often called "account mapping," facilitates easier cross-selling.
- Market Focus: Evaluate "industry coverage" by assessing the size of the partner's customers in your focus industries to ensure alignment with target market segments.
Total Addressable Market (TAM) and Revenue Potential (Avoid Rivals, Focus on Joint Upside):
- Warning: "A partner whose network is full of your rivals may dilute your focus."
- Measurement: Estimate the partner's total addressable market and the shared revenue potential. This involves measuring the partner's total platform volume (e.g., payment or distribution volume) and your current "share of that wallet."
- Indicator: High "addressable volume" and a strong "share of wallet" indicate significant joint upside.
Leadership and Counterparts Team Compatibility (Foster Healthy Partnerships through Communication):
- Foundation: "Cross Team Communication build healthy partnerships."
- Cultural Alignment: Compare management styles. Disparities (e.g., one highly agile, the other risk-averse) can lead to friction. The document suggests using "cultural assessments or fit surveys" to quantify this alignment.
- Governance Readiness: Gauge the partner's willingness to establish clear governance, including joint KPIs, steering committees, and conflict-resolution processes.
Delivery Track Record (Focus on Outcomes and Reliability):
- Key Action: "Focus on Outcomes."
- Evaluation: Review their history with other partners, analysing outcomes of existing collaborations.
- Metrics/Checks: Consider partner retention rate, case studies of joint projects, or partner satisfaction ratings.
- Red Flags: "Ask for references: partners who have successfully met commitments in the past are more reliable. Conversely, if they had partners drop out or if their past alliances saw missed deadlines, those are red flags."
Connect on an Emotional Level (Be Concise and Clear in Value Proposition):
- Communication Style: "Be Concise and Clear."
- Recommendation: Use "simple, persuasive language" and "State the joint value proposition in one line."
- Example Value Proposition: "Boost your revenue and pipeline, leverage our partner program with [YourCo] today."
- Principle: "Clarity over cleverness works best in LinkedIn ads." (Applies to initial partnership messaging).
Governance Readiness (Commitment to Quantifiable Goals and Reporting):
- Crucial Step: "Confirm that the partner is willing to set clear joint processes and KPIs from day one."
- Formal Model: Check openness to a formal governance model, including "regular business reviews, escalation paths, shared dashboards."
- Practical Measure: Ask if they agree to include "performance metrics" in the partnership charter and if they will track and report on agreed-upon KPIs.
- Warning: "Partners who hesitate to commit to quantifiable goals (or who lack a process for reporting) may slow decision making once the deal is done."
Conclusion:
The Sharkdom document provides a comprehensive framework for proactive partner evaluation. It moves beyond superficial assessments to encourage a deep dive into strategic, operational, cultural and historical performance factors. By addressing these six areas "well ahead of partnering," organisations can significantly increase the likelihood of forming productive, long-lasting, and mutually beneficial partnerships. The emphasis on clear communication, quantifiable goals, and a proven track record is paramount to mitigating risks and maximising the potential for joint success.
