Before You Say ‘Let’s Partner’ — Watch This!

Foreign. Hi, I'm Dr. Natalie, and today we're talking about managing partnerships. So once you're in a partnership, it takes management, it takes resources. I think, in my experience, it's something I had to learn on the go. When I was younger, I would enter companies and there's existing partnerships, so everyone knows who does what. But one of my first experiences setting up partnerships and handling them myself was with Moussana cards many, many years ago. When you deal with big partners who have more strength than you in the partnership, the power dynamic, they're a bigger organization, they're more established, and you need them more than they need you, you have to do what they need you to do. So, for example, with Mosana, we needed to work with kcca and we had to go through different departments to make sure that they all approve us and they all agree to the partnership and we are all aligned with before we could put any vendors on the street. So I remember going to the Department of Health in KCCA and they had this long list of all these things. We had to meet these criteria and requirements for every single vendor before they would even consider letting us do what we're trying to do. So in those situations, you know that you're the one who needs the partner, so you're the one who has to appease the partner and make sure you're hitting their targets. So what we wanted to do was to understand why these criteria, every point was important and how it affected our business. And. And if it was realistic and reasonable for our vendors to now meet all these criteria, then our role is to make sure that it's implemented and we report back for every single vendor. It's not their responsibility as kcca. It was going to be ours. So this is what I mean by when I say managing partnerships. That's not even your core business. You're busy building carts, you're busy doing other things. But now a part of your work is to make sure that you're meeting these requirements with every vendor and you're reporting it back to kcca, your partner, because that's an important aspect of keeping your business running. So when you think about things like that, I say that you need to know how the partnership is going to work, what everyone's role is, what are the requirements, what is the result? Because if we don't meet those requirements, this is the consequence. If we do meet the requirements now, we can move forward and go ahead. So managing partnerships is a lot about that. And I always say ask why and ask many questions up front so that you're aligned. You know that why this thing is important to them so that it makes sense to you and it's easier for you to execute. I remember they made us get everyone's like personal details, national id, which exact location you're going to be at. And we'd have to print like a Google map with like a pin. And they're telling us that they also have to think about terrorism and knowing who is where and what they're doing. And that's why they need all this information on each vendor and the vendors can't be moving around. So things that we hadn't thought about, they had thought about. And it's going to affect our business. So you have to like, make sure you're in alignment and you're all moving in the same direction. So in every different organization there's going to be things like that. You're going to have different stakeholders, whether it's for a license or permissions, where it's a partnership, where you're both going to make money from it. You're going to be speaking to each other's audiences. You have to think about how you're going to position that, how you're going to brand it, what that looks like to make sure that you get the same experience. I know, for example, Skyes Hotel, we work a lot with promoters for different artists and concerts and events. And so when we're doing that, we want to make sure sky looks like a great destination for fun. I'm not going to put the conference room advert at a concert for 20 year olds when there's a big Nigerian artist. It doesn't make sense in alignment. That's not the same target audience. You need to make sure you're advertising brunch and the poolside and the cocktails and it's fun because that's now the target audience that the partner has brought with us and that's who we want to make sure they see and know our business. So you have to do those kinds of things in advance to make sure that you're in alignment and that your communication is clear and you know who is responsible for what. And all these partnerships take this time and level of resources. So you don't want to jump into a partnership and then no one knows who is responsible. I thought it was you who was going to make the poster. No, me. I thought it was you who was going to set up the meeting. You don't want to get into those kinds of situations because it just wastes everyone's Time and also it burns out the relationship. So partnerships are very human driven. It's about who you know and how you're going to execute and how well you work together. And that always comes from making sure that you have a shared vision for how the partnership will work. What does success look like? I feel like that's a question we should ask ourselves all the time in so many situations, especially in situations like this, to make sure that both of you have the same vision of where we're trying to go. Then you can tweak on how we're going to get there. Who is going to do what? Are you paying? Am I paying? Are we sending this person? Are you going to do it? But we all know what the destination is. If you have different visions in your mind and you think you're working together, you're going to get to a point where you're not on the same page and it's going to cause friction and then it breaks down the partnership. And that's not going to affect your reputation. You're not going to want to work with each other and you probably won't work with each other's partners or sector and the word will spread, spread. So it's important that you do this research in advance and then it's important that you nurture the relationship and make sure that you are in communication, you are in touch, you are structured about it. Whether you're doing calls or meetings or emails, make sure things are written down. You'll be surprised. In a meeting you can all say, yes, yes, yes. We all agree. Without action points which have a clear person who is handling it, who is providing this role or this funding or this expense, it can all fall apart very quickly. So I always encourage, have everything written down and shared and make sure everyone is understanding and agreeing that we are all on the same page. And you rather keep doing that as you go. So I remember thinking, people who used to do that, I'm like, I'm not dumb, I was in the meeting, I know what you said. But when you see something written down, you'll be like, hey, what I understood and what they understood is different. So it's important to have these kinds of communication steps and guidelines and, and make sure you're putting in the effort and the resources to manage the partnership and make sure that it works out as a success.