Why Most Strategic Partnerships Fail, and How to Fix Them

 Strategic partnerships can be the secret weapon in your revenue growth strategy—or your biggest headache. In this episode of C-Suite Sidekick, we’re diving into why so many partnerships fail and, more importantly, how to make yours thrive. From unclear expectations and lack of onboarding to turnover and over-reliance on a single partner, we break down the most common pitfalls and share actionable solutions to ensure your partnerships deliver results. Whether you’re a seasoned CEO or just starting to explore partnerships, this episode is packed with insights to help you build stronger, more effective collaborations. Don’t miss this one—your future partners will thank you! 

Companion content:

• Strategic Partnerships: The Cornerstone of Revenue Growth
• Anatomy of a Great Partner Onboarding (Subscriber Exclusive)

Show notes:

• Connect with Summer on LinkedIn
• Visit Rise of Us for more information about Summer's services
• Episode recorded and edited using Descript
• Repurposed content, such as this description created using CastMagic

Transcript

0:00

Hello, and welcome back to C-suite sidekick. I'm your host summer. Polenti. And today we're tackling a topic that has the potential to transform your revenue strategy for 2025 strategic partnerships. As a reminder. Referrals tend to close two to five times more than self sourced leads. They come with a higher dollar value. On average about double. And they tend to come with shorter sales cycles as well. Sometimes as much as half. Uh, self sourced. Deal. So if you're in the business of wanting to. Increase your revenue without dramatically increasing your headcount or your costs associated. Driving all of that growth to your profit. Partnerships or a key. Part of that. But here's a hard truth. While partnerships can drive up to 20 to 30% of revenue for many B2B companies, nearly half. Fail within the first two years. No, that's a bad stat. And why. Because most businesses underestimate how much work and structure it takes. To make partnerships thrive. And a mistake I personally have made is in thinking that. If I was partnering with a much larger organization, even one that had. Uh, director of channel partnerships or something like that. They don't often have a lot of structure as well, and they're not always going to take the lead for you. If your partnerships have ever felt more like a one-way street, where you give more than you receive. Or maybe you have partners in name only. Or you've seen some fall apart because of unclear expectations, poor communication, misaligned goals. Then this episode is for you today. We're digging into why partnerships fail and more importantly, how to fix them so that you can grow your revenue sustainably. In the next year. So let's dive in. First. Let's talk about why. Strategic partnerships are becoming more important now than they ever have been. And that's because the B2B buying journey is becoming. Harder and harder. It's now taking up to 20 to 25 touches. Just to get a prospect to Conor. Stop the scroll and even notice you. That's not getting you to the finish line. That's getting you to the first conversation. It's difficult to stand out. The buying journey is becoming more and more digital with buyers preferring to do all of their research themselves. But then there's so much information out there because of gen AI. A lot of it sounds kind of the same. And so you have buyers with a little bit of information overload, kinda mixed in there with some analysis paralysis. Buying cycles. Are getting longer. They're involving more people. And I see you when I'm working with my clients, but status quo or doing nothing is something that often wins the deal. It's it seems like buyers start looking because there's a problem they want to fix. They get confused and overwhelmed and then they just decide that. Their current solution is probably good enough. And that is not going to help you meet your revenue goals, unless maybe you're their current provider, but you wouldn't be listening to me right now. If you were. And where. Your strategic partners can help you with this is. Some of the hesitation to pull the trigger. Is not knowing which decision is right. Having a little bit of fear of making the wrong decision. And people not really wanting to risk losing face at work. If they make a wrong decision or God forbid losing their job. They'd kinda rather do nothing. Because then they're not. At fault for that. Right. So where referrals help. Is, it comes with instant social. Proof. And that social proof is. If you've ever. Bought a new major appliance. You're going to read reviews and see which ones are reviewed better. Should I even do that when I'm buying a new running shoe? I'm going to try a new model. I want to make sure that they didn't change it up too much, and this was going to hurt my foot or whatever. We read reviews for everything. And so the referral. Comes with a boat of confidence from someone that the prospect already knows and trusts. And that is why referrals are more important than ever. So. Common reasons that partnerships fail. Let's get to the meat of this conversation. Reason number one is lack of structure. The partnership didn't have clear frameworks or governance to guide. Those are those partners in name only, right? Oh, Hey, we should partner. We should trade leads and it's a little left to ambiguity. You ever meet somebody at a party or somewhere where you haven't seen him for a few years and you're like, oh my gosh, we totally have to get together for a barbecue. And then that barbecue never happens and you see them at another person's wedding a couple years later. And you promise that no, this time for reels, you're going to get together and have that barbecue. This is the business version of that. It's yeah, we know a lot of the same people we should partner. We should do some stuff, but then without a clear cut structure, everybody ends up too busy to do something and then nothing happens. I have a blog that goes into a bit more details on this, but best practices suggest that you start with clearly defined goals and objections. Have a well-defined partner persona so that you're attracting the right person to help your business. And that your partner program be led by a strategy with a documented structure and someone to oversee it and make sure that. The structure is followed. Second reason why partnerships fail is unclear or unfulfilled expectations. Partners not meeting deliverables, failing to follow through. Have you ever had a partner? You feel didn't reciprocate enough? When you start with the structure, I just mentioned it will be easy to communicate these expectations to your partner. Which leads us right into the third reason, no partner onboarding or training. Partners aren't trained on your product process or value prop. Have you ever had a partner that seems like nothing more than a logo on your website, or maybe worse a partner who miss advertises your products or services, or they describe you in a way that you don't describe yourself? So your prospect, here's one thing from the partner and then they get on the website or they talk to you and they hear something different. That's a disjointed buyer journey. Which creates confusion. And in today's world. Buyers don't tolerate that. So it is a huge miss. If your partner isn't repeating your same talking points, if they're not aligned with you. I have an exclusive mini pod for my subscribers that goes into more detail here. But think about this just like employees and clients, partners need to be onboarded and trained. This is where you start managing expectations and communicate to them, your value prop and what you want them to be telling the industry about you. The fourth reason why partnerships fail is over-reliance on one partner when one partner accounts for too much of your pipeline, or you only have one partner for that specific. Product or service or whatever you risk losing revenue. If the relationship falters. Ever have a partner quit on you, or maybe they go out of business. Or they're acquired by a larger company that doesn't prioritize partnerships like yours right now, or The one person that was running partnerships on their side quits, and the new person comes in and you have to start from scratch. I've seen all of those. It's a good rule of thumb to have two to three partners of each type for each industry, for each type of service for each region, each target market. You're going to figure that out. But partner redundancy is really important. And it's also a good idea to give out multiple names. If clients are looking for recommendations. That way your client gets to conduct their research and make informed decisions, but hopefully staying within your ecosystem. We've already touched a little bit on the fifth reason why partnerships fail and that is turnover of key personnel. Loss of trust or momentum when the point of contact leaves either on your side or on their side. If you've ever had a partnership that works well. And then all of a sudden they go dark. Yeah. Sometimes it's because that person left. So our best practice here is to think about partner relationships like client or vendor relationships. It's a good idea to get to know multiple members of their team. Are you working with the director of channel partnerships? That's great. Also get to know the sales team and the customer service folks as well. The more touch points you have within an organization, the stronger your overall relationship is. Number six. Mismatched goals or misaligned values partners pursuing conflicting objectives or having different definitions of what the partnership or partner success looks like. Have you ever had. Partner that you brought in, not for a common need, but you get the question every once in a while, and you want to have a resource, but the partner feels like they were going to be getting leads from you all the time. Huge misalignment there. So, what you need to do is start out. Remember that structure with clearly defined goals. That you and your partner know. And also let them know that during the partner discovery process, Where you ask questions to learn their goals. And then make sure that you're aligned and everybody knows their roles and their expectations. Before you enter into the partnership. Reason number seven. Failure to manage or measure success. If you have no KPIs or consistent metrics to evaluate progress. Have you ever had a situation where someone else had a very different feeling about how well things were going? Maybe you think it's great because you're getting a ton of leads from them. But they're unhappy because your salespeople aren't reciprocating. In your partner program, you're going to want to decide in advance before you'll go live, what you're going to measure and how often, and then during the partner onboarding. You communicate it to them. You also set a cadence for how often you are to report on these measurable items. And this is something that should be in that structure document. The eighth reason. Is cultural differences or poor communications. This is, partnerships that fail due to different operating styles. Maybe just completely different culture. And of course. Communication breaking down, possibly because of that. It starts with the established structure and your partner program. Of course I'm a broken record, right? You established clear objectives, communicate your expectations and report regularly in your regular meetings or check-ins. That solves the communication part, that cultural difference you can weed out mismatches. By identifying your ideal partner profile or persona and pursuing people. Or organizations rather that match. Pro tip when you're establishing multiple relationships within a partner's organization, make sure you know who to contact if you ever need to escalate an issue. So that's getting your org chart aligned with theirs, where your VP can talk to their VP to smooth things over. If you hit a rough spot. Before the year closes out. I encourage you to audit your partner program, given what we've discussed today. Do you have a defined program or playbook? Do you have defined goals and objections that you're regularly reporting on? Are you leveraging partners? Not just for referrals, but also across marketing. Do you have redundancy for business critical partnerships? When your partners talk about you, are you telling the same story that your sales and marketing folks are telling? If you see any chinks in your armor? Now is the time to address them. So your partner program delivers in 2025. And if you need any help or suggestions, This is my jam. One more little bonus tip. Before we wrap it up. Another thing. I see people not leveraging enough in their partner program. Is harnessing the power of the partner to amplify the message. I can't remember what business influencer coined this. So. Here it is. It's not mine. I stole it. Borrowing other people's audiences. And the thought there is that. You put out a piece either co-written with them or. They've got a quote in it or something. Let's say it's a blog and you posted on your website. They posted on. Their website, you're both promoted on. each other's channels and now you have one piece. That is basically introducing you and them. To both audiences. So theoretically, you're getting double the traction for one marketing piece. And that's what I'm talking about. Cross-marketing. So when you look at a potential successful partnership, now this isn't a fail, perhaps. So that's why I didn't include it earlier. This is something that can go next level. Is including a cross marketing plan. In your partner program structure so that you're not only get referrals, but you also get that digital piece that is becoming more and more important in today's B2B buying world. So let's wrap it up. Strategic partnerships can be a game changer for your revenue growth. If you're willing to invest the time and effort to do them right. They aren't just about signing agreements or trading referrals. They're about building trust, creating mutual value and committing to a structured, measurable approach. As we head into 2025, ask yourself, are your partnerships truly strategic or are they mostly opportunistic? Are they helping you meet your goals or are they possibly draining your resources or maybe even worse? Are they just gathering dust? If you're ready to rethink your partnerships or create structure to make them work, reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn I'm summer. Polenti rhymes with spaghetti, where you can visit me@theriseofus.com. Let's make 2025 the year. Your partnerships truly work for you. Thanks for listening and I will see you again next week.