The Mars Climate Orbiter was a robot probe created by NASA to study the Martian climate and atmosphere. Full of the latest technology that the brightest minds could design, it was launched with high hopes for success. But it failed to land and was burned up in the entry phase. What went wrong?
The NASA geniuses looked at their design, the components and the materials. But it was something simple, right back at the start, which meant the Mars Orbiter was doomed. NASA and their sub-contractor were using different methods of calculating trajectory. In simple terms, NASA was using metric measurements whilst their partner was still in imperial. They had failed to get the basic elements right.
When you launch a partnership program there can be high expectations, especially from your leadership. It’s unlikely to crash and burn as expensively as the Mars Orbiter, but there can be disappointments along the way. You can get stuck and you need help to understand why.
Here are some of the real reasons you’re stuck and how to get back on track.
1. You don’t know where to find the right partners
There isn’t a magic list of corporates desperate to give you money. The ASX Top 200 is not a prospecting list, even your board thinks it’s an opportunity. You can waste a lot of time approaching corporate who aren’t the right fit.
The solution is to take a deep dive into your assets, offerings and strengths. Understand what makes you special, unique and attractive to corporates. You’re looking for prospects with things in common: purpose, values, core business, customers, geographic footprint and stakeholders. Do you have a niche audience that a corporate is looking for? Do you operate in their neighbourhood? Could your expertise offer something valuable to their staff or customers? Unlike romances, opposites don’t attract in corporate partnerships. You’re looking for synergies and reasons why you’re a natural fit. That’s why Petbarn partners with RSPCA whilst the Priceline Sisterhood Foundation supports Share the Dignity. Just because they make a profit doesn’t mean they want to share it with you. Show them why you’re a good fit.
2. You’re not converting opportunities
You’ve just had a lovely first meeting with a corporate prospect. Then they won’t respond to your emails, calls or texts. You’re like a frustrated date who’s getting ghosted. Or maybe they’re just lukewarm about a partnership and you can’t make any progress from the first meetings.
You’re unlikely to get a resounding yes from just one meeting, but the likely reason for not getting any traction is that you became a walking, talking brochure. Did you spend most of that meeting talking about yourself, your funding needs, your programs and your cause? For the corporate it’s like being given a 50 page catalogue of items and being asked which one they want.
Flip the script and ask them some questions. Find out their ambitions, priorities and pain points. Then start positioning yourself as the solution. It’s all about them, not you. If you can’t give them a commercial reason to make an investment in you, then you’re simply telling an emotional story and hoping for some random philanthropy. That’s not a partnership and it’s not where the big money lives.
3. Your existing partnerships are not growing
Sometimes, long-term partners can plateau and need some inspiration to go the next level. We recommend elevating the discussion by creating a partnership vision together. It gets the negotiation out of the weeds of simply funding another program and starts to expand thinking into a more ambitious vision for community impact.
More often you’ve got a portfolio of small scale, highly demanding energy suckers who aren’t likely to grow and aren’t a great fit. Adding more of the same just to hit a financial KPI could be disastrous. Be ruthless about prioritising where you spend your time and resources. Those energy suckers are taking your time and energy away from the real opportunities that are worth nurturing. Productivity expert Donna McGeorge recommends Red Brick Thinking; your best decision could be to take something away, not add to your workload.
4. You struggle to get internal support
It’s easier to cold call 100 corporates than manage internal stakeholders. But you need the input and expertise of your colleagues to nurture, win and sustain partnerships. They just don’t realise it yet. Every organisation has silos, and each team has its own language and norms. Corporate partnerships are unique because you’ll need all of those skills and one person can’t do it alone. It’s a recipe for burnout and frustration.
The best way to break down those silos is to get your colleagues involved in peer to peer relationships. Invite the marketing person to meet with your prospect to discuss the social media strategy, involve HR in discussing volunteering opportunities, and bring a program expert to offer their expertise to corporate staff. The more relationships between your organisation and the corporate, at all levels from CEO down, the stickier the relationship. It remove key person risk on both sides and makes it much harder for a corporate to flip you for another partner easily.
If you’re getting stuck with corporate partnerships, go back to the basics. The real reasons you’re not progressing can be simple. There’s no need to change personnel or abandon partnerships all together. Look behind the problem and you’ll realise that it’s the foundational elements that need to be strengthened, not the effort.