Ideas can become beliefs that are set in concrete unless you challenge them. My elderly mum believes that Britain is being swamped with immigrants who are ‘taking over our country’. She says this with conviction, whilst sharing a cuppa with my Chinese father, who arrived off the boat in the 1960s. Inter-racial marriage was so unusual in those days that some of her appalled family refused to attend the wedding.
Corporate partnerships are consistently misunderstood. There is a lack of proper partnership training and education in the non-profit sector, meaning that myths and unhelpful beliefs thrive like weeds. And they can strangle the potential of partnerships unless they are challenged.
Here are some typical beliefs that persist:
I’m not big enough- corporate partnerships are only for the big brands. It’s certainly easier when your brand is a household name, but large organisations can be slow to mobilise and have a bewildering range of programs. If you’re a small, grassroots organisation you’re probably nimbler and have a simpler story to tell. Just like Dolly’s Dream, who are on a mission to end bullying and have roared ahead with corporate partners.
The cause isn’t sexy.
It might be a niche issue or rare disease, but that doesn’t count you out. It makes you attractive to someone who values that niche if you look for the right synergies. If the Soil Association UK can win partners and their focus is on, well, dirt, then you’ve got no excuse.
It’s easy/ it’s hard
Beliefs can be polarised and entrenched. Some think partnerships are just like community fundraising, but with a bigger cheque. Others view partnerships as a mountain to climb, with unethical and greedy corporates waiting to exploit you at the top.
Unhelpful beliefs can rob you of valuable opportunities if left unchallenged. Here are some ways to reset and reframe.
Examine your internal dialogue
The illusory trust effect in cognitive science is the tendency to believe false information after consistent, repeated exposures. In other words, if you are told a lie over and over again, it takes root in your mind as a truth. It’s especially effective when it’s a lie you tell yourself. “I’m a stable genius. The audience was huge. Biggest ever in history.”
Sometimes a lie enhances your self-esteem. If you tell yourself that you’re a slim, fit and attractive individual you probably won’t fall for fad diets and insidious adverts for Botox. But if you’re convinced of the opposite, you’ll resist all efforts by your loved ones to show how wonderful you really are.
If you tell yourself frequently that you aren’t capable of something, you’ll believe it to be true and you’ll stop trying. We often hear partnership professionals say that they aren’t good at cold calling, they suck at presentations, or their cause isn’t sexy enough. It becomes a self-fulfilling lie and prevents them from reaching for opportunities. They stop trying to grow.
Examine your internal dialogue and ask what lie you’ve been repeating to yourself. If you expose it to be a lie, how will that change your perspective on success?
The outsider’s view of your week
If someone observed you closely for a week, what would they say your beliefs and priorities are?
You may talk about your priorities, like winning new partners, bringing in new income or reaching out to new contacts. But what do your actions demonstrate? How are you actually spending your time?
For individuals working on partnerships, we often hear that they’re too busy to make those calls or send those emails to new contacts. If only…they had a better database, the existing clients weren’t so needy or the collateral looked better. No organisation is perfect, but there is rarely a day when anyone is grabbing your phone to stop you calling a new prospect.
Think about your beliefs and how they influence your priorities. What changes do you need to make?
The landscape view
The English pantomime tradition encourages audience participation. In every performance, the audience will be screaming at the performers to warn them of the villain creeping up silently. “He’s behind you!” ‘No, don’t open that door!”
The audience has a unique perspective and can see the whole landscape. If you were on stage and the audience is watching closely, what would they be yelling at you? Would they be telling you to stop spending days finessing the partnership proposal and just have a discovery meeting with your prospect? Or maybe they’d be warning you to run a mile from the corporate with an ambitious vision but no money to spend. Sometimes you need to detach yourself from the situation and take a helicopter view- or ask someone to help you zoom out. Getting stuck in the details can mean you miss the bigger picture and what’s creeping up behind you.
Entrenched or rigid beliefs can hold back your personal growth, hamper your problem solving abilities and drain your confidence. Nurturing new perspectives will create new opportunities and allow you to embrace partnerships with fresh eyes. Don’t let unhelpful beliefs hold you back. The best time to start a partnership program was last year. The next best time is today. Want more myth-busting truths and tools for getting unstuck? You’ll find them in our book Partnerships Reimagined. It is a guide to building smarter, more strategic corporate partnerships.