Business Partnerships Planning ToolBox
Your one-stop planning resource to plan how your business partnership venture will work BEFORE you sign on the dotted line.
Five Foundations of Successful Business Partnerships eGuide
We asked people what was it that was at the heart of why their business partnerships went wrong. We came up with five foundations that must be in place, for a venture to work. Trust was one. Download the Five Foundations of Successful Partnerships ebook to find out what were the other four.
Contact us : Tel: +61 (3) 9005 5889
The Business Partnerships Planning Toolbox
WHAT IS IT?
The Business Partnerships Toolbox is a customised business planning program. It is for partnership ventures, from collaborations through to full-on partnerships. Benjamin Franklin once quoted “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, so it’s no surprise why so many partnerships go wrong without any proper planning before they get together. This package can be tailored to your planning needs, available both as a package of planning tools, as a fully facilitated planning process or anything in between. It answers questions such as:
- how do you plan a business partnership?
- Is a business partnership a good idea?
- Is a partnership good for my business?
- How do you plan a business partnership?
- What should be included in a business partnership agreement?
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
This toolbox covers 9 phases of planning your business partnership:
1) Putting together a strong proposition for the need for a partnership venture
2) Aligning a partnership to each business and coming up with a collaborative business case to work together
3) Working out a plan for the partnership – including resource planning
4) Things to consider for the agreement*
5) Planning to manage risks (before they manage you)
6) What success looks like?
7) If partners have staff and resources—a Plan for initiating and managing change; and
8) How to go about merging systems and processes
9) Working with partnership dynamics—what foundations must be in place for a partnership of any kind to work
* this resource is not intended to give legal advice. We leave that to your legal teams.
WHO’S IT FOR?
This toolbox is universal which means it is useful no matter where in the world you are planning your prospective
partnership ventures. It covers joint venture activities right through to fully fledged partnerships (although we don’t deal with the legal stuff).
WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?
Prevention is better than cure. By taking your time to work through the templates and checklists, you may be able to put in place measures to protect your IP, business and customer base in the event of something going wrong. You may even find that you are not really the right fit for each other. However, this is not legal advice – it is a business planning package tailored for partners..
Craig and Jason’s Story
Partnership Recommendations for anybody setting up a partnership…
Business doesn’t always go the way we think it should. Things can start out with the best intentions, but unless you have the right framework and necessary skills to start with, things will crumble.
This was the case for Craig and Jason. The partners were in business for 8 years before they called it quits. Had they had access to expertise before they entered into the partnership, they would have considered a third business partner with the essential missing skills sets. They did not get the right advice and support to maintain and build the business. On hindsight, they should have focused on skills rather than relationships in this important appointment.
More Info…
You don’t have to go far to hear about business partnership ventures that went wrong. Some people have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars; they …
The Essential Partnerships TOOLBOX is a system that can be tailored to suit your situation. It includes a structure, templates and checklists to get started …
Get Your Partnership Venture RIGHT From The Start
You don’t have to go far to hear about business partnership ventures that went wrong. Some people have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars; they have lost friendships, families, their homes and their livelihoods. Don’t let this happen to you!
Book in a FREE consult today.
Included Modules – Tailored to your Needs
The Proposition
Starting with the idea, determine whether a
partnership is the right model. Create a business case with your partners to make sure you have the same vision, understanding and goals right from the start. Use our templates to consider how the partnership will operate – avoid misunderstandings and hidden
agendas as much as possible.
Partnership Foundations
Get to know the Five Foundations that MUST be aligned for your partnerships to work. If one of these foundations is out of sync, the partnership
venture could be in serious trouble. Did you know there are different degrees of partnerships? Get to understand the dynamics of partnership relationships from networking through to full on mergers.
Risk Management
Your chance to think about the risks and work together to reduce the likelihood or mitigate the impacts. Don’t go into any venture without seriously
considering the risks, however miniscule they seem at the time.
Managing Change
Use alongside the Sharing Services module to set up and use a change management plan to minimise disruption and objections, to get faster results.
Sharing Services
If your partnership venture impacts on people, resources and systems, this model explores a multi-level systematic approach to streamlining your services.
Framing Your Agreement
Following on from the Proposition,
consider what you would like to discuss with your lawyers around your Agreement.
The Five Foundations of Successful Partnerships
Why is it that so many people go into a business partnership venture wearing rose-coloured spectacles?
Just because you know each other, doesn’t mean that your partnership will survive in the long term. Even a legally-binding agreement doesn’t prepare for the anger, remorse, hurt and long-term damage – financially, professionally and even personally – that a breakdown in a business partnership can leave behind.
When you look around at the successful partnerships, those that at least made it past the three-year mark, what are the qualities underpinning this success?
This bonus chapter of our “Essential Partnerships Toolbox” shows you an insight into five foundations that underpin success. At first you assume your partner(s) are on the same page, so it could come as a shock when you realise your mistake.
We have been using these foundation stones to inform the process for clients who approach us to check out partners for a variety of collaborative ventures, both business and not-for-profit organisations.
Check them out, be honest in your appraisal, or get a third party to do it for you.
From Our Blog….
18 REASONS WHY PARTNERSHIPS FAIL IN THE FIRST 2-3 YEARS
A partnership venture starts out as a brilliant idea between at least two entities. Maybe the catalyst is a friendship that you are proposing to extend into business. You agree it’s a good idea, you sign the agreement, get started and things may be great for a while. Then the cracks start to show.
Jason and Craigs Story
Business looked good. So good that Jason saw the opportunity to enlist a business partner for his growing fencing business. Craig had complementary trade skills and some business skills that would be useful for the partnership. The market looked good, so they just got on with the job. For the first eight months, things ran well. Jason and Craig slipped into an easy partnership arrangement.
So you are planning to work with others for a joint venture. Or you maybe considering working more closely to share resources and services. Everything seems fine at the start, but things can get complicated very quickly and you may end up disappointed or worse still, be left tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket and a damaged reputation.
Here are nine steps that you should follow improve the chances of a successful partnership venture:
Business Partnerships Toolbox presented to you by Springboard Training Solutions
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