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Partnership> Why It Is Not a Purchase Order

The term partnership can mean different things to different people and in many cases that makes sense but it should never just be about the purchase orders. This is a point that has been made very clear recently by Ben Gomes-Casseres. If the shared definition is not understood and agreed by the parties early on, it can frustrate and poison any chance of a long-term relationship – be it one based on sales, marketing collaboration or anything else.

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Chance Favours The Connected Mind: TED Video, Steven Johnson

Steven Johnson presents at TED 2010 on his great book; ‘Where Do Good Ideas Come From’

Those who have not had time to read Steven Johnson’s great book ‘Where Good Ideas Come From’ can catch his TED presentation from 2010 below. If you don’t know his work, Johnson explored how the most creative business and societal ideas evolved and the environments that best stimulate them. For marketers, who continually stress the importance of innovating this is worth a moment. A key finding is that ‘coffee house’ style collaboration, connection, relationship building  (i.e. partnerships) – and using existing resources is key to good ideas. As Johnson says ‘Chance favours the connected mind’ and connecting those ideas is more important than protecting them.

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Why Benchstone?

A bench stone is used to build and sharpen valuable blades and other important tools. Bench stones are specialist resources and some are even diamond coated. Over twenty years I have come to passionately believe that partnerships and alliances are vital and valuable marketing tools that when properly managed can give businesses a unique cutting edge  – creating an advantage that is difficult, expensive if not impossible for rivals to replicate. And Benchstone Marketing Limited is established to support senior management, brands and organisations plan, pioneer and sharpen their marketing partnerships.

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Trust & Marketing Partnerships: Part Two

Trust is always a vital but often enigmatic ingredient in collaborative business relationships. In Part One, I explored why, for some people, it is often their biological wiring that leads them to shy away from investing in a new relationship. In this follow-up piece, I am going to look at the commercial aspects of trust – and what you can do to encourage it within marketing partnerships.

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Trust & Marketing Partnerships: Part One

Despite 300 years of business history and the best brands today consistently demonstrating that collaboration is the driver of innovation – why do most organisations still struggle to source and keep meaningful, long-term marketing alliances and partnerships? It is tempting to turn to issues regarding technology, markets, mechanics and commercial returns but one of the key hurdles  is quite simple and very, very human:  Trust is the magical ingredient and if you don’t have it, creative marketing partnership and innovative pioneering with a third-party is impossible.
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Social Media Benefit For 2012 Sponsors: Or 2012 Hijackers?

London 2012 will be the first Olympiad of the iPhone, Tablet, Facebook and Twitter era. Of  course, the iPhone was released in 2007 – before the 2008 summer games in Athens but it was not until late 2008 that it took off globally and it was only in early 2009 that their rival Android smartphones began to appear and grow the overall market too.  Likewise, whilst Twitter was launched in 2007  it was  only in 2009 that  it became a mainstream social media player.  London 2012 sponsors and media partners are  likely now planning exciting mobile, UGC and social media ideas into  their plans for next summer – but what if this these ever more important  platforms turn out to be an even more powerful tool – for the hijack marketers?

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Has YouView Got Momentum?

In marketing alliances, Momentum is the engine that drives the initiative and decides whether parties can extract the value they need.

You can never underestimate the power of ‘the Big Mo’. In 2000 Malcolm Gladwell wrote his classic The Tipping Point – spreading the belief that ‘ideas and transformation spread like viruses’. A good alliance, also needs to reach a Tipping Point, with the three elements identified by Gladwell; Contagiousness, Little Causes & Big Effects and – Dramatic Change. In marketing alliances, Momentum is the engine that drives these elements. Without momentum new relationships enter a lethargic spiral and there never is a Tipping Point…

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Huffington Post And The DisContentarati

The Huffington Post – a highly successful news aggregator and blogging site founded by Arianna Huffington in 2005 and recently bought by AOL for US$315M is itself sparking an entire online debate about the role of content, when it should be paid for and whether bloggers should share in profits of sites they contribute to.

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A Marketing Partnership Manifesto –

It was great to this week receive a re-posting of my Partnership Marketing Manifesto from the bona fide marketing legend – Gary Hamel. Currently Hamel is Visiting Professor of Strategic and International Management at the London Business School and also the Innovation Architect at the very interesting website – The Management Information eXchange – MIX. Hamel is of course the author behind such seminal texts as ‘Competing For The Future’ , the superb ‘Alliance Advantage’ and a further seven leading books on competitive marketing and innovation. Why did I decide to promote a Partnership Manifesto within MIX?

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Why Don’t They Want To Sell To Me#2: Office Parks

Perhaps, despite all their advertising agencies, customer segmentation and marketing plans four out of five of these substantial B2B businesses lead me to ask the same question in 2011 that I asked in 2009: ‘Why don’t they want to sell to me?’.

Eighteen months ago I posted a piece entitled Why Don’t They Want To Sell To Me.  It told of my amazement at the lack of basic sales and service I received following a BMW test drive. When offered the chance to slam dunk a guaranteed sale there was no follow-up call, no attempt to explain the range, no chance to up sell the car’s package and close the deal. And today I can report this is not a car thing, it’s the same for the business park and serviced office industry. Once again, I ask: ‘Why don’t they want to sell to me?’

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