Partnerships are an important aspect of almost any business. At TheCodeFactory we are proud to be affiliated with; Acorn Partners, inMedia PR, Lead to Win, Fraser Milner Casgrain, Free Open Source Software Learning Centre, Talent First Network, Lebarge Weinstein, Peters New Jobs and numerous other opportunities in the works (new partners page coming soon). Having been through this a few times certain patterns start to emerge.
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Aligning interests is likely one of the most important aspects in building long term, mutually beneficial and sustainable relationships and partnerships. It all starts with a disclosure of what exactly your intentions and interests are. The more open and honest the participants are; with each other, what they are willing to commit to the arrangement and what they expect to get out of it the great the probability of success.
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Isn’t full disclosure at the start of building a partnership a little naive and with the potential to weaken your negotiating position? Yes and no. If the nature of the relationship is adversarial like; landlord and tenant or car purchaser and used car salesperson or someone that immediately views you as a competitor … then yes it is potentially damaging. These types of business relationships tend to be profit and quite frankly greed driven. The best course of action is to sharpen your elbows and fight for the best deal you can get. The game is played for a win – lose outcome. Fight for a win.
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Full disclosure is desirable if you are working to build a long term mutually beneficial arrangement. It starts with; “what do you want and how can I help”. There is some reciprocity here and the person you are negotiating with should be asking the same questions. You quickly learn what each other want and are able to zero in on a solution in a very short time frame. If there is no reciprocity kill the negotiations early on and move along. What I like most about this mode of negotiations is it is highly efficient and when it works builds strong mutually beneficially partnerships. There are lots of opportunities out there but only a limited amount of time. Play the game for a win – win outcome or kill it quickly.
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I love a fast yes, am ok with a fast no and despise long maybes. Time is your most precious resource so use it wisely … closing a deal is great … pushing on a rope is a waste of time so don’t do it.
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Ian Graham

Filed under: Camp Culture, Featured, Ottawa, The Code Factory by Ian
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