5 Ways to Strengthen Partner Loyalty

January 28th 2015 15:23:37 PM

Before you can begin to form partnerships with other businesses, you need to have a good understanding of what makes a good partner. What characteristics do you need to possess? What are other companies looking for in partners? How can you position yourself as appealing to other companies so they feel they are missing out if they aren’t partnering with you?

These are all the questions you need to ask yourself before venturing into a partnership. After all, an ill-prepared partner who doesn’t know what they want out of the relationship can leave lasting damage for both parties. Don’t be that partner.

Here are five ways you can strengthen partner loyalty and set yourself apart as desirable for all sorts of business partnerships in the future:

1. Create quality (and well-designed) products. You started your business for a reason, and that reason was most likely to deliver some kind of product into the hands of the people who need it. You saw a need and fulfilled it. Are you still creating the same consistent high-quality products, or has your purpose become more lax over the years? If you desire to build strong partnerships, your products need to be in tip-top shape. There needs to be without a doubt in the mind of your partners that your product is the best for the job.
2. Stay true to your brand. It is tempting to adjust who you are as a company to please your partners, but at the end of the day the things that make your business unique will be the things that make you more desirable to the right companies. Don’t compromise your brand to fit the whims of a company. Stay true to who you are, and the right companies will come along.
3. Increase your portfolio of solutions. If we had stopped with the Batch Master, Scanco would be an entirely different company. The products and applications that make us an innovative warehouse management partner would not exist, and we would no longer be relevant to today’s warehouse management technology needs. In the same way, you need to be constantly increasing your portfolio of solutions to stay relevant to consumers and appealing to partners.You want your partners to rely on you as a one-stop shop for all of the needs that you can provide. If you have a product that helps manufacturers and distributors automate shipping, but don’t offer a product that tracks said shipments, you are creating more work for your partners. Design the products you know the customers need, and your partners will thank you for it.
4. Make it easy to do business with you. This may seem obvious, but every business could use the reminder. Are you easy to do business with? Are your partnerships as streamlined as they can be, or are they lacking in simplicity? Make it easy for your partners to communicate and do business with you.
5. Focus on building relationships. The most important quality of a good partner is one who is constantly striving to build better relationships. Partnerships cannot survive or thrive without the time and attention put forth from both parties. If you focus on building quality relationships with your partners, you will find – in turn – that you have increased your partnership desirability by ten-fold.

Loyal business partners are hard to come by in today’s day and age. By focusing on the above five tips, you can set yourself up to be a loyal partner to whatever business seeks you out.

Interested in becoming one of our warehouse management and supply chain partners? Check out our Partner Program.