You may have hundreds of connections on LinkedIn and are shocked to find that despite the outpouring off adds and likes, your account has gotten you nowhere. You may have put lots of effort into building up your network of associates and made sure to add people who work in the arenas that you thought would benefit you and your job. 

Unfortunately, the activities on LinkedIn and even in-person networking events are futile unless you have a strategy in mind, some sort of plan that will kickstart a relationship so the strategically positioned people who cross your path don’t fall by the wayside. We have some tips for you to help refine the way you approach and build strategic relationships. 

What’s the Difference Between a Strategic Relationship and Networking? 

According to the Business Dictionary, a strategic relationship is an agreement between two or more entities to conduct specified activities or processes to achieve specified objectives such as product/brand development, exposure or distribution. 

A strategic relationship can be one created between two non-competing commercial entities and then sealed with a business contract, sometimes a simple handshake, depending on the project(s). Often a larger company will fund a project and help with product development, marketing, manufacturing and distribution, while the smaller one will supply technical and/or creative services. 

In the leads industry, companies are often seeking brand exposure or bulk sales through partnerships. Insurance carriers, agencies and agents benefit from working with insurance leads companies like SmartFinancial and vice versa. Not only does SmartFinancial sell more leads in partnership with, say Farmers, but Farmers benefits by saving time, human capital and money on marketing. 

Building Strategic Relationships

Pick your partners based on whether or not they serve your customer base. If a business somehow speaks to your target customers, they are a good choice. Your partner should not be a competing entity, for obvious reasons.

Say you work for a tech company that specializes in real estate leads: You’ll also want to form strategic business relationships with large agencies and commercial real estate agencies too. If you’re in the insurance business, you’ll want a strategic relationship director to form alliances with larger agencies and insurance carriers. 

But first: What can you offer a large agency that another leads company cannot? Is there some sort of service you can provide beyond lead generation? When you are able to answer that question, you can begin building a strategy upon which you can build a relationship. Only then should you reach out. Never contact a prospective partner without a clear sense of what you can do for them.

Building Strategic Working Relationships on a Smaller Scale

You may also build relationships on a smaller scale. For instance if you generate real estate leads, you may forge relationships with local businesses that target homeowners, like interior designers, furniture companies, builder supply stores, electricians, plumbers, painters, roofers, landscape companies and construction companies. 

You can offer fresh content for their web pages (with backlinks to your web pages) in exchange for free but rich and valuable content on your website (for example, about common home catastrophes). That content that will probably gain traction over time and bring traffic to your website, generating rich organic leads for your business.

As you can see, this example illustrates a strategic business relationship that benefits both parties. 

Do I Need a Strategic Relationship Director?

The point-person for the task of building strategic relationships can have any title you choose. This may be your VP of Business Development. It may be your Content Director. It may be multiple people working on both large-scale sales to agencies and small scale affiliations for brand exposure. 

What Is the Difference Between Financial and Strategic Planning?

Strategic relationships in business can have various end goals. Financial planning is about allocating money, employees or equipment to meet the goals of a strategic plan. Here you make a list of all the people you need and what they need to do for the other company in exchange for their help. You may even end up having to pay a strategic partner in order to achieve your end result. That’s okay: It’s not ideal, but it often does the job. 

Strategic planning requires you to consider where your company or agency is now and where you want to be in the future. It’s about deciding what steps to take and whom you need to get to that place (your end goal) for say, a year, and then five years. Financial planning puts money and resources to see that plan through. 

Without a plan and direction, you have no strategic plan. Without a strategic plan, you can’t do the necessary financial planning to achieve your goals.

Establishing Strategic Business Relationships

If you’re building strategic relationships, you’ll need to spend time proving that you have assets the other party needs. It’s great to reach out and express interest in how the other business can benefit you, but they will not be willing to give you time unless they recognize that you have business assets that will benefit them as well. How can your business help their bottom line? Be confident in the value you bring to the other party but be clear first and foremost.

Each strategic business relationship you make will be different so make sure to research each company you want to work with to pitch a unique way to express how you can bring value to the table. Be sure to express exactly what you hope to get out of the affiliate program as well. You never want to start with miscommunication. 

After you’re done taking these preliminary steps, you can go back to your LinkedIn account and begin thinking about how each of the contacts you’ve made can help you and how you can have a reciprocal relationship with each one. You’ll have better luck reaching out after you’ve created an outline for a mutually beneficial strategic relationship that is unique to each prospect.