How to make a partner out of a subcontractor?

Because a subcontractor only does the work assigned to him, while a partner, actually gets involved. He is a guide through the digital jungle, advises in difficult moments and is not afraid to go beyond the rigid pattern of cooperation for the sake of your business.

How do you find out if a subcontractor you work with can be seen as your partner? Find out if you share common values! 

Operational excellence

After a completed tender or bidding process, you have selected the winning agency. You receive the contract for signature and ... it turns out that not all the provisions are clear to you.

You call, send an email and on the other side you meet resistance: "no one has had this problem before" or "we don't understand these concerns."

It is clear that the contract should safeguard the interests of both parties, but at this stage all doubts should be clarified as soon as possible.And the timeliness of the agency's response is crucial here.If there is a problem with the delivery of something on time already at this stage, the same thing will happen with the strategy, content schedules or graphics.The punctuality of your partner is the foundation of successful cooperation, so pay close attention to it.

Engagement

All contractual issues clarified and the document was happily signed by both parties!

The start of the cooperation follows and ... suddenly you find that you do not have a contact intended specifically for you.

Regardless of whether you call such a person an acconut or a specialist, he or she must be someone you will contact on all matters relating to your business and the tasks you have set for the agency.In addition, you should expect such a person to understand what your business is and about. Such a person should bite into your offer and get to know your product better, so it will be easier for him to come up with initiatives or suggest additional activities.

Development + Knowledge Culture

Fruitful cooperation with a partner, means the development not only of your company, but also of the knowledge resources you can acquire from the agency.

The perfect time to do this is when discussing the monthly report.

Remember that FB alone allows you to generate several hundred different metrics about your ads or content. Not all of them are important from the perspective of your business, and certainly not all of them you need to understand right away.It is on your partner's side to choose the key indicators that will bring you closer to realizing your strategy. And also on his side is to explain what these numbers actually mean and what they bring to your business.During the meeting, ask, inquire, ask to show your advertising account, point out the best creatives or make recommendations for the future.Let your partner learn your business, and you learn to understand the numbers he presents.

Partnership

Does your partner speak with the same voice as you? Does he or she know your business in depth? Did you fill out the right brief at the beginning of the collaboration?The agency should come to you with questions about not only what specifically you sell, but also should know what your brand's value is to others, what it brings to your customers' lives, what the competition is like, what difficulties you face on a daily basis, the tonality of your communications, or what you define as success in your collaboration. It might seem like a collection of basic questions, but it is a document that is often the starting point for creating a communications strategy or a place to return to in order to revise any actions.

Responsibility

A partner who meets all of the above requirements must still be accountable for what he does.

When discussing the report, outright say that idea X worked perfectly and let's do it more often, while idea Y did not bring the expected results and we should beware of such actions in the future.

A specialist can't be afraid to recommend shutting down a campaign in the middle of a campaign when they see that all that's left is burning through resources.This is not just about accountability, but about being a guide to digital marketing, offering solutions that have worked elsewhere, clear recommendations on what to avoid, or talking about what we can do better: and not "we the agency," but "we the client + partner."

Can it work?

The answer, naturally, is YES. At Tigers, we operate according to the following scheme when onboarding a client. The rules are clear to both parties from the beginning, the specialist gets heavily involved in the client's business, gets to know more about the client's offer, presents plans for the near future or asks for additional materials.

This first month, 1/3 of the so important 100 days, is the time when we build a lasting relationship with the client, bringing concrete business results.Similarly, the case is with ongoing cooperation. The Year of the Tiger, which applies to all specialists in the agency, is a simple and clear scheme for us, so that we can offer consistent and high quality services to our clients.

What about these values? The following ones guide us at Tigers: both when it comes to the team and our clients. They are available on our website, alive in the agency and ever-present in the collaboration with our partners.

I have prepared a checklist for you to apply to your work with your partners. Verify its assumptions, not only at the beginning of the cooperation, but also during the ongoing, partner relationship.

Click here for the material.

And remember that.

A partnership relationship can be built from the very beginning or it can be taken care of already during the course of the cooperation. Look for common values and build on them a lasting foundation, which you will call a customer-partner relationship.________________________GrzegorzChojnackiWithTigers as Social Media Specialist for more than a year. He works with mLeasing, Galeco and X-lander, among others. The article is based on a speech at Tigers United 5, where I appeared due to high marks in customer satisfaction surveys (Tigers was mine!).