How to build business relationships and scale partnerships?

I enjoy and value building relationships with businesses and scaling these partnerships. Over the last 6 years I’ve been fortune to have built partnerships with over 30 top businesses, from exciting tech startups to some of the largest corporates in the world.

In my latest LinkedIn article I have shared some of my key lessons learnt building business relationships and scaling partnerships in case this is helpful for anyone in my network.

How to build relationships with businesses?

1) Join business accelerator programmes where you can meet and get to know prospective business partners

I met some of my earliest business partners through business accelerator programmes that I was part of. Business Accelerator programmes?support early-stage and start-up businesses through investment, short-term mentoring and training. Business accelerator programmes that I took part in included Year Here, the Young Academy, the Innovation Award and Cambridge Social Ventures.?

These programmes tend to run for months or years and in some of these accelerator programmes I had the chance to meet with and build relationships with champions at prospective business partners. These champions include: business mentors who I got allocated during my time on the accelerator programmes, employees who ran training sessions for my cohort and I and employees who subscribe to newsletters of the accelerator programmes where my organisations’ work was featured and promoted in.

One of the benefits of meeting with and building relationships with employees in businesses through an accelerator programme is that in all likelihood you will have already spent a lot of time together and built warm relationships, you are part of the same ecosystem by being involved in the accelerator programmes which breeds loyalty and lastly these employees tend to get involved with accelerator programmes as mentors/training/subscribers because they want to help ventures like yours succeed. This means that it’s easier to ask them for a partnership with them and their businesses as you will hopefully already have a warm relationship with them and chances are they would be keen to help you in some capacity especially if they’ve mentored you and helped your business develop. I always try to be nice, respectful and grateful to all people I meet in accelerator programmes and stay in touch with those I get along with, as I never know who I may actually be able to work with in the future, and so far this approach has served me well.?

2) Attend relevant networking events and conferences to build relationships?

A large portion of the clients I have built relationships with are clients who I met at networking events and conferences, either as an attendee or speaker.

I would say that the most effective way to be a good networker is to try and be a speaker at the events. This way all the attendees will get to you know and your work and people will trust you and your work more, since you’ve been selected to be a speaker. This is in contrast to just going to an event as an attendee and trying to talk to a few people during coffee breaks and networking drinks. From experience I don’t think you even need to be an expert to be a speaker in some cases. Some conferences are specifically looking for young people or people who have just launched an early stage business to talk to their attendees. Therefore it’s important to back yourself and put yourself out there and in most cases it will go really well. Some of the speaking gigs I’ve got are because organisations I’ve been involved with in the past, such as Stonewall, reach out to me and ask me to be a speaker, however other times I reach out to the event organisers (like The Economist) and ask them if I can be a speaker as I feel my profile and work is relevant and would of interest to their attendees, and this approach can also work well.?

It’s also fine to turn up to networking events and conferences as an attendee and you can also have a really positive and useful time building relationships and partnerships this way. This is because people tend to in most cases attend networking events and conferences because they are interested in the topic, have jobs which link to the event topic and because they are keen to meet their counterparts in other organisations. I’ve had a really positive time attending events and speaking to fellow attendees during drinks, workshop sessions and breaks and in many cases these people become warm contacts for me and champions and help me pilot my business in their organisations. I do a lot of networking in the diversity and inclusion space and some great events I’ve been to in this space include PinkNews Futures and Out in Tech. There are many other great networks for other demographics and focuses. I always tend to go to networking events and conferences myself so I am forced to talk to people, I make an effort to strike up conversations with other attendees and in the vast majority of cases people are friendly and open to having a chat, which is often why they are there at these types of events.?

3) Reach out to aspirational clients and champions through LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an incredible platform and something I’ve used over the years to build lots of relationships and partnerships.? I invest in LinkedIn Premium every year as it allows me to reach out to contacts who I am not directly connected with and send them messages. On one hand It costs ￡1K but if you use it right you can easily make ￡10K+ which massively outweighs the cost of the initial investment.?

Cold messaging people isn’t the most desirable thing for anyone to do (even those who like networking and build relationships) however from experience it can be effective and I’ve managed to secure a few good partnerships on the back of LinkedIn selling.?

What I do is identify what types of firms I am interested in building relationships with (e.g. size, location, industry) and on the back of this I put together a ‘target list’ of great and exciting firms I am keen to build relationships with. I then use LinkedIn’s premium search settings to identify people with relevant roles at these firms to message. For example, HR, D&I, Senior Leaders etc. I then spend a few days reaching out to the leads I’ve identified at target firms and usually I’ll get around 5-10 people who will reply and within that will be a few people who are keen to have a chat and to see if we can do some work together. I personally find LinkedIn selling a numbers game and whilst it can be enduring and demoralising at times, all you need is a few Yes responses and you can easily secure some great new partners. If you do find not hearing back or worst case receiving curt replies challenging, I would recommend not to take it personally and think about how often you receive messages from people selling you things which is some cases aren’t relevant or suitable for you or your business (for a variety of reasons) and try and look at the people you are reaching out to with kind eyes.?

You can also identify proactive and passionate emerging leaders through power lists, such as the INvovle Role Model lists and reach out to them as these are exactly the type of people who are ambitious and keen to be ore visible, make a difference and be role models.?

4) Get warm introductions e.g. from existing clients, mentors, freelancers and inter-company networks?

One of the most effective ways to build relationships and partnerships with businesses is being introduced to businesses by warm contacts. For example, champions at existing business partners, business mentors you work with and freelancers you work with.?

Warm introductions are really effective because employees in businesses are so used to being sold to all the time it’s hard to know what is actually good and what’s not, and also it can be off-putting receiving cold emails and calls from strangers who they aren’t already linked with in some way. If you are able to connect with a business through a warm introduction this alleviates a lot of these aforementioned challenges. If you are introduced and recommended by someone a business already knows and respects this reduces the fear factor for the prospective client as they know someone who knows you and is willing to vouch for you.

The most powerful warm introduction you can get in my opinion is from an existing client since these clients have already worked with you and clearly had a good experience which is why they would be willing to connect you with their contacts in other businesses. The prospective business knows that your services have been tried out before and their contact has had a positive time, which is really powerful.?

If you work with a number of business mentors you can also ask them for introductions to their business network. Whilst these mentors may not have been directly involved in your services, they can at least vouch for your character, work ethic and passion, which can also go a long way.

I’ve also had positive experiences working with freelancers over a few months on project specific topics such as, building out our corporate offering and researching into diversity and inclusion business opportunities. If your freelancer is responsible for helping with growing your business they may also be open to introducing you to some of their professional network who they think may be a good fit and open to speaking with you. ?

As opposed to only asking your warm contacts for introductions to other specific businesses, you can also explore asking them for promoting your work through inter company networks so lots of businesses in this network can find out about your work at once and express an interest in getting involved. For example, one of my mentors helped me promote my business’s services through the Proud Science Alliance - an LGBT+ in Pharma network, and this helped us secure 2 new clients.?

When it comes to asking anyone for introductions, I would always recommend trying to make it as easy for your warm contact as possible, by providing them with an easy to send blurb and/? a 1 pager which requires minimum effort for them to forward on. I’ve learnt over the last few years that whilst most people mean well and want to help, everyone is also very busy and people will always prioritise their day job which they get paid for, so the easier and more efficient you make it for others to help you, the more likely they will.?

5) Invite aspirational champions and clients to your events to build relationships with them e.g. roundtables and graduation events

As cheesy as it sounds I strongly believe that in most cases business is all about friendship.

I think it’s so important to make an effort getting to know your prospective champions and clients before you pitch to them to work together or whilst you are in the process of trying to work together with them. It’s important to be respectful and treat your prospective clients as actual human beings and not just the holder of the purse strings. No one likes just being seen as a target for someone to sell to or a way to access money.?

I’ve found it effective to find ways to engage with and build relationships with prospective clients in a light touch, easy to organise and mutually beneficial way. For example at Career Accelerator we run quarterly roundtables between our clients so they can connect with their counterparts in other businesses, share good practice and explore collaboration opportunities. Sometimes I offer new contacts I am speaking with and who I get along with the opportunity to come along to these so they can benefit from connecting with our other partners, see the CA team in action and so we can start getting to know each other more.?

Another idea which has worked well for us is whenever we run an in person graduation event for our mentees and mentors who have completed our mentoring programme, we invite external contacts at prospective businesses who we are in talks with so they can meet some of our young people, other business partners and see the impact of our work in practice, which often makes these contacts more likely to want to get involved in the future.?

Both these approaches have proved super useful and impactful for us to build relationships and partnerships with others. I think it’s important to start adding value to your prospective clients as soon as possible and before an official partnership has even happened.?

6) Be part of networks where you can meet champions and decision makers e.g. members clubs and diversity and inclusion hobby groups?

It’s really useful and impactful to be part of personal and professional networks where you can meet with and build relationships with prospective clients in a more informal and friendly setting.

People who like you personally are more likely to champion you and help you out professionally. Sometimes a great approach is making friends with successful people out of a work context and then down the line as the friendship develops business opportunities may arise which both of you may want to explore.

For example, I’m a member at The Conduit, a members club with a focus on social impact where I’ve frequently attending Under 33 dinners, Race and Ethnicity dinners, LGBT+ dinners, member networking events, member parties, ideation sessions, and so on. On the back of my active involvement in The Conduit I’ve made loads of great new professional friends, some of whom my business has ended up doing work with. I was also part of an LGBT+ running group called London Frontrunners for around 3 years where I would frequency go on weekly runs, regional trips, international trips and social events with the group. On the back of this, I made loads of LGBT+ friends and even managed to work with some of the member’s businesses where there was partnership synergy. ?

Specific examples of how I built relationships with business partners.?

• GoCardless - I was introduced to the CEO of GoCardless by a business mentor at BCG who I got to know through a business accelerator programme I was part of
• Pearson - A senior HR manager attended one of my business’s D&I ERG roundtables and wanted to explore ways we could work together?
• Snapchat - I became close with the LGBT+ network lead through an LGBT+ running group we were both part of?
• Cisco - I was introduced to the LGBT+ network lead by an existing client?
• Vodafone - I met the LGBT+ network lead when I was giving an LGBT+ inclusion talk in collaboration with Stonewall for Vodafone apprentices and grads?
• Just Eat Takeaway - I was introduced to the head of the STEM network by a freelancer who was working with my business?
• VirginMedia O2 - I reached out to a Race and Ethnicity network lead on LinkedIn?
• Centrica - A contact from a Enactus UK (an inter university society) introduced me to the Race and Ethnicity network lead?
• Brunswick Group - I reached out to a partner at Brunswick Group to congratulate him on his books and we ended up becoming good friends
• TrueLayer - A previous speaker on our CA schools programme started working at TrueLayer?
• JLL - I connected with the LGBT+ network lead through speaking at an LGBT+ conference and being on the same panel with him?
• Ocado - I built a relationship with the LGBT+ network leads through inviting them to our D&I roundtables and LGBT+ events?
• Suntory - One of our CA mentees got a job at Suntory?
• Takeda - CA was promoted to an LGBT+ Pharma network through my mentor and Takeda reached out to get involved
• Wise - A previous mentor at a previous client moved jobs to Wise and reached out to explore working together again in their new firm
• LinkedIn - I met with the UK country manager after hearing him speak at an LGBT+ event?
• Salesforce - I build relationships with Salesforce through inviting different network leads to our D&I roundtables and getting to know them better?
• AstraZeneca -? I worked with a freelancer who introduced me to AstraZeneca?
• Google - I got to know the LGBT+ network lead through meeting them at an LGBT+ event?
• The Guardian - A keen employee reached out to us on our website and helped spearhead a programme together
• Trainline - A previous employee who mentored with us moved jobs and helped us get into their new firm?
• DLA Piper - I connected with the LGBT+ network lead through attending an LGBT+ event?
• Gartner -An employee who attended the same University as me reached out to me over LinkedIn to see if we could do some work together?
• iProov - An employee from a previous company we worked with reached out to us on my business website wanting to do some work together
• Second Nature - An old friend from University reached out to me wanting to do a programme together?
• Spaulding Ridge - I connected with an employee through a Conduit event on the theme of youth empowerment, who reached out to me wanting to do a programme together
• Forward PMX - I met the social impact lead through an accelerator programme I was doing?
• Onfido - An employee at a company we worked with got a job in HR at Onfido helped facilitate a partnership?
• BCG - I met the global LGBT+ lead at an LGBT+ conference and he helped us launch a pilot?
• Nutmeg - I reached out to an HR contact on LinkedIn and started a conversation with them
• UBS - I met their social impact lead through an accelerator programme I was part of?
• Government Digital Service - I was introduced to the GDS by my contact in HM Revenue and Customers who I met through an accelerator programme I was doing?
• Microsoft - I was introduced to their LGBT+ network lead through a warm contact at an existing client?
• Sky - My warm contact at a client introduced me to their contact at Sky?
• PinkNews - I spoke at a few PinkNews conferences and on the back of this became warm contacts with the head of early careers event who helped facilitate a partnership together
• Uber - I met a D&I lead at an LGBT+ MBA conference who helped facilitate some work together
• PA Consulting - I was introduced to a member of the Teach First Ambassador network by a mentor on an accelerator programme who helped us do some work together?

How to scale up business partnerships?

Once you’ve developed some partnerships with great business clients the next step is scaling up a few of these.

1) Develop an ambitious, positive and patient mentality

When you’re starting to ask for a bigger partnership, both in terms of money and time commitment from the business, you’re going to have to change your mentality quite a bit accordingly.

For example, I used to feel that I was successful because I partnered with loads of prestigious businesses, however a few years down the line I came to the realisation that actually working with around 25 businesses was actually pretty inefficient. It took a lot of team time and energy to service all these clients, we were getting small sums of money and partnership commitment from a few partners and we were pretty disposable when things got tough for businesses who haven’t really committed much into the partnership. I realised in order to truly be successful and sustainable my business needed to focus on a few clients and work with them on a much bigger, more ambitious and impactful way.?

It can always be nerve wracking when you’re used to a certain way of working and then have to change this, however one of my friends and mentors Robin challenged me about this and said if you have all these bold and ambitious goals and dreams for Career Accelerator, you’re then going to have to match this with bold and ambitious behaviour which you’re currently not doing, which was a very fair point.?

It can help looking at case studies at other organisations in your sector like yours and seeing their business model. Often what you’ll find is most youth organisations as an example primarily depend on a few big partnerships, not lots of small partnerships, and this is what helps them do so well and become sustainable.?

It’s also important to be patient and realise that business partnerships, like human relationships, take time, effort and trust and it’s likely that if you have some great relationships with businesses you can most definitely scale up these partnerships, however sometimes this takes months and years and there is nothing wrong with this.?

2) Make sure your work is impactful, feedback is positive and you can demonstrate the value of the partnership?

If you are going to scale up partnerships with businesses you need to make sure the work you are doing with them is actually impactful, valuable and you can demonstrate the impact clearly.

Businesses shouldn’t just be seen as a way to access money ,they should be seen as equal partners who you and your team work hard to service and make sure they also have a great and useful time working together. In fact the more you scale up a partnership with a business, the more trust, rapport and relationship building starts to play a role. No employee or business wants to take a chance on an organisation and then it goes wrong and be laughed at.?

If you’re worked with a business before, it’s important that you are able to show the impact your work has had on the business, but also what a future partnership could look like and why they should care. This is where it helps being more confident, visionary and positive and illustrate what a partnership over the next 1/2/3/4/5 years could look like. You could draw on examples of how you’ve worked with other clients, or even examples of how other organisations have worked with businesses successfully through a scaled up partnership. It’s important to be clear on outcomes, impact metrics, data collection and what the long term vision of the partnership is. If you are excited and optimistic and confident, there is every chance your clients will also lean into this and you may be able to energise them. I also think it’s still helpful to be humble and honest and don’t overpromise what you can’t deliver in the spur of the moment. I personally find it helps to have these important scale up meetings in person if possible as I find it’s a lot easier to convey your passion, commitment and co-create a plan over a 1 hour meeting rather than a cramped 30 minute zoom call.?

3) Make sure you are speaking with the right people e.g. budget holders and decision makers?

When you ask to scale up a partnership there will likely be a lot more costs involved to the partner business. It’s a lot easier getting ￡2.5K from a business than ￡25K from a business as an example. This is because at the ￡1-3K level, an ERG lead can often sign this off, or this could be underspend from an HR or D&I budget. However for larger amounts, you need to make sure you are talking to senior decision makers who have a lot more control and influence over budget. For example, this could be heads of HR/CSR/Marketing/D&I/Finance/Strategy etc. depending on the nature of your business.

Initially I used to be daunted talking to senior decision makers at corporate partners. I was scared they wouldn’t respect me, thought I was wasting their time, or that there would be much more established and impressive organisations who they speak with and work with on a regular basis. However, to my delight, I’ve actually had a really positive experience liaising with senior decision makers.? These employees tend to be in the roles they are in and have progressed so far, because they care about their work and are very good and passionate about it. This means that if you and these senior leaders share a mutual mission, goal and there is synergy between what you are both doing and your package is good value, there is a good chance you can do work with the individuals and businesses on a more scaled up level.?

Whilst it’s definitely easier talking to employees who are more early stage in their careers, who you have warm relationships with from school or university, or employees who you have always been working with, if you are serious about getting a more scaled up partnership with businesses, you need to be serious about changing who you are speaking with within an organisation and building relationships with, to make this happen.?

4) Focus on working well and scaling up 5-6 suitable business partners and delivering excellent results together ?

Research shows that the magic number of business partners to have and work with in depth tends to be between 5-6 clients.?

If you’re serious about scaling up it’s important to be focused on doing great work with 5-6 clients and trying your best to not be distracted by lower value clients or new prospective clients to an extent. This is easier said than done since if your business is doing well, you’re always going to have requests coming in from prospective new clients, you’re going to be balancing demands from lots of existing clients and it’s not a nice or satisfying feeling saying no to organisations who want to work with you.?

I found that it actually takes the same amount of time scaling up an existing partnership than it does getting a new partnership with a new business. For example, talking to different stakeholders, preparing for meetings, doing follow up work, answering questions etc. Given that you can build a much stronger and impactful partnership with a scaled up business partner, than a new partner, it makes a lot more sense just to be laser focused at scaling up 5-6 businesses.

One way you can do this is write a list of all your current business clients and reflect on who you have the best current relationships with, which partners love working with you and talk about long term prospects and who you’ve done great work with so far and try to prioritise these firms. It’s also fine to change this list from time to time if one or two of your target clients end up not working out (for a variety of reasons e.g. their business may be going through a tough time). It’s important to make sure you choose suitable types of organisations who will have the capacity to scale up your partnership with them. For example, have enough money, have positive financial projections, have lots of employees in their UK offices, because there is no point doing a lot of a work with start up or small organisation who are due to cut budgets, have little presence in the UK or don’t invest a lot in the areas your business supports with as this puts your scale up ambitions in a precarious situation. On the other hand there be some large corporate you work with who do have lots of money, a big UK presence and focus on the areas your business supports with, however these corporates may already have lots of similar organisations to you who they work wit, in this situation there is a risk they may want to continue working with you but have no plans to scale you up as they already have enough provision in this area.?

If you only have 5-6 good clients you are working with you’ll have so much more time, energy and capacity to deliver a much better quality and range of services, than if you were serving twice or triple the amount of clients. This means better relationships, better impact, better long term prospects etc.?

It’s important to be humble and do market research again for your target clients and really understand their pain points, why they are working with you, what they want you to do differently or help them achieve etc. The clients who love working with you will be open to telling you this. There is no point in working hard and flogging goods and services which your client doesn’t actually want or value that much. It’s not the most pleasant feeling asking for constructive feedback around how things are going and what can be improved, when you think things are going smoothly, but there will always be something to do differently to make things better, and the more service and benefits you can offer a business the more likely you can continue growing this partnership in the long run. The worst situation is if you have a big partnership with a client, you think it’s going well and then they cancel the partnership when you were expecting them to renew, which could have been prevented if you were on the same page as they to d with their priorities and goals. It’s also fine to pivot. If you have one or a few large scale clients who are scaling up with you and want some new services which you think you and your team can provide, it’s fine to work on this if you think you can pul it off and add even more value to your scale up clients.

It helps to have relationships and partnerships with multiple parts of an organisation, in order to be as useful to the business as possible. Employees will invariably move jobs every few years and you don’t want to be in a situation where your 5 year partnership disappears due to an inefficient handover or the new employee in charge not being interested in your work or wanting to change the portfolio of partners they have.?

5) Put together packages for business partners and be willing to be bespoke for the good clients?

A effective way of scaling up your work with good business partners is through putting together 3+ packages which they can get involved with depending on their needs, capacity and budgets. For example, Bronze, Silver and Gold.?

It can be nerve wracking putting together packages for businesses in case some existing and prospective businesses don’t have the demands or budget to even get involved with Bronze, however in this situation you know that these partners aren’t suitable to work with anyway in the short run more long run.?

Many businesses will commit to the Bronze packages which will tend to provide them with the core, essential services your business offers. Some will commit to Silver if they love what your business does, have worked with you in the past and are keen on scaling up this partnership with you and maybe 1-2 businesses will get involved with the Gold package if they really love what your business does, has had a long term relationship with your for years and has a lot of available budget. Even if a business starts off with Bronze, there is every chance if the partnership goes really well they may be keen to progress to silver or even gold in the future.

Budget holders at businesses tend to be very busy so presenting them with 3 options for them to choose from can help them and their colleagues understand your business’s services in a simple way, and help them make an informed choice which package works well for them.?

It’s also fine to offer valued clients bespoke packages just for them, which can include different benefits in the package, or be an in between package (for example, in between Bronze or Silver, or in between Silver or Gold). This shouldn’t require too much more work for your team’s side and it will show your business client that you value working with them and want to make the partnership as relevant and successful as possible for them, which they will likely appreciate.?