What I Wish I Knew About Intentional Partnerships With James Hawkins (Triple Whale)

Summary

Highlights

• James Hawkins emphasizes intentionalism in partnerships for achieving mutual goals. 🎯
• Understanding and aligning each party's objectives is key to successful collaborations. 🤝
• Intentional partnerships should focus on strategic growth and mutual benefits. 🌱
• Building strong relationships requires clear communication and understanding. 📢
• The importance of aligning business development efforts with partnership strategies. 📊

Key Takeaways

• Intentional partnerships require strategic focus and alignment of goals. 🎯
• Moving away from "spray and prey" strategies can lead to more impactful collaborations. 🚀
• Clear communication and understanding of each party’s objectives is crucial. 📢
• Partnerships should be treated individually, understanding unique needs and goals. 🤝
• Aligning marketing strategies with partnership goals ensures mutual benefits. 📈

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Overview This introductory chapter establishes the theme and structure of the series 'E-commerce Agency Wisdom.' The series aims to extract valuable insights and knowledge from industry experts in e-commerce. The host interviews various professionals to gather the wisdom they’ve gained throughout their careers. Each episode focuses on what each expert wishes they had known earlier in their field regarding specific topics. In this chapter, James from Triple Whale discusses the importance of 'intentional partnership' and shares his insights on the subject in a conversational format.
• 01:00 - 02:30: The Importance of Intentional Partnerships The chapter focuses on the concept of intentional partnerships, as discussed by speaker James, who has been contemplating it a lot while planning for 2025. With his recent move into the Partnerships world, after spending a decade in the E-commerce space, James reflects on the substantial learning curve involved in understanding and effectively executing partnerships. The narrative underscores the complexity and effort required to establish meaningful and productive partnerships.
• 02:30 - 04:30: Identifying Key Partners and Strategic Focus This chapter titled 'Identifying Key Partners and Strategic Focus' discusses the importance of prioritizing strategic focus over a quantity-driven approach in forming partnerships. The speaker reflects on common industry practices, describing a 'spray and prey' method where businesses often partner without thoughtful consideration of strategic fit, resulting in partnerships based more on quantity than quality. The speaker advocates for a more mindful approach, suggesting that businesses focus on identifying key partners that align strategically, rather than forming partnerships for their own sake. This thoughtful approach aims to enhance the value and effectiveness of partnerships.
• 04:30 - 06:30: Building Relationships and Transparency The chapter focuses on the importance of building strong partnerships by ensuring value for both parties involved. It emphasizes intentionality in strategic planning and actions from the very beginning of the partnership. The speaker highlights the need for deliberate and thoughtful approaches to partnerships to achieve mutual benefits.
• 06:30 - 09:00: Communication and Measuring Success The chapter titled 'Communication and Measuring Success' discusses the importance of identifying key partners in the tech sector as part of a strategic approach for 2025. The focus is on understanding the rationale behind forming relationships with specific agencies, rather than partnering based on reputation alone. It highlights the significance of a purposeful approach to building partnerships, ensuring that these align with the overall objectives and success metrics for the year.
• 09:00 - 12:00: Alignment and Setting Expectations The chapter "Alignment and Setting Expectations" focuses on the process of identifying and aligning with key partners and clients to drive progress in a specific role. The discussion includes strategies like account mapping to identify potential clients and partners, which helps in forming targeted alliances. The chapter emphasizes the ideation phase where these strategies are developed and refined.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Advice for Tech Partners and Agencies This chapter emphasizes the importance of initial conversations in the partnership process between tech partners and agencies. It criticizes superficial meetings, where partnerships are hastily formed without a deeper understanding of each other's businesses. The chapter highlights the value of taking the time to visit agencies, understand their core focus and objectives, and align them with one's own business goals to build more meaningful and productive partnerships.

What I Wish I Knew About Intentional Partnerships With James Hawkins (Triple Whale) Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] welcome back to my series called e-commerce agency wisdom where I speak to uh people in the industry in the e-commerce space and ask them for little nuggets of wisdom that they've learned along the way and the title of the series is called what I'd wish I knew about whatever the topic is and today we're joined by James from triple whale and we're going to talk about the idea of intentional uh partnership so he conversated wisdom what I wish I knew
• 00:30 - 01:00 about intentional partnership so over to you James thank you very much Rachel so yeah I it's a subject that I've been thinking about a lot moving into 2025 for context I sort of moved into the Partnerships world at the start of last year and I think a big part of that year was learning for me I've been in Ecom space for best part of 10 years and obviously been aware of Partnerships but I think actually when you get your feet under the table and start doing it takes a lot of learning um and the reason intentional Partnerships
• 01:00 - 01:30 has been something that's been very Forefront of my mind moving into this year is I think what I've been seeing a lot of in the industry is aot what you might call kind of spray and prey approach to Partnerships which is essentially one business partnering with another business for partnership's sake um and I think though some elements of those sorts of relationships may have benefits um in general I think realistic
• 01:30 - 02:00 when we're trying to ensure that both parties get the maximum value out of a partnership which obviously should be the outcome that we're all Desiring I think it's really important to make sure that there is intentionalism behind what you're doing um and what I mean by that and I know it's a word I've thrown around a few times now already but what that really means to me is you know really actually taking a step back and making sure that there is a real strategic focus in everything you do in terms of that partnership and that starts from the very very beginning you know personally as a as a Partnerships
• 02:00 - 02:30 manager on the tech side you know one of the first things that I will always do and something that I've done a lot of work at the start of this year is really identifying across 2025 you know who are some key partners that I really really want to work with and build a relationship across the course of this year but really making sure I understand why I want to have a relationship with those agencies as opposed to it being oh this is a good agency that everyone knows oh let's go and build a partnership I think there needs to be a rationale behind why that that partnership is going to be in example of
• 02:30 - 03:00 that would be you know really trying to identify partners that are going to help you to move the needle in your role so one of the pieces of work I've done around that is um you know who are some key clients for example that triple world would love to have on board doing a bit of an account map identifying the key partners that they work with and then using that as an opportunity for me to identify some Target agencies for me to work with um but then kind of once we've done that ideation phase and worked out who it is that we want to be
• 03:00 - 03:30 working with it's then a case of really actually making sure that during that during those initial conversations we're not just going hey do you want a partner yeah cool we're triple well you're so and so let's have a partner here's our partnership program here are some links see you later I think it's really important and this probably leans back into my sales background potentially but I really like to spend a lot of time going and visiting the agency getting under the hood of the business you know what are their focuses for the year what are our
• 03:30 - 04:00 focuses for the year um you know when we talk about Partnerships we hear a lot about the aligning of goals and though I think that's really really important I think there also needs to be space for making sure we understand what each other's goals are for that year an example of that might be I know for a lot of agencies business development is a big Focus for them this year because 2024 was tough in the industry now the more I can understand about their approach to business development the more we can have a structured conversation around how actually a partnership with triple could help to
• 04:00 - 04:30 support them with that business development effort um and these are the sorts of conversations that I mean around that intentionalism because then what that allows us to do is it allows us to go okay great so in this quarter what we'll focus on is building out the relationship enablement sessions making sure the teams up speed all of these sorts of good things but then moving on from there how do we look at co-marketing but what sort of co-marketing do we need to do to get you the access that you need to support with that business development um I could give you plenty of examples but I don't want to Waffle on to too long um and
• 04:30 - 05:00 then the other point that I think is really really key here is real Clarity and transparency in communication now the challenge with this piece is that differs on a case-by Case basis and I think that every relationship in a partnership's world especially when they're being intentional needs to be treated on an individual basis there's not a one-size fits-all approach and especially not a one-sized fits-all approach when you look at Europe or the UK it is very relationship based but that
• 05:00 - 05:30 communication needs to be transparent there needs to be this clear understanding as I've mentioned of each other's businesses and a clear Communication channel for that but then also not just whacking in a quarterly call making sure that depending on what the needs and requirements are of that relationship that there is a Communication channel that supports that um and so yeah I think those are kind of some of the key areas that I'm really focusing on um for 2025 really trying not to overstretch myself and go chasing
• 05:30 - 06:00 off down different rabbit holes but actually really really drilling down and being intentional in those relationships because I feel like that is where everybody is going to win yeah I think I think in general whether it's in Partnerships and this applied to Tech Partnerships or agency Partnerships it it really I think it's about alignment because ultimately if if if what you're looking to achieve and what I'm looking to achieve you know in this case with e-commerce Partnerships you know with the h community that I have and what
• 06:00 - 06:30 triple whale are looking to achieve this year there's an alignment in what I'm doing and what you guys are looking for so it's a win-win situation my agencies are Happ working with great Partners my community gets supported we're able to run all these amazing events and you then get to achieve your goals so we have that alignment I speak to lots of tech Partners in the industry and most of them are turned on because number one they don't have any idea when people say to me I just want to get as many agencies in the funnel as possible it's a big red flag card no because they don't understand Partnerships when
• 06:30 - 07:00 Partners tell me that yeah no I you know I I'm only allowed to put money behind this if there's a brand attachment to it but there's some sort of brand you know that I can link to that that's a hard no because they don't understand agency Channel and how it works um and the other thing there's a really hard to know is uh not measuring anything so if I say okay well what what were your engagements last year what did you invest in what was the you know the the return on investment you got on these specific types of events oh not really too sure okay fine then I'm not going to
• 07:00 - 07:30 waste your money or my time so I think being really intentional first that starts with you I feel like you have to know these are our goals these are our expectations this is what we're hoping to achieve and if you're clear with yours and they're also clear with theirs at that stage then you could look at both Blueprints and say okay is there a crossover here and if it crossover okay let's see if we can dance if we could just if we can make sweet music together if not it's not to be maybe it's in the future but not for right I and I think
• 07:30 - 08:00 that there's so many people on both sides uh Tech partners that are being thrown stupid onone sponsoring stuff they shouldn't be sponsoring agencies that are putting their hand out taking the money from Partners to sponsor stuff that they don't even know how to pull these events together and it's leaving a b bad taste in both people's Ms another we bit of advice I would say as well for a tech partner if you're looking to get behind an agency with any of these Investments you're making with agencies make sure have a sales some sort of
• 08:00 - 08:30 sales engine if they don't have a sales engine it's probably not probably not going to be one of those core agencies that you can build on um unless that they're focused on sales and bringing sales into their funnel then it's not going to be fruitful for you you're just going to take whatever it is that they have coming their way and whatever is coming their way is what they're going to close and that is not really an agency that's working on row is what I would say yeah I think I completely agree with that and I think you absolutely hit the
• 08:30 - 09:00 nail on the head around that alignment piece as well I think yes one of the examples I gave was being very intentional around you know what I'm looking at doing in terms of making sure that I'm giving the right value and the right time to the right agencies but I think also as well like you say how does that link back even further you know what are what are the goals that both of those different parties are looking at achieving and then yeah like you say if they cross over Can we dance [Music]