partnership company business plan

Business Plan for Partnership Firm

A business plan for partnership firm is recommended for anyone entering into a business partnership. 3 min read updated on November 02, 2020

A business plan for a partnership firm is recommended for anyone entering into a business partnership. A business partnership is two or more people working together to run a business. Each person takes on equal risks and rewards that come from the business. A proper business plan is ideal for handling current and future business decisions.

Steps For Planning a Business Partnership

• Write a mission statement to clearly state the direction and goals the business plans to take. By writing a mission statement, the partners agree to the company's direction now and in the future.
• Develop a reimbursement plan for the costs and investments incurred during startup. The amount of money provided for the startup is not always equal. Therefore, it is beneficial to make a plan that takes this into account with repayment and returns on investment. Avoiding arguments over the value of the startup amount versus levels of sweat equity will be removed with a reimbursement plan.
• Create a method to resolve partner disputes. If an odd number of members are part of the partnership, you can choose to vote democratically. In the case of two partners, the partners may split areas of the business having the final say. For example, one person can make final decisions on marketing and sales planning, while the other person makes final decisions on financial planning.
• Appoint an outside panel of advisors, or ombudsman , to resolve any internal disputes. Trusted experts should always be used to avoid ruining the partner relationship.
• Divide all the responsibilities of the partners related to labor and management and assign the amount of compensation they will receive. The compensation is not always equal based on the workload the partner takes on.
• Request that outside experts review the partnership agreement for any legal or accounting mistakes. The experts may be able to point out unknown problems that exist in the agreement. This review should take place before the partnership begins business operations.

Partnership Deed

A partnership deed and partnership agreement are the same, but the partnership deed is in writing . A partnership agreement can exist solely through verbal communications or actions. A partnership deed is recommended for businesses as it clearly defines the terms of the partnership.

The partnership deed helps prove the agreed-upon terms if there are any conflicts. Without a deed, the rules to settle disputes will fall to the state laws where the partnership exists. This creates another issue where one partner may file suit to benefit from the existing laws. Legal action can be avoided with a partnership deed that lists all details of the business that the partners agreed to when they began the business.

Partner Business Plans

When legal firms are looking to add a new partner, a well-written business plan that shows the new partners' intent to grow the business will make them stand out from the rest of the applicants. The business plan should exceed the expectations of the firm.

The key elements of the business plan are:

• Create an introduction that details your professional history, areas of expertise, and why you are the right fit for the firm.
• Provide market research and analysis of the needs of the local area, what competition exists, and why the firm offers the best way to reach this marketplace.
• Describe your current client base, prospective clients, and untapped areas you'd like to reach.
• Include any cross-selling opportunities that exist with current and prospective clients.
• Share ways you can develop business sources including publications, speeches, client seminars, newsletters, and similar.
• Explain your long-term strategy to meet the goals and targets that will benefit the firm.
• Show a history of collections, billing rates, and billable hours and projections for the current year, three-years, and five-years.
• Time the partners must invest.
• Key staff will be needed (paralegals, secretaries, etc.)
• Travel expenses.
• Marketing materials,
• Presentations.
• Foreign language skill requirements.

End with a conclusion that is creative recaps the important points in the plan, what value will be added to the firm, and why you are the best fit for the firm.

If you need help with a business plan for a partnership firm, you can post your legal need on UpCounsel's marketplace. UpCounsel accepts only the top 5 percent of lawyers to its site. Lawyers on UpCounsel come from law schools such as Harvard Law and Yale Law and average 14 years of legal experience, including work with or on behalf of companies like Google, Menlo Ventures, and Airbnb.

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• How to Make a Partnership Agreement Legally Binding?
• Disadvantages of Partnership
• Difference Between Sole Proprietorship and Partnership
• What Is Transfer of Partnership Interest?
• Can a Partnership Be Incorporated: Everything to Know
• Types of Business Partnerships: Everything You Need To Know
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How To Build A Partnership Business Plan

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Partnerships have been an integral part of many go-to-market strategies for decades. For some brands, they drive an enormous share of total sales. For others, they drive next to nothing. What separates successful programs from unsuccessful ones is often the focus emanating from a strong business plan. As with any other go-to-market approach, partnership requires analysis and planning to achieve maximum potential.

A partnership business plan can help companies understand the channel's potential and the investments necessary to achieve those results. It also identifies the business partnership priorities that the team should focus on for maximum business impact. It’s different from a standard business plan in that you are not providing a rationale for an entire business but instead creating a roadmap for this critical business channel.

Setting appropriate expectations is even more critical than for other channels because of misconceptions many business leaders have about partnership. Many companies pursue partnership because they believe it will be a low/no-cost approach to driving sales. Somehow, goes this flawed thinking, the business partner will do most or all of the work of promoting the brand, and we can sit back and reap the benefits.

Certainly, one great rationale for the channel is strong ROI, but partnerships require resources and focus to succeed. A business plan can help clarify the business potential of the marketing strategy and the people, systems, and processes needed to achieve those results. This eGuide outlines the essentials for a strong partnership business plan and provides tips on how to deliver it. It provides insight as to what resources are needed to reach goals.

It is important to first set up the costs of setting up a program and the basic formula for customer acquisition.

The basic costs of a partner marketing program are:

Fixed costs:

• Software to recruit, track and pay partners. This can also be a variable costs since some platforms charge a percentage of sale. But, most have a component that is a flat fee.
• Service/headcount to recruit and manage partners. This can be an agency, an in house team or managed service from your tech platform. Sometimes agencies will work on a commission basis, but mostly this will be a relatively stable annual cost. Regardless, be aware that unlike programmatic, search or social, partnership marketing is still relationship driven and requires humans to connect. This takes time and it is facilitated by people who have relationships.

Variable costs:

• Commissions paid to partners for a sale.
• Any additional media costs including placement fees.

Note: be sure to build in a ramp up time for your partner program. Unlike search or social you can't just "turn on" a partner program. You need time to recruit partners and activate these partners. There is a lot of blocking and tackling involved and you should not expect to see results overnight. The rule of thumb is six months until full activation, but that varies by industry.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Ultimately, the success of failure of a new marketing channel will be its ability to acquire customers at an equal or lower cost than other channels. Start by identifying your overall CAC so that you can determine if your partnership financial and operating plans will be effective.

​The basic formula is: {Fixed costs (like software, service, people) + (variable costs *volume)} / customers = CAC

Why Business Plans are Important

As partnership and affiliate play an increasingly important role in the total go-to-market for a brand, companies expect their leaders to offer a strong business case for additional investment. A solid partnership business plan will:

• Help the company understand the business potential for partnerships
• Enable business owners to understand and predict costs and benefits for proper resource and revenue planning
• Provide straightforward ways to track progress toward achieving channel goals
• Identify potential risks to achieving the goals and how to mitigate them
• Establish a clear timeline of when a company can expect to achieve goals
• Provide a complete picture so that the company can make an informed business decision on whether and how to invest in the partnerships channel

Beyond these tangible benefits, there is also the advantage of presenting and interpreting the opportunity in a context accessible to leaders within and beyond marketing.

Critical Components

Here’s a summary of critical elements for a partnership business plan and why they are important:

Executive Summary: This brief synopsis should highlight the key findings in the plan, from projected revenue and costs to the various advantages and risks of pursuing this line of business. Writing this part of your plan last is best after fully developing the other elements.

​Scope and Description: This section of the plan provides a high-level outline of the types of partnerships you recommend pursuing - not channel by channel but rather in the context of what characteristics must be present in a potential partnership to warrant pursuit. We’ll provide a list of thought-starter questions to help you keep this high level and strategic rather than too specific and tactical.

​Competitive Analysis: This section outlines how your key competitors leverage performance partnerships to build their businesses. Understanding competitive partnership activity contributes valuable learnings to your decisions about which partnerships to pursue.

Recommended Partnership Types: This section will enable you to list the types of partnerships you believe warrant pursuit, in priority order. The number of available partnership types is constantly expanding, so it makes sense to prioritize partnerships based on your revenue, profit, and brand equity goals. You should also consider what signals are available to ensure that potential partners are likely to consider working with you.

Operating Plan: Here is where you will outline the people, software, budget, and other resources required. You should also outline why your team is qualified and likely to succeed in building out the channel.

Financial Plan: Outline the costs and revenue expectations according to the approaches and timelines in use by your company. The level of granularity here really depends on how your company plans go-to-market initiatives and reports on performance.

Headwinds and Tailwinds: This section outlines the uncertainties that may help or hinder your ability to hit your targets.

Let’s consider each of these sections individually.

Executive Summary

Smart business opportunities can always be explained in a relatively small amount of words or “space.” Many companies require the rationale for an entire multi-million dollar business to be summarized in a single page. You can try to hit that target or give yourself two pages. But not more than that. Your ability to outline a business succinctly helps senior executives quickly understand why they should prioritize your initiative and demonstrates your ability to focus on what’s most important. Ask yourself:

• How can I explain performance partnerships, the potential range of available opportunities, and why partnership represents an advantageous channel for business development?
• What do senior executives need to know to understand the business potential of the partnerships channel?
• What arguments and data are essential to evaluate this channel properly?
• What topline data should I include to demonstrate the business value of pursuing the channel?

Providing hard numbers in your summary is critical if you are to gain buy-in from your leadership team. They must weigh any financial investment decision against the potential business value of other initiatives competing for resources. Make it easy for leaders to understand the enormous revenue and profit from partnerships. Use this channel's massive ROI and ROAS to telegraph why your recommendation warrants commitment.

It can be tempting to try to write this section first. Don’t yield to that desire. By building out your other plan sections first, you will have ready access to the information for the executive summary.

Scope and Description

This critical section explains the range of partners and types of partnerships you recommend pursuing. Having articulated guard rails will help your team focus on the best opportunities and help prevent “swoop and poop” requests from outside leaders and teams.

Start by declaring your commitment to PERFORMANCE or OUTCOMES-BASED partnerships, and define this category clearly. From there, outline other criteria that will help guide your decisions on whether to pursue and accept specific partners and programs. Consider:

• What sort of scale should a partner offer to warrant your time and attention?
• What brand considerations should be taken into account?
• What targeting considerations should be “musts”?
• Are you willing to pursue temporary partners, or do you want to focus only on evergreen relationships, and why?

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis can be an invaluable aid in guiding partnership decisions. Including competitive analysis in your plan serves several purposes:

• It helps establish the channel as a viable option for your business
• It provides insight into the potential scale and most significant opportunity sectors
• It can help you determine appropriate offers so you can build your sales and profit models
• It provides urgency to senior management (FOMO)

Competitive information is an aid to judgment, not a predictor of your results. It helps establish a baseline from which you can develop plans to surpass competitive program performance.

Here are a series of questions to help you gather as much relevant data as possible quickly:

• What sorts of offers are my competitors making in their affiliate programs? You can also get great insights into how your competitors manage programs on knoji.com. Most programs also have affiliate intake pages on their sites that can be found in site footers or with Google.
• What can you learn about the business structure of your competitors? Use LinkedIn employee searches as a starting point here.
• Visit the top cashback and coupon sites to see if your competitors are active there.
• Use an SEO tool like SemRush, Moz, or Ahrefs to search for competitor backlinks.
• Monitor their websites and social media to look for signs of partnerships and offer programs.
• Subscribe to their marketing automation email programs (assuming your domain isn’t blocked. It usually won’t be.)
• Is there evidence that they use influencers to deliver brand messages and drive direct sales? What are the terms under which they work with influencers? Often it is easy to find insights on your influencer platform tool or by doing Google searches for program pages.
• Large partners can sometimes share publicly available info to help you structure successful programs.
• Searching for “Brand Trademark + Deals” can often uncover search partners and other partners active in a brand’s programs.
• Searching LinkedIn for partnership-related titles can give you a sense of the size and focus of a brand program.
• Search the offer “malls” of credit card reward programs to see if your competitors have offers available there. Note that card-linked offers are generally confined to retailer brands, so that can simplify your search.

These and other strategies can help you understand the partnerships competitors are pursuing and the specifics of their commission offers.

Recommended Partnership Types

Explain the specific classes of partnership that you want to pursue. Some categories to consider include:

• Traditional Affiliates (e.g., RMN, GSG)
• Mainstream Publishers (e.g., Conde Nast)
• Blogger Influencers (e.g., Pioneer Woman)
• Social Influencers (e.g., Paul’s Hardware)
• Fintech Partners (e.g., Venmo)
• Card-Linked Offers (e.g., Cardlytics/CC Reward Programs)
• BNPLs (e.g., Klarna)
• Conversion Optimization Partners (e.g., RevLifter)
• Travel Rewards Programs (e.g., United Mileage Plus)
• Clubs and Associations (e.g., AARP Rewards)
• Employee Benefits and Rewards Programs (e.g., Bucketlist)
• Brand-to-Brand Partnerships (e.g., brands in related categories)

This is by no means an exhaustive list but does include many of the most popular partnership categories for consideration.

The right partners for your business depend on your brand, price point, buying cycle, compensation rate, and other factors unique to your category and market position. Further, your brand values and brand equity also play critical roles. For example, some brands are entirely opposed to offering discounts publicly, which might rule out certain traditional affiliates. Other brands might be a great fit for travel rewards programs. Still others might be ideal for influencer programs because many opinion leaders write about your category.

Naturally, some of these channels are more developed than others. Some market sizing data is available for the most developed categories like traditional affiliates. Others will have a dearth of information. But even in those categories that are less developed, you can put pen to paper to make some estimates of potential sales from a channel.

Creating an Operating Plan

Any business needs resources to enable its establishment and growth. A partnership business is no different. An operating plan outlines the people, investment, and other resources necessary to facilitate success.

When creating a partnership operating plan, it’s valuable to start your thinking with “hats, not heads.” Define the roles and associated responsibilities needed before thinking about the individuals who fill them. While extraordinary individuals have tremendous value in a business plan, starting with hats instead of heads ensures that the needs of the business dictate the organization, not the wants of specific individuals.

For a company to deliver scalable and repeatable results, you need to create an organization and operating principles that are not dependent on specific “superstar” individuals. Investors say that one of the most common mistakes businesses make is building an organization and planning dependent on "superhuman" individuals. Remember that your star players can power more success for a business plan - they are not the essence of that plan. If you struggle with this recommendation, consider this: would you base your entire partnership program on an individual partner?

From there, you need to think about the financial investment you need. Take the time to think through your needs. Many people rush through this stage and later find themselves strapped when forgotten expense types emerge. At the same time, recognize that a business plan is also an expression of the potential value that can be driven through the channel. “Sandbagging” may price you out of consideration. Similarly, delivering too rosy a picture can help you skate through the early stages only to be called on the carpet later when your projections prove inaccurate.

The operating plan development process should be one in which you choose what to do first and what can wait. Think through what the company wants from you. Do you need to be profitable by month three or year three? You want the aggressiveness of your recommendation to align with company goals and investment style.

You cannot do everything at once, or you will do everything poorly. Prioritize the opportunities and layout why you have chosen those priorities. Consider the law of threes. Accept that few organizations can do more than three big things simultaneously. “Big” is a subjective measure, and bigness varies based on that organization's size and core competencies. Still, this concept helps guide people to a reasonable number of priorities for a period. Some would suggest that even three is too many. But surely we can all agree that more than three is a bad idea. Finally, it is often helpful to deliver multiple operating plans for different revenue projections/trajectories. Offer a low, medium, and high investment scenario to match the low, medium, and high revenue and profit projections you define in the next step.

After developing your “hats, not heads” plan, it’s perfectly valid to summarize the outstanding qualifications of those team members you have on hand to meet the business needs. Do so in the context of how they enhance your hat-defined org. That helps give your management team greater confidence in the wisdom of funding the initiative.

Creating a Financial Plan

The operating plan is a critical input for your financial plan. The financial plan is a projection of the revenue and profit from the channel. While, as you develop it, you will likely return to other elements of the business plan to adjust assumptions and figures, having baseline or ballpark figures for those elements of your program is crucial as you start to define the potential value of the business to your company.

There are many templates for building a financial plan available online. They are generally similar and often available without cost. They will require some adaptation to “fit” a partnership initiative, but they provide a good foundation.

Additionally, check with your CFO or company financial team to see if they have a model they believe in. This serves several purposes:

• It aligns your effort to a format they are familiar with
• It ensures that it is easy to understand your recommendations and compare your plan to other potential company investments
• It demonstrates that you wish to partner with the financial team, which will be critical for your success.

If your financial team has a financial planning and analysis (“FP&A”) person, find out if you can ask for their help building your models. This will help you immeasurably and ensures that one of the critical evaluator/influencers is on your side later. Treat your company's financial team as a potential investor because that's what they are.

Identifying Headwinds and Tailwinds

It’s valuable to consider what macro changes could positively or negatively impact your success. Think both inside and outside the box in this area. Competitors, economic forces, and regulatory changes are three important considerations here, but there are likely others. Ask yourself:

• What does an unsuccessful versus successful partnership look like?
• What might affect customer receptivity to my products, services, and offers?
• What might affect the willingness of the best partners to work with me?
• What could positively or negatively affect the commission or payments I have to make per desired outcome?
• What partnership agreement requirements could have a material impact on our success or liability?
• What might limit the availability of data essential for measurement and optimization?

Once you have arrayed these potential challenges, you may be able to think of ways to reduce your exposure. Start by thinking about how intellectual property, speed to market, partnership exclusivity agreements, or other tools could help mitigate these threats. But whether or not you can think of ways to protect yourself from these risks, having identified these potential issues helps the business fully understand the opportunity you bring to them.

No sensible business leader will expect the partnership channel to be risk-free, but they will want to understand the scale and likelihood of the dangers. If your company cannot tolerate the potential problems associated with one or more of these key risk areas, better to know now than when it happens, and you have to explain the situation to the management team.

Conclusions

A partnership business plan's format, breadth, and depth should align with how your company expects such recommendations to be made. In general, it’s valuable to have an executive summary presentation and a more in-depth document available, along with detailed spreadsheets that chronicle your establishment and growth expectations.

For some, doing all this work may feel like a waste of time. After all, aren’t the benefits of a robust business plan obvious? But the plan not only helps your company understand and assess the opportunity. It also ensures that you have thought through the way forward and can make more of the right decisions on days 1, 91, 366, etc. Planning is good. Prioritization is good.

Having a plan also helps an organization understand what they approve and what will be necessary to achieve a strong partnership revenue stream. As discussed earlier, many companies enter into partnership thinking it is a low effort, low-cost means of driving rapid growth. By setting appropriate expectations and outlining the tremendous revenue and profit potential, you set yourself up for maximum success.

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Partnership Plan Template

What is a Partnership Plan?

A Partnership Plan is a business strategy that outlines the goals, objectives, and actions of a company’s partnerships. This plan is designed to ensure the company is getting the most out of its partnerships and that each partner is receiving the value they need from the relationship. The plan should include the goals of the partnership, the resources available to both parties, and a timeline for implementation. It should also include measurable targets (KPIs) to track the success of the partnership.

What's included in this Partnership Plan template?

• 3 focus areas
• 6 objectives

Each focus area has its own objectives, projects, and KPIs to ensure that the strategy is comprehensive and effective.

Who is the Partnership Plan template for?

This Partnership Plan template is designed for business development teams or managers in any industry to create a plan for their partnership approach. The template is designed to help teams develop a comprehensive and effective roadmap for their partnerships that will enable business growth. The template includes actionable steps and measurable targets to help teams stay on track and measure the success of their partnerships.

1. Define clear examples of your focus areas

The first step in creating a Partnership Plan is to identify the focus areas you would like to address. A focus area is a broad topic that you would like to address through your partnerships. Examples of focus areas could include developing and strengthening partnerships, enhancing partner capabilities, or streamlining partner onboarding. Once you have identified your focus areas, you can begin to create objectives and set measurable targets to tackle each.

2. Think about the objectives that could fall under that focus area

Once you have identified your focus areas, you can begin to think about the objectives that could fall under each. Objectives are specific goals that you would like to achieve. Examples of some objectives for the focus area of Developing and Strengthening Partnerships could be: Increase Number of Partnerships, and Improve Partner Engagement.

3. Set measurable targets (KPIs) to tackle the objective

Once you have identified your objectives, it is important to set measurable targets (KPIs) to track the success of each. KPIs are quantifiable metrics that enable you to measure the success of your objectives. For example, under the objective of 'increase the number of partnerships,' a KPI might be to 'increase the number of partnerships from 5 to 10.'

4. Implement related projects to achieve the KPIs

Once you have identified your KPIs, you can begin to think about the projects (actions) that you can implement to achieve them. Projects are specific actions that can be taken to achieve the desired KPI. For example, under the KPI of 'increase the number of partnerships from 5 to 10,' the project could be to 'create a partnership acquisition plan.'

5. Utilize Cascade Strategy Execution Platform to see faster results from your strategy

Cascade Strategy Execution Platform is a powerful tool that can help you accelerate the implementation of your partnership plan. With Cascade, you can easily track the progress of your partnership plan and take action quickly to ensure success.

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Top 5 Partner Business Plan Templates with Samples and Examples

Heerak Singh Kaushal

Have you watched Game of Thrones? 

The show illustrates how unclear morals, broken trusts, and partnerships can lead to serious issues. In the end (spoiler alert), the throne was destroyed, leaving both Cersei and Daenerys without the title of Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, but the lessons it teaches are still relevant. They needed a partner business plan!

In the present scenario, business is more often about give-and-take relations. Therefore, having strong partnerships and staying honest are more important than ever. Building and nurturing associations can be challenging at times, but on the brighter side, both parties benefit a lot. 

To corroborate, 55% of marketing professionals engaged in partnerships consider them essential for revenue and growth acceleration. This is also proven by the fact that 80% of the businesses that enter into partnerships note an increase in revenue attributed to the partnerships.

But, as Murphy's Law says, things can go wrong. In that case, a solid business plan, like a good battle plan, can help manage risks and achieve success.

SlideTeam has created partner business plan templates to help you manage business partnerships better. Each professionally created template is fully editable. 

These partnership growth plan slides will help you:

• Define clear goals by setting shared goals and expectations.
• Identify key steps by creating specific targets to track progress.
• Help you make the best use of your assets.
• Prepare for risks and face any unexpected problems.
• Encourage open communication, which builds trust and keeps things transparent.

Let’s take a look at some templates-

Template 1: Business Marketing Partner Plan Approaches

This strategic partnership plan template helps you create a market plan with your business partners. It outlines five important steps: Provocation, Discovery, Diagnostic, Design, and Suggestions. With clear goals, you can set specific and measurable objectives and find potential markets. The template guides you to analyze the competition and choose the best market structure. This editable slide makes sure your goals are aligned and helps you find winning factors and the right channel partners. Use this template to simplify your planning and grab your audience's attention effectively. Download it now!

Download This Template! 

Template 2: Partner Communication Plan for Dealing with Business Conflicts

This partnership growth plan template is made to help you resolve conflicts between business partners. It presents a straightforward communication strategy outlining its purpose and objectives, as well as steps to be followed. You can evaluate ways of communicating effectively and devise measures to ensure prompt feedback. The outline of the slide also highlights the issue and enables one to seek correspondence resolution more effectively. This customizable template will help you improve engagement and increase efficiency among teammates. Get this template now! 

Template 3: Joint Business Planning Partner Assessment

This joint venture agreement template is a tool for evaluating joint business planning partnerships. It helps you assess different aspects, like working relationships, financial management, and supply chain efficiency. You can use this template to gather information about plans made under agreed conditions and regularly review key performance indicators (KPIs). This editable slide makes it simple to check the strengths and weaknesses of your partnerships. Streamline your evaluation process and ensure successful collaboration with this tool. Download it now!

Template 4: Channel Partner Plan for Business Development

Our collaborative business strategy template outlines a sample plan for developing business through channel partners. It highlights key elements like organizational alignment, optimizing programs, and making business easier to manage. You can set sales strategies, track partner support, and monitor profitability while ensuring smooth collaboration. This editable slide is designed to help you pick the right channels for successful partnerships. Strengthen your business strategy and encourage growth through effective channel management. Download it today!

Template 5: Channel Partner Plan Roadmap for Business

This strategic partnership plan roadmap template offers a detailed plan for creating channel partners. It includes financial forecasting, recruitment strategies, and goal-setting steps. Use this slide to simulate financial results and integrate systems for managing performance. It helps you track your progress and develop supportive strategies for successful partnerships. This editable template is crucial for any business aiming to build effective relationships with channel partners. Take your business development to the next level with this tool. Download it now!

In a Nutshell

Strong partnerships are essential in today’s business world. 67% of companies report that they have improved their products or services due to partnerships. Partnerships also encourage innovation, and 94% of tech executives regard innovation partnerships as part of their strategy.

However, partnerships come with problems. A solid business plan can help you manage these challenges. SlideTeam’s Partner Business Plan Templates offer useful tools to navigate these issues. These templates help you set clear goals, assess risks, and encourage communication. They can strengthen your partnerships and help them last.

Start improving your partnership strategy today for a better tomorrow. Download our templates and plan for success with your business partners!

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Partner Business Plans in 2024: Why are They so Important?

Introduction

Business plans serve as a foundational framework that aligns the operational strategy of your partner firms with the overarching goals and expectations of your company. Tailored for each partner, these business plans outline specific sales, marketing, and training objectives that are designed to be in perfect sync with your organization's aspirations. These plans are indispensable tools for effectively overseeing your network, enabling you to evaluate and measure performance continually and, as needed, take strategic actions to bolster your partners on their path to success.

By collaboratively constructing business plans in conjunction with each partner, you foster a sense of cohesion within your indirect sales ecosystem. This shared roadmap ensures that all partners are working in synergy, collectively pursuing the identified actions necessary for accomplishing mutual success, further strengthening the strategic alignment between your firm and its partner network.

Develop Partner Bussiness Plan: Two Key Steps to Consider

1. know your partners well.

A thorough understanding of your partner network is a fundamental prerequisite for the successful development of partner business planning. Within your indirect sales ecosystem, business providers, integrators, value-added resellers (VARs), IT service companies, and resellers each operate within distinct logic and economic models. Acquiring deep insights into the nuances of each partner type is crucial for crafting business plans that align with both your partner's strategic objectives and your company's overarching goals.

Isabelle Castellanet, the founder of IXC, a firm specializing in Partners and Growth, emphasizes the importance of recognizing the diverse expectations and requirements of partners based on their typology. She notes, "Depending on the typology of its network, it is important to see that the partners do not expect the same information. A wholesaler, for example, does not require the same information and tools as a VAR, an integrator, or even a third-party publisher who prescribes or resells for you."

Recognizing these key elements in partner business planning ensures that your efforts are tailored to cater to the specific needs and expectations of each partner category, ultimately fostering a more productive and mutually beneficial collaboration.

2. Have a Well-Defined Global Business Objective

Creating a robust business plan in collaboration with your partner necessitates a well-defined and quantifiable overarching business objective. This objective must be crystal clear and expressed in measurable terms. For instance, it could be aimed at achieving specific milestones, such as:

• Capturing more than 20% of the market share in France for your product;
• Reaching an annual turnover target of "X" amount or;
• Expanding your operations to attain 5% of the turnover in a new country.

This overarching business objective serves as the cornerstone upon which you will construct the business plans tailored for each of your partners. The core concept is to apportion individual objectives to your partners that harmonize with your global strategy. Consequently, each partner's unique business plan becomes an instrumental component contributing to the fulfillment of your company's overarching business objective. This strategic alignment ensures that the combined efforts of your partner network work in unison to advance your business toward its ultimate goals.

Establishing a Partner Business Plan: The Objectives

Setting objectives within your partner's business plan is essential, engaging, and decisive for the success of the partnership. Aligned with the main objective of your business, these objectives, whether quantitative or qualitative, must be measurable and, therefore, quantified.

Set Quantitative Targets

Based on a careful analysis of historical sales performance, specific criteria such as outcomes, geographical location, and seniority within the partner network, distinct objectives will be strategically allocated to each partner. These objectives encompass a variety of key areas that guide their contributions to the partnership:

• Business Objectives on Sales Volume and Turnover: Partners will be tasked with well-defined business goals related to sales volume and revenue generation. These objectives may be tailored to the partner's track record, the market potential in their location, and their historical sales figures. This approach ensures that targets are realistic and achievable, motivating partners to excel in their specific market segments.
• Marketing Objectives through Event and Webinar Organization: In addition to sales targets, partners will also be entrusted with marketing objectives, which often involve organizing events and webinars. These events serve as crucial touchpoints for engaging potential customers and driving brand awareness. The specific objectives may vary depending on the partner's strengths and past performance, encouraging them to leverage their marketing expertise to enhance the partnership's overall success.

By customizing these objectives based on partner history and characteristics, the partnership becomes more adaptable and efficient, with each partner playing a unique role in contributing to the collective success of the collaboration. This tailored approach maximizes the potential for growth and achievement within the network.

Set Qualitative Objectives

Incorporating qualitative objectives into your business plan imparts a heightened level of professionalism to your partner network. This is especially pivotal when embarking on new indirect sales partnerships. Training sessions play a central role in this process, serving as a crucial avenue for partners to equip their sales teams with comprehensive knowledge about your brand. These sessions not only elevate your partners' understanding of your products but also empower them to embrace and disseminate your vision over the short, medium, and long-term horizons. This alignment ensures that they are seamlessly integrated into your strategic framework. As an illustrative example, you may set a target, such as achieving a certification for a specific number of "X" sales, within your business plan.

To ensure the optimal monitoring of your business plan and to gauge the progress of your partners, it is imperative to implement KPIs. These quantifiable benchmarks enable you to assess the attainment of objectives, offering valuable insights into areas where potential refinements or additional support may be necessary. By embracing KPIs, you introduce a structured, data-driven approach that ensures the partnership remains on a well-tracked trajectory toward realizing the objectives outlined in your business plan.

Have Regular Monitoring

In pursuit of ongoing refinement and shared operational efficiency, it's essential that these objectives are periodically defined and subject to regular monitoring. Constructing a business plan without a system for ongoing objective assessment is a critical oversight, as it can become too late to take corrective action should your partner deviate from their established objectives. To ensure the long-term success of your collaborative efforts, it's highly advisable to assess and potentially adjust objectives on a monthly basis, accounting for variances such as weaker performance in a specific month, such as August.

KPIs play a pivotal role in facilitating the monitoring and analysis of your partners, allowing you to identify both their strengths and areas that may require improvement. With a monthly review and a systematic reporting mechanism, you gain the capability to:

• Set Realistic Objectives : By closely aligning objectives with the current conditions on the ground, you ensure that they remain practical and attainable in the context of evolving market dynamics.
• Monitor Implementation and Achievement : Regular tracking using KPIs enables you to gauge how well partners are executing planned actions and progressing towards the predefined objectives, offering insights into areas that might need attention.
• Provide Support : Armed with this detailed data, you are better equipped to initiate timely and targeted actions that can help partners overcome challenges and, in turn, assist them in reaching their objectives. This proactive approach ensures that your partnership remains adaptive and robust, fostering sustained success in a dynamic business landscape.

The Essential Tool to Build a Business Plan and Manage it

In the endeavor to establish a comprehensive business plan and ensure its effective management with full transparency into your partner's activities, a PRM, or Partner Relationship Management system, emerges as the quintessential tool. Going beyond the capabilities of conventional management software, a PRM empowers you to systematically structure your indirect sales processes and engage with your partner ecosystem in real time, irrespective of the hour or location.

When crafting business plans for your partners within a proficient PRM platform, you can expect to benefit in several key ways:

• Tailored Business Plans : A robust PRM system should facilitate the seamless definition of unique business plans for each partner, accommodating their specific objectives, strengths, and market dynamics. This tailored approach ensures that each partner's plan is finely tuned to optimize success.
• Real-Time Progress Tracking : The PRM offers the invaluable advantage of real-time progress tracking for the objectives set within these business plans. It allows you to stay updated on your partner's performance, offering insights into their achievements and areas that might require attention or support.
• KPI Integration : Effective PRM systems seamlessly integrate KPIs into the platform, providing you with a set of critical metrics that pinpoint what is vital for the success of your partner's business plan. These KPIs offer the ability to focus on the most significant aspects of your partnership, enabling data-driven decision-making and strategic adjustments as needed.

By leveraging a PRM , your business can optimize its partnership management, ensuring that business plans are not only efficiently established but also actively tracked and adjusted as necessary, fostering the mutual success of both your company and your partner network.

Build your partnership program and strengthen partner engagement.

Looking for inspiration to never stop learning.

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The Top 9 Skills to Look For in a Partnership Manager

Your right to know, why are partner business plans important, what elements should be included in a partner business plan, how do you write a business plan for a partner, what are the 3 types of partners in a business set up, what is an example of a strategic partnership plan, still have questions.

• Crafting an Effective Partner Business Plan: Essential Elements for Success

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Partner Business Plans: Key Elements

• The Crucial Role of Business Plans in Law Firm Partner Success
• Maximize Portables in Your Business Plan in Order to Maximize Interest in You

The Importance of a Great Business Plan

Professional Goals For Partner Status

Making an evaluation of your existing practice, describing your vision as a partner, creating a strategy for growth.

• A partner's fit culturally
• The viability of a partner's practice for the long-term
• A partner's record of excellent client service to long-term clients and producing business
• A partner's history of consistently increasing collections
• A partner's practice fit in connection with the firm's strategic plan for expansion
• Whether a partner's practice area is one that is targeted for growth
• Whether the partner brings portable business and/or specific expertise needed in a particular practice area
• The opportunities the partner would bring for business development and significant cross-selling were the partner to join the firm
• Whether the partner's historical information is reflective of consistent productivity
• Whether the partner's client base fits within the firm's client structure
• Any potential conflicts that would preclude the firm from hiring the partner
• A partner's current compensation and compensation expectation
• A partner's potential contribution to the firm's bottom line/profitability
• A partner's fit within the firm's current attorney roster
• A partner's reason for leaving his or her current firm (voluntary/mutual arrangement) and whether the partner would be a problem
• Creative: Serve as a marketing piece on the partner and enable the firm to assess the partner's business potential. It should also provide an outlet to the partner to step out of the resume format and chart his or her previous performance and future prospects for business in a creative format.  
• Illustrative: Illustrate to a firm that the partner is thinking about his or her practice as a business and set forth his or her plan for the future.  
• Persuasive: Persuade the firm to hire the partner.  
• Historical: Chart a historical record of the partner's history of creating business opportunities and his or her ability to develop and foster client relationships over an extended period of time.  
• Demonstrative: Demonstrate a partner's business-development skills, initiative, and ability to contribute not only to his or her own success but also to the success of his or her colleagues through cross-selling efforts. It should also demonstrate ways a partner can contribute to a firm's financial bottom line, enhance its practice-group development, and ultimately bring added value to the team.  
• Prophetic: Prophesy what the partner believes he or she will be able to accomplish in his or her practice and for the firm in the short and long term.  
• Preparatory: Prepare the partner for the interviewing process.

Introduction

• Provide a narrative including professional history, practice overview, and a description of areas of expertise. This section may highlight briefly particular areas of expertise that the firm does not currently have.
• Describe the partner's role historically as a business developer.
• Briefly touch upon why the partner believes he or she would be a good fit for a particular firm.

Market Research/Analysis

• Give analysis of local need for services in partner's practice area.
• Describe local competition/other law firms with similar practices.
• Give overview of need in local market for partners with his or her expertise.
• Describe why partner believes firm provides the best platform in the marketplace for his or her particular practice area.

Current Client Base

• Describe current portable clients (use generic or specific).
• Describe key industries serviced.
• Discuss other partners' clients partner is servicing.

Additional Contacts to Develop

• Discuss contacts not yet tapped.
• Given market analysis, project possible targets in local, regional, national, or international markets.
• Discuss possible expansion of business from current client base.

Cross-Selling Opportunities

• Describe cross-selling opportunities with current clients.
• Describe cross-selling opportunities with known key clients of prospective firm.
• Discuss other practice areas at current firm to which partner is delegating work.
• Discuss services your clients are requesting that you cannot currently service at your firm and could otherwise capture at the new firm .

Other Business-Development Sources

• Describe additional business contacts you are pursuing or plan to pursue
• Speeches, publications
• Community organizations
• Bar associations
• Internal marketing initiatives
• Client seminars/newsletters

Long-Term Strategy Goals and Targets

• Set targets for expansion of practice in terms of collections, attorneys, and clients/industries.
• Consider possibility of local to regional to national growth patterns.
• Consider growth in other key competencies which may be affected by partner's long-term success.
• Discuss long-term strategies in connection with firm's overall strategic plan and practice-group development plans.

Historical Collections, Billing Rates, and Billable Hours

• If a partner with a lower billing rate structure, chart the anticipated rate increases by portable client or anticipated timeline for rate increases to current clients. Discuss any alternative billing arrangements you currently have in place with clients.
• Include three-year client collections history by client (as originating attorney and as billing attorney on other attorneys' matters). Include projection for current fiscal year.
• Include three-year billing rate history.
• Include three-year historical compensation history (including bonus information).
• Include three-year billable hour history.
• Note pending projects contributing to future collections.
• Include a summary of anticipated collection projections for the next three to five years.
• Business-development budget
• Time commitments from partners in other practice areas for cross-selling purposes
• Key staff needed (secretary, paralegals, etc.)
• Foreign-language skill requirements
• Travel expenses
• Marketing materials, presentations, etc.

Creative Conclusion

• Recap key points in plan, added value partner brings, and reasons he or she would be a good fit.
• Emphasize flexibility of plan and eagerness and willingness to discuss and modify in accordance with firm's plans and objectives.
• See 30 Ways to Generate Business as an Attorney for more information.

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Harrison Barnes is the legal profession's mentor and may be the only person in your legal career who will tell you why you are not reaching your full potential and what you really need to do to grow as an attorney--regardless of how much it hurts. If you prefer truth to stagnation, growth to comfort, and actionable ideas instead of fluffy concepts, you and Harrison will get along just fine. If, however, you want to stay where you are, talk about your past successes, and feel comfortable, Harrison is not for you.

Truly great mentors are like parents, doctors, therapists, spiritual figures, and others because in order to help you they need to expose you to pain and expose your weaknesses. But suppose you act on the advice and pain created by a mentor. In that case, you will become better: a better attorney, better employees, a better boss, know where you are going, and appreciate where you have been--you will hopefully also become a happier and better person. As you learn from Harrison, he hopes he will become your mentor.

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About Harrison Barnes

Harrison is the founder of BCG Attorney Search and several companies in the legal employment space that collectively gets thousands of attorneys jobs each year. Harrison is widely considered the most successful recruiter in the United States and personally places multiple attorneys most weeks. His articles on legal search and placement are read by attorneys, law students and others millions of times per year.

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