Business partnerships are lucrative when done well.
Because various businesses come together to share resources.
They gain access to each other's markets.
They tap into each other's brand and reputation to gain trust from new buyers.
But often...
Partnerships can break up due to the relationship going south.
Why?
If both parties come together to achieve mutual benefit...
What makes the relationship turn sour?
Let's explore each of the factors first...
And you'll see how retention principles fix it.
Business partnerships can fail due to:
- Misaligned values.
- Misaligned direction.
- Lack of trust
When Company A and Company B decide to partner up...
The partnership is a failure from the start when this happens:
Company A prioritizes People > Profits.
Company B prioritizes Profits > People.
The opposing core values will lead to many conflicts during decision-making.
Company B will focus on extraction.
Company A will focus on service.
Company B will design strategies to make as much money as possible from people.
Company A will focus on giving people a pleasant experience. So people willingly want to continue staying.
Due to Company B's extractive nature...
The partnership will impact Company A's audience.
Once Company A's audience feels extracted by Company B...
They start losing trust in Company A too.
I call this "Trust erosion by association".
When someone you trust starts hanging around people with questionable ethics...
You start losing trust in the person.
The same applies to businesses too.
It only makes sense for Company A to end the partnership as soon as possible, before more clients leave.
A few years ago, I experienced something similar personally.
I stopped working with a business because they focused on extraction.
The business owner admitted to me...
In their 20 years of business, they had never done a single survey or attempted to gather feedback from their clients.
They had no idea how many of their clients achieved the desired results from their programs.
But they wanted me to create more offers and launches for them.
So they can make more money.
I observed that they didn't fulfill all promises made to the clients.
The business owner also displayed a lack of preparation during presentations.
This gives me the feeling that he's not as committed to his clients' success as he claimed.
Due to the misalignment of values, I refused to continue helping them.
It made me extremely uncomfortable to continue helping them in value extraction.
So we parted ways.
If you have a horse carriage and 2 horses attached to it.
But the 2 horses run in opposite directions...
Where do you think the carriage will end up?
It ends up NOWHERE.
The same analogy can be applied to business.
If 2 companies heading in different directions come together...
The collaboration is bound to fail.
Offers will be misaligned.
Messaging will be a mess.
Clients won't have a great experience.
The relationship between 2 companies will also be strained.
When there are differences in values...
It's common to have differences in direction.
But it's also possible for misaligned direction to occur on its own.
Using the business owner from the same example above...
I had identified the key problem with his business.
He told me he had lost about 7,000 clients in his 20 years of business.
That isn't a marketing problem.
That's a retention problem.
The obvious trust leaks were: Not fulfilling promises consistently. Lack of preparation in delivery and fulfillment.
I recommended improving the quality of service and delivery first.
So we can retain more clients.
Marketing without retention is like pouring water into a bucket full of holes.
The bucket will never be filled unless the leaks are fixed.
The business owner and his wife decided to take a different approach.
They wanted me to help them keep launching campaigns to get more new leads and sales.
They didn't care about the leaks.
They refused to improve service quality and delivery.
They refused to work on retention.
No surprises for guessing... Our third project together didn't do as well after they insisted on their own ways of doing things.
Before I agreed to work with that business owner...
I laid out my conditions clearly:
"If we created great results together and you're happy, refer me one person whom I can help."
He agreed.
But he asked me a question that I missed as a red flag.
He asked, "Will you still have time to help me if you have more clients?"
After our first successful project together...
He said he has a person in mind to refer.
After I waited for many weeks... Still, no referred persons came to me.
I asked him for updates.
He said he's still negotiating with the person.
I understood that he's just stalling for time.
Because if he's really sincere in making the referral, he should have let me talk to the person directly.
So I can decide if the person is a good fit for my services.
The business owner's inability to fulfill promises even to me... Leads to a trust leak.
During our third project together...
The business owner's wife sat in our meeting.
And she started to demand changes in the color of the funnel I built for them.
Her reason was, "I don't like it."
I insisted not to change... Because the current color scheme had good conversions in the previous campaign.
I was protecting the interest of the client.
And I cautioned them that the edits to the funnel would negatively impact sales.
They didn't trust me enough to heed my advice.
That's why that project didn't convert as well as the first two in terms of sales.
Their delivery quality also impacted their future sales.
Negative word-of-mouth and poor reputation spread with time.
In the end, they blamed me and demanded I launch more campaigns for them.
These clearly highlighted the conflicts that can exist when mutual trust is insufficient.
In the Retention Architecture Model, gaining alignment is always the first step to achieving retention.
When misalignment is already present at the start, and it gets ignored... Retention tends to fail in the end.
This applies in business, among team members, family, friends, and even romantic relationships.
This principle works as long as you're dealing with human relationships.
So you can use it in different contexts.
If you've noticed from the examples of the business owner I mentioned above...
You should have realized that "not consistently fulfilling promises" is a big factor in destroying relationships.
It violates the FOCA Framework.
It erodes Trust in Character...
And later leads to erosion of Trust in Intention.
He not only lost trust from me.
He also lost trust from his clients who had left.
Trust in Character and Trust in Intention are ingredients of the Trust Pie.
The Retention Formula states:
Trust + Meaning = Retention
When Trust in Character and Trust in Intention are lost...
Retention failure is often inevitable.
So how do we use the retention principles to fix the business partnerships?
There are a few things to remember:
1) Make sure you only go into a partnership with someone who's aligned with you.
Alignment of business philosophy, core values, objectives, and working style,
2) Be transparent in communication.
Only enter the partnership if the other party is forthcoming and truthful.
This is about integrity and character.
If they withhold critical information that is necessary to be shared, the partnership should not proceed.
Because that signifies a lack of trust.
3) The FOCA Framework.
Fulfill all promises: Whatever promises you make to the business partner, make sure you fulfill them.
Overdeliver: Go the extra mile to ensure the shared objective is achieved.
Consistency and congruence: Say what you do and do what you say. Consistency and congruence sustained over time also sustain trust.
Authenticity: Showing up as a constructed persona to gain trust from the partner isn't sustainable. Enter the partnership as your true self. If it's a good fit, proceed. If there's already misalignment, no point forcing it. Forcing it will lead to a situation that doesn't do anyone good.
If you want to save the trouble of partnering with the wrong people and businesses...
Use retention principles to filter for misalignment.
Use the Trust Pie to check for the 4 ingredients to ensure different types of trust are present.
If you're already in a partnership with a company that's a good fit... And you want to continue working together.
A good fit means alignment is already present. Alignment builds trust.
Then use the FOCA Framework to sustain long-term trust.
If the relationship turns sour during a partnership... And you're considering improving the situation...
Consider the following questions:
a) Is the partner only focused on their own benefit? Or are they still aligned with the shared objective for a win-win case with you?
If they're only focused on extraction for their own benefit... There's a high chance that their mask has slipped and this is their true colors.
If they're open to discussing readily... They take what you say seriously... And they recalibrate to achieve a win-win situation with you...
This shows they're serious and committed to making it work mutually.
b) Are they consistent and congruent with their words and actions?
If they don't practice what they preach, it may be a case of being "inauthentically authentic".
For me, that's a trust leak. I wouldn't feel safe in such a partnership.
What you decide to do... It's up to you.
When I evaluate any potential partnership, the core philosophy of my business always guides me.
People > Profits.
Always.
- Herek
P.S. If you'd like to explore more of my Client Retention content...
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P.P.S. In case you missed it... Read the Client Retention Top 10 FAQs HERE. Then you'll understand our philosophy behind everything we do.
I look forward to sharing more with you in the next post.
If you enjoyed reading this post... Feel free to check out the other posts!
#8: What Is The Retention Architecture Model: The 3 Layers Explained
#9: The Hidden Costs Of Ignoring Retention Principles (No One Talks About This)
#10: Why Clients Still Leave Despite Enjoying Great Service?
#11: Why Have Traditional Marketing Tactics Lost Effectiveness?
#13: Why Businesses Lose Clients: The Hidden Role Of Trust Leaks
#16: Where Does Client Trust Break Down? The Trust Leak Stages Explained
#17: Why Tactical Optimization Can't Fix Weak Business Foundations
#18: What Should Consultants Do When Clients Insist On Their Ideas?
#21: Why Do Clients Request A Refund? (It's Not What You Think)
#22: Case Study 1 - How Retention Principles Saved A Marriage...
#25: Read This If You Use AI In Business (It's Killing Client Retention... And More)
#29: How To Increase Client Lifetime Value Using Retention Principles
#30: Why Most Client Retention Tactics Don't Work (And What Actually Does)
#31: Why Business Partnerships Fail (And How Retention Principles Fix It)
#32: How To Increase Client Retention (Without Contracts & Loyalty Programs)
#33: Planned Obsolescence: How Software Updates Quietly Profit From Your Trust
#34: The Retention Architecture System: How All The Frameworks Come Together
#35: Why Personal Branding And AI Are Not Saving Your Business?
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