Ryan’s Journal: Partnership
by Ryan Pew
Partnership is an aspect of culture that I think could be explored further.
We all have partners we deal with in life that range from personal to professional. And isn’t it nice to have a partner throughout your day? Someone to help shoulder the burden?
But there is a fine line between a partnership and a parasite and it’s important to remember the distinction.
I work in a partnership daily. My company, Flycast Partners, is a partner of several large scale software vendors. We work hand in hand daily to increase sales, provide services and support. We are essentially an extension of the vendor and work hard on maintaining those partnerships.
This past week my company had the honor of being named partner of the year for North America by BMC software. It was a surprise and unexpected. We are only about 70 strong right now and there are partners that are much larger than we are.
We asked why we were chosen. Was it revenue? Was it the number of accounts we grew? Was it some other tangible thing?
The simple answer was none of that. We didn’t bring in the most revenue or the most new accounts. What we brought was a trusted partnership.
BMC Software is the 7th largest software company in the world and their CEO personally said it was because they knew we acted in the best interest of the customer and BMC.
What drove us to this place?
For one, integrity. The president of my company, Nathan George, believes that you should be honest in all dealings, meet your commitments and do what you say you will do.
He hires based on those criteria. To me these are fairly simple concepts, but not always followed. It would be easy to take the low road sometimes, but not sustainable.
We have competition out there, but we don’t dwell on them. We work on building relationships and providing value.
This is an instance where the partnership benefits both parties.
Next week I will highlight where a partnership can turn parasitic.
Flickr image credit: K-State Research
