In today’s world, we need to build true long-term relationships and partnerships—not superficial transactional deals. Partnerships are about understanding your partner’s business model—their needs and goals, and most importantly, their changing world. When we sign a deal today, it is important to check tomorrow to see how their business is. Has it changed over the year? Has it changed in the last few months? Do they have a different or adjusted target audience? Have they expanded, sold off parts of their business, or downsized? All of these things matter to your partnership with them, and you need to be flexible to meet those needs if you want to ensure a long-term positive relationship. Sometimes it means increasing the investment to support their growth. Sometimes it means understanding their need to cut back or cancel an agreement due to market conditions, or changes in business models or objectives.

Recently, I was working with one of our clients who had a sponsor that wanted to cut back on a multi-year agreement. With another client, it was to cancel about two-thirds of the way through a three-year deal. At first, our clients were outraged, then devastated because they “needed” the money. When we met to look at the situations, we had to analyze everything. In one case, it was a long-term partner whose business model had changed. They were bought out and the marketing plans no longer included sponsorship. We looked at how the company had supported the client over the years, how they had helped them to grow their organization, and had provided support beyond just the cash rights fee. If the client forced the sponsor to continue to pay for the next two years, it would be a fight. The sponsor would neither get any real value nor ROI, and they would not be happy… and they are influential. Our client would get the money, but would probably live with a bad reputation. Furthermore, they would know that, at the end of two years, they would not get a renewal—for sure. But they would still be obligated to deliver on everything for the term of the agreement. It would not just be cash in hand and walk away!

In the other scenario, we came to the same conclusion. Work toward understanding the needs of the partner and make it work for them. In both cases, our clients released the partners from their obligations. (It does not always work this way, sometimes you need to make them stick with it, but each case needs to be reviewed for multiple elements.) In both these cases, the brands/sponsors actually provided ongoing support through other means than direct sponsorship, such as through social and digital media support, leadership support, and influence. It turned out to be win-win. Our clients got new leads and replaced the exiting partners without a bad taste in anyone’s mouth.

Partnerships are about mutual understanding and making programs work (growing them or decreasing them). It is not always the letter of the law in the written agreement. If it were, then it wasn’t really a partnership. It was a transactional business arrangement.

I can truly vouch for this approach beyond our clients. As our company Partnership Group – Sponsorship Specialists® continues to evolve and develop, our business model changes. Recently with changes to our structure, we separated from several partnerships that had been both short and long term. Some of them were in the middle of multi-year deals. Just about every partner worked with us to allow us to change or leave our agreements. I like to believe that it is because we truly had partnerships with them. They understood our business model redevelopment and worked with us to continue to be successful as we did with them. It was an amazing experience as we actually stepped up to the plate to provide some support where we had not done so before, while still removing ourselves as a sponsor. It has been a great feeling that we are truly valued by these partners, and they are willing to work with us to be successful long term and have a great relationship continue. A few situations have not gone so smoothly. But what we learned was that those that didn’t want to work with us really weren’t partners to begin with—they were just after our money and nothing else. Such is life.

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