How to capitalize of the current trend of collaboration

In today’s ever-shrinking supply chain, the smart vetrepreneur searches for collaborations and connections wherever they can find them- and that’s what Fortune 500 corporations are encouraging.

Partnering Pays Off

You put hard work into your business and you can be protective of your turf.  Especially in a tough economy, you can be even more careful of your business and unwilling to share leads, or cooperate with other businesses. But, that’s not the attitude to have if you want contracts at the Fortune 500 level.  Major corporations work with enterprise-sized companies at the Tier One level and small businesses don’t grow by thinking small. Now is the time to start looking for other smart, big-thinking companies in your industry classification code that, like you, have visions of bigger contracts and opportunities.

Every veterans business networking event gives you an opportunity to connect with other businesses like yours. There are listings of businesses and databases in the attendee listings that allow you to find other vetrepreneurs you can research and contact to build relationships. Start with the Web sites. Learn who they do business with, their history, and what you can find about their performance. Read any press releases or media coverage about the business and then go to the source. Call them and make a date to talk. 

A Candid Conversation

Be prepared to offer up the same information about your company that you want to know about theirs: your history, performance, goals, vision, standards, clients. This is also the time to connect as human beings, to find out who you are, whether you’d work well together. Connecting is getting past the business card, reaching well beyond whether you can make money together. It’s finding out whether you share the same values on treating customers, meeting expectations, quality or other key aspects of business and communications and interpersonal relations which form the basis of relationships.

Be willing to share success and horror stories. Before you enter into an agreement, you might try something small together to see how it works for you. Get a feel for how you work together on a minor project to work out the kinks and assess the strengths and weaknesses of each party. Look at what’s possible. Then, as partners, look at who might be your target market, armed with the strength of both of your talents, skills, products and services, or see if you might want to bring in someone else. And as you do this, be mindful of the need for legal advice, and keep your agreements clear and in writing.

Today’s veteran suppliers succeed by collaboration and by supporting each other, not by hoarding or operating out of a scarcity mentality. The more you develop your web of veteran businesses into partners, the more likely it is that you will get the larger contracts. Over time you will evolve towards Tier One status, and you will be the one hiring Tier Two veteran-owned businesses and helping them succeed as you did.

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