All, Business Education

Ways to Build Strategic Partnerships

There are many ways to build a business, and few are as powerful as establishing strategic partnerships. Ideally, these create win-win scenarios where both parties benefit. The problem with such relationships is they can become more of a burden than a help, particularly when rushed, or, when done with disregard for others.

Savvy business owners know the benefit of strategic partnerships, forging an alliance with another entity to provide more products and services to their customers. In fact, a 2014 survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed that in excess of 80 percent of CEO’s looked to create such relationships. However, the sad fact about these partnerships is that a 65 percent were actually successful, so, 15 percent of those did not work out.

Ways to Build Strategic Partnerships

Strategic partnerships are generally sought in order to expand without the cost of an actual expansion. It allows entrepreneurs to tap into resources with existing structures and increase their books of business. Unfortunately, empirical data shows that half of these business relationships fail. The reasons are many, but it can be avoided if you take the necessary precautions.

The formula for a successful strategic partnership may seem easy: 1 + 1 = 3. Indeed, partnerships are a proven way to boost the bottom line. American Express surveyed small businesses in government contracting and found that those who teamed up won 54 percent more prime contracts than average. But creating effective alliances is not always so easy. Partnerships gone wrong can lead to frustration, financial losses and even litigation. —Success.com

Of course, no amount of caution or preparation guarantees things will work out without a hitch. Small businesses can really benefit from strategic partnerships, but to do so, you have to establish a good rapport and be transparent as to your wants, needs, as well as expectations. Here are some ways to build strategic partnerships that will help your company grow while benefiting your business partner:

Know and quantify your abilities and resources. One of the worst decisions to make is to form a strategic partnership without being able to fulfill your obligations. You certainly don’t want to crack egg all over your face. So, don’t put yourself in such a position and know precisely what you can bring to the table and be upfront about it. Even if you can patch together enough to deliver when necessary, you don’t want the stress that comes with this kind of a situation.
Be very clear on your “why.” Another huge, colossal mistake, that business owners make is forming partnerships simply to increase their bottom lines. While that is definitely part of the equation, if you don’t go into a relationship with selfish service in-mind, you’re setting yourself up for big time disappointment. Ask yourself honestly why you want to form a business relationship. If you can’t find an answer other than money, you’re eventually going to sabotage your own efforts.
Ask for reasons why potential partners want to connect.What’s true for you is just as true for potential partners. Don’t be afraid to ask penetrating questions to get at the truth. If you discover he or she is on a one-way self-serving mission, you definitely need to pass.
Seek those with a shared vision and value system. Take it a step further than just asking questions and get to know him or her before you partner. Build a relationship and during that time, you’ll learn their vision and values. Go slow, learn, and take the time necessary to make the right decision.

In addition to these, don’t expect miracles to happen after you form a strategic partnership. In fact, you ought to expect to be uncomfortable from time-to-time by getting out and meeting with your strategic partners face to face. There’s just no way to hedge against every possible contingency, but fostering and developing positive relationships will build trust and eventual business between the strategic partners.

Want to find out about what a business coach can do for you?

[shareaholic app=”follow_buttons” id=”26833294″]

Like this article?

Hey Entrepreneurs, If You’re Comfortable in Your Role, You’re Probably Doing it Wrong

June 21, 2021 No Comments

Comfort. It’s a wonderful feeling. When we’re comfortable, we feel secure, often content, and better still, in control. But, control is an illusion. Just like the security of a job or a long-established business. That is, until something goes seriously awry. Then, it becomes quite clear security is not forever. Comfort most definitely falls into the same category, but sometimes, for different reasons. So, if you’ve become comfortable in your role, chances are excellent you’re doing it wrong. Here’s why. Comfort Usually Leads to Complacency Isn’t it strange how the mind works? When someone thinks of “comfort,” he or she gets an entirely different feeling than when thinking about “complacency.” Sure, they are two different things. And, this becomes all-too apparent when compared with one another. Unfortunately, it’s at this juncture that reality sets in hard. Making a concerted effort to challenge yourself will inspire you and help prepare your business for the future. As a result, you will be able to lead your company with the confidence that you’re making good decisions — because you are. —Entrepreneur.com Someone who is comfortable is generally complacent. He or she typically doesn’t have any nagging concerns. It’s basically the manifestation of complacency. A point at which one’s guard is so far down, it might as well not exist. This state of mind is a precarious one because it can easily lead to bad outcomes. So, it’s best to be on one’s toes and that’s possible by stepping out of your comfort zone. 4 Big Benefits of Stepping Outside Your Professional Comfort Zone You’ve probably heard this philosophy before — getting out of your comfort zone will be to your advantage. Moreover, it will do so in more than one way. For instance, it will, at the very least, help you to break away from the ordinary. It breaks up routines. So, let’s start with the most obvious benefit. Stepping outside your comfort zone helps you to get away from routines (in other words, a disruption or end to the monotony). If you step outside your comfort zone, you can better reassess your schedule and inject a little (and much-needed) variety. It gives you more creative chances. Breaking away from your comfort zone also gives you the opportunity to indulge in creativity. That can be beneficial in a number of ways. For example, the ability to think unconventionally and entertain solutions to difficult and/or stubborn problems. It helps you effectively deal with stress. Another big advantage to stepping outside your comfort zone is that it helps teach you to more effectively deal with stressful situations. This lessens panic in uncertain times and that’s a very important trait to learn. It provides opportunities to build confidence. Last but certainly not least, you’ll feel more confident when you successfully step away from your comfort zone. This, especially if you return to a normal routine thereafter. In a short period of time, you can again step away to build even more confidence. What other suggestions do you have? Please take a brief moment to share your thoughts and experiences so others can benefit from your unique perspective! (You may never know who you’ll help out.) Interested in learning more about business? Then just visit Waters Business Consulting Group.

Why High-Performing Landscape Companies Grow with Waters

July 9, 2026 No Comments

A strategic framework for consistent turnarounds, stronger profitability, and lasting business value In commercial landscaping, ambition is rarely the thing missing. Most of the companies we meet have deep customer relationships, capable crews, and a real commitment to quality. They got to where they are through persistence and hard-earned expertise. But as these businesses grow, that same growth starts exposing cracks in how the business actually operates. Scale creates complexity. The processes that worked fine at $5 million in revenue start to buckle at $15 million. A leadership structure built for one branch gets stretched thin across three or four. Informal communication that used to be fine now causes real friction. Labor costs start outpacing revenue. Margins get harder to predict. And at some point, the owner realizes every new contract is adding more weight on their shoulders instead of more freedom. Chasing more volume at that stage doesn’t fix anything. What the business actually needs is better design. Waters Business Consulting Group partners with commercial landscape leaders to find what’s actually limiting their performance, then build the systems, leadership, and financial visibility it takes to turn a reactive company into one that can scale on purpose. We’re not just trying to make the company bigger. We’re trying to build something more resilient, more profitable, and valuable enough that it doesn’t fall apart the moment the owner steps away. That’s the kind of institutional strength that brings landscape companies to Waters in the first place. The WBCG framework: building stability from the inside out Real improvement never comes from one initiative bolted onto an otherwise unchanged business. An aggressive sales push can’t fix operations that are already broken. A beautiful financial report means nothing if no manager is actually held to it. Hiring more people just adds more complexity if nobody’s roles are clearly defined. Lasting change has to touch every part of the business at once. Our framework works across six areas that all reinforce each other: diagnosing the business honestly, building financial visibility, tightening operational discipline, creating real leadership accountability, aligning growth with profitability, and building lasting enterprise value. Strengthen these together, and you get a business that performs the same way twice, reliably, instead of getting lucky once. 1. Diagnose before you prescribe anything Every struggling business shows the same symptoms: margins eroding, turnover climbing, cash getting tight, an owner who can’t get out of daily emergencies long enough to lead. Treating any one of those symptoms on its own almost never fixes the underlying problem. A profit problem is often really a pricing problem, or a production-control problem, or the wrong mix of customers. What looks like a hiring crisis is often just unclear management roles wearing a different costume. We start by taking a genuinely close look at the economics and the org structure to find where performance is actually leaking out, across financial performance, gross margins by service and customer, how accurate the estimating really is, labor efficiency, leadership capacity, the sales pipeline, and how dependent the business is on the owner. The point isn’t to produce a thick report. It’s clarity, so leadership can stop reacting to whatever’s on fire today and start fixing what’s actually broken underneath. 2. Build financial visibility you can actually act on A financial report tells you where the business has been. It doesn’t tell you where it’s headed, and by the time it lands on your desk, the month it describes is already over. The companies that perform best treat their financials as a steering wheel, not a rearview mirror. They connect what happened at month-end back to the decisions made on a job site that week, which means they catch a bad trend while it’s still small instead of after it’s compounded for two quarters. We help teams build visibility into the numbers that actually move performance: gross margin by service line, crew productivity, equipment utilization, overhead trends, pipeline quality, and cash flow. Once an owner understands the true economics of the business, they stop managing crisis to crisis and start leading. 3. Build systems, not heroics Landscaping is genuinely complicated to run well. Labor, equipment, schedules, and materials all have to line up, usually while the weather refuses to cooperate and customers expect more every year. The companies that consistently perform don’t lean on a handful of superstar employees to hold the whole operation together. They build systems: disciplined pricing and estimating, real production planning, tight equipment and purchasing controls, consistent quality checks, and reporting that actually gets used. Strong systems cut down on the variation between one crew’s work and another’s, and they let a company grow its revenue without a matching spike in stress. 4. Invest in leadership and real accountability A business can’t outgrow the capacity of its leaders. A lot of owners hit a ceiling simply because they’re still the one making every operational, financial, and personnel decision, no matter how big the company gets. We help build real leadership depth by clarifying roles and actually handing off authority, not just responsibility. Every manager should know exactly which results are theirs, how success gets measured, when to escalate a problem, and how much authority they actually have to make a call. When managers are genuinely empowered and genuinely accountable, the owner finally gets time back for strategy instead of spending every day putting out fires that shouldn’t have reached their desk in the first place. 5. Chase profit, not just activity Growth only matters if it produces profit. Too many landscape companies chase revenue that ends up costing more in cash and leadership time than it’s worth. We help teams evaluate opportunities on strategic fit and long-term value, not just top-line size, which usually means putting resources behind the highest-margin customer segments, contracts that fit inside actual operational capacity, and markets that support healthy cash flow rather than draining it. Real business health takes the discipline to turn down the wrong work so there’s room to do the right work

How to Fire Someone, Anyone, Like a Boss

May 16, 2017 No Comments

In business, there’s going to be times that put your toughness or timidity, to the test. If you’re an owner, partner, or manager, you might be tasked with firing someone. It could be your employee, your business lawyer, your accountant, a vendor, or someone else. You’ve heard that character is defined by what you do when nobody’s looking, and though giving someone the boot generally happens in a private setting, the other person will be walking out with their own perspective. So, it’s imperative you don’t turn a bad situation worse. Your goal is threefold, to end the relationship, to maintain your good reputation, and to do so with grace and respect. Even someone that’s toxic deserves your forbearance, because it says a lot about you as a person, and, as a leader. It also preserves a semblance of the relationship, something that might be valuable in future encounters and situations. You might even find yourself in the unenviable position of rehiring that same person. How to Fire Someone, Anyone, Like a Boss A firing begins with the first signs of trouble. In those moments, you might feel anger or surprise, depending on what occurs. What you should do when problems begin to arise, is to get to the underlying reasons. Approach him or her, ask questions, and listen to the answers. If the problems persist, try mentoring or some other type of support. Should that not bring the desired change, set boundaries and benchmarks. Firing an employee–looking someone straight in the eye and telling them they no longer have a source of income–is one of the toughest things you’ll ever have to do as a business owner. It’s often as hard on the person giving the bad news as it is on the person receiving it. And yet it still needs to be done, especially if you have someone who’s “poisoning the well” and bringing the entire business down with them. —Entrepreneur Even at these great lengths, you might still find the problem isn’t being solved. So, when the decision to part ways is the last option, know your legal limits. If you’re in an “at-will” employment state, you generally won’t have a problem. However, if he or she is under contract, run it by your attorney. Now, if it’s someone who is involved in impropriety, that’s a whole other manner, because it might be a criminal matter, and, you might be civilly liable. When the time comes to have the actual meeting, do the following: See him or her early in the day. There are several reasons for this, one is for your own benefit, because you’ll be distracted if you wait. Other reasons are you’re not wasting his or her time (which he or she will feel cheated and/or used), you are taking poor work out of his or her hands and giving it to someone who is competent, and, you’re sending a message to others that you listen and act when someone else isn’t working out. Be direct, honest, but not blameful. If it’s reached the point that firing is the only option, he or she is probably quite aware of what’s going on and how it will end. If the individual is not aware or seems blindsided, then you need to look at your Leadership and Management communication as it relates to setting expectations, boundaries and clear direction. Give reasons why, don’t sugarcoat them, but do not be blameful or belligerent. Give praise where it’s deserved. You can give points of praise where it’s deserved but don’t overdo it. Be genuine and graceful while keeping yourself aware of how it’s being received. Be ready to listen. Being told you’re no longer needed or feel unwanted are powerful emotional stirs. You might hear insults, threats, or other unpleasantness, but it’s out of an emotional outburst, don’t take it personally. Explain what will happen next. The finality might take time to sink-in, and, you’ll do him or her a great service by explaining what happens next. For instance, returning company property, retirement account options, these sorts of things. Another kind gesture is to allow them to say goodbye and get their personal possessions together. Rushing someone out the door isn’t dignified, and, it creates a lingering, negative perception that will be with those you still employ. Show courtesy, respect, and empathy and you’ll make the best of a bad situation. [shareaholic app=”follow_buttons” id=”26833294″]

Ways to Build Strategic Partnerships

Ways to Build Strategic Partnerships

Like this article?

Related Posts

Hey Entrepreneurs, If You’re Comfortable in Your Role, You’re Probably Doing it Wrong

Why High-Performing Landscape Companies Grow with Waters

How to Fire Someone, Anyone, Like a Boss

Imagine Selling Your Business…

How Would Your Life Change?

Thank you for your interest in learning what your business is worth. We will be in touch shortly.