I run a small meeting, event and conference planning company based in New York City area. As an entrepeneur and small business owner with a limited advertising and marketing budget, developing business partnerships has been really helped me to get word out about services that I offer. For example, I have aligned myself with a DJ company as preferred planner for their clients and am actively receiving business and referrals from this source. Also, due to my partnership with a travel agency, I am now handling meetings, conferences and events for inbound corporate groups from abroad. Forming strategic alliances has been and will continue to be a significant part of my long term business plan and model for exponential growth.

I have practiced proverbial "art" of building non-competitive alliances with like minded companies, not just as a new entrepeneur, but also as a business building tool in all of my previous positions. While, on whole, this strategy has yielded very positive results and significant revenue, there have been some negative consequences. So, I would like to share with you a very basic list of "do's and dont's" for creating successful business partnerships.

-Do seek out companies where your services would be a natural addition to resources currently offered. For example, if you are a catering service specializing in healthy cuisine, you might want to partner with health club to offer special incentives to gym goers.

-Do choose organizations whose business ethic and overall image are at least generally compatible with yours. The last thing you want is to be associated with an organization who has questionable business practices. Although you may financially gain from such a partnership in short term, that type of "bad business karma" can only affect you negatively in long term.

Moving Key Audiences to Take Action?

You know, those really important outside groups of people whose behaviors can help or hinder any business, non-profit or association manager in achieving his or her objectives? Are you persuading those key stakeholders – especially those whose behaviors affect your unit MOST – to your way of thinking, then moving them to take actions that help your department, division or subsidiary succeed?

Oh, as a manager, you say you’re covered in that regard – your public relations team is racking up some juicy print and broadcast placements, and you say those kinds of exposures are what your PR program is all about?

At risk of becoming a skunk at this picnic, I suggest you consider broadening your public relations field-of-fire to where it best belongs, on your unit’s key external stakeholder behaviors rather than occasional publicity placement.

Here’s why. The people you deal with behave like everyone else – they act upon their perceptions of facts they hear about you and your operation. Leaving you little choice but to deal promptly and effectively with those perceptions (and their follow on behaviors) by doing what is necessary to reach and move those key external audiences to action.

And that means using a workable PR blueprint to do job. For example, people act on their own perception of facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to- desired-action very people whose behaviors affect organization most, public relations mission is accomplished.

Consider for a moment what results of this approach to PR could be. Customers starting to make repeat purchases, and even prospects starting to do business with you; fresh proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; welcome bounces in show room visits; rising membership applications, and community leaders beginning to seek you out; new approaches by capital givers and specifying sources not to mention politicians and legislators viewing you as a key member of business, non-profit or association communities.

So who’s going to do work? Your own full-time public relations staff? A few folks assigned by Corporate to your unit? An outside PR agency team? Regardless where they come from, they need to be committed to you, to PR blueprint and to its implementation, starting with key audience perception monitoring.

A word of caution. Just because someone describes him/herself as a public relations person doesn’t guarantee they’ve bought whole meatloaf. Make certain public relations people assigned to your unit really believe – deep down -- why it’s SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Make sure they accept reality that perceptions almost always lead to behaviors that can help or hurt your unit.

Layout PR blueprint for them, especially your plan for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Questions like these: how much do you know about our chief executive? Have you had prior contact with us and were you pleased with interchange? How much do you know about our services or products and employees? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?