Traci Cox: The Value of Business Partnerships

Traci Cox, President of Temple & Associates, met with us to explore the value of business partnerships, managing partnership challenges and how partnerships enhance business opportunities.

Questions that Traci answers:

• [2:50] What does Business Partnerships mean to you and how is it related to trust?
• [3:24] Can you share an experience where you had to create a partnership to meet an objective?
• [4:30] What would be the next step with that partner after working together to help a client meet their objective?
• [5:36] Are there best practices that you recommend when forming a formal business partnership? 
• [6:54] Is there a difference between how you handle partnering with individuals vs business entities?
• [9:26] How do you select service vendors, like software vendors, that you work with to service your customers?
• [12:21] How do you handle challenges that can arise with partners?
• [14:38] If a partner cannot fulfill a service agreement for a client how do you address it?
• [15:58] An introduction to Temple & Associates and the services they offer clients today.
• [18:30] What type of expertise, education and/or knowledge do you look for in your partners?
• [24:41] Should a non-compete clause be built into a partnership agreement? (Audience Member Question)
• [26:41] In a partnership, in which one partner contributes technology and the other partner contributes the distribution, marketing and customer-base, how does the distribution partner guard against the technology partner leveraging their customer base for a new and non-shared product? (Audience Member Question)
• [28:24] How does the distribution partner ensure that the technology partner is responsive to technical issues with the product, and continues to improve the product? (Audience Member Question)
• [32:00] What organizational image should be presented in customer-facing applications? (Audience Member Question)
• [36:50] How does the technology partner guard against the distribution partner replicating their product – using their familiarity with the product and developing a modified version of the product themselves – and then underselling the technology partner? (Audience Member Question)
• [42:04] BONUS: Traci shares post-discussion thoughts.

Connect with Traci:

You can connect with Traci on Linkedin and by visiting Temple-IT.com.

Stock Media provided by ikoliks / Pond5

Special thanks to the students, alumni and administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the College of DuPage for their help in making this episode a success.

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Wylie Blanchard

Wylie Blanchard is a Technology Leader, Data Analytics Professional and Web Presence Strategist. He enjoys helping people learn how to use technology as a tool to amplify their professional lives. As an industry leader Wylie focuses his analysis and research on all things Business Technology. He is a father of twin-girls, gadget enthusiast and a self-proclaimed pizza connoisseur.

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