The founder of one of my clients is having a meeting with the CEO of a prospective alliance partner, and we're getting together Monday to prepare for an initial meeting.
Too often, I've seen the focus of these types of conversations go initially into the wrong areas. The conversations can be so much more productive if they focus on the market and customer problem you plan to address together. Here's a 3-page article on initial alliance discussions - not strictly a "how to prepare" but more the principles I use to frame the discussion.
The "how to prepare for a partner meeting" part would be:
- Clarify your meeting objectives
- Research your partner company and specific individuals to understand their possible interests
- Do you have any joint customers/clients? If so, how do those customers percieve any existing joint solutions?
- Research their competitors, if relevant for your industry/discussion
- Brainstorm internally how you might like to work together
- What would your "ideal desired outcomes" be from the meeting?
- Identify any other topics you want to cover in the meeting
- What are your next steps, and when, if you do decide to continue?
- What resource constraints are there? How do you ensure you're not overcommitting? Sometimes it helps to get internal agreement from any groups not in the alliance meeting as to what level you may commit them to, without overstepping your bounds.
- Any other internal alignment or "heads ups" needed to other areas?
Best of luck in preparing for your partnering discussions!
