While some entrepreneurs find a partner through
serendipity, others take a much more studied approach. Nancy
Michaels, president of the Lexington, Massachusetts,
consulting company Impression Impact, was casting about for a
place to offer her small-business seminar, "Creative Marketing
Strategies." After some research, she saw that Office Depot
was trying to differentiate itself from competing
office-supply chains. "Just looking at the Office Depot Web
site, you can see they want to add value to their
small-business customers," says Michaels, 39. "They want to
provide knowledge and expertise."
As an entrepreneur, Michaels lives by one rule: Go to the
highest-ranking person in an organization for a decision. So
when she came up with the idea to give seminars in the Office
Depot retail space, she decided to speak to Office Depot CEO
Bruce Nelson. But how does a small-business owner meet with a
captain of industry? In Michaels' case, by bidding a thousand
dollars at a charity auction in January of this year to have
lunch with him.
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Michaels
heard Nelson speak at an event set up by the Women's Business
Enterprise Council (WBENC) and Office Depot in Boca Raton,
Florida. At the event's silent auction fund-raiser, she bid
$1,050 for lunch with Nelson.
At the ensuing lunch two months later, Michaels pitched
Nelson on her idea: She'd give small-business seminars at
Office Depot retail sites. Offering business classes could
make Office Depot a regular destination for more current and
potential customers each week. Attendees would be charged a
small fee for the class and given in excess of that value in
Office Depot coupons, another incentive to buy in the store.
Starting at the top worked. From her meeting with CEO
Nelson, Michaels then met Office Depot president of North
American stores Jerry Colley and worked out a verbal agreement
to test the in-store seminars. "The key to selling the idea of
an alliance is doing your homework," says Ian MacMillan,
professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania's
Wharton School in Philadelphia. "Spend time getting to know
all your putative partners, then carefully target the
potential partner that best fits your needs. Then spend time
putting together a professional pitch showing why the two of
you fit."
Why Size Matters
According to Ian Macmillan, professor of
management with Wharton's MBA program, "An alliance with
a name-brand firm can
provide the credibility the small firm needs to convince
potential customers of its attractiveness. Having an
alliance with a big player allows the smaller partner to
signal long-term
viability, and bespeak quality, reliability
and capacity for support
service."
