How to Partner with Other Firms to Extend Your Capabilities & Serve Your Clients Better

Marketing agencyStoryTeller Media Communicationshas steadily grown from a one-man band in 2009 to 14 people today by increasingly focusing on their strengths.

他们首先在2011年成为一个早期的Hubspot合作伙伴时，他们首先进行了专业化。

Ed Heil, the founder of the agency who started his career as a sportscaster and journalist, niched further by being an early pioneer of video content marketing with their partnership with Wistia.

最近，他们已经开始帮助几个私人俱乐部与他们的营销，甚至开始播客叫做“粉碎俱乐部营销“专注于它。

But, the path to specialization wasn’t a straight line.

One example of them veering from their strengths was the different ways they’ve tried to build websites for clients.

凯西希尔，讲话者分享，“我们合作了几个不同的网络设计机构。但我们的甜蜜点正在与Hubspot客户合作，很清楚他们不知道如何在Hubspot上建立[网站]。[不幸的是，]我们不知道更好[当时]。“

品牌建设者的品牌建设者解决方案在乔·杰罗姆，品牌建设者解决方案的创始人和Ed Heil几年前在一位汉语新闻组织中遇到了非常相似的途径。

Except Jerome’s team was specializing in the area that StoryTeller was not: building websites on the HubSpot content management system.

That’s when they decided to start working together.

“[With a new client, we worked with Brand Builder Solutions] to launch their website just last week. We wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity had we not had a web design solution as part of our retainer work. [They] looked at eight different agencies and they chose us.”

在这个与希尔和杰罗姆的播客中，我们讨论了如何以及为什么他们的关系工作以及他们的21人组合团队如何共同努力，为客户解决。

从与另一家公司合作的经验教训

Based on the podcast, here are 6 lessons for how to partner with another firm:

1. Start Small

当故事讲述者开始外包网站设计和开发工作的品牌建设者解决方案时，这不是一个大的战略交易。“我们刚刚开始在一些小项目上工作，”希尔说。杰罗姆补充道，“[讲故事的人]网站有一些代码由包含非主要代理商的集中国推荐的另一个团体所做的。所以我认为你倒在了他们的优先事项列表的底部。我们进来说，'哦，我们很乐意帮助[你]清理这种无聊的东西，清理代码，让我们修复你有问题的事情。而且你有几个与同样的客户的客户。所以没有[关于我们的合作伙伴]真的很高。它更像，“基本上进来看看你能做些什么来解决这些几个事情。”

关系从那里扩张。Jerome continued, “And we did [help solve those issues for the StoryTeller site and their client’s site] and then we started talking about other projects and I think some light bulbs went off in both of our heads on the potential of bringing such a focused content group [like StoryTeller] who not only has fantastic content, video content, marketing campaigns, etc [and combine it with what we do] including the website coding and [mapping the website with the] buyer’s journey, the analysis [of the website’s conversion path] on the front end.”

2.在组织的每个级别对齐

[我们有两家公司之间的牢固关系。在所有权层面，有一个强有力的关系，然后我认为在团队层面上有很强的关系，因为[我们的服务是如此免费。[另外，]我想是因为我们了解彼此的世界，我们的团队在我们在项目上时，我们的团队几乎可以在许多方面运作。“每只海尔。

3. Coordinate Sales Efforts

“One thing that Kathy and Ed and the team there got right away was that it was okay to introduce us.”

杰罗姆共享他如何支持Heil的销售追求，“与凯西这样的合作伙伴合作的关系的美丽是她在开发人际关系中非常精彩。因此，我们可以进入可信赖的顾问并进入并进入前端的项目，并为客户提供他们在当时准备好的解决方案。我们在销售方面进行了一个非常坚实的评估[一起]。“

“Joe [Jerome] makes me look smarter. We’ve had some calls together where we’re [looking at things from] different sides to help them think bigger and more broadly. There are times where there just to, you know, add, add two cents, early on in the process, and we might not go back to [that client’s project or] conversation for six months.” per Heil.

“你什么时候在手机上有三家公司的所有者与你的代表可以在一个较大的代理商上”？杰罗姆作为修辞问题。

4. Be Transparent About Who is Doing What

讲故事者在利用品牌构建器解决方案的项目时，讲故事者没有上限或参加佣金。每只希尔，“我们很久以前就做出了一个决定，透明[谁在做这项工作，我们是两个独立的公司]。我们通过与客户的[更强大的关系相结合在一起合作的价值。“

5. Be Flexible About How You Work Together

In marketing services and websites, every project is a bit different. Despite this, Jerome has built a在Hubspot CMS上构建的可重复过程对他的客户和合作伙伴来说是灵活的。

The usually start by looking at data, but how much data and how much time they spend depends on a few factors, “[Before we commit to a client project], we’ll take a quick glance at the data and in that first stage. If they’re getting any sort of [website traffic] volume, we’ll recommend a deeper dive. [We] may need a few hours, we may need a few weeks of our team’s time really diving in. By looking at the data, we can expose buyer journey and conversion point issues. We use google analytics to measure the bounce rate and exit rates. At a micro level, we record [website visitor] sessions to see at an individual level what people are doing.”

Depending on how deep the client needs to go, Jerome’s team uses several tools including Google Analytics, Hotjar, Google Search Console and SEMRush to do deeper dives both before and after they launch a site.”

但是，在杰罗姆的灵活性真正闪耀的情况下，他们是任务建立一个新网站或更新现有网站时。

杰罗姆的团队与希尔密切合作的方式之一是在推出新的内容营销实验方面，“我们做了这个巨大的长柱网页视频，在两秒钟内加载。就像我们帮助[讲故事者]那样，但他们提出了巨大的内容和伟大的结构。我们只是帮助他们让它易于使用。“

Jerome finds, “A lot of [marketing] folks are stalled in their creativity [because developers take] shortcuts that marketers won’t recognize. But a developer will. [It’s critical to code websites so that marketers] can easily modify pages. There have been situations with their folks couldn’t update pages or drag things around because the prior developer broke the drag and drop editor.”

Read:How Not to Get Screwed by Your Developers When Building a Website on the HubSpot CMS。

6. Focus on the Client’s Goals

在整个面试中，Jerome和Heil都谈到了他们的合作伙伴关系的原因。当然，证据是在布丁中。

这里是结果从一个客户端,“我们ability to measure the results over three years worth of website [changes]. They had seen a 65% increase in event sales, which was really important to them as a club. They also had 115 new golf memberships, which is pretty significant. They increased their wedding business by 60 percent too.”

How are you partnering with complimentary service providers to serve your clients better?