The Power of Partnerships
The Power of Partnerships
If you’re familiar with Boon, you likely already know a bit what we do and who we are. Today, we’re going a bit off-script to share a lesser-known part of our start-up journey: the importance of partnerships!
While our area of expertise is Demand Planning and Inventory Management, our true passion is using these skills to support women entrepreneurs. So, today we’re taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming to shine a light onto one business practice that’s been key to our success. We hope learning this secret to our success will help you take things to the next level.
Partnerships come in all sorts of shapes and sizes—in today’s post, we’re sharing some key lessons from Boon’s experience and how different types of collaborations have helped us get our start. The results: Boon’s steady expansion from a solopreneurship to a team of 17, and year-over-year revenue growth!
LESSON #1: RELY ON YOUR NETWORK
Boon initially started as a solopreneurship, but its growth is largely thanks to a few key collaborators. Mary first started Boon in order to create a better work/life coexistence for herself and her family. In the early phases of promoting the consultancy, her first clients came through previous retail connections and former colleagues. While it was scary and vulnerable to put herself out there to her network, it yielded beneficial results that continue to resonate years later.
Soon after launch, she had way more work than just one person could handle. Instead of taking on the workload herself and sacrificing her personal life or denying the client’s requests, Mary reached out for help. Early reinforcement from two former retail colleagues to support her fast-growing needs. By bringing them in under the Boon umbrella, Mary officially had her first consultants. Boon officially made the transition from a solopreneurship to start-up! 7 years later, Allie Dahlseng, is now the VP of Client Solutions, and Michelle Stich is Boon’s most senior Consulting Director.
Boon is made up entirely of consultants that Mary’s either worked with directly—or were referred to her by someone in her network. Today, our team consists of more than a dozen consultants! We’re able to stay so nimble and deliver stellar results because our team members have been thoroughly vetted.
LESSON #2: ACCEPT THAT YOU’RE NOT AN EXPERT IN EVERYTHING
As a small start-up, we pride ourselves on being the best demand planners in the game. While there are some business support functions that we handle in house, there are a number of specialties that we’re not quite equipped to handle. Admitting limitations can be tough, but recognizing our needs and finding the right partners to support is critical to success.
Late last year Mary and Lauren (Marketing Director) decided a rebrand would elevate our presence in the retail industry. Our internal team was not equipped to complete this big project. So, we turned to Emily from Electric Collab for support. Mary connected with Emily through a networking ground, Entreprenista. The two quickly found that working together was a natural fit. Similar to Boon, Emily also shares a passion for supporting women entrepreneurs. With her branding expertise, Emily was able to design our new logo and color palette, clarify our brand identity, and refresh our website. It's a much better reflection of what we stand for and do. Her custom work and expert knowledge of our web platform elevates our presence to a whole new level. It's something we’d never be able to achieve with just our in-house team or standard templates. We couldn't be happier with the results!
Another key partner in helping us raise our profile is Wrinkle’s Content Studio. Its founder, Maggie, is a creative content strategist and fellow female founder. She brings award-winning expertise built at brands like Toyota and Gatorade to small businesses. Part of her mission it to make it easier for them to access top-notch services. Working with an outside expert has helped our team increase our presence and content offerings far beyond what we could initially handle internally. With Maggie's partnership we're also able to hone our content strategy across all online platforms and boost Boon’s profile.
In both of these examples, we’ve been able to work together collaboratively. Because of our shared values, there’s a natural back and forth. While they're not necessarily an example of business partnerships, each partner readily answers any questions our team has (no matter how silly.) They're also teaching us industry best practices, and developing our internal team's skills as we evolve our approach.
Perhaps the best part of collaborating with these partners is that they’ve opened us up to new possibilities and opportunities. With their support, we’re now integrating a lot of new practices. Email marketing, improved web traffic and site interaction, platform-specific content strategy, and more are now on our regular content calendar. By collaborating with external partners, we’ve been able to boost what our internal team can do!
Instead of limping along and hoping to “someday get there,” we’ve been able to devote time and energy to larger dream projects. This is a common challenge for many small businesses. We constantly hear from clients that they have initiatives they just can’t make time for or don’t know how to tackle. Simply reaching out for support could be your key to opening up that time in your calendar.
LESSON #3: ASK FOR (AND OFFER!) REFERRALS
Another version of the partnerships that support Boon is partnership marketing. The best part of partnership marketing, is that the more you do it, the more results you see. Giving and getting referrals has been key to our growth and success!
Consider the results you get with a simple web search when looking for a provider. Wading through endless Google results is time-consuming. And it’s pretty challenging to tell if what a business promises on a webpage is what they will actually deliver.
But, when you can talk to someone about their actual experience working with a business, you come away feeling much more informed and confident. You get a sense of the support you’ll receive and what it’s like working with the team. Understanding communication styles, expectations, and needs ahead of committing to a partnership is key to getting (and providing) a best-in-class experience.
LESSON #4: PARTNERSHIPS CAN LEAD TO UNEXPECTED OPPORTUNITIES
When you surround yourself with like-minded partners, sometimes the synergy is infectious! Boon has been working closely with the software development company, Makeke, to develop a state-of-the-art program that supports demand planning and inventory management at a more comprehensive level than current industry standard tools. Through this partnership, one of Boon’s current swimwear clients will benefit from becoming one of Makeke’s inaugural clients. The software in development will help this brand get even more detailed information about their sales and inventory needs. We expect being able to plan inventory at the style/ week / color level of specificity will revolutionize the way they work. We love to see it happening!
As a human-centered brand, collaboration and connection are at the heart of all we do. While we bring expertise in merchandise planning and inventory management, we’re proud to recommend trusted partners who bring expertise in other critical areas for any retail business to thrive.
LESSON #5: DON’T SETTLE FOR WHAT’S STANDARD
When you search for a solution provider, whether it’s via a web search or referral, don’t just take their blanket service offerings as rote. ask for what you want! We’ve learned that the companies we enjoy working with the most (and the ones that yield the best results), are those that are willing to use their ‘standard offerings’ as a jumping-off point and tailor their services to our specific needs. If, when meeting with a potential solution provider, you find them to be completely rigid in the way they provide services, that could indicate you’ll have to do any fine tuning in-house yourself. We're not throwing shade on standard service offerings. We've just found more synergy with partners that provide customization and flexibility.
LESSON #6: TAKE PRIDE IN YOUR PARTNERSHIPS
Partnerships you nurture are a way to “Be the solution you want to see.” Or better said, they let you walk your talk.
By working with businesses that match your brand values, you’re following through on a commitment that goes beyond your business. You're supporting your community and ideal customers. (Hint: That’s why so many of the service-based businesses we’ve worked with are woman-owned!). The same goes for building referral partnerships. Boon serves businesses of all kinds, but we prioritize working with woman-owned businesses! Since supporting women is a deeply held company value, this is how we stay authentic.
We hope that sharing this behind-the-scenes peek helped inspire you to try something new! Are you a small business owner? A budding entrepreneur? Connect with us on social (Instagram & LinkedIn) to share in the entrepreneurial journey. We want to build community and partnerships with you too!
