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.

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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.

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