Tango, Anyone?

Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek, is the first American to hold a world record for 37 tango spins in a minute. Ferriss scuba dives in Panama, skis in the Andes, and races motorcycles in Europe. He does all this while running his sports nutrition supplement company - you guessed it - four hours a week. He's cracked the code so that he may enjoy what he calls "mini-retirements" during the prime of his life.

Ferriss' ideas are provocative, especially for those of us who work for technology companies. For us, the idea of cutting back on email (way back to just once a week!) and stopping the newspaper and periodicals (in favor of conversation with those who read and listen to the news) seems foolhardy, maybe scandalous. His primary premise revolves around the Pareto Principle, or the idea that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of the effort.

Ferriss applies the Pareto Principle relentlessly to everything he does. Anything that can be done by someone else is done by someone else. He dedicates his expertise and time only to those things that no one else can do and that net the largest return, hiring and training personal and professional assistants to do the rest. Let's just say that Ferriss' version of utilizing outside resources is an extreme sport. In his quest to rid himself of an unhealthy 80-hour workweek, Ferriss has discovered the secret to scaling his business: Leveraging the competencies and capacity of others.

Growth without commensurate expense is the holy grail of business. Yet, many companies resist engaging with competent partners who can help them minimize the cost of expansion. Here's what we hear from companies that struggle with the value of investing in partners, along with some ideas for testing whether you may be missing opportunities for leverage:

      1) "Our product is far too complex and proprietary."
          If that's truly the case, perhaps it is too soon to be leveraging partnerships.
          All too often, however, that refrain is used as rationale for not doing the
          work to package products and services for indirect channels.

          One of the best ways to assess a product's readiness for indirect
          channels is to map it along its life cycle curve. If your technology is so
          nascent that you need to experience the market first-hand and learn more
          about the compelling applications that will take it up the curve, then it's
          too early for partners. Most companies' products, however, cannot cross
          the chasm without partners to deliver a complete solution.

      2) "Partners are needy. We can't give up margin AND still go with
          them on sales calls."
          It's true that it takes time, money, and resources to enable partners to
          sell on your behalf, and like a direct sales force, the first few sales don't
          generally happen without knowledge transfer, tools, and a bit of hand-holding.

          Do you have a repeatable process for transferring knowledge to your
          partners, complete with a timeline, checklists, and responsibilities?
          Knowledge transfer is all about leveraging limited resources effectively
          to get partners up-to-speed and productive quickly.

       3) "Our partners aren't loyal."
          I said those words once to my sales manager early in my career. Her
          response was, "If you want loyalty, buy a dog." Fact is, the only way to
          gain loyalty is to have something of value that partners (and their customers)
          want.

          If you question whether you've got that value, or whether you simply lack
          the right kinds of partners to serve your customers, it may be worthwhile
          to run a "whole product" analysis. This exercise compares your company's
          competencies with your customers' solution requirements and helps
          determine what you can or should outsource. Following that with a carefully
          tuned business proposition will make your value to partners clear. If the
          value is clear, chances are, your partners will be loyal.

At the end of the day, while doing the tango may not be what drives your need to apply the principle of leverage, the pressure to grow and scale is incessant in today's business climate. What we can count on, however, is that anything that helps us work less for greater results, can't be all bad in keeping us ahead of the curve.