How to be a great business partner

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In my legendary FP&A OS framework, I call out “consulting” as the highest value thing we can do for a business.

But what does good consulting (otherwise called “business partnering”) look like?

And how can we move through the 2 main phases of being an awesome business partner for our organization?

Let’s jump in:

Phase 1: Be excellent

It feels dumb to say, but rule number 1 of being a great business partner is be excellent.

What that often looks like in a new engagement is:

• Say what you’re going to do

• Do it

• Tell them what you did

It’s that simple.

And in the beginning it’s actually important that you over-extend in your reach.

Here’s what I mean:

Make sure they see you helping them out in ways that are outside of your normal scope. These can be small, but powerful ways to show them you care about their business above all else.

It’s a deposit of equity into your relationship.

And it’s this equity that allows you to shift into phase 2…

Phase 2: Set boundaries

Where people go wrong in a new business partner relationship is they begin the relationship by setting boundaries.

Or worse, they never shift into setting boundaries.

Regardless, you’ll need to set boundaries early (good) or after you’ve built equity (best).

And doing it on a base of trust and mutual respect is easiest (in my opinion).

But instead of saying ‘no’ to everything as a way to set boundaries, consider saying ‘yes’ to specific things as a better way to set boundaries.

Let me explain:

Instead of saying: “I won’t build that report for you”

Say: “We can build that report, but it means we’ll have to put off getting to [super important project they already asked you for] so we can build the report. I think [super important project] is a better use of our time right now, so we’ll put that report request on the backlog for now”

See the difference?

Where people go wrong with this approach is that they make up some bogus prioritization.

To do this right, you have to actually know your team’s capacity, what’s possible to get done, and be regularly reviewing with the business.

It takes more effort to do this, but it wins in the end.

In summary:

Just be awesome, duh.

Then work on setting boundaries

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