How to Be a Good Partner to Your Vendor

How can we be a good partner when we buy from a vendor? How do we, as the customer, get good at providing feedback? As we partner with the right SaaS companies, how do we get the most out of those partnerships right out of the gate? 

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On today's episode of Scaling Tech, I am joined by Ian Lotinsky, a product and team builder who is the CTO at Great Minds, an online ed-tech business. Ian is answering Debbie's questions with his own, such as 'How do we understand the people on the other end of the Zoom call?' and 'How can we learn as much as possible about the people using our products?'

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Creating a partnership mindset requires alignment around the question, 'How do we ask questions?' As we embark on a partnership journey, it pays to ask the right questions upfront – at the risk of getting off on the wrong foot. Debbie and Ian delicately unpack this partnership paradox in this intriguing episode. Please join us. 

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‍"One thing I've seen and believe and have read is that you tend to hire culture. And so I've certainly recruited folks and built a team that I could entrust partnerships to." - Ian Lotinsky

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In This Episode:

• How do we create a partnership mindset?
• How do we get to a positive outcome when we first meet a new vendor? 
• Alignment around the question 'How do we ask questions?'
• ‘Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing’
• Understanding the Theory of Constraints 
• Building trust relationships through empathy
• Upvoting a problem from within the system 
• Building a team based on we values 
• What happens when it comes time to exit the partnership?