Warren Buffet once said, “Partnership is not a legal contract between two equal individuals. It’s an emotional alliance between two people who are committed to each other’s success.” And that’s true, isn’t it? Whether you’re new to strategic partnerships or have been doing this for years, you doubtless understand that your most successful endeavors have been due to the relationships you forged with your partners.

But as the field of partnerships has grown in recent years, so too has the challenge to partnership leaders who are now tasked to support every aspect of a business.

How do you secure the right background for a successful career? And how do we develop the necessary skills to foster emotional alliances that achieve business results?

That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked.

Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too! Subscribe to learn how you can amplify your growth strategy – with a solid takeaway every episode from partnership experts in the industry.

When I left college after having studied History and Computer Science, my first salaried job was handling ERP support for Dana Corporation and helping our 80,000 employees deal with their questions about Baan, Lawson and Oracle. After a few years, I joined a local IT firm as Sales Manager and a few years after that, took a break from IT and sold swimming pools and hot tubs in Northern Ohio. Later I became an entrepreneur and started my own marketing business, The Social Media Hat, leveraged that into a role as CMO of Sitesell, and then shifted to Agorapulse where I’ve been leading partnerships since 2018.

While one could say that I’ve been in sales & marketing for over twenty years and that the majority of that time has been in the digital space, the reality is that my career has not been a straight line.

Surely it doesn’t always have to be like that. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a better understanding of what partnership leader roles today require in terms of skills, and how those can be developed and applied?

That’s exactly what Greg Rust is going to talk to us about.

Greg is the Senior Director - Global Holdco's & Digital SI Partnerships at Oracle and a 5 time Partner of the Year. He has decades of experience as a Global Strategic Alliance Executive that’s based on years working in sales, product management, and more. He’s established trusted relationships with key executives across multiple industries and verticals, and has just the diverse background and perspective we need to tackle this topic.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Greg about:

♉️ The ideal career path of a partnership leader today

♉️ The importance of establishing trust, both internally and externally

♉️ The role of communications and diplomacy in business partnerships

Learn more about Greg Rust

Connect with Greg Rust on LinkedIn

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

Oracle
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Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/the-importance-of-trust-communications-amp-diplomacy-in-strategic-partnerships-w-greg-rust/

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Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

The Importance of Trust, Communications, & Diplomacy in Strategic Partnerships with Greg Rust