Know…and Accept…Your Place in the Ecosystem! - Nobody Buys a Farm Just Because They Have a Tractor
When it comes to Technology Alliances, companies often get stuck in a common trap: falling too in love with themselves. They stare into the mirror and obsess over their product’s bells and whistles, marvel at its specs, and convince themselves it’s the center of the universe.
But here’s the truth: Odds are, in the eyes of a customer, you may be special, but not THAT special. Customers almost certainly have MUCH bigger issues to tackle. So, when tech companies are considering where they fit in the Alliance World pecking order, they need to know…and accept…where they stand.
As I like to say: ”Nobody buys a farm because they have a tractor. It’s the other way around."
What do I mean? Your $250,000 solution might be amazing. But if the customer’s project is a $10 million enterprise solution of some sorts, you’re not the farm—you’re the tractor. And the customer’s focus is on the farm (i.e., the big-picture outcomes they need to achieve).
By the way, where did I come up with this farm analogy? I can’t remember. I’ve been using it for years, so roll with me here…
Anyway, this realization is critical. And it’s easy to understand if you think like a customer. But that’s just the first step. Because once you’ve started thinking like a customer, you also need to think like a prospective alliance partner.
Step One - Think Like a Customer: Where Do You Fit?
Customers are solving complex, high-stakes problems. To them, your solution is only as valuable as the specific problem it solves within their broader environment. Consider these examples:
The Load Balancer: It’s essential for managing application traffic, but the customer cares about enabling a $10 million enterprise deployment. That’s the focus. That enterprise deployment is the farm; the load balancer, alas, is the tractor.
The Analytics Tool: It’s powerful and insightful—but without IoT devices feeding it data or integrations that drive action, it’s just an expensive paperweight.
Sure, for your Sellers (and your CFO), selling your solution is the goal. But, as far as the customer is concerned, your solution is never the goal by itself. It’s a means to an end. It’s part of a bigger picture. Understanding this context allows you to better position your offering, not as the hero, but as the enabler of the customer’s success (hint/hint: Make the customer the hero).
OK…easy enough. You’re thinking like a customer. You’ve stopped staring at yourself in the mirror. Now what?
Step 2 - Think Like a Partner: How Do You Fit Together?
Now you have to take it one step further. Your prospective alliance partner is also a “tractor” (or some other tool) on the customer’s farm. Their solution, like yours, plays a role in a much larger ecosystem. To create a successful alliance, you need to:
Assess Their Value Proposition: What does the partner bring to the table? How do they enhance the customer’s farm?
Align Your Value with Theirs: Where do your solutions complement each other? Are you solving adjacent problems, or can your solutions integrate for greater impact?
Understand the Power Dynamics: In many alliances, one partner is the “bigger sibling.” Who is driving the strategy? Who follows whom? In some cases, your solution might serve as a complementary offering to a much larger partner, essentially setting up shop in the lower intestines of the bigger player to go along for the ride. If that’s the dynamic, embrace it! Hitching your wagon to a larger partner can give you significant leverage and exposure. Just realize that you might have to keep your ego in check. That can be difficult for some leaders.
Fill the Gaps: If your partner isn’t thinking like a customer, help them get there. Map out the customer journey together and find the areas where your combined offering delivers outsized value. Then you can craft the partner journey.
When you adopt this layered perspective—thinking like the customer and then like the partner—you set yourself up to create alliances that are far more compelling, both on paper and in practice.
The Danger of Misalignment
Let’s bring this to life with an illustrative example:
A sales team convinces their leadership to partner with a cutting-edge AI vendor. Probably because that AI vendor has a lot of buzz. So the partnership is inked, and the marketing teams start creating joint materials.
But nobody stopped to assess the AI vendor’s role in the ecosystems of the company’s ideal customer profile—or how it aligns with the company’s product strategy. Said another way, what sort of farm are they serving and do they represent value in a “better together” manner for that farm? You see where this is going…
Alas, six months later, the alliance is dead in the water because customers don’t understand or, maybe worse, care about the combined value proposition. If they’re ucky, they’ve only wasted time. Worse, though, they may have damaged their credibility.
By the way, this happens far too often. So often, in fact, it’s actually the norm.. It’s avoidable, though, if you approach alliances with the right mindset. Let’s recap
Mapping the Farm: The Customer and Partner Ecosystem
To avoid these pitfalls, follow this approach:
Think Like a Customer First: What’s the big picture they’re trying to achieve? Where does your solution add value? Is there an ecosystem to plug into?
Think Like an Alliance Partner Next: Where does your partner fit into the same customer solution set? How do your solutions interact to drive better outcomes?
Tell a Unified Story: Present a joint value proposition that clearly explains how your solutions, together, make the customer’s life easier, better, or more profitable.
Understand Where You Fit: Accept your place in this ecosystem and play your position. Embrace it and prosper as a result.
When both you and your alliance partner think like the customer and align your efforts accordingly, you create a partnership that delivers real, measurable results.
Nobody Buys a Farm for the Tractor
Technology alliances succeed when they’re rooted in reality—when both you and your partner understand your place in the customer’s broader ecosystem. If you approach alliances with the mindset of “How can we help the customer grow their farm?” you’ll build partnerships that thrive.
Sometimes, the most valuable thing you bring to an alliance isn’t your product—it’s your ability to enable the right ecosystem by thinking like the customer and helping your partner do the same.
