How do you approach building successful partnerships across multiple functions?

As an EMEA-based marketer working for a US-based company, building successful partnerships across the wider marketing org has always been critical to my success and that of my team. Whether that be partnering with the centralised paid search team to drive successful search campaigns, influencing content creation to ensure it resonates in our region or partnering with the social team to post EMEA-relevant content on our corporate social channels. 

Here are a few of my tips for building those partnerships: 

1. Explain the why - help your stakeholders/partners understand why your ask/project is important. Maybe it's revenue potential (and therefore will benefit the company overall). Maybe you're streamlining a cumbersome process that will make the marketing team more efficient. 
2. Shared KPIs are a great driver. And aligning your project/ask to a strategic priority helps people understand this is something they need to care about.
3. Don't underestimate in-person contact! Building a deeper connection with a person, knowing something about them outside the realms of the project you're working on together, can help you overcome challenges if they arise and generally make working together more fun and engaging. If the opportunity arises for face-to-face, take it!  
4. Successful partnerships, whether they are personal or professional, are built on trust. Check out my answer to the question "How to establish credibility and trust in people around you?" on my perspectives on how to build trust and credibility.

Orient around two things: 1) the customer, and 2) shared goals such as OKRs or revenue metrics (revenue, NRR, etc.).

Expanding on this a bit - so often functions see the world through their own lens. Sales needs to sell. Product needs to build. Marketing needs to build brand and create demand. Customer Service needs to make sure customers are taking care of.

In reality, everyone exists to deliver value to the customers. And when teams work together that works exponentially better. But to do that requires an understanding of the role each function plays with respect to those shared goals.

If this isn't already happening within your organization, that's ok - you can start with you! Start setting meetings with folks across various functions. Ask questions. What do they care about? How do they spend their days? What are their goals and how is success measured for them? Start to find ways in which what you do could either align, support, strengthen or accelerate.

This will not only create a more efficient operation, it has the opportunity to significantly improve the customer experience while personally benefitting you by expanding your influence and impact across the organization.

Successful partnerships are built by listening, learning, and collaborating.

Ask a lot of questions, especially when joining a new organization. Understand what this person is responsible for, the current projects they are working on, their goals and challenges. Don't be afraid to ask more questions about the details if anything is unclear or if you don't feel that you could explain the specifics to someone else later. Ask for material to read as a follow-up, and actually read it.

As you're learning, make sure you also get to know your colleagues as people! The best partnerships are built on a friendship, or at least a friendly acquaintanceship.

When it comes time to collaborate on a new project or prioritize some work you need help from the other function with, you'll have set the foundation to be able to discuss it positively and get a successful outcome.

Building successful partnerships across multiple functions is key for progress and collaboration. You can’t do everything by yourself. Working in partnership with other teams is how you will ultimately reach your business goals. Meeting the team’s KPIs isn’t as impactful if they do not support the overarching business goals. There are several meaningful steps to go about this, but I’m going to highlight the top three as they build upon each other.

• Communication. The act of communicating sounds so straightforward in theory, but often can be difficult if you are trying to move fast, were not aware of all of the stakeholders or thought you were communicating, as a few examples. Err on the side of over-communicating. When you think you are over-communicating, there is most likely still plenty of information to communicate.
• Trust. With communication comes the opportunity to build trust. I see trust as built via several compounding micro-moments. It takes time to build trust, but it starts with communication and transparency.
• Transparency. Communication, trust and transparency does not mean that everyone is in agreement. Part of building successful partnerships is to have healthy debates and differences in opinions as you’ll find this levels up communication as a team. Transparency is important because it signals where you are coming from.