Nekkid Ninjas

Follow up:

Typically in the past, any strategic alliances with two companies aimed for the win/win negotiation. Where both sides would be stronger as a result.

The problem I see with this is that it completely leaves the customer out of the equation. On the contrary, these alliances are often designed be a win/win by making it a lose for the customer, such as by reducing competition, of trapping people within closed standards.

The internet has not only empowered business people like never before, it has also empowered and informed customers like never before. Customers are getting a voice via the net, customer treatment that used to be exclusive and secret is now being made open to all.

Without the net, if you exploited a customer, they damage they could do was limited to people they spoke to directly and perhaps one or two removed. But now a person can blog about it, start a group about it, comment about it, twitter about it, facebook about it, dig it, and the mistreatment is now open to the world.

If it's an isolated incident, a company can escape harm. But repeated incidents result in long forum threads of 'me too' and digged to high heaven. Then along comes google and Yahoo and they say 'well this is popular and contains the words 'your business name here' so I will index it and put high on the list.

I have personally seen several cases now where a complaint thread or complaint site about a company ranked HIGHER on Google than the company site itself. That would be devastating to companies who rely on searches for customers.

So going into the future, companies need to place a higher priority on customers than ever before. Because they have a clearer, louder voice than ever before.

The next time you look for a partnership with another company, make sure you keep this at the forefront of your mind: "Is this a good thing for my customers, and if not, how can I make it into one?"

Any deals you make should be win/win/win - a win for the partner, a win for me and also a win for the customers. Missing any one of these will come back to bite you eventually.

A prime example of this is affiliate programs and ads. A company that sells a product should have no commercial affiliate links or ads on their site. Ads and affiliate links are a partnership of sorts. Even if only a loose one.

Why not? Because it's an insult to your customers to be asking them to pay to see ads. If you have a good enough product then you should be focusing your customers on getting value from your product not sending running off to other companies and hoping for a few cents back.

It also says to the customer that your aren't confident in your own products enough to rely on them for income.

This is a case of a win/win/loss you win from apparent extra income, the ad companies of course win, but customers lose because not only are they paying for your product, but also for advertising!

If you are giving away a product, then ads and affiliates are fine and expected. That is your 'win' for giving the customers their 'win' of free products.

Also, non commercial affiliates programs are fine too. We have the firefox one up on NJ, and it isn't for us to make money of customers, but just to track how many people we refer.

Instead of affiliate programs, commercial sites should be seeking the win for the customers, such as discount vouchers. Bite the bullet and trade the 20% affiliate income for a 20% customer voucher.

This will buy you good will and give you value add for your primary products. Win for you.
The partner gets income from your links, and it costs him the same as an affiliate link. Win for partner.
The customer gets a 20% discount, and is actually more likely to now visit the linked site. Win for customer.

Win, Win, Win. Everyone wins. This is the future of business partnerships. Customers are simply getting too vocal and powerful to ignore when negotiating a partnership.