Planning Business Development

Use Partnerships & Outreach Plan to decide which business relationships to build, what each side gains, and how you will turn an initial conversation into useful work together. It supports planning for referral partners, shared promotions, strategic customer accounts, and other relationships that fit your business.

This guide uses an illustrative bicycle-repair business exploring relationships with local employers. Adapt the examples to your actual services, capacity, approved terms, and people.

Open the plan and choose your approach

Open Assistant → Strategy → Plans → Partnerships & Outreach Plan. Choose Fill it in myself for an empty plan, or Add details, Edit, or Review suggestions on a section. Select Save after editing each section; you can save work in progress.

Your Business Strategy and Customer Profiles must be ready before this plan can show Ready to use. Use them to keep relationship work focused on the customers and outcomes that matter to your business.

The five essential decisions are Relationship growth goal, Main partnership or outreach approach, Target partner or account profile, Value for us, the partner & the customer, and Approved deal terms and boundaries. Start there, then add the detail needed to put the approach into practice.

For saving sections and reviewing suggestions, see Setting up your business strategy in Cedros. Saving this plan does not contact prospects, create agreements, or establish partner commitments.

In Goals & Approach, make the scope manageable:

• Relationship growth goal: state the result you want and the planning period. For example, “Test whether local employer referrals lead to suitable weekday repair bookings this quarter.” Keep targets separate from results already achieved.
• Main partnership or outreach approach: choose the main relationship model, such as employer referrals or direct outreach to business customers. Explain how it should work.
• Other approaches to consider: save adjacent ideas for later so they do not compete with the current priority.
• Why this approach fits now: explain the opportunity, supporting evidence, and available capacity. Label assumptions that still need testing.

Identify suitable partners or accounts

In Targets & Fit, describe the organizations worth approaching before building a long list:

• Target partner or account profile: describe the type of organization, audience, location, size, and relevant needs. For the repair business, this might be nearby employers with staff who cycle to work and someone responsible for employee travel support.
• Named targets or archetypes: record verified organizations or clearly labeled examples of the kind you want to find. For each, include its type, priority, current status, owner, possible introduction, reason for fit, and next action.
• How we prioritize targets: weigh audience fit, customer benefit, mutual value, likelihood of a conversation, effort, and existing relationship strength. Explain why a target deserves attention now.
• Target disqualifiers: state reasons to pass, such as customers outside your service area, required capacity you do not have, or no useful outcome for the customer.

“Local employer with a cycling group — needs research” is a useful archetype. It should not be recorded as a named prospect, interested partner, or agreed opportunity until you have evidence for that status.

Keep the list small enough to research properly. Give each selected target an owner and one concrete next step, such as checking the relevant service needs or finding an appropriate introduction.

Make the proposal useful for everyone

In Mutual Value & Proposal, explain why the relationship deserves time from both sides:

• Value for us, the partner & the customer: describe all three benefits. The workshop might gain suitable weekday bookings; the employer might make repair information easier for staff to find; staff might get a clearer route to a local service. Treat those benefits as proposed until tested.
• Partner proposal: name the proposal and record what is included, who it serves, any incentive model, the first practical step, exclusions, and the person responsible.
• Customer-facing outcome: describe what improves for the end customer. Make it more specific than “more exposure” or “a stronger partnership.”
• Approved deal terms and boundaries: separate what you can offer, what needs approval, and what you must not promise. Cover relevant discounts, commissions, shared promotion, exclusivity, custom work, data sharing, guarantees, and delivery commitments.

For example, the workshop could propose a small referral pilot: the employer shares an approved service-information page, interested staff contact the workshop directly, and both sides review whether the arrangement is useful. The proposal still needs agreement on responsibilities, capacity, and how results will be reviewed.

If the partnership uses a customer offer from Marketing Strategy, reference that offer by name and preserve its terms. Record any partner incentive or obligation separately. A partner fee is different from the price or benefit offered to the customer.

If you use Review suggested starting point for deal boundaries, check every line against your actual authority. Edit it as needed, select Accept reviewed answer, then Save. Suggested wording does not approve a discount, commission, guarantee, or commitment.

Plan a relevant first conversation and follow-up

Use Outreach & Follow-up to make each contact useful and easy to respond to:

• Outreach channels: choose routes you can actually use, such as a warm introduction, an appropriate email, or an event conversation. Record the best use, owner, intended volume, personalization needed, and any concerns.
• Outreach sequence: describe each step's timing, channel, purpose, message, next-step request, and stopping condition. Decide what happens when someone replies, declines, or asks to reconnect later.
• Core outreach message: connect a real observation about the organization to a shared customer need, then make a small, specific proposal. Include relevant proof without inventing familiarity or past results.
• Outreach personalization rules: describe what must be checked for each target. Reference an actual service, audience, or initiative and explain why it makes the proposal relevant.
• Materials & readiness: list the service overview, proposal, page, or other material needed. Mark each Ready, Needs draft, Missing, or Not needed yet, with an owner where useful.

For the employer example, a first message could explain the proposed referral pilot and ask who handles cycling or travel support. Use that angle only after checking that it fits the organization. Avoid claiming that the employer's staff have a particular problem unless you have evidence.

Follow-up should have a purpose, such as answering a question or providing requested service details. Define when to stop instead of continuing indefinitely. Record agreed follow-up dates accurately.

The sequence in this plan is a written approach. It does not schedule or send messages. Review the recipient, wording, materials, and approved terms in the channel you use before making contact.

Define progress and the next action

In Qualification & Next Steps, agree what must be true before an opportunity advances:

• Qualification criteria: separate must-haves from useful extras. Consider audience overlap, value to both sides, access to the right person, feasibility, effort, and potential conflicts.
• Pipeline stages: write a definition, entry condition, exit condition, next action, and owner for each stage you use. For example, Contacted means a message was actually sent; Qualified means you have checked the agreed criteria; Pilot active means the pilot has started.
• Loss reasons and nurture rules: record why you stopped pursuing an opportunity or when it may be worth revisiting. Distinguish poor fit from temporary timing or capacity issues.

These stage definitions help your team use consistent language; writing them here does not configure a pipeline or move any records. Keep the actual opportunity status in the system your team uses for relationship work.

A positive reply is a reason for the next conversation, not proof that a deal is agreed. For the referral pilot, the next action might be to confirm the employer's contact person, review the proposed materials, and agree how the pilot would begin.

Plan what happens after agreement

In Activation & Ongoing Value, use Activation & ongoing relationship to describe how the relationship will deliver its first useful result:

• Name an owner on each side and the agreed responsibilities.
• Record the onboarding, materials, or preparation needed before starting.
• Define the first customer outcome and how you will check that it happened.
• Agree what to track, when to review, and how to decide whether to continue, expand, or stop.

For the workshop, activation could mean the approved information page is shared, staff can reach the right service, and the workshop is prepared to respond. A signed agreement alone does not show that those steps happened.

Separate proposed arrangements from commitments the other organization has accepted. If an owner, date, or responsibility is still unresolved, record the question and next step rather than filling it with an assumption.

Measure results and keep the plan current

In Measurement & Review, turn experience into better decisions:

• Success metrics: distinguish activity, conversion, pipeline, revenue, activation, and learning. Record the source and period for each measure. Researched targets, replies, active pilots, and completed customer bookings tell different parts of the story.
• Weekly working rhythm: choose a practical schedule for target research, outreach, follow-up, and review. Name the owners and the decisions each review should produce.
• Selected relationship plays: record the approaches you have chosen to pursue, including name, relationship model, status, target count, value to the other side, first test, and success measure.
• Risks, approvals, and mitigations: record obstacles, the action to address each, and who must approve unresolved terms. Check that the proposed workload fits the team's capacity.
• Guidance for Cedros: summarize the chosen approach, target fit, mutual value, approved terms, and evidence. Ask Cedros to flag weak matches and missing decisions rather than inventing partners, promises, or results.
• Related plans & idea sources: note the business priorities, customer profiles, brand guidance, marketing offers, or ideas that informed the plan. Record which need updating when the relationship approach changes.

Cedros can use this plan as context for partnership brainstorming and strategy reviews. Review suggestions against your evidence and current commitments before acting on them. Optional assistant work uses your configured AI service; see Understanding AI usage and costs.

Review the saved plan before using it

Before beginning the next round of relationship work:

1. Check that the goal, approach, target profile, and customer benefit agree with each other.
2. Confirm which proposal terms are approved and which still need a decision. Preserve any linked customer offer's terms.
3. Give each selected target a verified status, owner, and next action. Check the materials needed for that action.
4. Review how an agreement becomes active and how you will measure useful results. Keep estimates, targets, and actual outcomes separate.
5. Save each edited section and check readiness. Ready to use means the essential decisions and prerequisite plans are addressed; it does not confirm target fit, approve deal terms, or verify that outreach happened.

Use Not known yet for unresolved decisions, or Not applicable with a reason where appropriate. If someone else has changed the shared plan, keep a copy of your unsaved wording before choosing Reload latest plan, then compare the latest decisions before editing again.

Return to the plan when conversations reveal a better target, a stronger proposal, or an approach that no longer fits. Keep the next action clear enough that someone else on your team can understand what happens next.