<aside> 👋🏼 ABOUT THIS TEMPLATE: If you’re in charge of optimizing or revamping your existing referral, co-selling, co-marketing, and/or reseller agreements, here’s a handy checklist based on the takeaways from the Partnerships and Contracts: Navigating the Legal Jungle masterclass as part of the Collaborative Growth Academy by Reveal.

HOW TO USE THIS TEMPLATE: Customize any checkboxes for your company.

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• Questions to ask before starting

For every type of contract you’ll need to:

• [ ] Socialise goals and present the Partner contract program to the broader business (test your ideas).
• [ ] Launch your contract.

Stage 1: Assessment

• [ ] Take a look at what you have
  • What’s your current situation?
  • What do you want your final result to be?
  • Does it reflects what you want it to and does it protect any risks?

Tools: There are some great free tools to help benchmark how easy a document is to read, like from data.yze.

• [ ] Readability score: aim for “plain” language (a score of over 60).
  • A readability score is a number that tells you how easy it will be for someone to read a particular piece of text.
  • The higher the number, the easier it is to read your document.
• [ ] Reading grade: less than 9 (the reading level should be less than a university graduate’s reading grade).
  • The reading grade refers to the level of education needed to understand your text.

Stage 2: Good planning

For each contract

• [ ] Identify the main persona who’s going to read the contract.
  • Understand your audience (both internally and externally).
  • This will be your team and your future partners, but think about other teams who might be involved (e.g. Finance)
• [ ] Get your audience’s insights and feedback.
• [ ] Identify the best period to revamp your contract.
  • Top tip: Try to plan your contract revamp during summer since it is a slow period due to holidays.
• [ ] Define your objectives.

Stage 3: Get your executives buy-in

• [ ] Book your kickoff
• [ ] Build your partnership contracts plan
• Include the reasons why you’re doing this (optimizing the partner acquisition process, creating alignment with your current business practices, scaling and following business, etc).
• [ ] Define meeting cadence
• [ ] Optional: create a before and after view of what you want to achieve

Stage 4: Give structure

For each contract

• [ ] Start drafting the new contract.
• [ ] Identify the mechanisms you want to use to deliver the terms.
• It can be through a website, using software, or a tool.
• [ ] Identify the language you want to use (according to your audience).
• Does your audience have a favorite learning method? (visual, auditory, read/write)

Stage 5: Prototype

For each contract

• [ ] Adapt and make the necessary changes according to the company you’re addressing.
• [ ] Address the challenges and needs of your audience.
• Make it user-centric (fancy legal terms will only slow you down in the process).

Stage 7: Sign and close the deal

For each partner

• [ ] Ask for feedback during the final stages of the deal.
• [ ] Iterate and improve.

Stage 6: Test your ideas

• [ ] Get input and feedback from your audience.
• Is your audience understanding the message?
• Does the contract capture your audience’s business needs?
• Are your business needs understood?