Sam shares her expertise with business partner 360 Growth Partners.

Our passion is to the partner and collaborate with like-minded businesses, who share a growth mindset, having a true sense of purpose, and are passionate about growing their business, achieving their vision whilst harnessing the best out of their people to deliver performance and profits.

Three tips for a good working relationship with partners:

1. Honesty – even if it’s not great news, it’s a partnership, so just say it as it is and come to a positive conclusion together. Keeping things from a partner is how that relationship can break down.
2. Be ambassadors – promote their business with passion and make referrals. Even if I can’t help, I will introduce my network to people who can. This makes any relationship less transactional and builds a partnership based on trust.
3. Get involved – mucking in every now and again; making the tea or supporting decision making from a different perspective outside your remit. A true partnership is a lot more than putting your two cents in then getting out. I love knowing everything about a business so I can advise on what I know and make introductions to people on things that I don’t.
   
   How can a true partnership strengthen a business?
   
   To give an example, one of my clients is Cooplands Bakery. I was brought in by the newly appointed people manager to support the internal recruitment team.
   
   My remit was to support her in-house to advise on what I thought was needed to grow the business in the way that they wanted to.
   
   Whilst there, I installed an applicant tracking system, I trained the team on how to recruit differently, I recruited people into the existing team and then trained them on the new people service. It was an extremely inclusive role and it was like I worked in-house at Cooplands – well I did two days a week!
   
   The people director trusts me and I trust her. We have clear objectives and understand what we each bring to the partnership and it worked really well. It was a great example of Talentheads completely merging with a client and working towards the same goal to deliver the results they wanted.

How can that partnership add strength to your business?

I learn lots through all the partnerships I have, as every business has a different challenge so every single company and person I work with teaches me something.

For me, it’s about finding out about how others work and what their challenges are, as well as their successes. Then I feel like my job is to share my experiences and add value to their individual circumstances. There is no cookie-cutter approach to the way we work.