business – Alton Delane

Benefits of Strategic Partnerships in Business

Alton Delane studied aerospace engineering at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. From 2009 to 2018, he was the managing director of Dentons US LLP in New York. Among his responsibilities, Alton Delane advised on corporate financing and strategic partnerships.

Strategic partnerships are agreements or collaborations between two or more companies to cooperate on a business objective for mutual gain. Here are three benefits of strategic partnerships.

Expand geographic reach
Businesses often enter into alliances to gain access to new markets and customers. A partnership can mean wider reach when distributing products and services.

Boost brand awareness
When a small or new company partners with an established and well-known brand, it leverages its attributes to make its own logo, products, and services known to a larger audience. The partnership creates organic curiosity to the benefit of the smaller company.

Reduce overhead costs
By leveraging the resources or capabilities of another organization, a company can achieve its desired business goal without directly taking on the overhead or expense. For example, for a company working in the information technology sector, through a strategic partnership, distributors or resellers can sell a company’s software as a service (SAAS) instead of engaging the company’s own sales team to do the work.

The Career Network Ministry

A seasoned marketing and strategy advisor, Alton Delane provides expert insight to clients at Emissary.io and Dashible. After moving to North Carolina, Alton Delane started attending Career Network Ministry (CNM) meetings. Since then, he has been helping the community and its members with his marketing, events, and brand-building skills as CNM’s director of marketing and operations.

CNM is a community of job seekers and working professionals dedicated to advancing their careers and cultivating business relationships. Some objectives of CNM include the expansion of continuous learning and providing members with mentorship and peer support when dealing with job loss, as well as helping them seek and acknowledge the connection between career decisions and the spiritual meaning of God’s will.

The ministry is both business oriented and spiritual, and its members can participate in several ways, including as advisors, guest speakers, company point of contacts, and mentors. For example, the CNM’s mentoring program connects a person of faith to a CNM member, helping them address challenges and obstacles in their work or during a job search through one-on-one meetings. The mentorship is available for any CNM member who is unemployed or is actively pursuing better employment.

Career Network Ministry’s Shift to LinkedIn

A savvy business administrator with a master of business administration from Harvard Business School, Alton Delane currently serves as an advisor to both the bargain shopping app Dashible and the sales software company Emissary. Alton Delane is also a dedicated Catholic who became involved with the Career Network Ministry several years ago.

As part of his service at the Career Network Ministry (CNM), he spearheaded a social media shift from Google to LinkedIn. This shift helped the proactive career management group connect members to one another in a far more comprehensive way. LinkedIn has perfected a platform that allows job seekers and employers to locate and communicate with one another with ease. The CNM LinkedIn site situates these employment outreach initiatives within a community that is both faith-based and highly supportive.

CNM closely monitors all job listings on the CNM LinkedIn site to ensure that they are legitimate and worthwhile. CNM also regularly features celebrated speakers on its LinkedIn site.

Helpful Tips for Successful Negotiations

With an MBA from Harvard Business School, Alton Delane has been an advisor at Emissary, a sales intelligence network, since 2019. As a business development executive, Alton Delane possesses skills such as lobbying, networking, and negotiations.

Negotiating is a skill that aims to create a formal agreement between two parties. Over time, some helpful guidelines have been developed to ensure successful negotiations. A successful negotiation entails an agreement that is beneficial to both parties.

When quoting a price during a negotiation, negotiators should quote a specific value rather than a range. For example, when giving a budget number, a negotiator should give out a value such as $10,000 rather than a range such as $10,000 to $15,000. Giving out a range of values unnecessarily informs the other party about how low or high a negotiator is willing to go on the price. This information should be kept private while a single price amount should be put on the table, allowing the other party to make a counteroffer.

Whether a negotiator is a buyer or a seller, a negotiator should make the first offer. Research has shown that negotiations end with a final price that is more favorable to the party that makes the first offer. Buyers that make the first offer tend to end up with a lower final price. Sellers who quote first tend to walk away with a higher final price.

Another good advice is that negotiators should ensure that the other party should walk away from the deal satisfied. This is called a win-win mindset. This is in contrast to a win-lose mindset where negotiators only care for their side. A win-lose mindset might be effective for the current negotiation, but it is an alienating negotiation tactic that damages long-term relationships between parties.