The LINK Form

Written by Adrian Maharaj

(Views mine, not Google’s.)

Designing Partnerships That Survive Beyond One Relationship Owner

Too many “strategic” partnerships are really just personal friendships wearing corporate logos. A VP leaves, an AE switches roles, and suddenly the entire relationship collapses. The pipeline dries up, the co-sell motion stalls, and the joint press release turns into a museum artifact.

If your partnerships depend on one or two human nodes, you don’t have a partnership. You have a liability. The LINK Form is how operators design alliances that are structural, not personal so they survive reorgs, attrition, and leadership churn.

LINK = Layers, Incentives, Network, Knowledge

1. Layers
Healthy partnerships operate at multiple levels: exec-to-exec, manager-to-manager, rep-to-rep. If the connection is only at the top or bottom, it’s fragile. Multi layered links mean continuity if one layer breaks, the others still hold.

2. Incentives
Humans don’t move without incentive. If your partner’s reps don’t get comped for bringing you into deals, they won’t. If their leadership doesn’t see strategic upside, they’ll deprioritize you. LINK means mapping exactly how the other side wins financially, politically, and reputationally.

3. Network
Partnerships thrive when they’re embedded in a wider ecosystem. If your integration or GTM motion connects to other tools, platforms, or services, you stop being optional. You become part of a network effect that carries its own momentum.

4. Knowledge
The most overlooked layer. Does the partner actually know how to sell, demo, and position you? Have they been trained? Do they have collateral? If knowledge is shallow, the partnership is shallow. LINK means operationalizing knowledge across their org, not just leaving it in a one pager.

The Trap: Hero Partnerships

Many leaders celebrate the “hero” the one relationship owner keeping everything alive. It feels comfortable until that person leaves. Then you realize there was no structure, only charisma.

How to Apply the LINK Form

• Audit your partnerships: how many active relationships exist across layers?

• Ensure incentive structures are written into comp plans, not just goodwill.

• Position yourself inside broader partner ecosystems, not as a stand-alone bolt-on.

• Run quarterly training for partner reps until knowledge is muscle memory.

Operator’s Note

I once lost a seven figure pipeline in three weeks when a single champion left their company. We’d built everything on one node. LINK taught me never to anchor a partnership to a personality again.

Takeaway: Personal trust matters, but structural redundancy matters more. Partnerships that LINK survive the churn.