The best strategic partnership, to me, is when two companies stop acting like vendors and start acting like extensions of each other’s business.
Strategic partnerships have the potential to unlock growth and create new opportunities in ways that businesses can’t achieve alone. To explore this important topic, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Pinshaw — Turtle.
Dan Pinshaw brings more than a decade of leadership and operational expertise to his role as Western Regional Manager at Turtle. Originally from Boston, Dan began his career with Turtle on the East Coast after graduating from the University of Miami. Over the past 12 years, he has been a driving force in the company’s West Coast expansion, drawing on a deep understanding of integrated supply, operations, and customer engagement.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I grew up on the East Coast in Boston, and after graduating from the University of Miami I joined the Turtle team 16 years ago. Since then, I’ve held key roles across purchasing, pricing, operations, sales, and management that allowed me to learn to work at the intersection of people, process, and business transformation. Those early roles taught me that the best solutions come from understanding every piece of the puzzle. When you’ve worked in purchasing, you know supply constraints. When you’ve led a sales team, you understand what a customer demands. That cross-functional experience became my foundation for building partnerships that actually work.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began working with partnerships or collaborations?
Early in my sales career, I found myself in a classic David-and-Goliath situation in the residential solar market. The competition was locked in with the biggest global manufacturers, and I was the newcomer without product access, leverage, or a seat at the table. But the customer had a real problem, and nobody was solving it. I partnered with a small local manufacturer that was hungry, creative, and willing to build something custom with me. Together, we engineered a solution that not only won us the job but grew to more than $6 million a year in recurring business. That experience taught me something I still carry with me today: you don’t need the biggest partners to win in the industry. You need to work with the partners who share the customer-first mindset and care enough to collaborate with you to find innovative ways to solve the customer’s problem.
You are a successful leader. Which two character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success?
Curiosity and bias for action. I tell new hires that our attitude is often the only thing we can control. Nobody has all the answers from day one. Experience comes through action, and if you stay genuinely curious, you’ll always find value for stakeholders. Whether you’re a CEO or entry-level, the ability to find a better way translates to good leadership.
Let’s now jump to the focus of our interview. What does a “strategic partnership” mean to you, and why do you think it’s such an essential part of sales growth today?
The best strategic partnership, to me, is when two companies stop acting like vendors and start acting like extensions of each other’s business. When you move beyond simple transactions and align your interests, find shared goals, and develop mutual accountability, that’s where the magic happens. In the electrical distribution world, nobody wins alone. Jobs are complex. Lead times shift. Specifications change. Customers expect speed and expertise. The companies that grow fastest today are the ones that build ecosystems around themselves, collaborating with manufacturers, contractors, engineers, and integrators, with everyone rowing in the same direction.
How do you go about identifying potential partners that align with your business goals? Are there specific qualities or traits you look for in a partnership?
I look for partners who are focused on solving the problem as a whole, not just selling a product. The best partners are the ones who show up when something goes wrong, move quickly when timing matters, think long-term, and align with our values around service, transparency, and accountability.
What steps do you take to build trust and ensure that a partnership will be mutually beneficial for both sides?
Trust is built in the small moments: returning calls quickly, being transparent, and taking responsibility when something falls through. For me, it starts with setting expectations early, so everyone knows their role and what success actually looks like. From there, I’m a big believer in telling the real story, even when it’s uncomfortable, whether it’s a lead-time issue, pricing pressure, or a scope change. I also try to make sure both sides are winning. If only one half of the partnership benefits, the relationship is going to erode, no matter how good it looks on paper. And above all, I try to be consistent. Doing what you say you’ll do sounds basic, but in business it’s shockingly rare, and that reliability becomes a differentiator.
What role does communication play in maintaining a strong, long-lasting partnership? Are there particular practices or tools you use to keep everyone aligned and engaged?
Honesty and consistency are the foundation of communication in every good partnership. Too often I see partners communicate only when they need something, or worse, they sugarcoat issues to avoid tension. That always backfires. Our partners know they’ll hear the truth from us, even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable. That creates alignment, eliminates drama, and builds the kind of trust that lasts beyond a single project.
Let’s now focus on actionable strategies. Based on your experience, can you share “5 Steps to Create Strategic Partnerships That Drive Sales Growth”? If you can, please share examples or stories for each.
- Start with the customer’s problem, not your own product. When you anchor around the customer’s pain-point, the right partners reveal themselves.
- Build alignment before you build activity. Agree on goals, responsibilities, communication cadence, and what “winning” looks like. Misalignment and miscommunication kill partnerships before lack of effort ever can.
- Share information early and often. Whether it’s pricing pressure, schedule risks, or engineering changes, if everyone has the same information, nobody gets blindsided and everyone can act fast.
- Create quick, early wins. Even small victories build momentum and camaraderie with a partner. A single solved problem makes two teams feel unstoppable together.
- Review, refine, and reinvest. A partnership is a living thing. Regular check-ins, post-mortems, and shared planning sessions keep it healthy, relevant, and growing.
What advice would you give to smaller companies or startups that may not have the resources or networks of larger businesses but want to start building strategic partnerships?
Start by being indispensable in one specific area. Maybe you’re the fastest at custom quotes, or you solve the trickiest installation problems. Build that reputation first. Then, when you approach larger partners, you’re not asking for favors — you’re offering something they can’t get elsewhere.
How do you handle challenges or conflicts that may arise in a partnership to ensure that the relationship stays strong and productive?
Head-on and with a cool head. You need to be prepared to pivot in every project, whether it be over pricing disputes, delivery issues, or customer escalations. When conflict hits, the worst thing you can do is disappear or get defensive. I address the issue, acknowledge our part in it, and focus on forward motion. With any problem, I ask myself and my teams, “What happened?”, “What do we know?”, “How do we fix it?”, and “How do we make sure it won’t happen again?”. Partnerships in business are defined by how both sides react when things get messy, not when everything is going according to plan.
Can you share a surprising or unexpected lesson you learned from a past partnership?
That the “little guy” often outperforms the giant. Some of the most impactful partnerships in my career came from companies most people overlooked: the small teams with big talent, huge accountability, and zero ego.
What trends or changes are you seeing in how businesses approach strategic partnerships, and how do you think this will evolve in the coming years?
In our industry, partnerships used to be simple: it was just about products and pricing. Today, they’re built around capabilities and co-creation. Customers want integrated solutions spanning engineering support, logistics, digital tools, prefabrication, and energy services. This shift toward capability partnerships means the winners will be companies that can integrate seamlessly with multiple partners’ systems and processes. The old model of competing on price is dying. The new model rewards companies that can orchestrate complex solutions across multiple partners
In your opinion, how do strategic partnerships impact not just sales, but a company’s reputation, relationships, and long-term growth?
Partnerships shape how customers see you. When you team up with strong partners, you borrow their credibility and they borrow yours. Long-term growth comes from creating a network where customers trust you to bring the right people to the table every time.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would inspire more companies to embrace collaboration and partnerships, what would that be?
I’d start a movement around one of Turtle’s core values: radical collaboration. To me, this is the foundation of every great partnership. It means collaboration at all levels: internally between teams, across departments, and externally with our manufacturers, vendors, and customers. The movement would encourage companies to start small. Build strong partnerships inside the organization first from the bottom-up, not top-down. When your internal teams trust each other, communicate openly, and solve problems together, you create a cultural foundation that naturally extends outward to building the strongest partnerships possible. From there, radical collaboration becomes your competitive edge. It turns every external partnership into a force multiplier.
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