More and more, small and medium-sized enterprises are building networks through partnerships and collaborations to increase their chances of success in the constant competition. The application of a well-thought-out partner retention concept and its implementation helps to strengthen the bond in practical business operations and hopefully maintain it in the long term. This work develops such a concept and discusses the selection criteria that potential partners must meet for collaboration, as well as the components that a partner retention concept should include. It also addresses how to ideally approach potential partners and how to acquire the pre-selected distribution partners. The work is aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises and focuses on the management of distribution partners through the establishment of collaborations.