How can you keep your partner value proposition relevant in a changing market?

I like treating partners as customers. Once you look at partners as customer then you can use Buyer Persona to map your value proposition against your Buyer (partner). Key elmenets: 1. Problems that your partners have and how your partnership program can address this (value proposition) 2. Challenges of your partners and how your program helps them solve these 3. Repurchase objections - important for new partners 4. Purchasing process - how it looks like and what triggers this process.

It's essential to ensure that your Partner Value Proposition not only resonates with your partners but also aligns with the Customer Value Proposition. A misalignment here can lead to a disconnect where partners cannot effectively meet customer needs, which is the ultimate end goal. The value delivered to partners should empower them to provide the services and solutions customers demand. Without this alignment, even the most robust PVP lacks relevance, as it fails to enable partners to fulfill customer requirements, rendering the partnership ineffective in driving mutual growth.

When building a Partner Value Proposition, remember that partners might not see every feature as equally important. It's smart to determine what matters most to your partners and ensure you get those parts right. You probably can't give them everything they want, but if you can deliver on the big things they care about, that will make your partnership strong and your PVP stand out.

When shaping a Partner Value Proposition, the fundamental questions to address are the utility of your product or solution and its capacity to fulfill a need. Once this is established, the next crucial inquiry for partners is how they can generate profit from it. Your PVP must provide clear and convincing answers to both. It should articulate not just the features and benefits but also detail how it translates into a profitable venture for partners, incorporating concrete examples and success stories to strengthen your case.

When testing your partner value proposition (PVP), don't just turn to your top, highest-volume partners. While crucial, that perspective is limited. To fully validate your PVP, test it with partners across tiers, verticals, geographies, and growth opportunities. Reach out to partners you aspire to do more business with and understand what would make your offer more compelling to them. What objections must you overcome? What added value could you provide? Broad feedback will ensure your final PVP resonates across your entire partner ecosystem, helping you attract, retain, and grow key partnerships.

A successful PVP launch is just the beginning. To drive ongoing adoption and impact, you need a plan to sustain engagement over time. Consider holding office hours for Q&A, sharing updates via newsletters, or hosting refresher webinars. Promote new use cases and partner success stories. Make yourself available to personally walk partners through how your PVP can support their goals. The initial launch generates awareness, but you need continuous, multidimensional communication to ensure your PVP is understood, providing value, and top of mind. Don't just announce your PVP - actively discuss, reinforce, and evolve it through ongoing dialogue and education. Sustained communication cements your PVP's place in partners' minds.

While important to review your PVP regularly, resist pressure to make constant changes based on each new piece of feedback. Frequent pivots will undermine stability and confidence. Instead, utilize quarterly reviews to analyze trends from broad partner surveys, data on utilization and impact, and market shifts. This cadence allows meaningful evolution while maintaining continuity that partners can count on. Though some may push for quick changes, rely on data-driven insights from your full ecosystem. Over-rotating on one partner's needs can degrade value for the broader base. Trust the process and make data-guided, incremental improvements over time. This thoughtful approach will build an adaptable PVP partners can believe in.