You're building a partnerships strategy. What resources should you prioritize?

Partnership strategy should always be aligned to the company strategy for growth, innovation, resilience etc. That's the starting point. Goals and metrics of the partnership strategy should also be aligned to corporate goals and metrics. One should also consider that partnering is not always the best way to achieve corporate goals...there should be an assessment of build, buy or partner before heading down the partner path.

In crafting a robust partnerships strategy, focus on a trifecta of clarity, talent, and insights. Clearly defined objectives tethered to overarching business goals set the course. A skilled and diverse team, armed with industry know-how, forms the backbone. Dive deep into market research and leverage data analytics for a strategic edge. Bolster communication through robust platforms, and let legal expertise navigate the partnership maze. Choose a tech stack that aligns with your goals and invest in ongoing training to keep the team sharp. Network like a pro, attend industry gatherings, and solicit customer feedback to fine-tune your approach.

Metrics are important to be actionable. Here 3 helpful ones focused on Sales: Revenue Growth: % growth in sales. E.g. Track a 20% increase in sales revenue attributed to the partnership within the next quarter. Customer Acquisition and Retention: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). E.g. Achieve a CAC reduction of 15% for customers acquired through the partnership, demonstrating cost-effectiveness. Efficiency and Collaboration: Time saved in sales process. E.g. Reduce the time spent on demo to proposal by 25%, by enhancing operational efficiency and delivery speed.

The alignment process is a critical step - both internally - The Internal Victory and when locking arms with another organization- The Partnership Victory. Internally you need alignment across stakeholder groups, commitment and a shared vision and set of metrics for the success of the program. Externally the partner selection and alignment should be a reflection. For each of your partnerships, determine the vision, objectives and key results for each significant partnership.

When crafting a channel partnerships strategy, make sure to put your resources where they matter most. Look for partners who not only match your values but also have a good reach in your target market. Spend time on setting up easy ways to communicate, offering training and help to your partners, and coming up with rewards that make everyone happy and motivated to work together. And don't forget to keep checking how things are going and making changes as needed based on what you learn along the way, so your strategy stays effective over time.

This is bad advice. Yes, partner research is important, but most junior partnerships managers think this means spending hours creating a long-list of potential partners. The best way to find partners is to ask your customers "Which other tools or service providers do you use to solve this problem?" Most companies have what I call a "Shadow program": an existing, informal network of partners that already work with your customers and company. You as the partnerships leader are just not aware of them yet. These partners are much less risky because they already have shared customers, and they save you time because they often already know how to work with your software. You just need to formalize the relationship.

3 Tipps to find the right people to partner with: 1: Use LinkedIn's advanced search filters to narrow down potential partners based on industry, location, and job titles. 2. Join LinkedIn groups related to your industry or interests and actively participate in discussions. 3. Follow thought leaders and companies in your industry to stay updated on their activities. This can open doors to meaningful connections.

This step can be vastly different based on the objective of your partner program. - Do you want to open to new markets via partnerships? Find companies that are dominant in the market and complementary to what you're offering. - Do you want to increase retention and improve your product? Ask your customers which integrations would make sense and partner up with other providers! Thorough research only makes sense if you know what to look for. Of course there's more nuance to it, but too few characters here to expand :)

Partner outreach and research is a multifaceted activity and a solid Partner Pitch Deck is an essential tool for CAMs/PAMs or BD reps when reaching out to prospective partners. Outreach/research: -Search your competitors partner ecosytem for some potential partners. -approach a smaller distributor as a potential source for growing a network of partners. -You should also expect to see some inbound inquiries from potential partners as their clients request more info on your solution. -The sales and pre-sales teams and other sales or sales supporting team may have partners they like/work with. -hire a 3rd party to outbound for partners.

Communication is crucial, yet most partner teams: a) often only engage with their fellow partner managers instead of building relationships with those who can actually involve them in deals, such as the AEs, CSMs, and consultants working for your partners, and b) fail to communicate systematically—a lunch & learn is merely one of many touchpoints in a partner's lifecycle.

The biggest lesson learned here is create incredibly simple Partnership agreements. Stick to the bare minimum you expect from all of your Partners and use your business agreements and/or addendum's for more programmatic and specific organizational requirements. This helps establish initial boundaries between organizations but allows both teams more flexibility to build a custom relationship without legal needing to be on a call.

Solidify your partnerships with well-crafted agreements. Clearly defining roles, responsibilities, and expectations helps prevent misunderstandings down the road. It's the legal backbone that ensures everyone is on the same page.

It's important to keep your partnership agreements straightforward and organized for the benefit of all involved, while also mitigating risk. Avoid including specific roles, responsibilities, and expectations in the agreements themselves. Instead, consider putting these details in a comprehensive partnership planning document or partner relationship management (PRM) system that can be updated and adjusted as needed. Any referral terms and conditions can be included in a separate addendum, as necessary.

-Simple and fair partner agreements are better. Referral, Reseller, Tech Alliance, Cloud Marketplace Provider, etc. The shorter the better. -Size matters. Don't expect to cram your Partner Agreement down Accenture's or WWT's throat. -Be prepared to 'coach' your Legal resource on Partner Agreements. They may not have experience in that arena. -Be easy to work with!

Effective management and communication are the heartbeat of successful partnerships. Regular check-ins, transparent discussions, and proactive issue resolution build trust and keep the collaboration on track.

Communication is key in partnerships. Make sure to schedule and hold regular touchpoints with your points of contact, their company, and their team. You are only as good as your word, so communicate often and clearly. If you're not able to follow through, give a rationalization as to why and offer an alternative resolution, rather than pretending as if the promise wasn't made in the first place. Nothing builds trust like sub-5-minute response times on email or near-immediate replies on Slack.

It's important to establish partnerships across an entire organization, not just with individual partner managers. Foster cross-organizational relationships and ensure that resources on both sides are fully engaged.

When it comes to partnership management and communication, invest in a PRM that is perfect for you and your partners. It can greatly improve the partner experience, place platforms, comms, and deal tools at their fingertips, and drive revenue through simplification. Your partners have other options. Give them a reason to choose you. Be easy to do business with. One sign-on for all platforms, just-in-time enablement that is relevant to them, and portal segmentation based on partner type. All of this is not easy or cheap to start or maintain, but the ROI on wowing your partners and saving your sellers and ops teams time answering a billion questions is worth it.

During this process, it’s also imperative to think about partner experience (PX) and enablement, making sure that you win your partner’s mindshare and drive partner engagement. You can achieve this by creating the right cadence and incentive programme, converging partner performance data with your internal data, and investing in your partners from co-sell, co-market, and co-build perspectives.

There are three top priorities: 1) Partner Services 2) Partner Services 3) Partner Services Then: 4) Articulating your commitment to partner services 5) facilitating/enabling partner services 6) celebrating partner services wins. Many talking about marketplaces and technical partnerships. I'm waiting for any company to show me how such things drove scale.

Initially it will be challenging as a new organization to gain traditional marketing and promotional support from your Partners. Plan for this. One approach I've seen work well is creating a UTM per Partner that can be applied to any direct Marketing effort. After some initial enablement, it's a long term sustainable tool that can give individual reps more flexibility to attach themselves to your Marketing campaigns without the need for incremental Marketing support (Plus: it ensures that Partner gets the credit for Lead Gen!).

I have found the best approach here to be a "crawl, walk, run" strategy: Start with small co-marketing initiatives you can get off the ground fast. These allow you to measure the initial customer interest in the partnership in a low-risk way, like hosting a joint webinar. Then use the momentum, data, and content you built from these initial activities (e.g. clips of your webinar recording) to lobby for additional, larger co-marketing initiatives. People will invest in a marketing channel if they see it drive results. So you need to deliver results from the very beginning, or divest from the partnership all together.

Co-marketing can help you go a long way with the market and leadership. By having strong thought leadership, joint cases studies, and co-branded webinar - you can get your name out there and meet buyers that were not aware of you or be able to be in a position to share enough info for them to push. Being able to do joint ABM campaigns with your partners allows you to ensure your message is coming to the right audience or influence the right person in various ways to in the long run win the deal Co-marketing is as important as co-selling to grow in the fastest way

Brand and marketing is internal to your organization and stakeholder groups, to your partner - particularly if they are a larger tech giant with whom you wish to create influence and externally to the market and customers. Organizations need to think multi dimensional not point focused.

Building strong partnerships requires the energy and commitment of your customer-facing field. Joint celebration is key to building momentum and belief in the mutually beneficial outcomes that can be achieved and to support efforts to duplicate that success. The more complicated the solution, the more time is needed in the deals cycle, something that may not be comfortable to legacy sales operations. Partner synergy is an outcome of the role that partner management plays. The role partner management plays is to help the conductor of the orchestra (the respective customer account director/s) who are working with The Client (the focus must be on the client) to accelerate/expand outcomes because of the partnership's combination of value.

Evaluation and optimization is in the Walk portion of the Channel/Partnerships 1. Crawl, 2. Walk, 3. Run motion. Always focus on your side-of-the-street and what you offer to partners in order for them to be successful. You always want to 'get to YES' with our partners so uncover then fix the obstacles that are not getting your partner to YES. If the partner has everything they need to do outbound campaigns or events or list buys or joint activities and still does not do them; push them online to the Partner Portal and promote another partner.

Your partner strategy has to be part of your wider product and company strategy. The biggest mistake you can make is to create your strategy in isolation. For any business challenge or opportunity you face, you should get together with your leadership team and ask "Should be build, buy, or partner?"

Agility. You need to review and determine on a regular and almost continual basis the objectives and measures of success. Listening intently to markets and the partner to ensure continual alignment.

Look at both short-term and long-term implications of your strategy. Build partner programs that will help get quick wins but also create a longstanding relationship that will pay dividends over time. Consider the "good will" created through partnerships, such as the level of trust, values alignment and brand visibility. Establish strong relationships across all levels and departments to ensure a longer term relationship that will be more fruitful and impactful. A "matrixed" partnership will be stronger and more effective as well. Also, purpose-driven and human-focused partnerships will outlast those that are solely driven by revenue or product/technical integration. A good partner adapts with you, withstanding changes in market demand.

It's very easy for partnerships to be formed out of desperation or for the true reason behind the reason for the partnership to not be clear at first glance. Take these things slow, these are long term commitments that need much thought and consideration before jumping into a partnership. If your trying to rush it, it probably not going to go very well.

Product. Does your product support what your partner ecosystem wants to do and does? Is your product easy to implement w/o Services? Then dont' chase Services partners. Is there a ton of tech-drag that comes along with your solution? Then build out what that drag looks like and means to the partner in $$.