Partner Ops Digest - Dec 7, 2022

Welcome to the first, hopefully weekly, and possibly only newsletter 100% dedicated to the people running Partner Operations - Partner Ops Digest! Clearly the name needs work, but I'm in a time of favoring action instead of overthinking so.... here we are.

The goal of this weekly digest is to share with you the Partner Ops related posts, questions, infographics, articles, community updates, job postings, etc. specifically tied to Partner and/or Ecosystem Operations. Here's what I hope to achieve...

1. Elevate useful content, both created and sourced.
2. Build a community of Partner Ops people and amplify those voices.
3. Have fun.

To that end, here's the roundup for week 1! We're starting with a few resources this time as a bit of a catch up and the moving into topics from the past week. Look for headings to guide the experience. Future issues might be smaller, guess we'll just figure that out together.

For starters, let's highlight a few big events and reports from the past few weeks that are 100% worth your time in reviewing.

PLX Summit:

Organized by the good folks over at ELG Insider and presented by Reveal and PartnerStack , the PLX Summit is a weeks worth of high-imapct training that is 100% free of charge if you don't mind sharing an email. The speaker list is huge (100+ experts) and I've been told I can share the workbook digitally .

State of Partner Ops and Programs 2022 from HubSpot

One of the most expansive surveys on Partner Operations and Programs to date, with more than 575 different companies represented across more than 650 individual responses. It offers a lot of great insight and support for Partner Operations - download, take some notes, and go negotiate a better job!

Behind the SaaS: Podcast

Yeah yeah yeah... but it is MY newsletter so why not spotlight my own efforts a bit? I post semi-frequent, 10 minute or less entries so far, on and around SaaS, with a focus on Partnerships.

Partnership Leaders

There's a summary of a single post below to highlight the value of this group and I'm also happy to connect and chat on how I've benefitted and while I'll be maintaining a membership out of my own pocket going forward. This is a great place to ADD VALUE, BE SEEN, and BUILD CONNECTIONS for partner ops pros.

ELG Insider

Looking for daily partnership content and maybe even a chance to share your own voice? Look no further. This is a great group of people and they make it easy to submit content for their platform - no idea is a bad idea! (well... there are some bad ideas, but Aaron Olson will gladly do some minor editing to shape things up).

ORGANIZING GTM RHYTHMS: CENTRALIZED OR DE-CENTRALIZED?

A great conversation around centralized v. decentralized GTM models over on LinkedIn, started by Daniel Lancioni and spurred from ideas from Jared Fuller and Isaac Morehouse . I added my own two-cents on Monday via the following outline - go read up, add some context if you've got it! Here's another 6 ideas from Crossbeam but you'll notice Partner Operations as a dedicated role is lacking.

PARTNER ACCOUNT ARCHITECTURE

Over in Partnership Leaders Slack, a very, very, very long thread (60 replies at the time of writing) around Partner Architecture. This is a member's only group, so my apologies if you can't get to it, but it's worth mentioning because of the amazing people dropping knowledge there. If you're not a member consider this a call to check for corporate sponsorship and get involved. It's the largest single group dedicated to Partnerships I know of with over 1300 people, globally.

The original question came from Samantha Journey over at Clearbit: "Hi Team, how do you handle Partners who are both customers and partners (resellers, referral, etc.) in SFDC? Do you create 2 accounts or do you manage by Opportunities?"

• Chris Samila highlighted the value of dual accounts as markers of distinct motions (i.e. customer v. partner, etc) as well as ownership based on account type.
• Barbara Trevi?o supported dual account record types as the technical separation in Salesforce provides a lot of advantages such as easily identifying accounts in reporting, dedicated page layouts, etc. This was widely supported by the community as well. She also advocated for Parent/Child between regional Partner Accounts much like you'd see in a typical Customer model.
• I ( Aaron Howerton ) chimed in to clarify with Barbara on record types v. dual accounts. My experience has been driving people to a SINGLE account record, using account record types for Partner Accounts, and surfacing customer information as needed on that record. I see dual-accounts as a lot of technical maintenance to keep records aligned and ensure cross-departmental visibility, ultimately cluttering the end user experience. My approach is also built around a preference for Partners being a top priority for visualization of data within the CRM - everyone needs to know that Customer A is also Partner A as that has an impact on the relationship and management. It's a more complex relationship and thus should be the primary view for everyone.
• Barbara pushed back and has built a really solid Partnership experience around dual accounts, also highlighting that the separation helps her manage Partner business more cleanly.
• Patricia Rush jumped in to help confirm different value, in particular that the needs will vary from business to business and highlighting that we're talking about ACCOUNT data, not OPPORTUNITIES, and why drawing up partner workflows and data journey maps will greatly improve the outcomes.
• Bader Hamdan jumped in to highlight the increased complexity Partners (who caa also be customers) add when also needing to connect back to Customers in the ownership model, as well as the need to drive reporting for attribution. He then dragged
• Komal Shah in, who's apparently done multiple models, and her big add was challenging us to understand the primary drivers of the decision: 1) What is the compensation model as account/opportunity ownership models will impact that reporting and could increase complexity; 2) Are you locking down data to support single record models (like mine) or will you use support teams to drive accuracy/updates; 3) How are you setting up ownership and account teams to help drive visibility of owned data?
• Komal also advocated for simplicity, a focus on end user experience, and provided some tips on creating 'visual indicators' within Salesforce via formula fields.

I think the existence of a dual-account model adds technical complexity and is potentially the result of de-prioritized partner experience from the outset of the CRM. The dual-account model gives each org (Sales v. Partnership) their own 'data model' to work in as opposed to aligning the centralized view for company-wide visibility and prioritization. If having separate data models is desirable (which I also think is the case), dual account models only strengthen my belief that Partnership teams need their own system that is connected to but separate from the core CRM.

THE CASE FOR HIRING PARTNER OPERATIONS EARLY

I've had multiple conversations around partner operations over the past several weeks, from job-interviews to 1-1s on state of the industry. I plan to have several more (touch base if you want to be involved!), but there's one thing worth highlighting right now.

Partner Operations is heating up.

The State of the Industry report makes a really strong case for why Partner Operations should be an early investment, but Marco De Paulis does a mic-drop for Partner Operations professionals in his summary over at Crossbeam: How to Generate Millions in Partner Sourced Pipeline in Your First Year.

There’s no right or wrong answer for what role to hire first?... but as a stickler for process and clean operations, I opted to get a strong foundation in place that future partner managers could run with before bringing them into a potentially chaotic environment without the structure and resources for them to leverage. - Marco

Here's his highlight for month 5:

THE WRAP UP

Okay... that's a LOT to digest for week 1. My hope is that future newsletters are less dense and more tactical around existing conversations but I can't make any promises. Here's a couple of action items I'd love to see from you, if I can be so bold.

1. Connect with me here on LinkedIn and let's book some time for a 1-1.
2. Let me know if you're interested in participating in a survey dedicated to Partner Operations professionals - the more we have involved, the better and more authoritative our data will be.
3. Let me know what you'd like to see in this newsletter.

Thanks for your time this week - check back next Wednesday for the newest edition!