Year 1 Key Learnings - Building A Global SaaS Partner Ecosystem At SurveySparrow

One year in, over 60 partners strong, we keep marching on! ??

From the jitters to the joy of winning our first few deals;? steering through conflicts and easing into resolutions, sleepless nights to soulful celebration;? warm partners, and a warmer team. All in all, it’s been quite the ride so far ??

Our secret sauce - We put Partner Experience at the forefront        

Being an Experience Management company. Everything we do is centered around and for our partners. We pride ourselves on world-class Partner Experience. Ask any of our extended teammates, they’ll tell you!

About a year back, yours truly set out to build Partnerships at SurveySparrow. It’s been fun. Thank you for coming along for the ride so far. I’m sure it’s only going to keep getting better. Now let’s look at how far we've come together!

I know it’s easy to say one year flew by. It sure feels like it. However, we’ve harvested the year and we’ve definitely seen significant progress.

Here are some key directives from our failures and learnings that you can snatch and replicate for your program.

For those of you reading this who aren’t too sure about the idea of SaaS Partnerships. Here’s the LT;DR:

Start and end with your Partners

This should be fairly straightforward, shouldn’t it? I mean, it’s literally called a partner program, so shouldn’t it be all about them?

That’s where you’re direly mistaken, my friend. I’ll tell you what it’s generally about.

• Get leads from partners
• Drive revenue through partners
• Get more revenue from partners

This is where we need a paradigm shift. Don’t get me wrong, this whole thing makes sense only when you drive sales, both for you and the partner. However, how do you do this while making it all about your partner?

The questions that’ll help you answer this are:

• What are you doing for partners to identify new leads?
• Why should partners work with you and give you their mindshare?
• Why should partners sell you?

When you can answer this, you know your program will scale. There will be challenges along the way. However, it’ll work. Trust the process.

See how that’s basically the same thing, yet, changes the whole dynamic?

KISS

Don’t stress, KISS. Don’t try to overcomplicate this.

KISS. Keep It Simple Silly! ??

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Instead, draw inspiration and repurpose. A li'l bit of this and a li'l bit of that.?We studied what worked at Chargebee, Freshworks, Kissflow, and Zoho, among others. Repurposed what the forerunners from our ecosystem did and added our own twist to it. ??

When you know something works, why wouldn’t you try to replicate the success? Granted, what worked for me back at Chargebee doesn’t fit the bill for every piece of the program at SurveySparrow.?

Look at each program and what they do as lego blocks you can detach to build your own rock-solid landscape!

Once you have the base, setting things up for scale in a repeatable fashion is critical. I cannot emphasize this enough. But that’s a conversation we’ll table for another day.??

Evangelism is everything!

My previous Boss would crack us up when he used to say:

Evangelism to a partner rep is like prospecting for a sales rep. We do it on a day-in and day-out basis.

Arguably, no other role is as cross-functional as Partnerships.

• Dote over your partners (No brainer!)
• Chummy up with sales to identify implementation opportunities for partners
• Get customer success to expand accounts you close with partners
• Presales for your slick demos during deal cycles
• Support for - support!?
• Finance on billing, payouts, and MDFs
• Marketing to create a buzz, splash things around with social, websites, webinars, and events
• Enablement to get partners up to speed
• Product to prioritize integration and partner feature requests
• Legal on agreements and onboarding
• Ops! Operations and insights!

If there are more teams, we’re talking to them too. Probably at lesser frequencies. ??

Our good ol’ friends at product would prioritize a feature request from one of my deals over others because of the relationship I have with them. ??

I read somewhere that your growth isn’t yours alone. People around you should also want you to succeed no matter how good you might be as an individual contributor.

From Day 1 till today, evangelism is one thing I keep doing religiously. Show people what Partnerships can do. Help them understand the impact and promise partnerships carry! Establish this fact early on.

Ask - What are your unfair advantages now that you have a partner program?

Lol, my marketing manager jokingly says he feels like I run an MLM Pyramid Scheme! ??

All you need is one win. One small success. Be vocal about it. Amplify it. We have newsletters, social shoutouts, and a whole bunch of engagement just around celebrating our partners and every small win. Show folks, both internally and externally, that your program is working.

This way, when you get buy-in and a seat at the table, you’re automatically able to get the resources that you need. And also, when you’re someone like me who can charm their way through anything, it’s an added benefit! ??

Learn with your partners ??

No one expects everything to be dandy from day one. You shouldn’t either. It’s okay. We all make mistakes. And when that happens, maybe sulk a little but make sure you get back up and dust it off.?

If you’re shooting for perfection from the get-go, you’re not going anywhere. Crawl, walk, you’ll stumble a couple of times, then, trust me when I saw this, you will run my friend! ??

You are not alone.

Ask for help. Both internally and externally. The SaaS Channel space being in its nascent stages, is ripe with opportunities. I’m sure anyone you approach will be more than happy to help and bounce ideas off each other.

If you’re stuck, talk to your manager and your team. I’ve gotten so many process optimization ideas from my teammates. You’d be surprised how many of us forget this and need to be constantly reminded.

Don't suffer in silence

Everything that we’ve built so far is thanks to the partners that have trusted in us. We build with and for them. That’s why our program is so powerful. That’s why it stands out and why partners love working with us.

When your partners ask for something that you don’t already have; yet makes sense for your program, ship it. More importantly, templatize it! Templatize everything you build for your program. You’ll thank me later.

We wouldn’t have realized we hadn’t already built something our partners needed. When a partner brings it up, we immediately jump on top of it and get it done. We’ve added so many benefits and processes thanks to the requests our partners have put forward.

Naturally, there are so many more things I have that I want to share with you. However, I believe these four pillars are plenty for today, though.

Take your partners and teammates along with you on your journey. Share it with them. If I have any parting thoughts for you, this would be it. ??

Now, one year in, there’s still so much that’s uncertain. We don’t know what the future holds for us. I’d be kidding if I said I wasn’t a wee bit nervous. ??

It’s scary. It’s a new challenge. Then again, I see this poster on my wall and I say - I’m sure we’ll figure it out! (Any fans of HIMYM?)

If you want me to drill down and dive deeper into any of these, do let me know. Happy to share if it’ll help. Let me know if you found any of this interesting or if something else worked well for you that you feel all of us should replicate. I’m all ears! ??