🔦 Spotlight - "Don't fight [for Partners] in a basement"

In this Spotlight, I focus on the questions to ask before you sign on Partners

In the Gearing up for Partnerships article, I spoke about the role of Biz Ops in helping determine the kind of partners the company should work with. If you need a refresher, you can head over there. Today we dig deeper.

First things first: why are Partner motions a big deal? They are a different GTM strategy, and one that is bound by covenants of law. Signing on Partners presents opportunities but also contractually bound limitations. Moreover, Partners have a certain dose of expectations from you, so you can’t afford to be frivolous in signing Partners. If you do that, you might make the mistake of getting cornered - your initial intention piled on, your resources stretched, your Partner’s experience with you suffering. Don’t go into that “basement:”

The basement is full of obstacles. The Partner GTM strategy basically runs parallel to the whole direct GTM motion. You have a sales, macerating, CX, product support, ops for direct motion? You have the same for your Partners, like it or not.

Below is a list of GTM consideration you should think about. How many of those you need to tick on your list, depends on the proximity and strength of the Partner relationship that is built. For example, a referral Partner will be fairly simple and tick a few boxes; but a Value Add Reseller will need to tick every box on there. Let’s run down a list of needs, challenges, and considerations:

• Sales pipe volume & quality:

  • Your need for visibility of the Partner’s pipeline

  • Partner’s need of visibility over your Pricing structure and relevant Product catalogue

  • Training for the Partner’s Sales team (knowledge base, materials, case studies, workshops)

  • Visibility & ops around renewals (especially at contract end with Partner)

  • Contractual clarity of end-customer relationship ownership

• Marketing activity & collateral:

  • Potential to lose some control over brand / TOV / messaging

  • If you are making joint collateral, need for fast approval of Partner assets

  • Have the right over using the end customer logo + case study

• Product excellence & stability:

  • Visibility of the Roadmap, available for the Partner

  • Roadmap nimbleness is reduced, as some type of Partners need months of lead time notification for product changes

  • Product features to support license provisioning & billing

  • Minimal downtime

• Customer Success & Enablement:

  • Product Training for the Partner’s teams

  • Product implementation training

  • Customer Support in local languages

• Finance operations & accounting:

  • Invoicing flow (depending on the commercial deal) operationalisation

  • Correct revenue recognition & accounting

Turned off yet? Don’t be. If you have done the homework and engaged a couple of potential partners and understood…

• the types of Partners who offer the most upside

• for the least amount of effort/cost (i.e. resource type and amount you’d need)

• and plotted this against your available resources

  … you have a good foundation to run an MVP program.

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❗️Now, before we go into the Question to ask yourself, it is worth pointing out the following: You are building a different GTM motion. And the end of the day you should measure the costs from it separately to your direct one. Your unit economics will be different. If you offer the same sales, marketing, and CX support, and consider revenue share commercials, your margin will be lower. Whether it is worth accepting that lower margin is down to your financial analysis.

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In committing resources, think about the ideal Partner state, the MVP to get it going, and how to bridge the gap (and when). Here is what do you need to ask before signing a Partner so you don’t end up in the basement:

• Sales: Given the nature of the Partner relationship, if it is worth it, do you want to commit the resources and processes to train partners and update the materials on a regular basis?

• Marketing: Given the nature of the Partner relationship, if it is worth it, do you have the resources and processes to create, update, and operationalise the joint collateral and collateral from the end customers?

• Product: Given the nature of the Partner relationship, how much visibility do you want, and can give, to Partners over the Roadmap? Do you need to build product to enable any of the processes?

• CX & Enablement: Given the nature of the Partner relationship, how much training and enablement can we offer to the Partner and the end customer to justify our investment into the Partnership?

With that, I leave you on this Sunday evening, hopefully fighting somewhere from a tower, and not a basement.

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To continue the conversation, connect with me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignatova/