How to Build Successful Channel Ecosystems

If I was the 1st partnerships hire at a startup, with a goal of driving 25% of revenue, here’s how I would build our partner program from scratch: BEFORE I STARTED: 1. Executive Alignment - Have a (potentially uncomfortable) conversation with my executives ASAP. Confirm alignment on our partnerships “Why? How? What? By When?” 2. Internal Partnerships - Have a plan on how to win over my cross-functional colleagues and take this as seriously as my external partnerships. ON DAY 1, I WOULD START WORKING ON THESE: 1. Operational Support - Whether it’s partner ops, revops, a CRM admin, or an intern I would make sure I have support to operationalize my program. 2. My P&L - I'm building a business within a business, so knowing my team's worth and cost is critical. 3. Knowing My Numbers - Measuring and tracking as much as possible, especially the KPIs my Executives care about. I'd start simple and iterate. 4. Talk to Customers - This is the fastest way to map our ecosystem and identify early partners. 5. Ideal Partner Profile - IPP has HUGE impact on time-to-value. To spend my time on the RIGHT partners, I'd create a data-driven IPP (and update it often). 6. Leverage my network - I'd hit the ground running with my existing relationships to shortcut the growth curve for our new program. 7. Process - I'd start building, and documenting, internal and partner-facing processes early. 8. Systems - I'd maximize our CRM’s capabilities, then layer on spreadsheets, and eventually a great Partner Management Platform when we’re ready to scale. AND EVERY DAY I WOULD: 1. Prioritize - When there are 100 things I could be doing, spending my time on the right ones will be critical to hitting goals. 2. Focus - Do my best to not get distracted by shiny object syndrome. And make sure my executives don't either. 3. Ask for help - Recognize I don’t need to know all the answers, but I do need to know where to find them. Internal teams and current partners are a goldmine. 4. Ask questions - I'd ask our partners what they want and need. And then go build it for them. 5. Make quick decisions - Most are reversible. Focusing on the critical ones and moving quickly is more important than getting everything right on the first try. 6. Fail fast - If I make a misstep (which I will), I'd identify and correct it quickly. 7. Just ship things - Done is better than perfect. I'd get our offering in front of partners. Collect Feedback. And then iterate from there. 8. Hire smart - I would find driven, entrepreneurial, go-getters… then empower them and get out of their way. Ultimately, it all comes down to being strategic, having a plan, creating (and maintaining) alignment, executing, and iterating. And most importantly of all, have fun. It’s going to be a wild ride.

The Partnership Death Cycle is what every company should avoid Too many partnerships fail—not because the strategy was flawed—but due to unrealistic expectations from the outset. Here’s how the death cycle unfolds: 1. Unrealistic expectations are set Leadership expects partnerships to deliver immediate results—often demanding ROI in the same timeframe as direct sales. 2. Resources are cut or never fully committed When quick wins don't materialize, the company pulls back on crucial support like dedicated teams, integration resources, or marketing enablement. 3. Partnerships struggle in a compressed timeframe Without sufficient support, partnerships can’t drive the results expected, leading to more pressure and less time to succeed. 4. Blame is placed on the partnership, not the process Ultimately, the partnership is seen as a failure—when in reality, it was never given the right environment to thrive. Here’s how to break the cycle before it starts: 1. Set realistic expectations early Partnerships are long-term investments. Make sure your CEO, board, and cross-functional leaders understand that the ROI from partnerships doesn’t follow a typical sales cycle. Expect a 12-18 month runway to see real, measurable results. 2. Allocate proper resources from day one Partnerships need more than just a team lead—they require full commitment across the organization. This includes dedicated integration support, a trained sales team, and marketing resources to co-create demand. 3. Measure the right KPIs Instead of only tracking short-term revenue, focus on KPIs that reflect the true health of a partnership: joint pipeline creation, partner enablement progress, and the completion of key integrations. These are the milestones that drive long-term value. 4. Understand that partnerships need time to grow Partnerships need time to build trust, integrate offerings, and develop shared go-to-market strategies. It’s not about instant returns—it's about sustained, compounding growth. Break the cycle by committing upfront, supporting your partnerships with the right resources, and playing the long game. That’s how successful ecosystems are built.

There is an execution sweet spot in B2BSaaS that virtually no vendor gets right - orchestrating the interactions between you, your ISV/Tech Partners and your Channel/Services Partners - working together as an ecosystem to serve joint customers. (see picture below). The core source of failure to execute on something simple - like you and your alliance partner successfully selling through a joint channel- is that vendor programs are: 1️⃣ Silo'd (one program for tech and one for channel) 2️⃣ Architected poorly (built on the wrong touch point - 'you vs the ecosystem') 3️⃣ Not Orchestrated (no accountability for ensuring the win/win/win). Here's the fix: INTEGRATION. If you calculate the amount of ecosystem unlock available when the upstream (Tech Partner + Tech Partner) is properly connected to the downstream (VAR or SI selling better together Tech Partner solutions), you would blow up the silo's solely on the opportunity to monetize the ecosystem unlock. 👉 CTA: Partner Programs must be INTEGRATED across the partner types to ensure that GTMs are integrated across the ecosystem. ARCHITECTURE. Most partner program processes were built back when the channel was its own department and PRM solutions (aka portals) were the way to go. Today, it's no longer possible to bypass platform architecture that allow the partner programs to LIVE IN THE ECOSYSTEM rather than forcing the partners to come to our vendor portals for all motions. 👉 CTA: Partner GTMs must be ARCHITECTED to meet in the ecosystem (with platform technology) not forcing partners to come to the vendor (with portal technology). ORCHESTRATION. Today, no one is accountable for ensuring ecosystem success. You simply can't manage an ecosystem with narcissism, you have to find a process (perhaps by outsourcing) that allows a vendor to ensure that the ecosystem wins which by definition means that the vendor will win much more $$$s. 👉 CTA: Partner Execution must be ORCHESTRATED to ensure success for the customer and the partner ecosystem. #ecosystemorchestration

🚀 Channel Marketing, Don’t Forget This Key Strategy 🚀 Channel and ecosystem strategies can be transformative, yet so many miss the mark. Recently, Pavilion and Ebsta published a report on the potential of the channel. Partner pipeline only makes up 10% of company pipeline on average, but it contributes to 31% of revenue. 📈 To tap into this potential, I’m a big fan of the "To, Through, and With" approach, a strategy I picked up from award-winning channel marketing expert and CMO Anne Baker: 1️⃣ To Partners: Engage their sales teams by demonstrating how they make money by selling us and how we make their lives easier. If we are difficult to work with, they don’t understand how they make money with us, or slow down deals - they will leave you to be an upsell later on. Effective battle cards, happy hours to swap cell phones, and clear revenue paths are key. 2️⃣ Through Partners: Leverage their owned platforms—podcasts, social channels, and customer events—leverage the channels they have grown to amplify your brand and reflect the value your joint solution offers. Their audience should be excited about what you can do together. 3️⃣ With Partners: This one is the one most people get, but you can go beyond the basics like webinars and basic collateral, think joint trade show appearances, joint research, and exclusive events to truly co-market. Remember, channel marketing isn't set-it-and-forget-it, it isn’t building a bill of materials and throwing it over to your partner. It's more like a garden requiring a detailed plan and regular nurturing to blossom into a significant revenue stream. 🌱 How are you rethinking your channel strategy? #ChannelMarketing #EcosystemStrategy #MarketingInnovation

Partner Strategy is NOT - Listing in marketplaces - 1000 person webinars - In person-events Those are Partnering Tactics. Partner Strategy is building systems for outcomes. This looks like - Overlap data utilization - Pre-deal activities you value that lead to outcomes the business needs - Playbook (here's how to make money with me) adoption - Pipeline - Revenues - Ecosystem expansion - Ecosystem recomp (more active and enabled than deadweight) There's 100 ways to do it but this all comes down to one mission: Trust transfer at scale. Build the systems for these outcomes and you'll end up with a partner program that you'd better hold on to! How? 1. By creating partnerships that can stand on their own merits from a business benefit perspective. 2. By pushing segmented and personalized joint value proposition for all the partners willing and able to access contacts in your ICP in owned audiences. 3. By enabling your partners and their sellers to customize on-brand content that's AI edited and QA'd. 4. By automatically reporting on your ecosystemic data with insights that help your partners grow their businesses. Scale the volume of campaigns around your ecosystem, scale the referral volume with automated lead routing, scale the audiences your having a variety of conversations with around their pain points that your JVPs solve. If you want to see how we're rolling out microsystems for partner and partner marketing programs let me know. #ecosystemledgrowth #partnersmarter #growthstory

Don’t Just Launch a Program. Cast a Vision. Most partner programs start with a pitch deck and a portal. The good ones start with a spreadsheet: - Here’s how you’ll make money - Here’s why we’re betting on you - Here’s the whitespace we can own together But the great ones do something even more valuable. They cast a vision. Not just “join our ecosystem” But “here’s how we will help you grow with us” Three things I’ve learned: 1. Partners need a revenue narrative Not MDF. Not portal logins. A line of sight to pipeline. Show how your product unlocks deals they’re already chasing. 2. You need a why-us moment Every good partner asks why they should build around your product. Your answer better be more than “we integrate well.” 3. The best programs bet on the adjacent business Your most strategic partners might not be competitors or vendors. They’re the ones selling to the same buyer 30 minutes earlier. You share a customer. Build a business plan, not just a partner page. Your partner program is not the product. The outcome is. Show them the money. Then build together to get it. What’s missing?

Hear me out...what if we started treating our partner programs less like siloed one-way biz-dev functions and more like a community? I've had a few conversations this week about how to keep momentum, how to build differently, and how to engage at scale. My response: build your program like it's a community. Bring the ALL together. Think about it. Your "ecosystem" technically is a community, it's just not CONNECTED like a community. But what would happen if it was? A lot of things will happen (I've seen it work). When you bring ALL of your partners together like a community, whether it's in one general Slack community, a community portal like Circles, or something as simple as a monthly gathering (Nick Salvatoriello ran a great monthly meeting for all partners at Drift). You start to see something of a network effect within your ecosystem. When you pull them all together, like a community, here's what happens: 🔸 They start to learn from each other, what's working, what's not. How to do more within the partnership. We would highlight one partner a month and the work they were doing to show the other partners what great looked like. 🔸 They start to get to know each other and work with each other. Agency partners start talking to your tech partners and begin providing services to those tech partners and now thinking about how those integrations work more holistically to service the customer and drive more usage with the customer versus you just thinking singularly about your product. 🔸 Value rises in what you are building in your program. You're no longer standing there with your hand out, you're standing there inviting them into a community that has the potential to become a serious revenue driver for their business, as you would ideally be teaching them how to do more for the collective customer base. Chances are you're already doing some of the same things a community offers, you're just doing them in random acts of delivery or one-offs. A community offers: 🗳 Tactical training 🗳 A resource hub 🗳 Events 🗳 An opportunity to network and work with others. At a minimum, your program should already be delivering on these things. Go treat your partner program/ecosystem as a community and watch amazing things happen. Be Great. Be Arcadia 🐻