Common Challenges in Partner Management

9 things I wish I knew as a first-time partner manager: 1. IT'S NOT SALES. I tried to push, charm, and buy my way into getting business from partners. Epic fail. Real relationships are built on mutual value and trust, not schmoozing. Partners can smell a salesperson a mile away. Don't be that person. 2. REAL RELATIONSHIPS TAKE REAL TIME. I wasn't patient when I started and I burned bridges. Big mistake. Take time to understand what drives your partners. Partnership ROI comes to those who wait. 3. PARTNER ENABLEMENT ISN'T SALES ENABLEMENT. Partners don't care about your 47-slide deck. They have their own business to run. Make your enablement 1000x simpler than anything you use internally, or they won't use it at all. 4. QUALITY > QUANTITY. I came from sales where everything was a numbers game. Partnerships is different. Fit matters more than volume. Focus on the customer value prop and your better-together story. 5. DATA IS YOUR BEST FRIEND. I was always too busy “doing” to track outcomes. My VP said it best: "You can't optimize the road ahead without studying the road behind." Set up metrics early. It's the only way to build predictable revenue. 6. PROCESS IS WORTH THE EFFORT. I hit bandwidth constraints fast and found myself doing the same tasks over and over. You can't scale without process. Start simple, then iterate. 7. INVEST IN INTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS. I naively assumed internal teams would automatically support partnerships. Wrong. Your colleagues have their own priorities. Build internal alignment early and often. 8. PARTNER EXPERIENCE MATTERS. I learned this the hard way through negative feedback. Every touchpoint matters - from first interaction to mutual customer experience. Make partnering with you feel effortless. 9. ALWAYS ASK "WHAT'S IN IT FOR THEM?" I thought partners would help "for the sake of partnership." Reality check: Partners don't owe you anything. Figure out their win first. Don't make the same mistakes I did. *Successful* partnerships aren't easy. But they're worth the effort. Let's raise the bar in 2025. The seat at the table is ours to take.

Keep failing!    Albert Einstein once said: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”    We’ve all been there (I know I have): your partnerships team is struggling, not achieving results, and you are looking for help and answers.    We all fail, but failure doesn’t have to be a bad thing; however, you can only turn it into a good thing if you are willing to learn from it.    Back then, I wish I had had the network and support system I’m lucky to have these days. Thanks, Partnership Leaders!   So, let’s try something new. Let’s see if we can make this a collaborative post, a cheat sheet of sorts, that can help leaders identify issues and start turning things around.    So, if your partnerships team is struggling, here are some foundational elements that, if not done right, could be creating some of your issues:    💥 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐨𝐞𝐝 𝐯𝐬. 𝐇𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 – Internal alignment is non-negotiable. Work with every department to understand what matters to them. Then tailor your strategy and collaborate with them to embed it into their everyday jobs. Your team can’t do this alone!    💥 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐍𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐭 – You don’t want to compete against your own internal team(s). Compensation across your sales org should be neutral and conflict-less. Additionally, make sure that your own team’s comp and KPIs aren't opportunistic, transactional, and short-sighted.    💥 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐩𝐬 – Who is running ops, managing tools, gathering data, measuring impact, removing speedbumps, and enhancing PX? If you don’t have a #partnerops person, what are you waiting for?    💥 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐐𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 – Unless you are just starting, your program isn’t mature enough, and you don’t have a defined IPP, make sure you are working with the right partners. Make sure that you have real and reciprocal partnerships. You can’t afford to waste time and resources.    💥 𝐄𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 – Don’t expect your partners to be successful if you just give them cookie-cutter one-pagers, battle cards, or on-demand modules. As Jessie says: "enablement starts before you sign." Spend time with them and build real relationships. If you don’t care, they won’t care.    💥 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 – CS, in yours and your partner’s orgs, are the guardians of your current and potential customer relationships. Show them how partnerships can help with customer management, improve engagement, and reduce churn. Tap into those relationships and trust.    💥 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫 𝐄𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 – Is it easy for your partners to work with you? Remember, PX directly affects CX, and bad PX can hurt you deeply.    💥 𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 – Don’t treat partnerships as transactional or as a zero-sum game. Give first in order to receive. Look for the triple win. Build real partnerships!   What else would you add?    #Partnerships #PartnerPrograms #GTMStrategy #Sales 

A common partnership snafu is that companies want partnership success, but don’t provide the resources to get there. I heard of a case where a whole marketing team quit, the partnerships team was given no marketing support, and they didn't yet have an integration with product -- and yet, the CEO expected the partnership strategy to deliver instant revenue. Wild. But not uncommon. Partnerships can't thrive in a vacuum. They need cross-functional support—marketing, product integration, sales enablement—all aligned to succeed. Before you set revenue targets for your partnerships, ask yourself: Do we have the resources to support them? If the answer is no, you have to help your leadership teams to reconsider their expectations. To help create the cross-functional support needed for partnerships to thrive, here are four strategies: 1. Involve Cross-Functional Leaders from the Very Beginning Bring key leaders from marketing, sales, and product into the partnership planning phase. Early involvement gives them a sense of ownership and ensures they understand how partnerships align with their own goals. Strategy: Schedule a kick-off meeting with stakeholders from each relevant department. Create a shared roadmap that outlines how partnerships will impact each team and their specific contributions. 2. Tie Partnership Success to Department KPIs To gain buy-in, tie partnership goals directly to the KPIs of each department. Aligning partnership outcomes with what each team is measured on ensures they have skin in the game. Strategy: During planning sessions, ask each department head how partnerships can contribute to their targets. Build specific KPIs for each function into the overall partnership strategy. 3. Create a Resource Exchange Agreement Formalize the support needed from each department with a resource exchange agreement. This sets clear expectations on what each function will contribute—whether it's a dedicated product team member for integrations or marketing resources for co-branded campaigns. It turns vague promises into commitments. Strategy: Draft a simple document that outlines the roles, responsibilities, and deliverables each team will provide, then get sign-off from department heads and the executive team. 4. Demonstrate Early Wins for Buy-In Quick wins go a long way toward securing ongoing resources. Identify a small pilot project with an internal team that shows immediate impact. Whether it's a small co-marketing campaign or a limited integration, these early successes build momentum and demonstrate the value of supporting partnerships. Strategy: Select one or two partners to run a pilot with, focused on delivering measurable outcomes like leads generated or product adoption. Use this success story to demonstrate value to other departments and secure further commitment. Partnership success requires cross-functional alignment. Because partnerships don’t happen in a silo.

Partnerships are alluring, but they demand significant commitment. Here are 5 things I've discovered through multiple calls and onboarding sessions. As we lean into partnerships for 2025, I've been on a steep learning curve. 1. Team Certification: Your team members (sometimes 3-5!) need to get certified in your partner's offerings. This isn't just a checkbox; it's an ongoing process of learning and staying updated. Whose going to do it? Do they have the time? 2. Sales Training: Your sales team needs to be trained specifically on selling these new partnerships. It's not just about knowing the product; it's about understanding how it fits into your existing offerings and client needs. Everyone's hyped. Now what? 3. Process Adaptation: Your sales process may need tweaking to identify partnership opportunities effectively. This could mean adjusting your discovery calls, proposal structures, or even your target client profiles. Remember, you committed. Need to ask the right questions/audit the right things to make sure they have an at-bat. 4. Continuous Learning: The partnership landscape is dynamic. Your team needs to commit to ongoing education to stay relevant and valuable to your partners. It's a market, and being unable to implement the new things in their product is not going to keep you on the top of their list. 5. Upfront Investment: Most partnerships require you to show some good faith on your end – time, resources, and especially prospects – before you start seeing returns. It's about building credibility and proving your commitment. Here's a hint: your partner rep is probably bonused on net new, not on how much like they like you. Key Takeaway: Select partnerships that either align as closely possible with your core business or match the most frequent customer problems you solve. The more congruent they are with what you do or the problems you frequently solve, the easier the integration will be. Alternatively, identify common issues your clients face and reverse engineer solutions through partnerships. Remember, becoming a partner is just the beginning. The real work starts after. Be prepared for a long-term commitment and the resources it will require. But when done right, partnerships can be a game-changer for your business growth and client satisfaction. I'm thankful for great partners like Drift, a Salesloft company, HubSpot and Funnel, great partner reps over like the years like Bennett Boucher and Alex Lemieux, as well as a great conversation with Jason Yarborough 🐻 at B2Bmx last year who doesn't even know how helpful he was to my thinking here. (Hey, he's speaking on partnerships there this year!) Are you leaning into partnerships for your business in 2025? What challenges do you anticipate?

9 Partnership-Killing Behaviors: -No alignment between Sales, Product, and Partners -Lack of a shared vision (why does this partnership exist?) -Poorly structured check-ins with no clear agenda - Over-promising without clear deliverables - Bad calendar management and missed deadlines - Lack of focus on mutual value creation - Lack of effort to nurture the relationship - Lack of trust between stakeholders - Partner overload (too many partnerships, not enough depth) - No data or metrics to measure success Strong partnerships thrive on focus, clear communication, and measurable outcomes. Align around a shared vision that inspires confidence and delivers tangible results for everyone involved. Lead with purpose, and success will follow.