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Question

What activities would you suggest for internal partner training to help the different teams and stakeholders in my organization learn about the partners we have in our ecosystem?

Answer
When designing internal partner training activities to help different teams and stakeholders in your organization, it’s important to make the learning experience interactive and engaging. Here are several activities that could be useful: Partner Webinars: Let your partners present themselves in a webinar to your organization, make it interactive with open Q&A. Partner mini clips: Create Brief Videos (5 min max) of your partners presenting themselves. Partner Role Play: Create role-playing activities where each team assumes the role of a different partner, or customer, to simulate collaboration scenarios. Collaborative Partner Success Stories: Facilitate a storytelling workshop where different teams can share success stories from your partners.
Question

How can partners help the sales team win more deals?

Answer
Partners are the extended team of a sales organization. They can enhance the overall value proposition, expand the reach, and provide specialized expertise that complements the product or service. Additionally partners can create Joint Marketing Activities and Lead Generation, they can leverage their relationships in customers to influence a deal, they can reduce time to value for the customers, and they can close deals with additional incentives or special/complex terms.
Question

What's the absolutely best way to coordinate those early co-selling conversations between AEs and the prospect?

Answer
The best way to coordinate early conversations with the prospect is ACTING FAST. Let your partner take ownership of the conversation, understand the needs of the prospect, make them feel valued and engaged, let them know that the partner and the AE are working together to provide the best solution for the them.
Question

What team leaders should be stakeholders in your partner program's strategy in order for the program to be successful?

Answer
For a partner program to be succesfull, it’s crucial to involve the right team leaders across different departments to ensure alignment and collaboration. Critical leaders that should be involved are the following: -Sales leaders: hey will drive the revenue impact of the partner program. They need to be aligned on how the partner program can help them closing deals and how the partner can add value to the customers. -Product leaders: They allign product strategy to partner offerings. They also provide product guidance and technical support to partners. -Marketing leaders: They assist on co-marketing activities and partner marketing campaigns. -Customer Success and Partner Success leaders: They ensure that the partner program contributes to long-term customer satisfaction and retention. -Operations, legal and finance leaders: They guarantee partner compliance and structure in their deals.
Question

What's your advice on aligning partners with our sales pitch and how to we enable them to successfully pitch to our customers?

Answer
This alligment is crutial to have consistency in the storyline that both AE´s and partners have with Customers. Usually the best way to allign partners is having a workshop together with the sales organization, provide the sales pitch, and role play it after.
Question

How do you get cross-functional buy-in to support your tech partner program, both in the early recruiting days and once the program is more established?

Answer
It is crutial to involve all required stakeholders from the early stages. You can achieve that by getting executive support and involving key leaders in the early stages of your partner and recruiting planning. It is important to set clear expectations and KPI´s with all the different stakeholders that will interact in your strategy.
Question

What are the best ways to create alignment and trust between sales teams and partners to ensure smooth co-selling? Are there any blockers/red flags I should watch out for?

Answer
Like in any human relationship, COMMUNICATION is the basis of everything. With clear communication, trust can be built, and having trust, good things start happening in the ecosystem. I usually try to engage AE´s with partner executives from the early stages of the onboarding so that we can build a startegy together. Red Flags should be raised when communication is broken.