Service partner

Some metrics to track partner adoption are partner sourced net new revenue and partner influenced revenue. If you are seeing these metrics are performing well with certain partners, it's a good indication that you have successfully enabled that partner to sell your offering. As well as your ICP’s are aligned and customers are seeing the value of both of your services. You must track metrics for all your partners as each one of them will have different goals established. 


If you are looking to measure how well your partners are performing, take a look at revenue they produce for you, # of deals, average deal size, # of sales reps within the partner that are selling your solution (ie partner penetration), and those downsteam partners that produce (if that’s applicable). If a partner brought you one deal a quarter, ask what it would take to get 1 a month? How can you co-invest in your joint success? You still have to figure out the ROI of that channel to measure its effectiveness over other channels/partnerships you invest in. It’s also important to understand how much revenue your solution represents to the partner. Depending on the type of partner, a good rule of thumb is to be 10% of the partners’ business. If you don’t make up 10% of their revenues they may not care as much about having a strategic partnership. Make sure you understand why the partner should sell it? Why should they care? What does it help them solve? Does your solution represent a larger deal, better solution, stickier solution to help with retention? Those answers and creating an ideal partner profile (IPP) will inform how you want to GTM and which partners to pursue. Create a scorecard so you can evaluate your partnerships on an ongoing basis. With the strategic partners, agree upon KPIs that you measure together and meet on a consistent basis to ensure you are both meeting or exceeding those expectations. 

Number of mutual case studies 
Number of mutual clients with partnership use cases set up 
Number of introductions into clients made / Closed ARR 
Number of stakeholders involved 
Number of enablement sessions run 


This is a good one. Just did a presentation on it the other day:

Marketing Reach & Acquisition
- Partner-sourced Cost per Customer Acquisition (CAC)
- Volume of partnerships content
- Audience expansion
- Addressable market reach & LTV potential

CS Lifetime Value (LTV)
- Retention of partner-sourced accounts vs. non
- Retention of accounts with integrations vs. non
- Integration usage vs. LTV
- NPS vs. LTV

Sales Net New & Expansion Revenue
- Sourced net new revenue
- Average Sales Price (ASP) of partner-sourced deals
- Close rate of partner-sourced deals
- Influenced revenue of non-sourced deals
- ARR by Partner/Integration
- Cross-sell expansion revenue




I’m going to be very unhelpful here and answer this question with a question 🙂

The answer to this is going to depend on what you mean by ‘performing’ - what does mean for your business? And does this differ based on partner type?

For example - you might want to set up and track one set of KPIs to measure how the adoption of implementation partner services impacts on your customers’ time-to-value, and their eventual renewal and expansion rates. From this, you can start to form a view on which partner services are most impactful, and where you need to build partner capacity to maximize that impact.

You could also take this same approach with technology partners and measure these metrics based on a specific integration, or combination of integrations.

Or, you might want to track revenue impact more explicitly - ie tracking revenue growth that is directly related to or correlated with adoption of a specific integration. 

As with all KPIs - the best first step is to take a step back, and understand the 'why' behind the KPI, before setting it! 


Consider the end-to-end adoption funnel. 

- Top of funnel: app installs/auths
- Middle of funnel: varies depending on the use case. Track events that show an intent or attempt to use the integration. 
- Bottom of funnel: DAU, successful "runs"



Try not to overcomplicate at first, and iterate as you go:
Start simple: Leads, new customer adds, revenue generated through rev share agreements, and integration adoption.

Iterate to:
Partner-Sourced Leads: Leads generated through the partner’s network or co-marketing efforts. This measures the partner’s contribution to pipeline growth.

Partner Co-Marketing Performance Metrics: Email open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and event attendance for partner-related campaigns. This tracks the success of joint marketing initiatives.

Partner Contribution to Customer Retention: Percentage of customers retained due to partner solutions (to paint the strategic value of the partnership)


Getting further into the weeds:
Upsell or Cross-Sell Conversion Rate: Percentage of customers adopting the integration who subsequently purchase additional products or services. Formula: (Number of Additional Purchases from Integration Users / Total Integration Users) × 100 which demonstrates the potential for growth through partner offerings.

Churn Rate for Integrated Customers: Percentage of customers who stop using your product, with a comparison between integrated and non-integrated users. Lower churn rates among integrated users often indicate the value of the integration (pro tip: partner sourced leads are usually, and should be, lower than direct sources leads. Highlight this to your CFO!)

Support Tickets Related to Integration: Number and frequency of customer support inquiries regarding the integration. High numbers could indicate friction or usability issues.

Onboarding Completion Rate: Percentage of users who complete onboarding after adopting the integration.

Formula: (Users Who Complete Onboarding / Total Enabled Users) × 100. This reflects the effectiveness of your enablement resources.

Integration Downtime: Frequency and duration of issues affecting the integration’s functionality. This measures reliability and its impact on customer trust.

Other peripheral things to track: 
Customer CSAT w/integration
NPS
TTV aka Time-to-Value - The average time it takes for a customer to see the expected benefit after enabling the integration. Shorter TTV reflects the ease of use and immediate value of the integration.

There’s always going to be the straight revenue attribution KPI’s to focus on like 
- Deal registrations 
- Partner sourced qualified pipeline
- Partner influenced revenue 

Other KPI’s can be:
- Partner marketing leads
- Amount of sales enablement sessions
- Partner portal engagement, track how often they’re logging in and engaging with content 
-      Partner meetings per week (How many times are you meeting with AEs to discuss accounts)

These KPI’s can help with your partner matrix and understand who your top tier partners are and where to focus your time and efforts on. 

What are some KPI's you would recommend for us to track to understand how well our partner adoption is performing?

The best way to activate newly recruited partners is to have a pre-made 30-60-90 day plan with the partner, and to present the plan with them on the initial partner kickoff call. The beauty of having a solid 30-60-90 day plans is that it not only lays out the specific actions that are expected from both you and the partner during the first 3 months of the partnership; but it also puts DATES on these actions. When you put dates on actions, you avoid the risk of "things coming up" or "being put on the backburner" on both the partner's side and your side.

When I started to implement this with our partners, we saw partners start to bring on clients to our platform in a much shorter time than before. And, not only that, we were able to give the partner exactly what they needed in the timeframe that was best for them too.

Some things we include in our 30-60-90 day plans is putting a joint webinar on the calendar to promote Trainual to the partner's audience, creating custom content that shows affiliation of our partnership and helps to empower the partner's audience to make an easy decision about moving forward from our software, and having the partner think about the optimal way they can offer Trainual in their service offerings.

This is a fundamental question because you want to be sure that the Integrations work to getting a new partner up and running is bolstered by your commercial conversation. My advice here would be to focus on getting new partners excited about your company, the shared value your services will bring to your mutual clients, and ultimately, the commercial benefits they will receive by being and growing within your partner program. 

What we do @ Adjust is that the moment the PM qualifies the partner as worthy of an integration, simultaneously when Integrations is doing their work, we have the partner onboard onto PartnerPage (our Partner Marketplace). This provides them control over how they are presented to our client base about the brand exposure they hoped to achieve by partnering with us. Once the integration is live, we push the partner’s listing to public, and the PM managing the relationship will add them to our client-mapping tools to begin account mapping. 

For me, it's critical to provide newly recruited partners with a clear to do list, and a clear set of performance KPIs to work against. If you fail to provide clarity out of the gate on what is expected within your program, you may lose the opportunity to build any momentum causing the partnership to drop in priority for both sides.

Typically I would have categorised them into different tiers/groups. Some partners are more relevant for marketing, others for retention whereas some are all-round. Below an example for a top tier tech partner that is relevant for all departments of my organisation (not in order):

- Landing Page on Marketplace
- LinkedIn/Social Announcement
- Add into our monthly customer newsletter
- Setup an enablement session (both ways)
- Partner referral agreement (but this financial add shouldn’t be the primary driver!)
- Account mapping on both a macro level (partner manager to partner manager) but also a micro level (pairing of regions/vertical reps) when appropriate
- Mutual customer success story (this is of course dependant on if we have mutual customer at start or not - as you want months of joint value to display)
- Where possible but is prioritised.. giving introductions and intel to new tech partner :)

Once you have gone through the discovery phase and you have indicated a mutual partnership fit. The onboarding and enablement phases are extremely important. These phases will be different for all partners depending on your partnership goals. 

During the onboarding phase identify metrics to measure your success. This can be done through creating some kind of mutual success plan. Here you can share all enablement materials (one pagers, sales decks, case studies, stats) in one central hub. Include information on your ICP for them to refer back to. As well as indicate next steps to keep us on track. Setting a communication cadence as well as outlining communications methods will be critical as well. 

In a sales role, think about the attention to detail and level of dedication we provide our customers with during onboarding. We want to ensure these customers are set up for success from the beginning and a partner should be no different. 


I love working with new partners, when the excitement is high, and possibilities are endless. But you must have a plan to get partners to a predictable level of success, and that requires both plans and planning. 

I am a strong advocate of setting up joint success plans with partners, and creating a joint action plan that tracks your goals and the actions needed to achieve them. 

A joint success plan aka JSP can be part of partner software, or tracked on Box note so don't worry about the technical details, it's more important to connect and document both your partner goals, and your goals and the activities needed to achieve them. 

For example, if a partner wants to achieve 100K installs of your integrated solution, or driving $1M in revenue, document those goals and start to peel back the actions that each party will need to take to start to work towards achieving those goals. 

First, the starting point is to share information on how our product is used and what our strategic priorities are to make sure there is alignment while learning the same from the partner. The overlap is the most important part and dictates everything from the design of the technology underlying the partnership, the terms of the partnership, and the timeline. 

From there, issue instances of your product for the partner to get comfortable with our technology. In some instances at LaunchDarkly, we have had customers look to become a tech partner which helps knowing they are familiar with the product. In parallel, look at the overlapping customer base to see if you can learn about how customers are leveraging the two products together. At this stage there are a few questions worth looking into: is there a large number of overlapping customers? If not, are there significant customers that overlap or customers with sophisticated use of our product? Are customers using your products in ways that have overlapping capabilities or are the two products being used in very separate ways? 

From there, be responsive to the partner as they look to develop the technology. It's important to have humility and respect for partners - every team is resource-constrained and being responsive and easy to work with is important in moving things along even though deadlines may be missed. 

Once the partner is ready, have resources to collaborate around what a launch might look like and, depending on where the tech lies in your strategy, see what additional things you can do for more strategically important tech partners. Remember: prioritization of your ecosystem is key and not all partners are equal. 

From there, it's really up to the customers to decide the fate of the partnership and getting their feedback dictates what the next steps are. 

I like to break new activation into 3 phases: discovery, onboarding, enablement. 

During discovery your focus is gathering information needed to evaluate the partnership (and set rough targets), understand the partner’s goal, find overlaps in those goals with your own, and identify the correct point of contact/decision makers for partnerships activity. There may or may not be NDAs that need to be executed. Once initial conversations conclude, and you confirm the partner is a “good-fit”, agreements are typically signed.

Now we head into onboarding. This is when you will begin to set communication cadences, educate the partner on your platform/service/tool, and begin to share brand assets and resources. Partners are also typically provided access to portals and or slack channels (where applicable). Setting up an autoresponder can be extremely helpful in streamlining this process, but only use this method to deliver resources and walk the partner through basic onboarding steps. With anything else I would lean on making the communication more personalized — remember you are building a relationship with this partner. 

A sample sequence can look like this: 

Welcome message: Introduction to the program, share support contact information, reminder of benefits & expectations (aka goals)
Resources: How to access to access the portal, training materials, and partner resources available
Activity 1: Reminder to schedule training sessions
Activity 2: Booking a kickoff meeting
Resources: Samples of best practices (to reach agreed upon goals) and relevant resources

Most PRMs will have some functionality to help with this, but you can also always use an ESP like AWeber too.

Last, but not least, you will move the partner into the enablement phase. During this phase you will begin your normal outreach cadence. Activities typically include:  
Bi-weekly to Monthly check in calls (these should be more frequent earlier in the relationship or when a GTM activity is underway). You can also substitute calls for async emails or slack communications. I also recommend including partners on some sort of newsletter to provide feature updates, new opportunities, etc.
Announce the partnership (where appropriate)  
Plan and execute initial partner activity (this varies based on the type of partnership but blog swaps or webinars are a great place to start)
Revisiting partner goals and tracking progress against those goals (goals can range from completing training to new customer acquisition or a set number of connections to an integration.
Discuss areas for improvement, roadblocks, and any upcoming initiatives (from both your end as well as the partner’s)

I think it all starts with one mutual customer. If we can find one mutual customer and find a way to make their process more efficient using both of our technologies, and then find a way to document this in the form of a case study, we can use that story to build our mutual customer base up.

I think this depends on the partner type, but activation is a very important part of the partner journey just as it is with customers. This stage is great for aligning around technical plans, business objectives, and GTM launch plans. 

For managed partners, I would have a standard template to align on business objectives and GTM launches. This would include what the cadence of touchpoints is and KPIs for each side of the partnerships. Ensuring partner enablement content around the product and marketing side is strong also helps to kick off the partnership on the right foot.

For low touch/scaled partners, setting up automations and GTM enablement content can increase activation rates as can a well-designed partner portal.

For all partners, make sure to track inactivity or low performance of partners out of the gate, and put in place automation or direct contact that discovers and helps to fix the problem.    

When starting from scratch, target smaller partners with similar ICPs (ideal customer profile). You'll start getting a sense of what your IPP (ideal-partner-profile) then, you can rinse and repeat. 

A lot of times, referrals will be your best partners to work with or individuals that you meet in person (e.g., happy hours, dinner, conferences) 

Most people assume that a tiered partner approach works best: hold a carrot on a stick (e.g. the next tier of your partner program) and make the partner work for it. 

Assuming you done your diligence and the partner is relevant and capable to serve your customers, try to invert this approach:

Ask not what your partner can do for you. Ask what you can do for your partner.

Give first. Prove to them that your program is not all hype, but you can provide value to their business. Send them leads or make relevant intros.

It'll be much easier for your champion in the partner org to unlock resources for your partnership if they have the numbers to back up this investment.   

Getting to action and their first deal quickly will get that partner activated quickly. Depending on resources I like to have an “onboarding” guide or person to get them through the first hurdle of understanding your product. Make sure the program is spelled out simply and can be easily accessed so they know what they are getting/giving becoming a partner. Share best practices of your most successful partners. First you have to educate them and they have to commit to some education. You can make it light, in short snippets, and interesting (think video!). Once they educate, agree to help them get their first deal - perhaps give them one as a gift. You can also send them some cool swag for becoming a partner and taking the first education event. Create an incentive for that partner to sell their first deal or their first few deals. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Consistent touch points - stay in front of them with interesting industry information. Invite them to your communities. Again, give them exposure i.e. linkedin post welcoming them to the program with a little shout out to something they excel at in their space. 

The best thing a partner manager can do to activate newly recruited partners is to spend time with them.

I do my best to get on a 30-minute call with every partner I feel can have an impact on our program. Other methods we use, are making sure partners get certified so we are confident they know the product well, and making sure they have all the information. Another thing we’ve seen to be very successful is making sure they all end up in a Slack channel with our team and talking to each other. This gives them a sense of community and a place to go when they are unsure about something. 

For activating newly recruited partners: 
1. Define what "activation" is meaningful to you. 
2. Establish a checklist of how they can get there. 
3. Reward the partner at every step along the way: both completing the checklist and achieving activation. 

Let's use an example: 
1. A partner is considered activated when their integration has 10 users. 
2. To attract new users, partners should a) announce the new integration to their email list and b) make the integration discoverable in their product UI
3. Once the partner completes the email and in-product messaging, they get a lightweight co-marketing perk, a social media tweet about our partnership. Once they "activate", i.e. reach 10 users, they advance to the next tier of the partner program. 

It should come as no surprise that there is not a single go-to playbook for activating new partners. It's one of the most challenging--and arguably most important--motions for partner programs and every program I've worked with has wrestled with it.

It's very important to dial in your Ideal Partner Profile (IPP) and your Joint Value Proposition (JVP) for prospective partners, so you're not just standing on a street corner shouting "WHO WANTS REFERRAL COMMISSION?" to anyone who walks by.

Once you're confident you're talking to the right prospective partners and both parties are clear about the value they're both providing and receiving, then the next most important aspect is managing expectations. Be very clear with each other about the immediate next steps once the partnership agreement has been signed. Ideally there is existing partnership business that can be executed right away. If there isn't, be very clear about how you expect the partnership to function, and then follow up and address it if those expectations aren't met by either side. 

Kickoff & Alignment: Host a welcome call to align on goals, expectations, and success metrics. Share a clear partner enablement plan and resources.

Understand their business and how it functions: This is arguably the most important part of the initial conversations. The three main things I want to know is how they acquire, retain and upsell customers. This will help you understand what placements you'll be asking for (in-product, SPIFFs for sales, lifecycle email drips etc) in order to position yourself seamlessly within their normal operational processes. 

Training & Enablement: Provide a partner toolkit (guides, FAQs, use cases).
Deliver tailored training on your product, integrations, and value props.

Joint Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy: Collaborate on a GTM plan, including target segments, messaging, and co-marketing opportunities. Set up co-branded assets and campaigns.

Technical Setup: Ensure seamless onboarding for any integrations or APIs.
Offer support for technical alignment and testing. 

Incentives & Milestones: Establish clear incentives (revenue share, leads, bonuses). Define early activation goals and track progress.

Launch Support: Promote the partnership via announcements, webinars, or PR. Conduct joint customer outreach to drive adoption.

Ongoing Collaboration: Schedule regular check-ins to assess performance and address challenges. Share performance metrics, success stories, and feedback loops. 

Recognition & Advocacy: Highlight partner successes through case studies and testimonials. Foster loyalty through exclusive opportunities or events.

My recruitment playbook has been different for every company i have worked at but i do follow a basic structure. 
I try to draft out what a Partner journey looks like and start with these four stages: Attract, Recruit, Enable, Co-sell. I think about all the touch points that would be needed to successfully move a Partner along this process and also overlay any stakeholders required to make that happen.
This is a great session to run with a wider team from different departments that have a touchpoint with the ecosystem.

There will be some activities that are pretty standard such as onboarding, paperwork, access to resources, etc. but then there will be specific activities related to your solution and the type of partners you are recruiting. For example, a technology partner will likely require a number of steps across integration and validation of any connectivity and need a different type of enablement to a services based partner who will require more standard training and sales positioning material. Your co-sell steps will also be driven by how you position and sell directly. You can look at your new hire onboarding (in particular for SE's and Sales) for a framework of the sales enablement required to activate a Partner.

What is your go-to playbook for activating newly recruited partners?

To me, the most important part of getting partners certified is helping validate which partners a customer should choose from when looking to hire a service partner. As a partner team, you are building the necessary training and technical certification tracks that should, in theory, help filter through the potential options for your customers. If your training/certification materials are not doing this effectively, it may be worth exploring new tracks you can implement to ensure the right partners are recommended to customers.

If you form strong partnerships with the right companies/teams, you can get to a setup where your partners act as extended ears/eyes in the market. 

If you train/certify correctly, then they understand what value your product/service can bring and to what type of customers so that any of their reps from AMs to SDRs can act as an additional intel source for your team.

Rather than just relying on your direct outreach, marketing and sales team, partners can exponentially extend your reach and qualify effectively. They would be motivated to introduce or let you know of opps for your organisation through referral kickbacks but more importantly, general partner collaboration as hopefully you are doing the same for them in return.

I cannot stress enough the importance of partner training. It is impossible for a partner to support with referrals or any initiative at all if they do not know what you do. 

You have to ensure you are providing adequate training to your partners in different forms. Everyone learns differently and we want to ensure we are enabling all the right people at their company. Which means different types of digestible enablement materials. Not only do you need to provide training to partners on your offering but you need to also share insights on your “better together story”. The reason being, when your partner sets out to make introductions on your behalf, they will likely be faced with many questions and in some cases some objections. They need to be equipped to handle these types of things when they come up. This will help to ensure we are showcasing the value of our partnership to our customers and prospects. 


I love this question, because I get to share what I think is one of the most valuable things I learned from being on the receiving end of many lunch and learns or partner enablement sessions:

Your partner will NEVER sell you if they do not know what you do, or how it benefits their client.

Think about this one, deeply - when your partner is pitching your product to one of their customers, they will likely face some questions from their customer, including but (definitely) not limited to:

Why do I need this? 
How much does it cost? 
How will it benefit my business? 
Why is this better than what I have in place?
How long will this take to implement?
Will I have to shut down critical business practices to enable this?
How will my team have to manage this?

If your partner cannot stand up to questioning about your product, THEY WILL NOT PITCH IT. They won't stake their reputation, especially when you think about who is pitching, which is usually not your partner manager! 

So with all of that context...
1. Partner training trains the right people on the right questions about your product, and 
2. Partner certification enhances the legitimacy of their pitch to their customers.

The other benefits of certification are covered in the question "What's the most effective way to scale partner adoption beyond the first few partner engagements that happen?"

For our solutions (consulting) partners, we provide free training and certifications, and they can obtain the Silver tier and be listed in our directory only after obtaining at least one certification. For them, having the benefit of a Silver partner logo and being able to claim that expertise in front of customers is enough value to get certified. And when they have been using Caspio for a while, the certification itself isn't too difficult to obtain.

I view training and certification separately.

Partner training and enablement is a critical step in the process of developing buy-in to the partnership across your partner's organisation. Training sessions solve the first two steps of the Educate > Enable > Motivate framework for developing great partnerships.

I haven't gotten to the stage where my current org is certifying partners. It can often be a vanity exercise - imo, it's useful for the following three things:

1. Showing which (if any) individuals at your partner organisation are seriously interested in the partnership
2. Giving your partners a project for you to work towards together, building collaborative momentum
3. (The most difficult thing to get right) Certified partner training can provide an in-depth technical understanding of your product for resellers and channel partners to use your solution to provide additional services

Partner training and certification are foundational to making sure your partners are appropriately enabled to be successful in your program. Just like your sales team, your partners are selling your products to their customers and they need to be enabled similarly. A lot of products and services in the market today are extremely complex and you want your partners to be able to represent you effectively and accurately. 

Also, training and certification can be used as both a carrot and a stick in your program by using it as a milestone to unlock additional tiers and incentives, and also as a blocker to restrict certain tiers and incentives until a required number of people at the partner have completed whatever training you deem to be required to advance. 

1. Deepens Expertise and Confidence
- Enhanced Knowledge: Partner training ensures that your partners have a comprehensive understanding of your products, services, and solutions. With this knowledge, they can engage with clients/prospects more confidently, answering questions and addressing concerns effectively.
- Validated Expertise: Certification offers a formal recognition of a partner’s expertise. Certified partners are seen as trusted advisors, providing reassurance to clients and credibility to the partner. 

2. Increases Sales Effectiveness
- Sharpened Sales Skills: partners learn how to position your offerings more effectively, handle objections, and align the solution with client needs. This results in more productive sales conversations and improved close rates.
- Faster Conversion: partners will be equipped with best practices and proven techniques to accelerate the sales cycle. Their deep product knowledge leads to quicker decisions and greater customer trust.

3. Drives Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty
- Improved Client Support: partners can provide a higher level of service, guiding clients through both pre-sales and post-sales stages. This ensures smoother implementations, faster resolutions to issues, and better overall client experiences.
- Stronger Long Term Relationships: when partners understand your product inside and out, they can help clients fully leverage your solutions, leading to stronger client retention.

4. Strengthens the Partnership
- Building Trust: fosters a deeper relationship built on mutual trust. As partners gain expertise, they feel more confident in representing your brand and positioning your solution as the right choice for clients. Same goes for you introducing your clients to partners who can help them optimize your solution. 
- Long-Term Collaboration: creates a formal framework for success, helping both you and your partners set clear expectations and working together toward shared goals. This builds a more resilient and productive partnership.

5. Differentiates Partners in the Market
- Competitive Advantage: partners stand out from the competition. With recognized credentials, they can showcase their expertise to clients, giving them a significant edge in crowded or competitive markets.

6. Keeps Partners Up to Date
- Always Ahead of the Curve: ensures partners stay on top of the latest product updates, industry changes, and best practices. With this knowledge, they’re always ready to pivot and keep delivering the most relevant solutions to clients. 
- Growth at Every Step: keeps partners motivated, prepared, and equipped to handle whatever comes next. Continuous learning means they’re always ready to meet new challenges head-on, driving success both for themselves and for your clients.


What is the benefit of partner training and having partners get certified?

I would first question why this partner is dormant. Are they relevant to your business? Do they overlap with your client base? If you have determined that they are dormant because they are no longer or were never really relevant to your business then I would leave it. There is no benefit to wasting your resources on activating a partner that is not going to move the needle when it comes to your business needs.

However, if the partner is relevant and active in your ecosystem, what I would worry about is whether they are in bed with your competitor and feeding them all their leads. The easiest solution is to hop on a call and ask them why? At the end of the day, partnerships are all about relationships, and Partnership Managers have the same end goal. Understanding your partners’ needs and if they are being met better elsewhere will enable you to make an informed decision as to whether it makes sense to pursue a solution. But if you don’t know the ‘why’ then any solution you try to rectify the situation, will be likely to fail. 

Send them a case study on your most performant partner who is the most similar to them. 
Ask them if they want to get on the program you have that partner on.
If they don’t respond, send them a cancelation notice and stop spending time or energy on that relationship. 


My honest answer? I wouldn't, unless you have a recruitment challenge. If you have built a program that is truly mutually beneficial and the partner has gone dormant it is likely that they have made the decision to deprioritize working with you. This can at times be one of the worst time sucks for a partner team when you have other partners (or future partners) who are eager and ready to work with you. 

Get on a call and get a sense of how their situation has changed since you started a partnership. Specific questions:

- Is this partnership still a priority for you? Why/why not?
- Has your mission/goal changed since we last spoke? Are you still being measured on XYZ?
- Has your leadership changed? Has the vision or resourcing changed with any leadership moves?
- What is the ideal relationship you have with our company? How can we help you grow?
- Where is there friction in our partnership? How can we solve for it?

That should help you figure out why they went dormant, and where you can go from here. 

That’s a great question!

The key thing to understand is, why did the partner go cold?

Is the opportunity not lucrative enough for them? Then maybe figure out what a better win-win would look like for them.

Do they not have proper capacity? Then maybe check in with them to see if that changed or paint a better picture of the outcome and encourage them to shift priorities. Most partners will do anything for more revenue to their business.

Did they have a bad experience with your product? Then try to re-introduce them to your product when you have something better to show them. New product releases are a great way to reengage partners. 


One strategy that has worked for us really well is engaging partners for product feedback, and showing them we implement it. When partners feel heard and Valued, they are encouraged to build a close and strong relationship with the vendor.

Reengaging dormant partners requires a thoughtful approach that rekindles interest, addresses potential barriers, and showcases new opportunities. Ideally there is a good personal relationship with the partners, which always helps. 

The first step of reengaging dormant partners is figuring out why they are dormant, assessing the relationship (maybe the partnership is not relevant for them, they dont see upside in it or they have forgotten/partnered with some other provider.)

- Reignite interest with new opportunities for them: a renters insurance partner that is dormant might reengage with new revenue opportunity by integrating/offering relevant pet insurance for example.

- Innovative Solutions: Present creative ways to make the partnership easier or more rewarding, such as streamlined processes or automation.

- Feedback Loop: Ask for their input on improving the partnership to make them feel valued.

- Performance-Based Rewards: Offer incentives for achieving specific goals (e.g., bonus for reactivating their account or meeting certain milestones).

- Build a Long-Term Engagement Plan: Consistent Follow-Up - don’t stop after the initial outreach. Schedule regular check-ins to nurture the relationship.

Any tips for reengaging dormant Partners? 

Activation should be a clear milestone that indicates a partner is ready and motivated to drive revenue. The definition will depend on your business company, but in general, activation should be:

1. Measurable: tied to actions that show real engagement.
2. Time-Bound: ideally happening within the first 30-90 days.
3. Aligned with Revenue Generating Behavior: encouraging activities that lead to deals closed.

Ways to define activation based on different partner models:

Referral Partners:

- First referral or lead submitted
- First sale generated
- Co-marketing campaign launched

Technology/Integration Partners:

- Integration completed and tested
- First joint customer onboarded
- Co-marketing campaign launched

Common partner activation blockers:
- Lack of clarify on next steps. 
- Lack of product knowledge. 
- No immediate incentive to engage. 
- Complicated deal registration process. 
- Lack of cross team/channel support. 
- Misaligned incentives. 


How should I define activation, and what are some common blockers/issues that prevent successful activation of partners?

In SaaS partnerships, you'll typically want a mix of monetary and non-monetary incentives to drive activation, engagement, and referrals. 

Monetary incentives: 
1. Rev share/commission. Offer partners a percentage of revenue from referred customers. 20% for year one and 10% for year two is currently what Opensend is offering partners. 
2. One-time bounties: payouts for actions like helping your team book a demo. 
3. Performance Bonuses: Increasing rewards based on volume or performance (e.g., higher commission rates after X referrals or extra bonuses for hitting revenue milestones).
3. Discounted or Free SaaS – Offering free or discounted access to your software as a benefit for active partners. Opensend provides referring partners with a free B2B account. 
4. Exclusive promotions for their clients. Enabling partners to offer unique discounts to their customers as a selling point.

Non monetary incentives: 
1. Dedicated Partner Support & Account Management – Offering VIP support, direct access to an account manager, or a dedicated Slack channel.
2. Early Access to New Features: giving partners a first look at new features before public release.
3. Co-Branding Opportunities: featuring partners on your website, case studies, or allowing them to co-host webinars and content.
4. Tech Integrations & API Access: supporting deep technical integrations that give partners more opportunities to offer more comprehensive solutions.

Best practices for incentivizing activation and ongoing engagement: 
- Make the process as easy as possible to start. 
- Gamify engagement. 
- Frequent check ins and ongoing enablement. 
- Continuous feedback loops. 


What kind of incentives (monetary and non-monetary) do you offer partners to get them to activate (as well as to motivate them to engage with the program/refer new business on an ongoing basis)?



Creating a scalable partner program requires automation, clear segmentation, self-serve enablement, and high-touch engagement for priority partners. 

1. Standardized and automated onboarding. 
- Partner playbooks with enablement docs: provide detailed guides on how to sell, integrate, and optimize your product, service, offering, etc. 
- Partner portal: dedicated hub with resources and enablement. This can include deal registration, performance tracking, training, and more. 
- Training and certification: offer tiered certifications or training modeules that partners can complete at their own pace. 

2. Segmented tiering and scalable support. 
- Not all partners are the same: Define different tiers of partners with varying levels of support. 

3. Incentivized activation. 
- Clear activation milestones. 
- Gamification. 
- Time sensetive bonuses, encouraging quick activation. 

4. Scalable co-marketing and lead sharing. 
- Provide templates for partners to quickly personalize and use. 
- Partner directory featuring activated partners on your site. 
- CRM integration. 

5. Ongoing engagement and community driven growth. 
- Hosting frequent digital updates (webinars) to showcase new features, success stories, and best practices.
- Creating a slack/social community to allow for peer to peer engagement. 
- QBRs for priority partners. 

6. Optimizing your tech stack. 
- Partner relationship managment software. 
-Learning Management System. 
- Automated demand generation. 