Service partner

If the partners sourced the deal and/or is running it, they should get a preferred / deal reg approved discount off of list pricing to enable them to sell to the customer themselves. 

Example: List price is $100. Your average deal size today is $80 after discount. Give your partners 40% discount off list on deals they source / have deal reg approval on. Split the difference with your partners so they are making enough margin to (1) build a meaningful revenue stream for their overall business in partnering with you (2) partner reps have incentive to stay focused on you instead of wandering to a partner that nets them a much better margin.

For fulfillment deals where your company has run the deal without any partner involvement and the partner is only being added to the deal as a transaction vehicle, it is common place for your company to negotiate pricing with the customer and then send a quote for the agreed upon price with a 5% discount to the partner. Note that you can NOT dictate to the partner what they have to charge (price fixing) but you are realistically giving them far less discount to work off of to make any substantial margin. 

If the partner is simply referring, common practice is to spiff the partner 10% commission on the backend.

I am trying to figure out how to structure payouts/commissions for partners that are doing some type of resell or participating in the contracting process.. what would you recommend as a general way to set this up?

Great question! I recommend you spend time meeting with individual team members - the CSMs and support agents actually working with your customers - to get a better understanding of their day to day before trying to get them to leverage service partners. It's important to recognize how busy these teammates are already just trying to ensure customers are happy and they may not have immediate capacity to take on something new like leveraging a service partner. Once you do find teammates that have capacity, be sure to work with them to educate other teammates on the benefits they experienced while working with you to leverage said service partner.

Facts and data will help you prove the case. Showing a business case that supports reducing the costs to the business by off-loading services the partners can provide. Most internal support teams are limited with their resources so share how partners can take on those services to help them achieve their goals (retention, resolutions, call time etc). Also showing either in-house or industry data around retention of customers through partners. Normally better retention rates are possible through partners which means (in SaaS) billings continue longer and the CLV is more valuable to the company. Share how specific partners are driving value for your competition.  

I’ll answer this question with a question (annoying, I know.) What value does the customer success and support team get from service partners? This is a question that my team has been working on with our customer success team, all year. We’ve created workflows to incorporate partners into renewal and upsell conversations, or to help smooth out friction with customers experiencing challenges. But until you know how your CS/Support team perceives Partnerships, as well as what their needs are, it will be hard to drive adoption of service partners.

Good enablement is essential for anybody in your organisation to be able to leverage service partners.  The main objective of the enablement sessions should be that the teams have a good understanding of the value that partner will drive to their clients/prospects, are confident in how your teams would work together, and ultimately trust those partner to make them look good. 

Three things that can be done to help support this and build trust are; 

1. A strong joint value proposition
2. Multiple case studies with mutual clients 
3. identify the key signals that indicate that client or prospect could benefit from your services partners offering. 


1. Start by creating a customer success plan. This will help outline the goals and objectives of your customer success team, as well as how they can work with service partners to achieve these goals.

2. Make sure your customer success team is properly trained on how to work with service partners. They should understand the role these partners play in achieving customer success, and be able to effectively communicate with them.

3. Work with your service partners to create a strategy for customer success. This should include the services they offer, as well as how they can help support your customers’ success.

4. Cooperate with your service partners to measure customer success. This will help you track progress and ensure that both your team and your service partners are meeting the needs of your customers.

This is a bit tough to answer without more context. It depends if your CS team is designed to service accounts or not, and if that is an additional revenue stream for your company or not. 

Basically, you have to find an angle that a service partner either saves them time/work and improves the end product/experience for your users.

Figure out what their goals are and what challenges they experience. Then try and solve for those with your service partners.

Additionally, what data can you find to support how beneficial your service partners are? Do they have a higher Avg Sales Price (ASP)? Do they retain longer? Do they use more features? Give them quantitative data on top of qualitative data to build your biz case.

This can be tricky, but very doable. There are many ways to accomplish this, and one of the easiest is leveraging community. If your support uses a specific tool to chat with customers, for example, you could leverage AI to try to answer questions that the community has already answered. 

Also, usually service partners are usually the first line of defense for your customers and their questions. You can relieve support if you create special levels of support for your partners so they can better support their clients. Enable the partners to field their client's questions where possible. 


I'm assuming this question is asking about internal teams referring customers to service partners for services you don't offer directly (aka outbound referrals). In the spirit of the old adage "People will do what you pay them to do," pay them! Even small spiffs like $50 per qualified referral can go a long way toward creating momentum.

What's more, your service partners want those leads more than any other partner incentive, including cash, and they should be willing to pay you a commission just like you pay your partners commission for referrals they send to you. Those commissions should offset the cost of the spiffs, and then some, creating an additional incremental revenue stream that didn't exist previously. 

In addition to spiffs, proper enablement is key as well. Your internal teams need to know who the service partners, something about the services they offer, and the referral motion should be simple and easy so as not to create additional cognitive overhead in an already chaotic business environment. 

How can I get the customer success and support teams in my company to leverage service partners?

In the past I've found enabling consulting partners to be one of the trickiest parts of program design as every partner is different in how they communicate with clients. Out of the gate, I think the partner needs to have a clear value proposition, a set of customer stories to tell, a succinct competition positioning statement, and straight forward pricing materials.

Top 3 are:

1. A 2-pager with an overview of our product and our jvp with that partner 
2. Mutual case study 
3. Use case features and benefits (1 pagers or videos) 


When we built a program for consulting partners in a prior role, we built a matrix to identify where we would focus our efforts. Once we had prioritized a few consulting partner relationships we worked to understand from them, what best practices were the most effective for content and enablement.  The point being, one can guess what resources a partner is going to need OR you can learn with the partner about what works best for them. This does not mean to show up empty handed but rather, get an understanding of what great looks like, from them, then replicate and enhance.  You do not need to reinvent the wheel.  

The Caspio Partner Portal provides our consulting partners with all the collateral they need to discuss our offering and their joint solution with their clients: presentations, pricing sheets, case studies, value propositions, demo apps, and more!

We provide our partners with foundational sales materials like positioning guides, messaging framework, and ideal customer profile documentation, where to each profile, they find the most adequate messaging. This helps partners understand how to tailor the product pitch for different customer personas, to then add value to their own solution.

We also share valuable use cases that partners are also encouraged to use in pitch meetings, nothing resonates with potential customers more than hearing about other enterprise accounts that have solved similar challenges. These materials equip our partners to confidently discuss our solutions and drive meaningful conversations with their clients.

What sales materials do consulting partners generally need to discuss your product with their clients?

Ask your Implementation and Support teams on what they see most often as blockers to completing an integration, make sure your partners can handle these situations, or better yet solve them completely. 
Make sure that the work you want partners to do is appealing to them and they get value out of the work. New implementations and support going to your partners should be labeled as opportunities for the partner to grow their business, not differed work for your teams. 

Great question! The first step is to validate their performance in an objective way to see if their clients are as satisfied with their work as they claim to provide. This will help you determine which partners are worth inviting into the v1 of a certified services/experts partner program - especially if you plan on sending referrals to them out of the gate. Once these partners start working with your customers, you can start to determine what program tiers/measurement could look like.

This is a fantastic question - and I love this. 
Start your Partner Program, and detail what they get for joining. What’s in it for them? Remember: all of this can be inspired by them! You can see how I structured Glide’s Expert Program here:
https://www.glideapps.com/experts-program

“Certified” will require some level of education and a pass/fail test.  The easiest way for this is to build education around your SAAS with learning components. I would also add one more condition here - something that requires your partners to have "skin in the game". 
For example, to become a Glide Certified Expert you need:  
-Pass the highest level of certification from Glide University
-Upgrade 3 clients to a paid team OR purchase the Agency plan

You can see here how I made it clear on how to be a Certified Expert here:
https://www.glideapps.com/docs/reference/account/experts

One side note: 
The design of a whole and complete partner program takes time. You DO NOT have to build it to completion for a launch. Build it as you go, and always test to see if they are adopting and make adjustments on the fly. The more they are asking for more features and perks - these become your roadmap for level 2. I’ve been at Glide for a year now - and I only have 2 levels to the Experts Program. Level 3 will probably come this year. 


My SaaS vertical has a strong ecosystem of services providers that we want to provide implementation/support/strategy for our customers. How do I go about building a certified services/experts partner program?

We broke our goals up into two parts during the initial ramp-up of our program: we first measured success on NUMBER of partners when we were intially scaling the program. This allowed us to get tons of partners in the door with us, and give us a large pool of partners to work with.

And the second part, when we got a large number of partners, was focusing on NEW revenue referred by partners. This allowed us to focus on the key relationships within our partner pool and revenue-generating activities to help us get new business. Of course, you always want to keep this in mind throughout even the early phases of your program. But because the revenue won't always come incredibly quickly when it comes to partnerships (we all know its a long game!) getting more partners under your belt to start the relationships can help to give you a good base to start going after the revenue once its go-time.

In regards to that second part of the question, the two biggest numbers that I like to report on are:
1. New recurring revenue generated by partners
2. % of total new MRR generated by partners

That first one clearly shows that your partnership efforts are leading to new business for your company. And if you show that number is growing and is at a healthy clip, then you'll easily get the eyes of the exec team.

But, I would argue that second number is more important. Because if you can show that a large portion of your MRR is coming from partners, and that the proportion of that number is growing, then your team is going to want to invest in partnerships more heavily because it is a growing part of the total new MRR.

This is a tough one to answer without more specifics - but I’ll hazard a guess you already know what your exec team cares about this year. 

It’s probably along the lines of efficiency, effectiveness, profitable growth, defensibility - some or all of the above. 

So, the closer you can attach to those focus areas in terms of the KPIs you create and manage to, and the targets you set for yourself, the better.

And if you’re early stage, it’s super critical to be able to show the progress QoQ and to show that you have a healthy, diverse partner pipeline. 

If you don’t have a dedicated revops resource, make friends with someone in your revops team ASAP. Buy them coffee and a donut and ask them to show you the ropes on reporting!


Revenue Goals:
Partner-sourced revenue: % of total revenue attributed to partner-driven deals.
Partner-influenced revenue: Deals where partners supported or contributed.
Year-over-year revenue growth from partners.

Adoption:
Number of active partners generating revenue or providing services.
Percentage of customers using partner services.

Enablement Metrics:
Number of certified partners trained or onboarded within a specific timeframe.
Completion rate for partner certifications or training programs.

Customer Success Metrics:
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) or Net Promoter Score (NPS) for partner-delivered services.
Retention rates for customers using partner services.

Operational Efficiency:
Average time-to-revenue for new partners.
Decrease in partner churn rates.

What the Exec Team Needs to See:
Revenue Impact: Clear, measurable contributions to growth and profitability.
Scalability: Consistent growth in partner numbers, certifications, and customer adoption.
Customer Value: Increased satisfaction, retention, and advocacy driven by partner services.
Strategic Alignment: How the program supports overall business goals and differentiates your offering in the market with supporting data.

The thing I focus on the most when selling partner programs to executives is that partnerships is almost always the most cost effective acquisition channel in the entire company. Partner incentives, whether they're percentage-based or one-time payouts are usually a fraction of what your direct marketing team will have to pay to acquire customers themselves. 

Partner programs can often serve as a moat for the business, creating additional insulation between your customers and the market. Additionally, partner-sourced deals have a higher close rate, and a higher average deal size. Comparing partner program performance to other acquisition channels in the business is usually a winning strategy.

In terms of revenue goals, that depends on your specific business, but it's important to set the expectation that revenue can be slower to realize in young programs and that it can take months to build momentum. Some executives understand this long game, but others don't, which can be frustrating and stressful. I think showing incremental increases from the program while also keeping costs at a minimum is usually enough to satisfy stakeholders while you continue to build momentum. 

What sort of revenue goals or other goals should I be setting for my service / certified partners program? What does the exec team need to see to know the program is going well and growing?

I couldn't just list 3! Sorry! :D

1: Ask what they want. It’s great to have some ideas, but validate with your partners. Ask them what would be interesting, what do they need to grow their business? What can you do to help them grow? Where are they struggling? If you could change one thing with a magic wand, what would it be?  

2: Find your stars. Find your IDEAL partners and create a very close relationship with them. Involve them with everything and start EVERYTHING with them. This is needed for the next one. 

3: Create an online community. This is so valuable - I cannot stress this enough. We could have an AMA by itself on how to do it - but this could be the main source of value for your company in the coming years if done correctly. This is important because you want them to connect with each other and provide a feedback loop to you.  This is how you guage interest in ideas, have discussions about what you might implement, and a great place to celebrate feature releases to an audience that is as excited about it as you are. 

4: Build what they need. I answered this in another question - but this is critical. When you ask what they want, listen.  When you announce a feature request that was inspired by them - tell them it was their requests that kicked this into production. Their feedback should be your roadmap - and they NEED to know it. 

5: Don’t over-promise. It’s really hard to take a perk away once you’ve given it. Start small - and if you want to increase a perk you can always add it later to a higher tier. 


I will come back to JVP for this one. Joint value is really the sun and the moon here. You need to be very clear what you are each bringing to the partnership, and be hyper aware of any gaps or overlaps, so miscommunication can be avoided. Make sure your partner incentive packages are configured in a such a way that adds value to everyone involved. And be flexible where you can. Some partners are looking to generate incremental revenue streams through referral commission. Other partners would rather pass incentives on to their customers to maximize the customer experience. 

If I had to list exactly three things that are important to kicking off a successful service partner program, I would say:

1. Joint value proposition 
2. Ideal partner profile (industry, region, size, etc)
3. Partner incentives - this is a big part of the overall JVP, but it is what is ultimately going to drive growth for your program. 

What are the 3 most important things to kicking off a successful service partner program?

Great question! 

Consultants/experts should be prepared to share the tangible results they've delivered to their clients, whether it's time savings, new revenue unlocked, or another way that your services have helped move the needle for your clients. I came across a marketing agency that does this in a fantastic way right on their website recently: https://www.lean-labs.com/

Client trust is paramount, and data/results is a crystal clear way to articulate that you have it. Bonus points if your services already leverage your partner's technology/product, because that then opens up an opportunity to be spotlighted in a success story or other co-marketing opportunities. 

I'm a consultant, what skills set can I highlight about my business/myself in my conversations to make sure I can align when having a partnership meeting.