Any tips for reengaging dormant Partners?

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.

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.