How do you identify which partners are the best fit for co-selling versus just lead-sharing?

This isn’t a binary choice - it’s a maturity model. At the high end, co-selling with solution partners is a high-touch, joint pursuit motion. It only works when partners have deep customer relationships, a consultative sales approach, and real account overlap with us. These partnerships show up consistently in our pipeline, support complex deals with long sales cycles, and justify the heavy investment: dedicated partner managers, executive sponsorship, and a weekly operating cadence. When it works, it drives meaningful ARR and wins deals we wouldn’t close alone. At the other end, corporate resell or referral partners are transactional by design. They move high volumes of smaller deals, often stepping in primarily for procurement or fulfillment. Engagement is lightweight — deal registration, margin or referral incentives, and occasional check-ins — and the motion needs to be largely automated to scale. This model works best for smaller, budget-approved purchases where speed matters more than strategy. How we decide comes down to three things: Account overlap: If a partner consistently appears in our deals, that’s a co-sell signal. If they rarely show up, we keep the motion lightweight. Partner capacity: Partners with dedicated sellers and a clear coverage model can co-sell. Everyone else stays in lead-share. Revenue potential: High six-figure annual potential justifies high-touch investment; anything smaller should be automated. The biggest mistake teams make is trying to co-sell with everyone. You end up spreading your team thin and getting average results across the board. Our operating principle is simple: keep a small, focused set of strategic co-sell partners per region, support a broader pool of lead-share partners at scale, and use enablement-only programs for the long tail. Start with co-sell to prove impact - then scale through lead-share.

Lead sharing is a great place to start a partner program. Once lead sharing has been established, and conversations begin between your partner and your sales team, you can evaluate and identify true co-selling partners by asking: - Is there a clear list of accounts your teams can collaborate on? Account mapping is key to evaluating partners - understanding where your partners are and aren't, what personas they talk to within client accounts, and the kinds of problems they're helping customers solve will help determine whether it makes sense to engage in more strategic co-selling. - Is there a clear joint value proposition with this partner? This should be a story your sales team and the partner can agree upon, and should make it clear to a customer or prospect that your products create more value together than either could drive independently! - Does the partner have the sales capacity to make co-selling make sense? While there can always be small organizations that make a big impact, the most successful co-selling partners have some sort of sales capacity (think BDR teams, client partners with quotas). The ideal co-selling partner has salespeople who can collaborate with your team at various steps of pipeline generation and development. - Is there mutual trust? The importance of trust cannot be overstated! The best co-selling partners have already created some level of trust with your sales team. To create trust: does your sales team need to see or know to trust that this partner is worth continued co-selling with? Perhaps you can create a certification program, where partners can prove their technical knowledge of your product. If possible, you can even have partners certify on a go-to-market talk track, ensuring they’re able to speak to your product as well as your own internal salespeople can. Additionally, the partner must trust your salespeople: ensure the rules of engagement are clear, so that salespeople know how to work with a partner in a way that sets them up for success as well.

When building the recruitment strategy the channel team needs to understand what the sales team expects from partners. Co-selling should go beyond simple lead sharing—it requires a structured approach that covers everything from lead generation to account management and co marketing The ideal co-selling partner should: Have deep expertise in our products and technology to effectively support the sales team in pitching, positioning, and accelerating deal closures. Provide dedicated resources such as marketing support, BDRs, and technical specialists to help drive engagement and execution. Own a strong customer base that enables effective account mapping and targeted expansion opportunities alongside the sales team.