What are some non-obvious ways to speed up partner onboarding?

I talked about partner onboarding and activation above. Not sure if this is an obvious or non-obvious way but giving a lead to a partner takes you a long way. It is very important, though, that you 100% support your partner in the first project to make sure it is a success. The expertise the partner gains in the project, the services revenue they make as well as the delivery success they experience, create very positive momentum and will accelerate their investment in your partnership which will result in faster pipeline creation. You can also give them access to your technology for an internal project they want to run. In our case we are offering a content management platform so our partners can build their own website on Contentful. This way they gain experience in a low-risk environment, have a use case to show to their prospects and will enter the next project with confidence.

- Spin up a dedicated Slack / Teams channel on day one, and let bots push automations on reminders, surface FAQs, and routine updates. - +1 on the legal pack: deliver every required document in a single drop the moment contracting begins (if possible) - no slow drip of paperwork. - Might sound obvious, but not often thought through: You could enlist veteran partners as “onboarding sponsors.” as they already know your playbook, and can ramp newcomers for a fee as well as deepen their own value in your ecosystem.

- Get important info from your prospective partners in advance -- even using a tool like "Calendly" you can ask prospective partners to answer a series of questions before they can book a first conversation with your team. Their answers to these questions should help you pre-evaluate their fit for your partner program, and help you get right into the nitty gritty in the first call. - Fast-track "legal" process: depending on your organization, there can be ways to speed up partner program contracting by encouraging partners to sign a pre-signed and unedited version of your contract. - Incentivize partners to leverage self-service onboarding resources: when necessary, you can withhold access (i.e. direct account team interlocks, access to resources like partner funding) to partners until or unless they complete certain onboarding steps or meet minimum requirements