Josh Greene

Large Value Added resellers are an important part of the sales ecosystem and offer a wide range of products, services and solutions for customers. In my experience, I see many emerging companies invest too much time on trying to get resellers to discuss new solutions with customers. While these partners are on constantly on the lookout for emerging solutions, they can become overwhelmed by the sheer volume. Keep in mind what some of the priorities for a reseller might include: 1/ generate margin - this drives the P&L of the company and is the backbone of reseller compensation 2/ solve problems for customers 3/ help the reseller remain and expand their roles as trusted advisor and acquisition facilitator. If your solution is complementary to something that has already reached sales maturity in that ecosystem, leverage that. A VC I worked with once told me that when trying to build out a partner ecosystem, you need to position your service to "stand on the shoulders of giants". I have kept that with me ever since.

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.

Managing potential friction with a direct sales team, that is not inclined or aligned to co-sell is a dangerous proposition that can lead to losing trust. A few factors to consider: Does the sales cycle require touches and engagement from the sales team? Is your direct team compensated at par value for deals that transact via partners? Do you have a process, program in place that protects partner margin aka deal registration? Are your company's sales, finance and partner leadership teams on the same page about the role of partners in driving revenue growth? I would aim for full compensation alignment and clear roles and responsibilities early on. Now, in the case of supporting a geography or vertical that may not have or need direct sales support, you may opt to increase the expectation from the partner and also consider paying a higher percentage of revenue to offset investments that the partner makes.

How many partner types depends on your solution, how you reach customers, what influences buyer behavior, with accommodations for customer segment/vertical and geography. In a prior role with a SaaS company that was global and relied on technology and integration partners we essentially had three tiers of partners: integrations, alliances, and channel/distribution (resellers, GSIs, distributors, OEM and MSP). Creating too much overlap will lead to lack of focus, so my suggestion would be to focus on a curated list with the most influential segments. A mistake I made (and I see repeated), was going to broad to quickly, globally, and not having the resources or ability to show business impact. This is critical.

This really depends on what types of partnerships that you will be pursuing. Is the goal to expand the partner ecosystem for sourced business, is influencing or transacting business more relevant. I have experienced many partner aligned resources who have compensation that is not aligned to the maturity of the model and that can lead to more complicated issues. So, if you are tying variable compensation (like commission) to a partner manager roles, there needs to be 1/ high ability to influence 2/ a proven model based on data. Until then, I would recommend using MBOs tied to executing milestones in build the foundational elements of a partner ecosystem 1/ recruit 2/ enable 3/ activate.

I would recommend starting categorizing the types of partnerships that are relevant to your company and also your prospective customers. Dive deep into who drives awareness, consideration and execution. Starting broad is good, map out what you know or don't know about the end to end ecosystem. Then using these insights to build interest and a coalition of sponsorship within your own company. You will require executive buy in, so plant to invest time and energy in educating and engaging the executive team from an early stage. This will allow you to help manage expectations and deliverables.