Ian Novack

Yes, there absolutely is such a thing as recruiting too many partners. Unlimited recruitment can quickly become counterproductive. Excessive partners tend to compete primarily on price, initiating a race to the bottom that cannibalizes revenue, undermines quality control, and ultimately forces out your best-performing partners. Remember the 80/20 rule... A better approach prioritizes quality over quantity. Every new partner added should directly address a specific need or gap within your current ecosystem—such as expertise in a particular technology or vertical, geographic coverage in underserved markets, or specialization in either SMB or enterprise segments. Strategically limiting partner recruitment ensures that your existing partners have sufficient incentive to invest, innovate, and grow alongside you. This focus maintains quality standards, encourages customer expansion rather than churn, and optimizes lifetime value (LTV). Expansion of your partner network should therefore always be intentional, addressing clear gaps or capacity constraints rather than simply increasing numbers.

We do a few things which I find pretty cool. Partner-Sourced Revenue: Measure and track revenue directly attributed to partners. This includes: Pure outbound opportunities, where partners independently bring new clients. Expansion opportunities identified by partners within existing accounts through service delivery. Impact and Testimonials: Collect and share testimonials from your sales reps highlighting how partners helped shorten sales cycles or significantly increased total contract value (TCV). Include client testimonials to demonstrate tangible outcomes and customer satisfaction resulting from partner involvement. CRM and Partner Tagging: Ensure all partner activities are accurately tagged within your CRM. This should include tracking each partner’s involvement in specific deals. Ideally, record the number of professional service (PS) hours partners deliver and the total number of projects implemented. Tracking PS hours and project completions provides clear indicators of growth, partner engagement, and program success over time.

Start with a quick internal sync, 15 minutes is enough. Align on who’s leading, what the goal is, and what success looks like. Be clear on roles so there’s no confusion in front of the client. Keep the first joint call simple. Let the partner add credibility without overwhelming the prospect. After the call, debrief fast and agree on clear next steps. Quick feedback keeps the momentum going. We over-communicate with our partners to stay aligned throughout the sales process. Once there’s trust, partners can actually lead large parts of the conversation, freeing the AE to think more strategically. Just make sure there’s a real reason to bring the partner in. They should be adding value from the start, not just looping in late and forcing everyone to re-do discovery. It’s all about involving the right partner at the right time. If it’s a construction use case, bring your construction partner—they’ll speak the language, qualify faster, and often spot red flags early. Also, make it easy for AEs to understand why to bring in a partner. Show the data: when X partner is involved, deal size grows by X%, time to close drops by Y%. When sellers see the value, they start pulling partners in naturally.

Keep it simple. Partners need a short deck that explains the “why” behind your product, the top 2–3 use cases, key differentiators, and how to handle common objections. One strong, relatable case study goes a long way. A basic pricing guide also helps them set expectations early. But it’s not just about the materials. Most partners won’t proactively pitch you, so you need to make sure that if the conversation comes up, they not only know what to say but also what to do next. If you know who their clients are, help them connect the dots. Map out shared customers or relevant industries, and give them a reason to bring you in. Provide the asset, the short pitch, and the confidence that if they introduce you, you’ll show up well-prepared and make them look good. Also, make sure they trust your product. One of the best ways to do that is to bring them into an opportunity you already have with one of their clients. Let them see firsthand how you operate and how it creates value for everyone.

There are two main philosophies. Some companies go for volume, with thousands of partners, one-to-many enablement, and a large library of content they can pick from. That can work, but it’s not our approach when it comes to strategic partners. For us, it’s about depth over scale. We treat strategic partners as a few, not many. The best way to align with them is to treat them like an extension of yourself. Reward real investment, partners who are building a business with us, not just reselling licenses. That means giving them a clear path to follow, structured KPIs, and a program that supports them end-to-end. A regular cadence and QBRs are a must. We ask our top partners to go all in. Dedicated headcount. Reps who eat, breathe, and live monday. Defined roles. Clear KPIs. We don’t just expect that, we help make it happen. We support hiring, onboarding, and weekly coaching between our teams and theirs. We’re high-touch, because that’s what builds a real practice. We also reward alignment. We co-fund roles, run joint marketing, and act as a growth engine. If a partner builds a real estate solution, we help them package it, price it, and promote it, whether that’s through lunch and learns, outbound plays, or our own customer base. In the end, alignment comes from shared wins. When partners know how to pitch and feel like they’re building something sustainable, they sell with confidence and everyone benefits. 1. Join their calls or have them shadow your reps, best way to learn is by watching it live 2. Run regular joint pipeline reviews to coach in real time, not just in theory 3. Bring them into real deals early so they see how discovery, pitch, and objection handling works 4. Build solution playbooks they can use to package and position your product in key verticals 5. Show them how to outbound with your pitch so they drive new business too 6. Reward alignment through co-marketing, co-selling, and funding opportunities The goal is to do it together. We don’t just throw materials at partners and hope for the best. The most successful partnerships are built through shared learning, shared wins, and shared ownership of the sales motion.

Partner managers know partners and reps best, they are a key part of your co-selling strategy and they should actively scan the pipeline and flag deals where a partner could bring value. That’s how you drive partner involvement beyond just reacting to hand-raisers. To make co-selling work, your sales reps need to actually understand who your partners are and why they matter. Don’t expect them to dig around. Give them a one-pager per partner with the basics: where they specialize, key customers they’ve worked with, and why involving them can help close deals faster or bigger. Make it easy for reps to navigate your partner ecosystem. They won’t be proactive unless you make it dead simple. At the same time, you have to hold partners accountable. Ask reps for feedback after joint deals. Did the partner show up strong? Were they responsive? Did they add value? For many reps, they’ll only give a partner one shot, so the partner has to show up with their A-game. A big part of that is aligning KPIs. If your partners have a quota, a pipeline target, and product-specific goals just like your internal team, then everyone’s pushing in the same direction. That’s what drives real results. You also need to set company-wide targets. For example, aim to have 20% of deals influenced by partners, or define that partners should touch a specific percentage of deals in certain verticals. Co-selling isn’t a side activity—it has to be part of the core motion. It should be a give and take. If we’re bringing partners into our deals, they should be bringing us into theirs. Track partner-sourced opportunities just like you do for internal reps. Measure both sides. Use a shared CRM where reps and partners can see the same data. Keep it transparent.

Trust takes time. You can align partners and sales reps on KPIs, but that doesn't mean there's trust from day one. Selling is a team sport, you can't just throw a partner into a deal and expect chemistry. You need shared experience, joint wins, and time in the trenches together. The best way to build that is through small wins. Pair a strong partner with a rep who's open to the model. Start with the right account, deliver results, and build from there. You can't force reps to work with partners, but you don't need to. Some will naturally gravitate toward it, lean into those reps, build momentum, and let word of mouth do the rest. Partner managers should also be internal advocates. Highlight wins, give shoutouts, and make working with partners feel like a competitive edge. Help partners show up strong. Push them to be proactive, give more than they ask for, and act like an extension of the team. Red flags to watch for: 1. Partners who overpromise and underdeliver—whether it’s missing meetings, failing to follow through on hiring, or sending proposals late 2. Constantly having to push a partner instead of them pushing you 3. Lack of follow-up, missed small commitments, or reactive behavior 4. Partners who don’t treat your priorities as their own And always measure objectively. CSAT, retention, pipeline conversion, average deal size. Numbers don’t lie. Even if the partner has the right attitude, if the metrics are off, that needs to be addressed. Stay close to the data and use it to guide where you invest your time.

You don’t need to track everything. Track the metrics that actually tell the story. We focus on a few key ones that give us a clear, objective view of partner impact. First, we measure all revenue touched by partners, broken down into Direct and Influenced ARR. This gives us a true co-sell percentage and helps us track both attainment and YoY growth. We also have pipeline generation targets for partners "Outbound". We don’t just want them closing, we want them creating pipeline. It gives us earlier visibility into deals, allows us to support faster, and even turn lost deals into learning opportunities. From there, we focus on three core indicators: 1. Pipeline created 2. Win rate on co-sold deals 3. Revenue delivered These three give us a strong and objective rubric to evaluate a partner’s performance. Post-sale, we track the number of service hours delivered, number of projects involved in and CSAT scores for partner-led accounts. This helps us identify which partners are truly driving value, and it gives us a clearer picture of long-term customer health. Finally, we track PIEs, Partner Identified Expansions. If a partner is already working an account, are they proactively surfacing expansion opportunities or just keeping the lights on? That’s a key signal of a high-value, growth-minded partner.

They give us scale. If pre-sales is overloaded or CS can’t support right away, a trained partner can step in immediately, run a demo, do discovery, build a solution, even lead onboarding. That keeps the deal moving. They bring vertical expertise. A partner that’s deep in construction, finance, or manufacturing knows how to speak the client’s language better than we do. They help qualify faster and build confidence early. They de-risk delivery. Clients want to know who’s going to make the rollout work. A partner already vetted by us, with a services team ready to go, can close that gap and give buyers peace of mind. They help with post-sale growth. Partners aren’t just there to close. A good one will work the account with us, drive expansion, surface new use cases, and push adoption so we don’t have to do it alone. They handle the grunt work. Admin, training, onboarding, QBRs, partners can do the things that free up AEs and CS to stay strategic. That’s huge when you’re trying to manage dozens of accounts. So yes, the AE is still leading, but the partner can take on 80–90% of the operational work. That allows us to go after more accounts, move faster, and close with more confidence. Just make sure it’s the right partner, involved at the right time, with a clear role. If you do that, they become a force multiplier, not just another person on the call.