Matt Kaler Pilgrim

I think its always important to have input from other parts of the business or certainly have a clear view on what some other areas of the business would like to see from a partnership. For example, if you are recruiting technology partners be sure to understand what your product roadmap looks like, what some of the technology dependents might be in a typical client set up and what factors, such as data feeds or connectors, are able to enhance your offering. The product teams will have a good view on this and also know what is being considered from a roadmap perspective – don’t recruit what you are about to build. You can also get feedback from customer/product teams on what existing customers most ask for in terms of complimentary functionality or if you are recruiting agencies – who are the agencies in and around the projects that your technology enables. All of this information helps you build an IPP (Ideal Partner Profile) which you can use to map potential partners against. An IPP can be created using the info above and some basic company profiling and go as deep as you want it to go. I think that an IPP is a constantly evolving profile that gets better over time. For example, you may have one or two really successful partnerships that display certain traits relating to culture, org structure, branding - these are things that its hard to predict but you learn as you build an ecosystem so always revisit the IPP and add to it. If you need a place to start, work it back from the company ICP, you should be targeting partners that have a similar target customer profile and can add some basic info on what type of characteristics a partner should have that can drive value from working with you

My recruitment playbook has been different for every company i have worked at but i do follow a basic structure. I try to draft out what a Partner journey looks like and start with these four stages: Attract, Recruit, Enable, Co-sell. I think about all the touch points that would be needed to successfully move a Partner along this process and also overlay any stakeholders required to make that happen. This is a great session to run with a wider team from different departments that have a touchpoint with the ecosystem. There will be some activities that are pretty standard such as onboarding, paperwork, access to resources, etc. but then there will be specific activities related to your solution and the type of partners you are recruiting. For example, a technology partner will likely require a number of steps across integration and validation of any connectivity and need a different type of enablement to a services based partner who will require more standard training and sales positioning material. Your co-sell steps will also be driven by how you position and sell directly. You can look at your new hire onboarding (in particular for SE's and Sales) for a framework of the sales enablement required to activate a Partner.

I would reference my answers to the first question here as i think the two things are linked - choosing a Partner that is a good fit for your business is similar to listing criteria to choose a Partner. But specific things i think you should assess as criteria are: Do they map to my IPP and have a similar ICP? this has to be top. i think you should also be looking at things like the size of the business How easy are they going to be to work with? Is there a cultural fit? Is there mutual business value? - you have to look at the Partnership from their point of view as well your own, whats in it for them? how do they make money by recommending you (above referral fees and reseller discounts) Do they work with your competitors? What is their brand and reputation status? As mentioned earlier, once you have a successful Partnership working, this is one of the best blueprints that you can analyse to help build out future criteria.

I do not have a perfect answer for this but i do think that one of the most important factors when designing a Partner program is to think about it from the perspective of a Customer. If your customers find it really easy to differentiate between your Partners, find the right Partner to meet the challenge that they have and they have confidence in how you are categorising your Partners then that is usually the type of program that Partners want to be a part of. Making the program relevant to the wider industry and not just your ecosystem also helps make the program something that a Partner will promoter being a part of, an example would be to use industry terminology over your product terminology or make it clear how the two are the same.

If you have a clear IPP and set out some criteria for a Partnership from lessons learned then i think it should be pretty clear. Outside of the data, remember that these are relationships at the end of the day so listen to your gut when you need to and don't overlook the importance of cultural alignment. Just because a Partner is not a good fit for you, doesn't mean they are a bad Partner, just means they are not right for you. chances are they are probably having the same hesitations about you.

this is a difficult one to answer, I think its a yes and a no! My view is that its a huge compliment for a business to effectively ask if they can help you to sell your software or services. This what an inbound Partner request represents to me so i would alway have my team treat that with the upmost respect. However, there are only so many hours in the day and the most effective Partner teams are those that can prioritise their time and focus on the right Partners. I would always like to see a Partner manager segment their portfolio and spend the majority of their time with the most productive Partners, have a clear understanding of the resources they have available to their 'top tier' of Partners and be ruthless in ensuring they prioritise and deprioritise based on results - this is never about 'demoting' a Partner but more about allocation of the time you have, this does not always leave a lot of time to recruit. If you can automate and self serve some of the initial onboarding, recruiting and activation then it can help with your recruitment pipeline meaning you can both grow the ecosystem but still keep prioritising the right Partners