Zoë Zankowski

Reward your partners early and often. The best way to keep them engaged is to make them feel valued. I recommend using a Partner Relationship Management tool to directly tie deals and commissions to partners. This gives them direct insight to where they are attributed and can accurately forecast their payouts.

Treat your internal teams as you do your service partners – after all, they are your partners internally. What’s in it for them? How does working with a partner help them to achieve their objectives? If you don’t have clear answers to those two questions, then it won’t be clear to your CX org why they should leverage service partners either. Think about the types of partners you work with; what problems do they help you to solve? Service partners are generally filling a gap your CX org can’t provide for your customers. Lean into that. For example, at PandaDoc our key integration partners are CRMs, so we rely on service partners that are experts in those CRMs to help our customers better adopt PandaDoc in their sales processes. We can’t expect our CX org to be experts in every CRM on the market, so leveraging service partners directly helps the CX org when it comes to customer product adoption, which in turn impacts retention. Enablement is also key here. If adding a service provider into your CX processes requires more manual work on the CX side, thereby causing friction and slowing down systems, then they will never work with your partners. You need to embed your partners directly into your existing processes, not add more work for your CX org. Creating enablement programs for both your internal teams and service partners allows you to define clear swim lanes for each party, enabling them to provide an exceptional customer experience.

Create an IPP – Ideal Partner Profile. Identify qualifiers and disqualifiers of the types of partners you need for your product. Jumping into an established ecosystem can be daunting, there can be thousands of service providers to choose from. Clearly define who you need to be working with. Look to other partner programs that are enabling their partners well. What type of content is in their learning academies? How are they rewarding their partners? Start talking to those service providers and ask them directly what they need to be successful. Start small and iterate. You can build a simple eLearning course, and start getting feedback from your partners on what is missing and the level of difficulty. Think about what your partners would need to be certified in – is it a specific integration or complex use case? Build a course around that, whether it be an eLearning or a virtual classroom series. Provide co-marketing opportunities. It can be as simple as your partner putting a badge on their website, or building a campaign around a specific use case this partner is a subject matter expert in. Give them opportunities to showcase to their audience that they are bought in to your product, and are experts in it. This will attract other service providers in that ecosystem.

1. Dedicated resources (people) Your partners need point people to go to, and you need people to advocate for your partners. Be prepared to hire partner managers and clearly define their roles and responsibilities. 2. Enablement Create enablement programs for your internal teams and your service partners. Teach your sales and CX teams how to work with partners, and how to escalate requests. Educate your partners on your product, as well as how to effectively co-sell and co-service with your internal teams. 3. Systems for tracking Partnerships mean nothing if we can’t point to results. Establish communication channels, create dedicated properties for reporting in your CRM, and consider Partner Relationship Management (PRM) tools to help track partner engagement.

Revenue attribution can be difficult to measure. At the end of the day, it comes down to how partners are influencing your revenue. Think about how much new business you want your partners to generate, and how much expansion revenue they can help to influence. Your CRM is your greatest asset here. Attributing your partners directly to deals (whether net new or existing business) in your CRM will make it easier for you to report on revenue growth. But it’s not all co-selling, it’s co-servicing and co-marketing as well. Associate your partners directly with accounts in your CRM if they are a service provider for that customer. Ensure your marketing team is equipped with the tools to tie partner campaigns back to lead generation and opportunity conversions. Make it as easy as possible for your leadership team to digest this data. They will want to know how much revenue is attributed to partners, how many active opportunities are attributed to partners, how close rates are impacted, and how retention is impacted.

1. Sales Narrative Give your partners a story to tell, just as you do your own sales team. They need a value proposition, or a “better together” story if they are a key integration partner. Sales narratives should clearly define your ICP, include discovery questions, and provide specific use cases. I find that collaborating with your sales team and product marketing team can be the most helpful in crafting this message. 2. Demo Kits The best way your partners can sell your product is by using it. Bonus points if they are a customer themselves, but providing a demo environment can be just as effective. Teach them how to set up their demo environment, and the best flow for a demo presentation. The more they practice in their demo environment, the more comfortable they will be speaking to the product. I highly recommend giving them the ability to provide feedback to the product team as they learn more about the product and UI as well. 3. Competitive Intelligence The number one product question you will get from your partners is: “how does this compare to [insert competitor’s name here]?” It’s the first question your partners will get from their customers, especially if you are in an established market. Provide them with quick hitting shareable battlecards that show comparisons of key features between your product and your competitor's. 4. Case Studies Let your customers speak for themselves. Case studies should speak to key use cases your product solves for, and demonstrate where your product wins for that ICP. These are great resources for your partners to share directly with customers.

Ensure you have a solid understanding of the vendor’s ICP. Does this ICP align with yours? If so, what value do you bring to those customers? Lean in to your experience with those customers, and what gaps you can fill for the vendor. Ask the vendor directly where they struggle with providing value to their customers, and demonstrate how you can supplement that need.