You need to manage your partnership pipeline. How do you know which tools are the most popular?

To stay on top of your partnership game, it's crucial to know which tools are hot in channel partnerships. I've learned that checking out industry reports, chatting on forums, and joining networking events is a smart way to begin. Also, connecting with friends in the field and using online groups can give you great tips on what's really effective. Keep testing these tools in different partnership situations to make sure you're using the ones that work best for your channel plan.

Developing and ideal partner profile (IPP) will inform who you work with, the value for the client, and what kinds of programs you can start with. Mapping your ecosystem and the lay of the land is important before starting. Identify which partner types can benefit your clients. Look at existing potential partners (likely already clients). Use your ideal customer profile to understand the customer's world, and make educated guesses about who they work with. What technology do thry use? Who do they listen to? What consultants serve that ecosystem? Then identify specific examples and pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses. Overlap that with your strengths and weaknesses and fit the puzzle together! Now you know who and how to start!

Be humble enough to recognise your flaws or gaps which may be beyond your immediate control to rectify. Find partners who have something unique that you might not otherwise be able to develop yourself. Some degree of cultural alignment can also be an underestimated component of a successful partnership.

For tracking, measuring and, monitoring alliances and partnership led pipeline, including licenses resell, one can use the existing CRM rather than yet another tool to trace the lead source. When a salesperson creates an opportunity in tandem with the alliance leader, they should tag it as partner led, followed by name of the partners (if there is a play of ecosystem partners), and allocate a percentage split, if available to showcase the support from partner (e.g., enablement, co-sell, license resell, others). This will drill down the exact strength each partner brings to the table. This enables an alliance leader to focus where it matters (both strategic and opportunistic) and to grow sourced and influenced revenue. Pro tip: Less is more!

First, answer the following question: "Why are you interested in establishing a Partner Program?" This will assist in clarifying your goals and objectives. Once you have defined your goals, begin developing your strategy. Ensure that it involves collaboration with other departments, such as sales and marketing. For example: Our solution is complex to set up, and we lack the necessary internal resources for customer onboarding. Goal: Enhance the scale of onboarding and improve customer satisfaction and retention. Objective #1: Identify partners, such as consultancy firms, capable of assisting our customers in setting up our solution tailored to their specific needs. Objective #2: ..

When you're starting a partnership team, 9 out of 10 times there is already a breathing sales and marketing team up and running. Nowadays it's all about processes and data. Processes to align with all relevant teams and make your strategy scalable, and data to base future decisions on. If for instance, sales is working with HubSpot as their CRM, uses Slack to communicate, and Notion to log, don't go out and try to enforce different tools because you know them. Alignment on tools is KEY!

When you begin your search for tools, you should: Determine which features are essential to help you achieve your goals, such as HubSpot integration, Deal Registration, Shared Pipeline, Asset Library, etc. Compile a list of top software that meets your criteria. Utilize resources like G2 and Google, and seek recommendations from friends and professional communities. Contact vendors to request a personalized demonstration tailored to your specific needs. Ask for a trial period to evaluate the software yourself and determine if it meets your requirements. Finally, your decision on the best option will be guided by the product's features, your interactions with the vendor's team, and your budget.

If you're building out a partnerships team in for instance the eCommerce industry in Europe, it's easy to get started. Don't try to reinvent the wheel... again! Most vendors that are already working with a solid, partnerships team have all the tools and processes aligned. Check-in with those relevant partnership leaders and learn from them. As mentioned, a common partnership tech stack is Hubspot for CRM, Slack for internal and external communication, Notion for logging, and Trello or Asana for project management. If you're diving in the free trials, you will WASTE a lot of time. Not only implementing and testing it but also the sales reps trying to push the product with meetings will drain time and energy.

To manage your partnership pipeline effectively, it’s crucial to leverage the right tools. They include PRM systems and AI-driven analytics. These tools streamline processes, track partner interactions, and provide valuable insights into engagement and strategy effectiveness. Utilizing these technologies enables data-driven decisions and optimizes your partnership management efforts.

At the end of the day, you need something to show WHO to work with. Both the partners and the accounts with partners. This sets the course for all else. Mapping your accounts of prospects <> customers, vice versa, and customer <> customer will help give you the specific companies to target. This is critical to focus within the partnership. All else falls from there because it will inform your strategy. Do we comarket? Co-upsell? Co-sell? All of these will be informed by the initial account mapping. Tools like Reveal help with this to set the pace and then you can consider other tools to help execute the plays.

A tool that is really valuable once your partnership program is up and running, and you're thriving, is a PRM. Be aware though that you can do a lot with integrated tools in the early stages, but once you've hit that sweetspot with your partner tribe, a PRM is a must. In this case, again, talk, connect, and learn fro others. That wheel is rolling fast, so just catch-up instead of starting to fletch.

Three things that all partner mangers should always be thinking about: 1) Educate - How do I implant the idea of my product in their mind and teach them simple triggers for when it may be relevant for their clients. 2) Enable - Give them easy ways to broach a conversation with their clients and simple triage of how to best contact and leverage your company. 3) Motivate - "Whats in it for me?" How do you make them feel special and give them what they need be that referral fees, joint GTM or even something as simple as a brilliant story how how you leveraged tools to create a client success. It’s human nature to like stories, write a compelling one for each of your partners. That extra effort will pay off in referrals.

so in short: 1. What does success for your partnership team look like? Is it the amount of new leads or MRR, brand awareness, or a combination? 2. what tech-stack is already in place, and tab into that, to align on processes, data collection, and scalability. 3. Don't reinvent the wheel, learn from other partnership leaders. Think ahead, data is king, scalability is queen.