I’m often asked, “What should my firm prioritize in partnering?” How you answer that question is pivotal. It will factor into selecting the right partner, understanding the benefits of a partner pledge, and choosing the right metrics to measure the success of partner relationships.
However, it’s important to realize the differences in partnership types before focusing on prioritization, such as:
- Selling through a channel;
- Selling to a channel that resells your products;
- Using a partner for services; or
- Using a partner for innovations within influencer channels, support channels, and more.
With this in mind, we can now talk about priorities:
Draft a three-year ecosystem strategy
Look at all facets of the ecosystem — from sales, referral, and influencer channels, to procurement and innovation partners to outsourced information technology (IT), and MarTech partnerships — for inclusion in a three-year ecosystem strategy.
Don’t pick the easiest path, pick the right path for your firm in an ecosystem-driven world.
Choose the right partners
Determine what partners will fit your strategy best and build ideal partner profiles. Typically, we like to look at the 5 Cs when considering a partner strategy.
- Cost
- Commitment
- Capability
- Capacity
- Competency
You will need to think about each challenge or opportunity your firm has for partnering and then apply the 5 Cs model to ensure your partner strategy translates into identifying and onboarding the right partners for your firm.
Focus on that “right partner” and work on your current most pressing issues first.
Write a partner pledge
What is a partner pledge? Put simply, it’s a document that will detail the promises you must make to partners and your firm for a fair, equitable, and rewarding partnership. And remember this: test your strategy against it and ask, “Can we deliver on our pledge?”, or “Does our strategy need to evolve?”
Be sure your pledge includes details on:
- How you will work with partners across the organization
- How you will deal with partner conflicts
- How partners will know when they are meeting your needs
- How you will measure partner success
Be specific about how your teams will act when partnering. For example, if you have sell-through channels that you are using to augment your direct sales channels, then you will want to have a section of your pledge that details how you will deal with channel conflict.
Spend the time to get your pledge right and communicate this with the entire organization so everyone understands how to treat, manage, and extend partnerships for your firm.
Create a scorecard and metrics
Devise a scoreboard and metrics that align with your strategy and partner pledge, then provide corporate-wide education on their purpose. The scoreboard is used to measure results and report on successes and areas for improvement.
Remember “if you can’t measure it, you can’t drive performance for it.” So, beware of soft metrics that can show up in the scoreboard exercise. When you do find them, go back to your strategy and adjust it to get to hard metrics that can be acted upon and measured across the organization. Consider some of the tips and tricks here to help you set the right metrics to drive partnership success.
Appoint a new leader
You may find it necessary to appoint a Chief Ecosystem Officer or SVP of Ecosystems with the right skills to win in an ecosystem-driven world. Then have the channel chief, partner procurement, solutions partnerships, alliances, and marketing partnerships support this leader.
If you allow collective dysfunction to permeate your organization along with a “we own this area” mindset, this will halt any effort of creating the super team mentioned above. This is why you need someone to drive this forward for your firm – and they need to have the resources to accomplish what’s needed. So, empower them and get them the resources to win.
Get the CMO in your organization passionate about partnering
The Chief Marketing Officer could be the greatest ally in your partnering efforts, but they are often relegated to just the sales and marketing areas. Move the CMO beyond their traditional focus and challenge them to build your partnership brand in a way that encourages the best partners to come work with you and seek you out.
Finally, enlist their help to build funnels and demand in collaboration with your sales partners. Since 75% of all goods that are sold worldwide are sold through a channel, it’s time for the CMO to consider this go-to-market strategy as their own.
Invest in technology to ease and simplify the partner journey
This goes far beyond the traditional PRM (Partner Relationship Management) systems and needs to include e-support, content, through marketing and innovation sandboxes depending on the types of partnerships in your strategy.
Reshape your strategies to find partners with skin in the game
Craft a partnering plan that drives outcomes for your business and the partners. If your relationships are currently not doing that, then it’s time to plan a recovery plan or find a new partnership that doesn’t put your firm at risk.
As part of your reshaping efforts, focus on outcome-based payments for partners who deliver projects or innovations for your firm. This goal will help you select the best partners to deliver success and will immediately disqualify those partners,
- Who are struggling financially
- Present the most risk for your firm
- Will be unable to accept this pricing strategy
Check out this helpful primer on how to craft outcomes as a service with your partners for more help.
Challenge every hiring decision
It’s a challenge to keep a keen eye on both cost and deliverables. Often, we find leaders who are empire-building. They want to bring everything in-house rather than partnering – even when partnering would be more effective. These few examples will give you an indicator of what to look for:
- Firms hiring channel managers before they have the right channel program and partners and wasting valuable firm resources.
- Marketing bringing in social media people to write and engage on content when they don’t have a large social following — an outsourced influencer contract would have worked better in this situation.
- Sales hiring up to achieve a sales target when partners who already have active sellers in the field could get you to your sales number and account coverage goals faster and with more success.
In other words, don’t allow your leaders to hire instead of relying on a partner provider or alliance that would have achieved a better result.
Find a way to work more with procurement
Don’t make the mistake of under-utilizing procurement. Too often they are used for straight-line purchasing when the realities tell a different story. This means procurement teams need support through ongoing training and empowerment to help turn partnering strategy into a scalable and profitable endeavor.
Final Thought
Partnerships drive success. Period. So, it’s imperative to work on the priorities for your firm to ensure future growth is well-planned and well-executed.
Happy partnering.
