Hey, Adam here head of Powtoon Partners, a UK Company (I am from London) but based out in TLV. Would love to connect with anyone interested in tech partnerships or re-sellers/VAR relationships and new opp's I have just launched.

Hi All, joining this group on behalf of Onit, a LegalTech and BPA company out of Houston. Looking forward to learning and sharing thoughts on strategic partnerships and channel partner best practice :)

Hi all, Myself Sagul from Kissflow, We are a modern Digital BPM and Workflow automation SaaS company. We are aggressively expanding our business across the globe and have grown exponentially, with 10000+ customers using our platform.

We are actively looking for expert Resellers/ Distributors who could grow our business together with a localized approach and capture new revenue and business opportunities. Let me know if our synergies meet

@channel Welcome to the NEW channel partnerships channel for all things service / agency / solution channel partnerships. There are two rules if you’re joining.

1. Quickly introduce yourself and ask one question that you need help with it. 2. Answer on question someone has already posted. We’re all on a team together. :)

Hi All, joining on behalf of Yext's search experience cloud. Would love insight on how Partner Account Managers set revenue goals for new partners. Looking forward to connecting with everyone!

Hey Everyone - new to partnerships and tackling our channel and solution partner strategy at Productboard. For those unfamiliar, Productboard is dedicated product management solution helping teams build digital products that meet customer needs.

My one question for the group - what are some of the ways you’ve successfully got your sales team comfortable with leveraging and recommending partner/channel services?

Hey All! I'm a part of the JetRails team. We provide mission-critical web hosting services. I'm wondering if anyone has been wowed by any partner gift/swag ideas this year?

@channel Good morning! A friendly reminder of our two rules to get the party started. If you’re reading this, you’ve got 5 minutes to get it done. :)

1. Quickly introduce yourself and ask one question that you need help with it. 2. Answer on question someone has already posted.  We’re all on a team together. :)

Good morning All. I head up all things partnerships at PFL Tech. We integrate into marketing and sales campaigns to automate the send of swag and direct mail leveraging intent data in digital marketing channels. My question is similar to @John Howorth, how everyone is scaling partnerships internally through the entire buyers journey?

@Robert Rand My company handles all things swag. One of my favorite items are ones that can be used for working from home. One of my partners sent a partner welcome kit that had a branded wireless charging pad and a phone holder to prop your phone on your desk. Loved it!

Morning all! I head up Channel Partnerships at Zapier- focused on our Experts program for now (working with agencies and consultants who act as implementation specialists for Zapier users). We’re in the process of rebranding the program+certification+product experience for our Experts and would love to talk to anyone who has a product experience for their agency channel. (Agency accounts with account management, specifically!) Looking forward to chatting more with y’all!

hello

Hello All, @Sunir Shah Loving the concept of these new channels. Kudos on your continued great work to bring the community together.

I'm the Partnerships Manager for NiceJob, a reputation marketing platform. We work with digital and local marketing agencies as well as ISVs, business consultants/coaches and anyone else who would like to help their clients adopt a comprehensive strategy and process to gain more online reviews and grow their company by using their great reputation to attract new leads and sales. Send me a DM if you'd like to learn more.

I’m keen to organize another Agency Connect virtual cocktail event like we did in 2020Q4, which was wildly successful. INBOUND is virtual again. I think as a group we aim to run 2-4 more this year.

5x$2k/sponsor targeting 200 a party would cover it.

If you’re interested, reply to this.

Hey Everyone! Cory Snyder, I run partnerships and revenue for Maropost’s platforms which include Maropost Marketing Cloud, Neto, Jetsend and InboxAware. Launched 3 of those partner programs in the last 5 months. My issues right now are mostly around owning 4 partner programs and revenue growth for 4 platforms with 5 people haha!

Know anyone solid enterprise sales reps or partner managers in the EU that are looking?

Hey folks - I'm the Director, Channel programs @ Alida. We focus on providing our customer with tech forward solutions to collect and gather feedback! I was wondering if anyone had any playbooks or resources around contract renewals in the partner/indirect channel. We are looking to build something out at Alida around how best to handle renewals on accounts that are owned by partners, and it would be great to have a good jumping off point. Thanks for the help!

@channel Your daily reminder. Two rules.

1. Introduce yourself and ask a question about some challenge you’re facing now 2. Then go, reply, and answer someone else’s question. The best way to make sure you can get answers to your questions is to… answer someone else’s question.

That’s how we’re building a team!

Hi Everyone. My name is Ben Astin. I’m the Director of Partnerships at ShoppingGives working with technology and agency partners. We help brands give back through their customers…increasing AOV and LTV…and creating impact!

Question: What’s your best advice/process/tip/strategy to get an intro meeting with a marketing or dev agency?

@channel Your daily reminder. Two rules.

1. Introduce yourself and ask a question about some challenge you’re facing now 2. Then go, reply, and answer someone else’s question. The best way to make sure you can get answers to your questions is to… answer someone else’s question.

If you haven’t done these 2 things yet, get on it before the weekend.

 That’s how we’re building a team!

Hi all, Shannon here, I run a marketing consultancy, Shine Content, but I am here looking for recommendations for a client. Their platform makes it easy for IT Channel Partners/MSPs to manage all their sales activities in one place. The marketing team is small and still learning. So many of the recommendations I'm making are either sorted into a list of shifting priorities or require a lot of hand-holding. Thus, for a large overhaul on their website, I'd like to contract out. We need a dynamite agency that can overhaul the site, understands SEO (_*really*_ understands SEO), and preferably knows the IT Persona we are targeting. Any recommendations based upon those you've worked with would be extremely helpful.

@channel Your reminder this week. We have two rules which are key to get the vibe going!

1. Introduce yourself and ask a question about some challenge you’re facing now 2. Then go, reply, and answer someone else’s question. The best way to make sure you can get answers to your questions is to… answer someone else’s question.

 That’s how we’re building a team!

Hi Folks! Jens Van Dyck here. I started a new gig leading channel partnerships at Paubox. We do email encryption for healthcare.

Question: Has anyone structured their SFDC environment effectively to manage both partners and their opps?

@channel Y’all have been jumping in and answering questions. There are 2 unanswered questions if you have 5 minutes to answer one of them:

@Marne Reed asked, “how everyone is scaling partnerships internally through the entire buyers journey?” https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/wp-content/themes/csa/slack/channel-partnerships.html#p1620225052031600

@Aner Shachar asked, “I was wondering if anyone had any playbooks or resources around contract renewals in the partner/indirect channel.” https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/wp-content/themes/csa/slack/channel-partnerships.html#p1620316505050600

Abdus Muwwakkil here heading Partnerships at Thinknum Alternative Data and KgBase. Curious if anyone is building partnerships with government, would love to hear how anyone is winning contracts, bidding for them, or engaging partners to do so.

Hi Abdus, My 2 cents from having worked and supported government markets (US Fed, SLED) for many years off and on. It's a highly specialized vertical. The contracting and bidding processes can be complex. My advice is that unless you have a seasoned Government Biz Dev person to lead the charge, then go through partners. Even then, it is advisable to have a seasoned Government Biz Dev person to work with the partners and translate back to the company what will be needed so support them. There are a couple of Disty's (Carasoft and DHL come to mind) that can help and perhaps contract for you for GSA business. Again, advise that if you are serious about this segment (and it can be very profitable) that you bring the expertise on board to go after it. N

Hey folks. I am the Product Marketing Manager at CallHippo, a Business Phone System provider. We are actively working on Partnerships and Integration program with other apps which also includes multiple co-marketing activities. Currently we are partnered with more than 85 popular apps. The biggest challenge right now is to get listed in the partner marketplace even after successful integration as there is no reply once the integration is done. Can someone share their expertise which will help us?

Hi there! I am the Channel Manager, Technology Partnerships at Bold Commerce. Nice to connect with ya’ll!

Hi All, My name is Gilad Shoham, I'm the GM at North America for 2bcloud, a Gold partner with MSFT. We are an Azure Expert MSP that helps startups & ISV’s design, build and manage comprehensive and complex cloud solutions. We specialize in Kubernetes (K8S), Docker, Azure Machine Learning (ML), Cognitive Services, IoT Hub, Azure Function, and many other cloud-native apps. We support ISV's form the migration to Azure all the way to a co-sell status. If you need any help with Azure or have any question, please feel free to reach out!

Hi Everyone. My name is Victoria Gagnon the Director of Channel Partnerships at Koncert. Koncert is a Sales Engagement platform helping B2B companies with outbound sales activities to better target, scale up and improve messaging to their addressable market. We also have a great technology called agent-assisted dialing which is what we have build our technology around. We have a partner program working with sales strategy consulting firms and technologies providers. Our program is to help our clients be more successful when using our technology, advising them on a tech stack and of course build a indirect channel model to build revenue and brand. Great connecting with this group!

Hi team, I love this network. I lead partnership at Netlify, and I have 2 programs: Agency Partners and Tech Partners. Today all activities are very much aligned to the use-cases served by the enterprises my direct sales team serves.

One question I have, how have you structured your largest / most strategic channel (agency) partnerships? _context:_ I have a few agency partners that have emerged with multiple offices and 100+ users using my service. How can I structure a strategic partnership beyond my default agreement, that ideally I become their platform of choice.

I’m thinking about MDF commitments, should I charge for support or is that expected to be free, things like that. Would love to hear some ideas what has worked or talk it through further.

Hi Everyone. My name is Nico and I manage SI and channel partnerships and alliances at Algolia in the EMEA region (focused on DACH). We help retailers and businesses across industries to build outstanding digital experiences on every channel, that drive conversions and customer engagement and ultimately companies’ online revenue. Fun fact: Algolia is the second largest search engine in the world! Looking forward to being part of this group!

Hello everyone, I am Thomas and I lead the partner ecosystem at Ozonetel Communications in North America, Ozonetel has been delivering Contact Center Innovations for over a decade and is a preferred cloud-telephony partner to 1500+ enterprises . Over 50,000+agents across 150+ countries use Ozonetel Platform to transform their customer experience. We are keen to explore partnerships with master agents/resellers/distributors to expand in the geography and would love to connect with the right folks. Glad to be a part of this growing group!

Hi Everyone! Marc Krull from www.pipelinecrm.com. I'm the director of sales and looking to build out a partnership program for our 15 year old CRM company

Hi Everyone, Arun VS from www.kissflow.com . Here to build the partner network for our No code/Low code Business process management + Digital workplace tool. I would be glad to explain in detail the benefits of a partnership. Please book a meeting via calendly.com/arun-vs

Someone asked me if I can justify why customers own their own accounts and you should almost never make your channel partners take on liability for your subscriptions (as if it ever made sense to ask your _partner_ to take on risk to make _you_ money!).

GDPR and its related privacy laws are the reason. Enjoy reading the below! I recommend having a fine glass of something numbing at hand.

https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/2020/08/20/data-privacy-and-gdpr-for-saas-partnerships/#channel_partnerships

Hey folks, I know it’s a bummer that history of this channel is inaccessible. We have it available for the Executive Members via Onna.

And Onna is . We got the whole enchilada in there.

Hi All! My name is Nahry and I'm leading biz dev/partnerships for a somewhat newly formed team at Impact. Wondering if anyone has a strategy/GTM template they'd be willing to share? We're heading into heavy planning mode for structuring our approach and priorities. I'll be working across channel, tech partnerships, and biz dev with commercial components.

If you integrate with HubSpot and want to maximise that integration, I'd love to grab a virtual coffee with you. We have been a HubSpot Partner since 2015, developing the long tail of their smaller agency partners and vendors in the connect program. If I can answer any questions or help in any way, say hi! :)

@channel Just checking in with how this channel is doing? I’m pretty impressed with the number of responses people are getting. However, I’m taking feedback on how to improve.

One key point is keeping an archive of the threads. I have it though slightly out of date. https://cloudsoftwareassociation.com/wp-content/themes/csa/slack/channel-partnerships.html

Anything else that you think we can improve?

I'm interested in what folks here think of the Vendr proposition. The customer appoints Vendr as a procurement team to drive down their SaaS costs and Vendr guarantees to cover their cost of $36K or more, through SaaS contract savings, which also reduces channel partner commission %. Thoughts on Vendr as the future model for companies to purchase SaaS?

Hey folks, I’m speaking next Thursday at EmpowerB2B. This is a popular conference with product teams in B2B SaaS in the SF area; this year virtual. I’m speaking on your behalf to the product managers in the room. If your best laid plans ever got rejected by a VP Product, this one is for you. :)

I’m talking about How Product stresses out Partnerships which hurts Growth. 

Do you have key stories when product has slowed down your magnificent channel partnership plans? I’ll try to highlight them to drive home the message.

p.s. I have free tickets for CSA members as well.

Hi everyone! I'm the Partner Manager for an all-in-one business management software called Striven. We partner with software/technology consultants, advisors, affiliate marketers, resellers, and implementers. Here is our Partner Program if anyone wants to check it out!

Looking forward to ChannelCon next week - ChannelCon Online is your invitation to hear firsthand the important trends and research from recognized industry professionals, peers and experts—all from the comfort of your desk. Get the information you need to help your business grow and succeed. Here is my company's link fo registration: https://connect.comptia.org/events/registration?eventid=CCSPSWEEP&pc=CC21TeckedIN

Hey folks, I think this will be valuable to this channel. I was fortunate to have @Maddy Martin invite me on their webinar series to explain everything I’ve learnt from the software implementation partners using AppBind to scale revenue without taking on financial risk. Really, it’s put together from stories of pain and suffering. Here’s a rough outline.

• Why clients hire service companies • Why I got fired by a client • An agency who was scared because they felt they didn’t own anything; they didn’t have a scalable business • The basic outline of how to pitch services around technology • How agencies actually organize themselves to efficiently deliver technology implementations • How agencies can eliminate the financial risk that scares them and keeps them away from becoming your partner • And therefore what SaaS companies need to deliver partners to get them into the channel program (create opportunities, eliminate risk!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gNWmcbAQ8o

Hi everyone,

I'm putting together a "best practices" manual geared at helping professional services firms to hire, onboard, and leverage their first sales hires most effectively, both as account managers, SDRs, and AEs.

Does anybody have a deck, playbook, or any resources they've found helpful available to send to me? It would be greatly appreciated

Hey everyone, my name is Kabir Uppal and I lead marketing partnerships at Airmeet.com. We’re planning a few events this year - Sept / October and then beginning in 2022 that focus on Partnerships in SaaS and its impact on various teams and functions. I would love to connect with you if you are interested in collaborating, being a moderator, speaker or partner for this event. The idea is share the perspective on partnerships and help each other navigate this space and the impact it can have on the business

Hi Channel-Pship Leaders. I’m trying something new today. I’ve got a blog that I’m publishing next week on Up-leveling the IT Channel. It’s all about what we as leaders need to do to ensure that the concept of the channel continues to evolve and stay relevant as App Ecosystems become dominant. Is it time to retire the word or transform it. The blog says we should up level it and explains how. Love the dialog in this Google doc; make comments there or here in the slack message and THANK YOU.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dgNLl1Tl8CR4UyEqHPStnAe_bUa6m8BySR3cGYynTIw/edit#

Is it time to retire the word channel or transform it to be more relevant to B2B SaaS co’s, we vote to up-level the term beyond just GTM. What do you think? https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/up-leveling-channel-beyond-go-to-market-allan-adler/?trackingId=3phzMsdB7xzphT8Ojp838g%3D%3D

Hey everyone, working on creating a playbook around channel partnerships for an early stage SaaS company - Series A. Would love any feedback, guidance and tips that you can share from your experience. Hoping to build something comprehensive yet dynamic that we can keep adding to based on learnings.

Thanks!

Hey folks, I saw this thread on Reddit about how this CRN article about Dell is now competing directly with its channel, and how the MSPs are reacting. Some truisms that I think remain mysterious to many people.

• Partners don’t care about vendors; they care about customers. The MSPs are looking at HP and Lenovo. “This is not only going to benefit HP and Lenovo it is also going to hurt Dell on the enterprise side of the business, where they [still] want the channel to help them win business,” said the CEO of a top Dell enterprise-focused partner. “It is going to help all the major OEM Dell competitors that have a well-supported channel strategy. I don’t want to bring Dell into my accounts. I just don’t.” • Partners don’t make money from vendors. They sell services. “This is why we stopped trying to resell hardware about... 8 years ago I think. Not a lot of money and too much work keeping up with vendor requirements. We’re a managed SERVICES company, not a hardware reseller, so the money comes from services.” • Partners don’t value vendors. They want to control the vendor. “We sell hardware mainly so we know that the customer gets the appropriate configuration.” • Partners hate it when vendors talk to customers directly. “Dell declared open war on their resellers at least as far back as 2016. That is when we stopped doing business with them as much as possible, and have taken major steps to try to secure communications so Dell sales reps can’t jump us and go right to the customer (they still do).” • Customers drive the sale. I agree with this statement, “At the end of the day the customer is going to drive the decision-making process,” said the enterprise-focused Dell partner CEO. “If Dell listens to their customers and we as partners continue to add value, providing flexibility for big customers, it will be very difficult for Dell to take this business direct.”

Hi guys, we are a SAAS company looking to establish partnerships in Cloud Contact Center, call center/contact center space. We are native to Salesforce, HUBSpace, CRM, AI and skill based routing. Please email if interested and I would be happy to schedule a demo. Thanks!

Referral Partners Feedback: Hey everyone -

I work at a SaaS company (Qualio) that provides eQMS software to life sciences companies.

We've successfully been building out a referral network, but the challenge recently has been around managing these relationships at scale.

Curious to learn about how your companies have been managing this?

Hello everyone! I'm new to this group. I'm an Online Payments Specialist at Heartland Payment Systems, and would love to talk with anyone who needs an integrated payments solution that offers great customer service and security.

I had a very interesting conversation with a Hubspot / Salesforce implementation agency CEO today. I’m still digesting it. From their point of view, they have a large pipeline of clients being referred from the SaaS vendors. They don’t sell technology, but do consulting and service to get the systems up and running. Technology adjacent really.

They only recommend (not refer, not resell) 5 or 6 SaaS products in total and never once manage the sale; the client does all the procurement on their own. They are involved in a co-sales conversation, but only because the client draws upon their expertise to procure the right product and ensure there is fulfillment labour.

To me, that doesn’t make them top of the funnel, but mostly valuable for customer success metrics including revenue retention and net revenue growth. They only operate during closing actions for peripheral products necessary to manage fulfillment of an anchor product (e.g. adding SMS messaging to an already purchase marketing automation tool).

On the other hand, I had conversations with two agencies onboarding onto AppBind today who are positioning themselves to the client as the one-throat-to-choke full system vendor. They are bringing on multiple software vendors and looking for more, because the software is just software to them… tools they need to expand value, results and service offerings. They would never ask the client to talk to the software vendor’s sales person.

The net of that is that when talking to a service company, you have to decide where in the customer life cycle they fit and adjust channel programming accordingly and KPIs. If they are really a fulfillment service after the client has made a decision, then they line up with success metrics. If they are making themselves the product, then you are a component in the system they are building and selling (whether referral or resale or managed services as the commercial model).

I'm looking for a donor management platform for nonprofits that is either processor agnostic or would be willing to integrate with us at Heartland Payment Systems. Any suggestions?

Hi, I am Andreas from Germany. I am working in eCommerce, where we provide fulfillment-as-a-Service as an 4PL to merchants. As I am building up the channel partner program, I am talking mainly to agencies which setup shop or support merchants within their ERP. The agencies like our solution but as their main business and focus is on building and support webshops, they "just" recommend our service if a client asks them for a fulfillment-provider. Even we pay a good comission, they are just not that keen on that. Have you any tips how to get a higher referral frequency on this? I highly appreciate your insights!

I was thinking more about my conversation with a Hubspot / Salesforce implementation partner. https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/wp-content/themes/csa/slack/channel-partnerships.html#p1635279007013200

It makes me wonder.. one of the ‘best practices’ is to focus less on commissions and more on being a source of client referrals to the agencies. However, if we are seeking Demand, it seems like many agencies take advantage of this client referral flow and become dependent on it, no longer bringing in new clientele themselves, and therefore not generating net new sales for you.

In the Microsoft channel, there’s more of give and take. The companies Microsoft refers customers to the most are the ones who are generating customer growth for Microsoft. There’s a whole programme about it.

Obviously the best source of channel demand is being absolutely critical to a systems deployment, like WP Engine is to Wordpress consultants.

What are your experiences with what drives the most demand? Commissions, referrals back to channel partners, selling into the “systems integrator” model, or other?

Hi Everyone!

At Trengo (omnichannel customer support SaaS tool), we have an established affiliate program and are expanding towards a referral model for more engaged partners. How do you manage any channel conflict between UTM links and partner referrals? Are you using any particular systems for this that you’d recommend?

Thanks in advance for any tips

Does anyone here work with marketing agency partners and offer a self-service free trial for their product?

Random question - if you use Salesforce as your CRM, do you use the Opportunities object to track partner journey? I find it challenging because the partner journey never really ends - like a sale. So you can take to a certain point but we all know that closed/won just means the start of your partner journey

Hey folks! I'm growing my account management team which means we have some portfolio splitting ahead of us.

Looking for insight/considerations/your experience allocating one big portfolio to multiple reps.

Also... curious what KPIs you are commissioning account management reps on? revenue/referrals is unpredictable + "lumpy", so I'm exploring other metrics to round out motivation.

Hi all - at Showpad we’re currently building our partner program. We have a pretty good idea of what we want to achieve however I would like to know if anybody of this network knows some consultant that does this for a living? All recommendations are welcome! Thanks

Hello all,

I hope you are having a productive day. I work at Pivony, a social insights platform that can scan customer conversations about any product/idea/brand in few clicks.

We are currently working on developing partnerships with consulting companies, marketing/creative/digital agencies in the UK. We will be very glad to meet with agencies who are also interested in developing partnerships with a SaaS platform. Don't hesitate to text me over Slack or you can book a demo with Pivony to learn more about our product and partnership models.

Hey Everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend. I'm the partner manager for Striven, an all-in-one business management solution/ERP.

We partner with software consultants and tech advisors who refer/implement software solutions for their clients. We work with many Zoho partners, QB ProAdvisors, Sage partners, and more. The goal with our partnerships is not to compete with your current offerings, but instead to provide you with another solution that complements your offerings and allows for more "best fit" scenarios.

If anyone is interested in connecting or learning more, feel free to message me here or shoot me an email:

Wondering if any partner leaders out there selling SaaS the state and local govt through a channel. Love to have a conversation on what’s working/not working.

What metrics do people use to bonus channel manager performance? Results based vs Input based? Both?

Revenue through partners, leads submitted, etc? Or things like trainings held, QBRs delivered, etc?

@Matthew Lifshotz use what the business values most - usually bookings generated, up/cross-sell, retention maybe, etc. trainings, calls made, meetings held are all tactics to get you to the things that matter most. Manage those to build predictability into the bookings numbers. Compensate on revenue/bookings since that is what you ultimately need. Sets the emphasis in the right place.

Hey folks, @Adam Pasch asked in #random https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/wp-content/themes/csa/slack/reads.html#p1640016879065600

Hello .. does anyone have a resource for good interview questions for channels (SI & GSI) alliance managers? Would appreciate any help on that front as I'm hiring someone to help us drive that business and it's a new role for our company. Thank you in advance :)

Hi all, I am heading partnerships for Airmeet.com a hybrid event platform backed by Accel and Sequoia among other VCs. It is widely used across industries, sizes of customers, and geographies (customers from 70 countries). My question is: Is there any play book / tool to identify a channel for any category of products based on its characteristics, customer types, usage pattern, geography they serve etc?

Hopefully, this is the right channel for the question:

Does anyone here have experience with SaaS-agency partnerships? Would love to exchange some thoughts! Thanks, everyone!

Hi everyone! Does anyone have experience with the AWS partner network? An Amazon representative is providing some context but I’d be interested in getting the perspective of some people who have worked with them in the past.

@channel If you’re targeting marketing agencies, I have opportunity for you the Cloud Software Association is organizing. Please DM.

Are you tracking/reporting on the % of your partners engaged each month?

If so, what metrics do you factor into 'engagement'? What's your target or benchmark for "good"?

Hi, I’m Eugene from Webvar. What is something you love and something you hate about partnering with B2B software VARs that operate on traditional cost plus model (mark up on products)?

Hey all, we at xAmplify are hosting a webinar on the Secrets to Smart and Successful Channel Partnership on Wednesday, Feb 9th at 10 am PST. We'll be recording the webinar and sending it out afterward, so sign up even if you're busy that day. https://xamplify.io/l/wZcZWeSJ

Also, if you have any questions for our speakers, feel free to message me and I'll pass them along.

Hi folks. Has anyone found success using a rev share/referral fee with professional service firms (advisory, GSI, SI) to incentivize deal origination? Historically, I’ve resisted it, but my company is new enough we are still understanding the full consulting/SI service opportunities, so in the meantime, I’m thinking I give a referral fee to motivate action from partners. Anyone find success doing this?

Check this out @Kevin McFarland - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/argument-saas-teams-against-using-commissions-incentive-alex-glenn

@Kevin McFarland Well the dirty secret is that most channel partners aren’t incentivized by commissions; but if you don’t offer commissions, they don’t care either.

You need to pay them to cover their investment of time into you; never position commissions as buying their clients. They will never prioritize you over their clients. They make their money from clients, not from you.

What do solution partners look for?

We’ve surveyed and interviewed hundreds of solution partners. What solution partners care about, in descending order of priority are: • Does the product work and solve a problem my client has? • Can I trust the company? • Does the software company provide support to me at the same level I provide support to my client? • How do I build a services package around you that I can sell my client? • Can I build technical expertise fast enough to serve my clients with this product? • Will the software company help me find new clients, either through promotions in their marketing or by referring their customers to me? • Does the software company offer commissions? This was getting long, so I wrote it up. https://www.appbind.com/what-is-the-right-commission-structure-to-incentivize-solution-partners-and-agencies/

Hi everyone! My name is Kevin O'Reilly and I'm the Business Development Manager at Upwork and am based in Boston. I jumped over from the VC space to channel sales selling into VC/PE. I made the jump about 2 months ago so I don't have any real problems I'm facing, more so just looking to learn any tips, tricks, trades for selling into the VC/PE space. Looking forward to meeting you all!

To those of you running referral programmes. What period of time do you set for a referred lead to move to closed/won, in order for the partner to be attributed with commission? Especially interested if your partners are some type of consultant/trusted advisor.

I'm curious to learn more about training tracks/certifications for service partners. What's the level of program maturity to aim for to begin developing a formal partner training program? What's the best way to get it off the ground? How would you know when to hire someone dedicated to developing a partner training track?

How do you measure channel partners' influence on SMB customers? What metrics can you use as a measure of their SMB influence besides sales?

I’m looking to speak to PLG channel leaders who manage both a service partner program and a reseller/sales partner program. I’m particularly interested in the intersections between the two. Also very interested to speak to leaders who strategically chose to combine the two (offering spiffs to service partners) and the challenges they faced in doing so! Happy to share my experience running Zapier’s Experts Program+implementation program as well

Hi...just joining this channel although I've been with CSA for a good number of years. Having been a Channel Leader at Citrix and LogMeIn, I've learned the value of really understanding and know our partners we are recruiting and who are already in our channel program. We wasted so much time trying to recruit or work with the wrong partners. Have any of you had this same experience?

Was able to yell into the mic about how amazing partnership programs are on the Partnered Podcast. give it a listen and let me know how I can do better for my next speaking gig

https://partneredpodcast.com/episodes/selling-saas-w-duane-dufault

Hi there, would anyone be open to do cold outreach to potential partners globally?

If this could be of interest, I can help. Just DM.

so - @Pablo M are you looking for others to employ your services for partner acquisition or are you looking for an SDR type to help you build your partner base?

@Jason Breed option 1; I work with a network of trained SDR interns who can help with partner acquisition

Ahh - perfect. it was unclear. I would bet there are many @here who are looking to add SDRs for partner recruitment that might consider outsourcing. @Pablo M you should complete your profile so people know who you are and can contact you!

Hello! Any partner managers at an EOR (e.g. Remote, Deel, Oyster) to discuss a partnership?

Hello everybody! I'm looking for a Channel Sales Manager to cover CloudTalk's EMEA region. Does anyone have any tips?

Hello everybody ! Im looking to engage with partners esp PLM service providers that can integrate our Artwork Management & Label Proofing SAAS for Marketeers. We are also looking at partners keen on a lucrative success based model to help our SAAS reach traction within the CPG,Food & Bev,Cosmetics and Wineries space. Please do suggest any one that you may know

Hi, we are rolling out a new product to our existing referral partners. The product has a basic/monthly rolling contract, and there is a more premium offering which is 12 month min contract. My question is how have other paid their partner managers for a product which is monthly rolling? There is an upgrade path between the two if that helps (ie start on monthly, and down the line can access added features on the premium version). Any insight appreciated, we've only ever sold annual contracts via partnerships previously, thanks

Has anybody here built a partner certification or training program for their channel partners? Looking to chat with folks about best practices and platforms as we look to make some improvements to our partner training the back half of this year.

Hello everyone! I’m Nik Sanghvi, and I lead Alliances at Caspio. We’re a leading low-code cloud platform with 15K customers ranging from SMB to Enterprise. We’re ranked among the Top-50 dev products for 2022 by G2. Looking forward to connecting with consulting firms / channel partners and anyone else who is focused on joint go-to-market development with platforms like ours - we think we’ve built a great partner program with 20%+ referral commissions, lead sharing, co-marketing, and more, and would love for you to be a part of it! https://www.caspio.com/partner-programs/

I have access to 10s of thousands of small agencies doing $5K-$100K a month in revenue.

Let's chat & explore if you want to get smaller agencies as customers.

Feel free to DM me.

Hi Everyone! Again very thankful to be apart of this group and really looking forward to learning.

When you decided to go with your insurance provider for you Saas Company, What made you go with them? Did you struggle finding a true partner in the space? and Lastly do you think you have the correct coverage or do you not know?

It was so good seeing everyone at SaaS Connect last week! I'm curious....here are the results of a survey we just completed. What are you experiences and time spent in trying to find the right partners to recruit?

Hi everyone, out of curiosity: are there any member based in Europe? And/or responsible for business / partnerships in Europe or EMEA?

If you are based in Europe, add your country flag as reaction

How often are your channel partners requesting co-branded collateral?

Hello everyone, Matt Fok from eZ-XPO! I am the CEO & Founder. We help companies to drive more organic traffic/leads by hosting Virtual Expo Network for all partners and customers. We are the 1st to host multiple Virtual Expo Networks with multiple categories. I look forward to collaborate with everyone to help pull all your partners together via our Virtual Expo Network. https://youtu.be/243KLLbiO_A We are launching a VIrtual Expo Network for this group FREE for the 1st 50 early adopters. Please let me know if you are interested. Thanks.

Survey type question here, hope to start a thread. I’m looking for lessons learned/best practices for a relatively clean salesforce.com sales cloud implementation. Any ideas around partner sourced/influenced attribution, partner tracking on accounts/leads/opportunities appreciated. Evaluating both Experience cloud and 3rd party PRM solutions as add ons, but starting with a new SF environment. Will likely incorporate Crossbeam. Please keep it real, suggestions “don’t use SF” are not helpful, that selection has already been made.

Referral Network Feedback: My team has built a large network of independent consulting partners over the last few quarters. I've had a couple of thoughts I've been thinking about lately that I'd love feedback on (here or over Zoom):

• Incentives: How do you incentivize your network to drive additional referrals? • Predictability: How do you forecast incoming referrals / and do you expect predictability? I realize a lot of this is probably industry specific / where you are today, but any ideas or thoughts on these two topics would be interesting.

Hi, I am Aditya and I am helping an early stage No-Code App builder for Shopify stores have a look here https://appbrew.tech/ , looking forward to connect and partner with Shopify growth agencies working with DTC brands.

Posted this in #general with no response Trying again here, hope you can help!

Hey folks!

Do you offer free use of your software to referral / reseller partners? If so, how do you apply it?

Looking to crowdsource ideas and potentially simplify our system.

Right now, we offer 6 months of free use for every 5 signups. We have been applying this manually (tracking referrals, manually sending notifications, adjusting billing), and we are working with our product team to automate this. Problem is, it's getting really complicated to determine and build rules like: is there a cap to how much they can earn in a time period, do the credits expire, how can they track their free months, etc.

Does anyone have an agency program strategy deck they would like to share? I would like to compare notes!

Does anyone here incentivize their agency partners based on retention of shared accounts or retention in any way? If so, please DM me

Hi All! I Head the Strategic Alliance team for Retarus. We are an enterprise cloud communication platform. Looking to build relationships with SI and channel partners.

Hi everyone. I manage partner programs for AppDynamics.

Could someone help give me a 30k view explanation of a resell vs agency partnership model?

I am revamping our partner deck - can anyone share theirs for some inspiration?

Hey Channel -partnership group. We are looking to engage with independent consultants/freelancers/sales/SDR's that can help sell /introduce to the right point of contact for selling ourNew Product "A Label Management SAAS ". Our TG are mostly marketing folks. We are willing to share a lucrative % of invoice value. Onboarding/Implementation/Ops/Servicing/Demo etc is taken care by us. DM me if any one is interested. Our Website is www.artworkflowhq.com . Our parent company is bizongo.com and we clock $500million + ARR from our existing vertical

Hi, I am a partner manager with Skuvault, an e-commerce warehouse management system with a built-in inventory management system that is a cloud solution.

Has anyone heard of Loot? They approached me about a channel partnership. They say they help businesses efficiently purchase SaaS tools using hand-curated content and exclusive rates not available outside their platform. Current partners include Zoho, Brex, Webflow, Bench etc. I am wondering if anyone has experience with them.

Hey folks! I run the product team at AWeber. Interested if anyone's been experimenting with any sort of partnership / co-marketing tactics that are getting surprising results.

Can anyone suggest Channel Partners to sell a Mid Market Brand Management SAAS in North America

@channel If you’re heading to INBOUND, we’re half full for the Agency Connect cocktail party. We’ll take a couple more sponsors. It’s the best opportunity to build relationships with Hubspot’s agency network. If you’re interested, ping me.

@channel Hello everyone, it is nice to be here. My name is Omer Fuchs and I am leading the alliances and partnerships for DealHub, an amazing CPQ/ CLM solution that makes sales easy for everyone (CRM-Agnostic). I am looking for new partners that are Rev-ops experts / consulting / SI companies who would like to add this amazing solution to their toolbox. Looking forward to connecting with you. Omer

@channel Looking to connect with Hubspot Partners while in Inbound 2022. If you are in the business of CRM for sales, Rev-ops, streamlining sales processes - let’s meet. We have an exciting opportunity to collaborate. Here’s a link to schedule a meeting with me while in Boston. https://cal.mixmax.com/omerfuchs_2022/meetingtype_280123943

I just want to give a hats off to @Scott Fratianne at PandaDoc. I was on their webinar for resellers yesterday because they are using AppBind to manage their reseller partner billing...

... It was a masterclass in reseller communication. I was just amazed by one golden moment after another.

Scott just radiates the right values of a successful channel manager.

1. A simple and a pain-free relationship. Don’t sell risk, create opportunities for your parents.

2. Trust and integrity in all they do. Resellers own their customers, period.

3. Partners are part of the family. They’ll be transparently updated at the same time as PandaDoc staff.

4. PandaDoc’s job is to invest in partners with enablement, partner relationship managers, and increasing compensation the more the partner invests.

He grew channel before at Pipedrive and it shows why he’s the best.

Good afternoon from NY, Channel friends !! Adrien from : building the Reseller Channel for Aircall(cloud telephony) for North America, after building the program in EMEA+APAC. I'd be interested in understanding if there is any existing discussions related to : • telecom taxation & reselling • reseller portal • market data : Indirect sales versus Direct sales on the US Telephony market (SMB&Mid) Thanks for accepting my application ! looking forward to discussing wit you all !

Hi! What are some advice or suggestions you give to partners on how they can use marketing funds to generate maximum ROI?

I'm looking to put together some best practices on MDF for partners and would appreciate some inspirations

Hi All, BarrierBreak has launched its Trusted Partner Program to build inclusion by empowering your clients to build accessibility into their digital solutions and comply with accessibility standards & guidelines.

Check out our referral and reseller partner model at https://www.barrierbreak.com/partner-with-barrierbreak/

Join us to make Digital Inclusive for All!

Hi Everyone,

Trying to understand how to get started with listing on Azure marketplace? Is joining MPN the first step? Looking for your advice on the same .

Hi All,

Am looking for some leads on Consultants/Boutique Firms catering to Infosec Compliance space(GDPR/ISO/PCI DSS etc) to partner with.

Along with that any leads for Resellers/Distributors catering to cybersecurity space or Compliance as a Service space will also help.

Thanks Sourajit Scrut Automation

Hi everyone ! I need your help ! • I would like to understand how much in percent of your company revenue is generated by Resellers ? (resellers being third party companies which contractualize with the end-customer, implement and support) it would also be interesting to give an idea of Average Revenue per Account and Industry targeted. Many thanks !!!! I will share the result of the poll in here

Hey folks! How do you set revenue quotas for PMs? Does 4.5x-5.2x salary track for your team and reps?

Little UI adjustment - check out partnerships ops templates provided by leaders like ours truly @Sunir Shah that trigger partner notifications at crucial steps!

Apply for a free account (hurry, it won't be free for long): https://app.partnerhub.app/

@channel We’re running another Agency Connect cocktail party in New York, Oct 24. Would would be interested in chipping in?

Hey folks, still looking for references on commissions! I asked a version of this question a couple weeks ago and I'm going to try again a lil more zoomed out:

Which channel (referral especially) programs are commissioning partner managers on net new revenue generated by their portfolio?

We have a 2.5 year old program that has been commissioning on # new clients, # new active partners, and % partners active. There is a shift/some pressure to commission exclusively on net new revenue, so I'm looking for examples to wrap my mind around how we could and/or why we should not move in that direction.

Hi Folks,

We at Scrut Automation are launching our Partner Program. We are in the Infosec Compliance Automation space. We are looking to partner with

1. GRC Consulting firm 2. Law Firms 3. Tech Partnership with a. Cyber Security companies Would love to connect with anyone who is interested. We are growing at a rapid pace. Being a little over a year old, we have achieved 1mn ARR. Please DM if interested in engaging with us.

@channel I am hearing a lot of feedback about what partnership enablement material you need to build to go to market; it seems daunting.

I built a partnership enablement template to organize all the relevant information. I’d love your feedback on where it could be improved.

If you have examples of your own enablement material, please comment. Will link to it as well at the top. There are sub-assets like a sales decks as well. Comment and I can include your assets in there as examples as well.

[template] Partnership enablement four-pager

This is so good @Sunir Shah! Can we give this away after your session today?

@Alex Glenn Aye. That’s why I made it. http://sunir.org/enablement

Thanks @Sunir Shah. Very helpful

hey guys! We’re trying to crack the channel partnerships space here at UpStack and looking to partner with consulting firms that will sell into enterprise - any advice firsthand on who to approach within a small to medium consulting firm to start a partnership discussion? Would appreciate it! (also we’re a non-SaaS company, just selling our services in matching the right developers with fast-growing startups)

Hey folks, I very often talk about the Shadow Channel. Every single channel programme in a PLG SaaS company should IMMEDIATELY analyze their “shadow channel”…

The shadow channel are all those service companies that are already engaged and active with your customers in their accounts… :+1:

BUT for whatever reason, don’t want to join your partner program. Usually because they don’t see the value is worth their time.

The trick is the data analysis to find them. I built a Shadow Channel Calculator spreadsheet so you can identify your shadow channel partners very quickly.

I’m happy to share it with you in return for being able to write a blog post talking about the results to pay it forward to the next partner teams.. I think not many people are aware of the shadow channel. Let’s level things up.

Doesn't anybody have any good examples of the business case they've built for their program re: revenue share? We've had a pretty standard rev share offer for a longggg time, but as we're considering expanding that offer I'm needing to present a full business case to the Finance Team. Would love to know what KPIs you all track to look at the success of your rev share models - namely, anything involving lifetime commissions.

Hi Everyone!! We at Advantage Club are looking for Resellers and Channel partners, Please hit me up at Looking forward

Hello friends in channel partnerships.

My name is Andy and I am the director of K1 channel consulting. I work with saas company's who are pivoting from direct to channel and require to develop or modernise their partner program. I have many end to end assets and hear to support partnership professsionals in their journey.

I look forward to speaking to other partnership professsionals.

Kind Regards

Andy Ranson www.k1channelconsulting.com

Feel free to add yourself to our directory of channel consultants if you want @Andy Ranson (form at the bottom): https://www.partnerhub.app/directory/partners

Thanks Alex - I will review tomorrow, appreciated.

State of agency-to-tech partnerships report published this morning: https://www.partnerhub.app/blog/state-of-partnerships-for-digital-agencies-leading-up-to-2023

@channel Hey folks, we’re organizing an end of year Agency Connect Virtual Cocktails event to reach 150 marketing agency folks. Overpass, Airmeet, AppBind are in. Looking for a couple more chip ins.

We’ve done 2 before. They are great. We ship wine, attendees share their deepest business fears with each other, SaaS vendors look sympathetic and understanding, and then you have a warm relationship to pitch yourself going in 2023.

$1500 a company. Reply or DM me.

Any recommendations for companies that can develop partner enablement technical training and certifications?

Hi peeps in channel partnerships I’m a wannabe Partner Manager who came across this community when attending @Sunir Shah session in PL[X] Summit last week. My background is in Account Management for digital agencies primarily and I’m working to pivot my career to land my first Partnerships Manager role.

I’m learning lots from blogs, events and people in this space! Thanks to @Andy Ranson for sharing his knowledge with me this week. I look forward to meeting other folks in this community .

Hello channel friends I had a good conversation this week with Lisa Thoman Lawson about cloud partnership program assets for start-up and scale-up SaaS companies. Lisa and I agreed their is a gap in this space and it is hard to access an accelerator for partnership programs. I have been building cloud partnership program assets and structure to assist partner managers & commercial teams to accelerate the partnership program build. I have created two affordable packages and happy to share more information. Andy

Email address is

Hello again, I am joinning to this channel to look for partner on cybersecurity delivery. We are developing the cloud based application for on demand pentest delivery.

Hi Team, We recently kicked off our first referral partnership with another complimentary technology platform. While there is no integration or joint customer value between our two firms (yet), our platforms are conceptually complimentary. We identified our top 50 prospects that are their customers and vice versa, however, we’re stumbling on getting the influence and introduction to convert to pipeline. Right now, our AEs reach out to the account CSM to learn about the account and earn the right to an introduction, but few have converted. I’d appreciate any guidance on how to make the program more effective. Thanks!

Just to brag, we totally crushed it for AgencyCocktails.com on Tuesday. Sold out. And I didn’t even hit 50% of my list yet. If you want in on the next one… it’ll be February.

Latest discussion with the Airmeet team on partnerships-marketing alignment and strategy: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7iN7dd2orr8h6ZwquGZKGR

Hey ya'll! I'm creating our first EOY partner channel survey and I'm curious what are your go to feedback/survey questions to ask your partners?

I am really excited about this tool - when I was working at Klaviyo, I found like $100k of channel MRR that was not properly attributed to partners with it.

If you are looking for additional revenue against your quota as we wrap up Q4, this might help you.

Basically, you just pull a Salesforce report of opps from Q4 and drop in the sales notes. We can then search for words like “referral” or your top partner names to see deals that your team can take credit for (or use to recruit). If you’re interested in trying it out, I would be happy to help! (make a copy of the doc please)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tvJjdPc6OQDKQCTMYttyKvbASOqnIMyhpl3XayjTunw/edit#gid=0

Hey folks, I put together a proper ‘reseller’ agreement template that I believe meets the standards outlined on https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/2020/08/20/data-privacy-and-gdpr-for-saas-partnerships/#channel_partnerships.

Anyone want to have a look at it and give some feedback? I’ll share a link with you in a DM.

(I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Consult your own legal counsel. etc.)

Hello hello folks!

I'm looking for examples of a Partner prospect grading system. Ideally, examples on what you measure to assess a business case for expanding into new Partner types / decide who to target.

Anyone willing to share their calculators/templates or resources you've found helpful?

Thanks in advance

Hi,

I am Srikanth , founder of Si6, i am building a cloud based student information system, that is pre integrated to SAP ERP.

What this means for partners.

Oppurtunity for partners to position this solution along with other SAP Products and their own accelerators. There are no ERP partners in the education vertical. As the enterprise customer budgets are in hundreds of millions for a comprehensive Integrated ERP catering to HR, Finance and Students Management.

Support integration to S/4HANA. (Also offer an RDS Preconfigured s4 hana configured demo system for educational customers that you may use for GTM)

Looking for SAP and Microsoft ERP Integration partners who could take this this SaaS solution to the various geographies globally.

Thanks in advance.

Hey y'all! I'm building out partner tiers for an existing portfolio of 120 Partners and am getting caught on some admin bits that I'd love opinions on. • Annual or cumulative thresholds: we're planning to divide tiers on # referred clients and are debating if the thresholds should based on a running total or annual referral total. Would annual totals be individual/based on signup date or based on calendar year? • Ongoing eligibility: do we have ongoing minimum threshold to remain in a tier once it's been achieved? e.x. drop a tier if dormant for X months or below an annual minimum. Is this worthwhile and have you seen this used well? • a la carte options: we're considering a 'choose your own adventure' vibe for lower tiers, e.x. choose one of 3 co-marketing options for tier 1, choose 3 of 5 for tier 2, you get all 5 in tier 3. Is this brilliant or overcomplicated? This are some big questions, so if anyone is down to have a call with me to talk through tiers I'd be very appreciative!

Note: we'll be tracking in Salesforce and likely won't be able to consider a PRM until late Q2/Q3.

Thanks in advance!

Hey all !!

I am Sourajit, leading Partnerships and Alliances Manager Scrut Automation. We are a SaaS based compliance automation company. We help customers get compliant with standards like ISO, SOC2, GDPR. Our G2 Reviews speaks about our customer-centric approach.

We are working with _*SIs and integration companies*_ to offer a wider GRC solution. Opportunity for partners to position this solution along with other our GRC Products and their own solutions.

Looking forward to hearing back.

Hello, anyone in cloud/data center infrastructure partnerships/sales?

Hello partnership professionals- K1 channel consulting has been working hard in packaging best practice assets in our SaaS partnership growth accelerator package. We have five partnership agreements, joint partnership plans, partner value proposition, marketing development fund examples and partner relationship management software. We have deals for Q1 and look forward to supporting your growth plans in 2023. My contact details are and website www.k1channelconsulting.com

Does anyone have a good resource for a channel partnership agreement template that you use?

Hey everyone! My name is Orel Levit, I'm the Director of channel partnerships at vcita, nice to meet you all In case your organization is serving SMBs, and you're looking for new ways to increase ARPU and reduce churn, let's have a chat. First drink is on me

Have a productive and positive day everyone!

Hi all,

I lead the Partnerships and Alliances at Scrut. We are a SaaS based GRC platform helping customers on their compliance journey.

To reach out to prospective Partners, I am using the usual channels that BD uses for prospecting and reaching. Using tools like Apollo and Outreach.

Is these the correct methods?

Hi all, I’m Samantha! I have been working at BuzzBoard for many years now and am very proud of the extensive data we provide around the SMB space. We are hands down the leaders in SMB data. I am looking to make connections with potential resellers of the best account intelligence data on SMBs! So if you are interested let's chat!

Hello everyone ! I have one question I would love your take on: how do you minimise churn from clients coming from resellers? How would you create the policy for churn users if the commission has been paid to the reseller? Thank you!

Question came up today and wanted to ask here for outside thoughts. If you provide a discounted price for your product for partners, do you advertise or share that cost in general inquiries?

We have our prices inside of our dashboard, which is only accessible after they are approved as a partner. We receive a lot of “how much” questions before they apply though.

Hi everyone. I am working with a client who is building a highly engaged partner program with a small number (10 to 15) of agencies and SIs, in North America . I would love to have a handful of informal conversations with other ISVs who have focused on something like this and been succesful. Looking to understand things that work to get agencies and SIs attention and then make them successful whether it is via processes, incentives, enablement, and/or product. Thanks in advance to all those open to sharing their experience.

Channel resilience shines through market uncertainty. The top publicly-traded global IT resellers – Atea Sverige, Bechtle, CDW, Computacenter and Insight – all reported robust Q4 and full-year 2022 financial results, alongside optimistic 2023 outlooks. Their double-digit performance highlights the resilience of the channel model in the face of macroeconomic uncertainty, currency volatility, ongoing supply unpredictability and IT industry pressure. They also outgrew many of the large vendors they sell!

Thanks @Jay McBain! Mind if I share these findings?

Hey Everyone! My name is Samantha, and I have been with BuzzBoard for over 3 years now working in marketing and partnerships. We are a leading provider of sales intelligence and prospecting solutions for SMB data. Our mission is to help companies grow their sales and marketing by leveraging our powerful data and insights. We are looking to expand our reach and increase our sales by partnering with resellers who can help us promote our offerings to their network of customers. By partnering with BuzzBoard, you will be able to offer your customers a powerful sales intelligence solution that can help them generate more leads and close more deals. Our platform offers extensive data on businesses, their employees, their buying behaviors, etc., giving sales and marketing teams the data they need to make personalized outreaches. In addition, we offer our partners a range of benefits, including dedicated account management, sales and marketing support, and training resources. If anyone is interested in a possible partnership with BuzzBoard I would love to connect!

Trend Alert: Routes to market are diversifying (quickly) for IT vendors

Orchestration of customer outcomes today is more complicated than ever. It is almost impossible for a single customer, partner, or vendor to handle the permutations and combinations necessary for success. Working in an ecosystem requires a level of digital/physical execution, resources, and skills that are best suited for distribution.

The competition for this distribution opportunity is now 7 layers deep. The technology industry is doubling in size (this decade) and trillions of dollars will transact indirectly through, to, and with millions of partners. We are looking at this three dimensionally – what will be the mix across the 7 layers of the total pie and then, subsequently, who will be the winners in each layer?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/trend-alert-routes-market-diversifying-quickly-vendors-jay-mcbain/

Some data from our agency user base:

Notice how low commissions are on that pie…

560 agencies answered to get that, so it’s significant.

One more:

Just goes to show you how important the product quality is…

Question - where do you go to find new partners for your program? What marketplaces or lists do you use to find appropriate partners? #channel-partnerships

Anyone have experience with channel partners in LATAM around the topic of data analysis? So either resellers or solution partners that either implement and resell data analytics solutions or help clients implement/develop things like data governance, analysis, collaboration, reporting, visualization, etc? Am looking to learn more which tools are used, types of agencies/SIs/companies doing this work, industries with larger penetration and openess (data analytics applies to everyone but LATAM in gral is a tough market so key to understand Verticals where some barriers have been overcome). Thanks in advance

Is there such thing as benchmark channel efficiency metric for team size? e.x. ratio of spend:revenue or OTE:revenue

I'm curious how leaders are managing /advocating for their headcount.

Hello Everyone, My name is Saurabh Aggarwal, working with Advantage Club (global employee engagement platform advantageclub.co). I am working on expanding the reach and building channel partnerships on the sales side.

We are currently working with companies like Accenture, Target, Lafarge, Concentrix, Hexaware etc. to drive the employee engagement, rewards and recognition, building culture and communities and drive benefits. We are headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Happy to be part of the association. Looking forward to connecting with everyone here and partnering!

Hey CSA! Loved all of the buzz from last week’s SaaS Connect.

Would love to hear some of your success stories! How have you helped your sales and marketing teams hit their number with partners?

Would love to hear any other partner success story you’re _insanely_ proud of

Hi Everyone

I am interested to understand if you know of any companies that specialise in developing sales, pre-sales and consulting enablement for tech companies. This is an embedded solution for a developing reseller program. Thanks in advance and have a good weekend.

Kind Regards

Andy

I would also be interested if their are any vefy good SaaS LMS platforms / companies that can create sales, pre-sales, consulting training.

Hey channel!! Would appreciate your thoughts! What would you do if a partner wasn’t engaging??

@Ella Richmond well what kind of engagement do you want? When was the last time you spoke with them? Any idea what is going on in their lives? Is there a customer who needs something right now?

Hey there Channel, I run partnerships at a video creation platform for the enterprise and government creator economy (think marketing , L&D-Training Teams, Communications Teams). Does anyone recommend any great channel partners for video creation and content creation tools? Currently been teaming up with resellers selling course creation software.

Any company that is building a serious, global go-to-market must consider distribution as a foundational building block of that strategy. Of the total tech/telco hardware and software purchased by businesses and governments around the world each year, distribution represents 25% of the total ($405 billion).

With the amount of consolidation and M&A activity in this space over the past few years, the Top 15 distributors now represent 64% market share. To round out the list, Canalys will be publishing a list of the top 500 global distributors later this year.

The year-on-year growth for the total IT distribution market in the previous year was 6.1%.

Some key insights:

1. Some distributors saw declines in US$ revenue due to local currency weakness against the US$, but many continued to see local currency revenue growth. Some major distributors saw declines as a result of ongoing geopolitical friction.

2. Distributors have seen growth shift to high-value technologies, including cybersecurity, software and infrastructure (as supply improves), while consumer business and client devices have declined. Volume distributors are refocusing on “value” distribution for growth.

3. Distribution is undergoing a fundamental transformation with the move to SaaS, subscriptions, cloud and marketplaces. Distributors will act as orchestrators of multi-partner ecosystems as partners increasingly play specialized roles within complex solutions delivery.

4. Specialist distributors in cybersecurity, networking and cloud are outperforming volume players and expanding rapidly through both organic growth and M&A activities.

Also, of important note, the majority of these top distributors (at the CEO level) will be at the Canalys forums this year in Q4 - Barcelona, Palm Springs, and Bangkok. (More on that here: https://canalys.com/events)

Tips for building relationships with SFDC reps? We are cold outbounding to them right now but not sure if there is a more efficient way to get in front of individuals or teams of SFDC AEs

Hey everyone- I'm looking to speak with a few fellow leaders at B2B SaaS brands about how you and the brand leverage a network of independent service providers to get your SMB customers the product-implementation help they need. I have a few pointed questions I'd love to ask your thoughts on, and I think you'll be very excited to learn about the startup that's the impetus for this research. Please DM or schedule a quick call to chat!

Hello everyone! Thank you for inviting me in this amazing community, I am looking forward to networking with each and everyone of you! I would like to shortly introduce myself. My name is Stefan, and I am currently working on a project with Native Teams on a global level. To be more precise we are working on solving the headaches and obstacles that Freelancers are facing in their field, yes, by this I mean the boring paperwork that comes with every job or project you might be working on. Additionally we provide every Freelancer with the benefits as a full-time employee in their local country! Feel free to message me directly if you think this solves any obstacle for you at the time! Cheers!

@Mike Parker - great reads in this one!

Coming this October... https://www.partnerprograms.io/partnerships-gtm-bootcamp

AWS marketplace experts I have a question- what would be a better go to market strategy to list in the AWS marketplace given that what my company sells is content which is usually consumer via an external technology. Option1: list by ourselves directly given that we have integrations with the major needed tech platforms chances are client would want our content directly. Option 2: create a listing with ISV partners that offers a full solution to clients. In other words we list together with a delivery platform and the end customer would buy the bundle not just the content

Had the honor to have a chat with Aleksandra Spiric of Allbound PRM to share some insights of the Teamleader journey regarding channel sales:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/40Os5hND8Xcb51WicotxlU?si=54db024ea809447a

Think there are some valuable insights here for those starting and scaling their partner journey.

Hey folks, at SaaS Connect, I put up this slide (attached) as a joke about how bad solution partner programs can be thinking we’d all share in a laugh. It hit a nerve apparently in a way I didn’t really intend. I guess a little of my frustration came through from seeing program after program get mired down in this mess.

Then I got a little triggered by @Rob Rebholz saying partner programs should be “simple” on LinkedIn today… So in penance for my mistakes, I’ll put more empathy into this.

Why are partner programs are so complex? Shouldn’t they be designed to make it as easy as possible for the customer to buy your product?

Let’s have faith that the program is built up over time to solve problems. Partner programs feel “complex” when reacting to real & justified but secondary problems of an INTERNAL team, instead the primary, critical EXTERNAL problem of selling the customer the product they want.

1. Certifications. Hubspot for e.g wants agencies to be certified, even when onboarding their own to Hubspot. Customer success were fighting high churn rates when customers weren’t set up correctly by untrained agencies.

2. Deal registration. Typically, deal registration is meant to deconflict the partner with the sales team, the sales team’s commissions, and who communicates what to the customer. In some cases, also with other partners.

3. Margins. Margins are a zero-sum game between the solution partner, partner team, and sales person.

4. Onboarding. Customer success teams and solution partners are both paid to make customer successful. The overlap creates misalignment.

The heart of the problem is that because of the nature of subscriptions, it is very difficult for partners to just sign up, pay for and implement your SaaS for a customer. Selling software through partners requires humans, and each human is an agent that requires deconfliction.

A SOLUTION PARTNER is forced to refer customers to a SALES AGENT to get an account. Because routing a partner referral to a sales agent is non-trivial, a PARTNER ACCOUNT MANAGER role has to be created to manage this process.

Because referrals undermine the channel of SOLUTION PARTNERS, SaaS companies have had to build up the internal equivalent of CUSTOMER SUCCESS agents to double up the labour to the end customer.

Because CUSTOMER SUCCESS is expensive, SaaS companies are forced up market to enterprise SaaS to cover gross margins. Enterprise sales strategy “makes up the pricing” for each customer, and thus requires a SALES AGENT with hefty commissions to close the sale. SOLUTION PARTNERs can’t quote on their own.

When a partner could just buy the software commercial off the shelf, fewer humans are required, with fewer conflicts, and the simpler the partner program can be.

Otherwise, it always helps to focus everyone on the customer and their needs, and then work through how to simplify and speed the process from the customer’s POV.

Cross posted to LinkedIn as well. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urnactivity:7086750827058532353/

Hey guys, we had a discussion about leads converting on our end, and not on our partners' website and therefore coming in to our 'direct (organic/paid)' bucket. We might have found a solution to fix this, but curious if other partnership teams would also need a solution for that. Could you help me out through filling in this form? Promise it really takes less than 5 minutes.

https://tally.so/r/wArK6W

Hey everyone! Looking for a favor -- does anyone have a contact at Calendly? Specifically, someone involved in partnerships?

@channel Friday afternoon tooling question.

How many have a way of detecting which of their customer accounts have a consultant managing it for a customer, even if the consultant isn’t a registered partner? The typical way is checking the email domains.

Follow-up question. I spent time building a tool to analyze a database of user emails by account, identify likely managed accounts, crosscheck domains in my database of 300k digital consultants, and if unknown, download the website and check if it is a consultant or not.

I also have a tool to generate a report of your average customer profile by geo, industry, job title, company size, etc.

Does anyone have a commercial tool they use that can do that? Or is my laptop the only thing in the universe that can do this right now?

Hi all-

I've got a question... Hubspot seems to be the only successful SaaS brand investing seriously in a freelancer/small-agency services provider ecosystem to A) provide their customers with product implementation services, and B) create a massive customer acquisition channel.

This strategy seems to be a straightforward opportunity for B2B SaaS brands to add value to customers and grow--especially those who want to sell to SMBs (see below bullets for my thesis).

Am I wrong? :+1: if you agree if you don't agree

Why I think high-quality freelancer-provided implementation services can be a massive boost to B2B SaaS brand's growth:

1. Nearly 50% of surveyed SMBs say that implementation fears and learning a new software product keeps them from buying new software products (Source: Capterra. U.S. Software buying trends) 2. Customer LTV : Average retention of customers who receive expert implementation services being 3X longer than those who do not. Many SMB buyers get stuck trying to implement new software tools. This prevents them from realizing the value of the product. If they receive expert implementation services, won't this unblock their implementation and help them realize the value of a SaaS product. Realizing the value of the product also greatly increases the likelihood of them increasing spend to add more user licenses. 3. $0 CAC : When a freelancer refers one of their clients to become a customer of the SaaS brand's product, this costs the SaaS brand virtually nothing. 4. Freelancer-serviced customers generate less customer support costs: These customers hit up their freelancer expert for support more than they do the SaaS brand's support solutions. 5. Thus, freelancer-serviced and referred customers are more profitable for SaaS brands than customers acquired through any other channel. Customers acquired and serviced by independent service providers generate new low-CAC, higher-ACV customers who cost less to support.

I recently learned from a friend who reports to WebFlow's CTO that the CTO didn't even know about the company's small team that was trying to execute this strategy. Is the problem that nobody believes in the opportunity's ability to move the needle significantly?

Do any of you have any insight into why B2B SaaS brands aren't investing in this strategy?

Hi Everyone, anyone active in performance consulting / solution development in ecommerce? I have a proven tool/product that dominates its home market (CEE region), is established in DACH and eager to grow more. I also have a well defined and proven sales process with an excellent presales phase that serves both the customer and the sales process itself. The product is Luigi's Box, AI‑Powered Site Search and Product Discovery for E‑Commerce.

Our yearly Accelerator training is back in October - this year it's focused on going-to-market with partners. Grab a seat if you want mentor-led training from some of the best to do it https://www.partnerprograms.io/partnerships-gtm-boot-camp

How to run your partner program on $0/mo budget is live: https://www.partnerhub.app/resources/how-to-run-partnerships-effectively-without-a-software-budget

Hi guys, I want to create best practise advice for PartnerVerse members on building channel partnerships and one thing that often gets overlooked in my experience during partnership discussions is the underlying incentives for the actual salespeople/AEs who drive the deals/referrals. Curious to know what the general concensus of the group here is; whether to get that granular and include this in partner discussions, or whether this is usually left to each partner to work out internally?

@Alex Sutherland I asked @Huckleberry. It answered to /huck how to compensate reps for channel sales

Commissioning reps for channel sales involves structuring sales commissions and compensation plans <[2]>. It is important to consider the objectives of the channel sales team, such as channel revenue, when determining their compensation <[2]>. Some companies opt for an overlay team approach, where channel reps are focused on driving channel revenue but may not receive commission <[2]>. However, it is crucial to ensure that channel sales representatives are adequately supported with sales and marketing resources <[3]>. Building strong relationships with partners who understand the customers’ business and challenges can also contribute to successful channel sales <[3]>. It is suggested to prioritize making partners successful and avoiding complex tiered programs or excessive incentives <[3]>. Additionally, aligning channel sales with the sales team and considering partnerships as a marketing effort can lead to better outcomes <[5]>. Overall, the key is to design a compensation structure that incentivizes channel reps while aligning with the goals of the channel sales program.

If you add stuff here in Slack, Huckleberry will pick it up

Huckleberry may become my new best friend!

@Sunir Shah Did you create Huckleberry? Do you plan to make it publicly available? Seems like a great product....

Happy Friday, here Carlos Castillo, I have worked in the IoT Telematics automotive market industry in a SaaS global company called Geotab working mainly in a Reseller/Partner program style and did it across 3 continents. I am looking forward to learn more about you. Let me share my Linkedin here to connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carloscastillolimas/

Hi all - would love to learn more about how you are doing account mapping with your channel partners using Crossbeam/Reveal. Let's say an agency partner gives you a list of 10 of their top prospects that are current customers of yours - how are you using that list and what steps are you taking to potentially help your channel partner close them as a client?

What we plan to do (we're not quite yet at this stage) is to kick off a consent process with our customer contacts.

Our CSM would judge who they think is the best contact and send them a template email with background and a link to webform to indicate consent to being contacted by that specific partner. If they consent, a note of that is made in a suitable data store for audit and legal purposes and kicks off an email to the agency partner with contact details.

Due to the confidentiality and data protection mechanisms we assure our customers of, we're not able to share any other account intelligence ourselves.

We're won't be confirming mutual customer contacts or even titles without consent, as that would confirm which part of the customer's business we're talking with, which would itself be confidential information.

Arguably, getting the customer's consent is the best route anyway - that way they're not unhappy with us for sharing their details, and the agency partner is getting a warmer contact than otherwise.

@Katie Bentz interesting you ask - we have seen almost zero actual success between agencies and their tech partners in this situation. However, it can be successful. Here's a workflow for you:

1. Segment the customers by their pain points which your partners' services + your solution solve together (work with the agencies on that). 2. Tell the agency you must have two things - something for free that's a valuable offer + a piece of educational content related to that pain point. 3. Find out who internally has the best relationship to that customer. 4. Ask that person to send the educational material (ideally as a PDF) + the exclusive offer to the client, and CC you. This is not something that's scalable, but co-selling should not be thought of as a scalable routine. It's very 1:1 (which is why it's usually only successful with large accounts wherein a lot is at stake for everyone).

@Prathik N Sunku summoned

@Prathik N Sunku Here’s my game of Marketing Risk to pull information out of the other team leads. http://sunir.org/risk

@channel There’s call to put together a working group on how to start and grow our agency programmes. @Jason Doran’s post above was a call to action. (https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/wp-content/themes/csa/slack/channel-partnerships.html#p1691610443271849)

So I’ll heed the call. Who wants to join? I’m looking at laying out what pragmatic steps we know as a group to clean up organizational alignment, measure the market, go to market, adapt to meet the demand and needs of our channel partners, and iterate so there’s a flywheel.

I enumerated a list above, but I’ll paste it again in a comment on this post.

Reply below if you want to join. We’ll kick off in the next 14 days if there’s a quorum. Let’s finish 2023 strong.