Fredrik Mellander 🐝’s Post

Do you want to be in Partnerships? Well, you’ve made the right choice! This is an exciting time as Partnerships and Ecosystem-led growth are becoming a movement, turning into one of the key GTM strategies for forward-thinking businesses. To help you get started, below is Part 1 of the key areas of knowledge you’ll be expected to master in order to grow in Partnerships: Core Business Knowledge: 👉 Deep understanding of your space. Does the company you work for (or aiming to apply to) sell products or services? Is it B2B or B2C? What does the buyer journey look like? How does the business typically go to market? 👉 The Advantage. Mastery of your company’s value prop and its differentiators in the market. You should know this better than the best sales rep at the company. 👉 Understanding Your ICP: Clear definition your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) across verticals and company sizes to guide partnership fit. 👉 Understanding how your landscape has been evolving over time: Awareness of shifts in landscape, the role of technology, and evolving trends influencing buyer behavior. Partnership Strategy & Development: 🎯 Types of Partnerships: Understand reseller, referral, technology integration, agency, and strategic alliance models. Know the pros and cons of each for your business. 🎯 Identifying & Qualifying Ideal Partners: Ability to define criteria, research, assess potential partners considering strategic fit, audience overlap, and complementary solutions. 🎯 Partner Program Design: Expertise in creating a structured program with mutually beneficial incentives, clear onboarding, enablement materials, and a focus on long-term value creation. 🎯 Negotiation & Relationship Building: Strong negotiation skills and ability to forge trustworthy, productive relationships with partners. Data-Driven Approach 📈 Partnership Metrics & Analytics: Know the key performance indicators (KPIs) to track, such as partner-influenced and partner-sourced revenue, partner pipeline, activation rate, conversion rate and churn. Get to know how to use dashboards and tools to gain real-time insights. 📈 Forecasting & Attribution: Develop an understanding of how to forecast partnership revenue and implement accurate attribution models for sales generated through partnership activity. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Before you think about building a sales team, consider this: your next big growth channel might be hiding in plain sight. 🕵️♀️ I'm talking about partner programs. Not just any partner program, but one that taps into the goldmine of connections that consultants and coaches already have. It's like having thousands of sales people in your team, all working on a commission basis to grow your business. Think about it. These partners have spent years building relationships, understanding pain points, and building trust. They're basically walking, talking, lead-generating machines. And the best part? They're already out there, just waiting for the right opportunity (aka YOUR product) to come along. Take Snov.io for example and Ludmila Ribeiro. They've mastered the art of proactively seeking out partners to fuel their growth. It's like they're throwing the best party in town, and everyone wants an invite. 🎉 But here's the thing: building a partner program isn't just about slapping together some commission rates and watching the money come in. It's about nurturing relationships, providing value, and creating a win-win scenario. Because let me tell you, hell hath no fury like a neglected partner. Just ask PhantomBuster. Their partner program is a masterclass in what NOT to do. It's like inviting someone over for dinner and then forgetting to cook. Not cool. 💡 Remember: Your partners are an extension of your brand. Treat them well, and they'll sing your praises from the rooftops. Treat them poorly, and... well, let's just say word travels fast in this digital age. So, before you start dreaming about that fancy sales team, ask yourself: 1. Who in my network could become a powerful partner? 2. What unique value can I offer to make a partnership irresistible? 3. How can I structure a program that's a win for everyone involved? Building a fast scaling partner program isn't just smart business—it's relationship building on steroids. And in this world of limited time and resources, those relationships might just be your secret weapon. What's been your experience with partner programs? Have they worked for you? #b2b #saas #startup

Question: If 80% of companies have a goal to increase 🚀 revenue through #partnerships, why then do 48% of people in these partner teams feel their jobs are/or could be at risk 🚷? The potential reasons honestly make my head spin, like I'm writing this in a post when I quickly came up with enough reasons to write a book 📖. I know in a lot of #partnerteams there is always an overwhelming feeling that people are doing hard work with partners, but: 1) Nobody realizes how hard it is. 2) Most people don't even know what they're doing. Now there are a lot of reasons for the above. I could apply the above to several roles, all because of different reasons. But let me hit a very common theme in a lot of companies, from which many issues trickle down. It starts here: The CRO/VP of Sales is the Closer. The other guy is a relationship guy. The CEO loves to go with the top sales guy to go close a deal. He's the guy responsible for the revenue. He's the man (when hitting the number). The partner guy, sure he helped. But he's not out there closing deals. The irony here is the CEO loves his CTO. Can't make sales if you don't have killer product, right? And there are VPs of Sales who have kicked butt because of the product. But product is visible. Everyone knows what the product guys are doing. Outside the partnership team, no one knows what goes into it. Nobody knows how the sausage is made. Nobody realizes that some partnerships are really hard. Daily hard. Every day. And when things are not going well the head of partnerships can't drive a new partner marketing program because sales are down the only person who is getting marketing support is the head of sales 💵 💵 💵 So here is my recommendation: ⬆ Get louder. Louder in your department. Louder outside your department. ⬆ Be sales best friend, and when you help them with a deal ask them to support you with a little love! ⤴ Make sure your boss is promoting key deals, revenue gains and strategic wins. For you. For the whole team. A rising tide... 🔄 Get into the sales QBR's, strategic planning or create engagements with them. Make yourself part of their plan, part of their planning. 🎦 Create win stories for partners. Create partner led case studies with customers. You get it. There are a lot of ways to do this. Find your path to be seen and heard and viewed as part of sales, because you are!

💡 How to Choose the Right Partner Type for Your Business Development Strategy? Shoutout to my colleague Elena for creating this super practical framework! As someone working in business development, I can't stress enough how partnerships can be your secret weapon for growth. Let's break down common business development challenges and match them with the right partner types: 1. 📉 Struggling with lead generation? Channel partners like referrals and resellers can be your best friends. They already have relationships with your target audience and can help qualify leads better than cold outreach. 2. 🌎 Finding it hard to enter new markets? System integrators and resellers who know local markets can be game-changers. They understand local business culture, speak the language, and have established trust in their regions. 3. 🎯 Need more brand visibility? Mix it up! System integrators, resellers, and technology partners can amplify your brand through their networks. It's like getting multiple megaphones for your message. 4. 🧩 Product offering needs a boost? Technology partners are your go-to solution. They can help you expand your feature set without building everything from scratch. Here's the thing about business development: sometimes the fastest path to growth isn't doing everything yourself. Strategic partnerships can help you overcome these challenges more efficiently than going solo. What's your biggest business development challenge right now? Let's discuss which partnership strategy might work best for you!

Would you like to know how partnerships could help you make over $3m? Here’s a breakdown of how our sales funnel does just that 👇 1️⃣ Identify Potential Partnerships. Seek out entities that cater to a similar target audience but offer a complementary product or service. 2️⃣ Build Strong Relationships. Solidify the partnership and ensure mutual benefits. 3️⃣ Use Webinars for Promotion. Have your partners promote your offer via a webinar to their audience. 4️⃣ Introduce an Easy-to-Buy Offer. Present an enticing, low-cost introductory offer that prospects can purchase without hesitation, ideally priced at just a few hundred dollars. 5️⃣ Deliver Exceptional Value. Once they've made the initial purchase, ensure they receive incredible value from that offer. The objective is to exceed their expectations. 6️⃣ Introduce Higher Ticket Offers. Now that they've seen the value you provide, introduce them to your more premium, higher-priced offerings. 7️⃣ Rinse and Repeat. Either collaborate with a new partner or continue with the existing one, and repeat the process. This funnel is simple and efficient. It doesn’t rely on complicated tech, just basic tools like Zoom, used effectively. By offering genuine value at every step, from the webinar to the introductory offer, you establish trust with the client. This method emphasises the importance of nurturing relationships, both with partners and clients, ensuring long-term collaboration and customer loyalty. If you're looking to delve deeper into this strategy or have specific questions about the funnel, drop the word ‘WEBINAR’ into my DMs to learn more 👍

Do DIY partnerships work?   CROs and Sales VPs often have a sense that they ‘should be doing more’ with their partners and alliances to help their business grow. The questions tend to be ‘what more?’, ‘with whom?’, ‘how?’, and ‘how do we measure success?’   The next question is ‘should you try on your own to build and manage a partnership to reach those figures?’. There are three big reasons why the answer is ‘no’.   1)    You can’t scale   One software startup we spoke to wanted to use partnerships to grow, and had tried to do it themselves, but their teams were very technically focused and lacked commercial experience. They read up on the theory of growing a partner ecosystem, and simply tried to apply that in practice. While you can teach yourself many things, something like a software startup doesn’t have the luxury of time to learn by doing and   2)    You lack measurable ROI   CROs can be tempted to hire one or more partner managers. One that we spoke to was poised to do exactly that, but with no strategy behind it because he wanted ‘to pay people to execute and do things’ instead of having to plan it himself. Not only was there no strategy, he could not articulate the profile of an ideal partner company that he wanted them to recruit. How would those managers be measured, compensated and managed? How would you calculate the ROI?   3)    You risk your existing revenue   We’ve met businesses who have managed to build excellent partnerships, like one consultancy we met that sourced 50% of its revenue from a single software partner. Now, that partnership came about during economic prosperity, but when things took a downturn and the software company let its partner managers go, the consultancy had nobody to manage the relationship and that revenue was at serious risk.   So, if not DIY, what’s the right approach?   We recommend that as early as possible you have dedicated, experienced alliance managers working in your organisation and with your partners. This will help your business:   - scale early - deliver measurable ROI - maintain your existing revenues   If it’s worth a brief discussion to see if we can help, please do drop us a message. #partnerships #alliances #partnerecosystem #CRO #SalesVP #ROI #growyourbusiness

Channel partnerships are making a comeback, and it's time to take notice. When I first entered the VC scene, many investors - myself included - steered away from channel sales. The rationale was clear: we craved control over sales processes, the ability to engage directly with customers, and ownership of the customer relationship. But now that capital is both scarce and expensive, the tide has turned. Channel partnerships are experiencing a resurgence as teams reassess their approach to sales. In the past, concerns about relinquishing control and diluting messaging deterred companies from embracing channel partnerships. However, the financial constraints facing businesses today have forced a reevaluation of this stance. Now that it’s untenable to maintain large in-house sales teams, channel partnerships look like a viable - even appealing - alternative. And channel partners themselves are feeling the crunch, too. Where massive channel companies may have once housed behemoth R&D teams who fed their sales reps tens of solutions at once, they’re scaling back - leaving reps open to selling products they might not have previously considered worth their while. Companies and channel partners alike are thus starting to recognize the value of working together to extend their reach and drive revenue growth. But how long will this window of opportunity remain open? It's difficult to say, but one thing is certain: for companies looking to expand their market presence and drive revenue growth, the time to explore channel partnerships is now.

Partnerships are a part of lead generation Having partnerships that are mutually beneficial for both parties provides natural opportunities to extend your reach and generate new business Many of those businesses you partner with are already working with your desired key accounts, or prospects you didn’t even know about There are 3 key elements to look for when considering a partnership ↳ Experience - sharing an in-depth understanding of their target market ↳ Aligned goals - lead gen - having a shared vision and objectives can help ensure both partners work towards the same end result. ↳ Capability fit - you can’t compete - both parties must bring complementary skills and expertise to the table You could add cultural fit or a joint passion A joint passion would allow you to match mentally on something, which makes you like someone more but if you’re both good people and working towards the same commercial goal, and don’t try cover that over you could be fine This isn’t about networking and occasional check-ins This is about creating an intentional plan for new business You need the obvious (above) first Then regular communications, follow-ups and a strategy in place in order for the partnership to thrive. What do you think is needed for a successful partnership? #Partnerships #BusinessDevelopment