How to Turn Partnerships Into Actual Revenue

Most founders underestimate how much it takes to earn actual revenue through partners.

First, you have to get in the door.

For you as a small startup, the match with a larger partner is obvious. For them, it’s not.

More established businesses receive dozens of partnership requests monthly. Each requires time, resources, and reputation risk (startup failure, integration breaking, etc).

To get in, you have to derisk the partnership for them. Show them what already works (e.g. joint customers) and start with their success vs yours (e.g. put on a webinar for them with the joint customer). That’ll get them to listen.

Next up, operationalizing - ensure:

1. Visibility: Set up Crossbeam / Reveal immediately to not pitch a partner's customer. This can destroy months of relationship building.

2. Proof of Value: Build sandbox environments showing actual customer data flowing between systems vs technical documentation. When partners can see their customer's information moving seamlessly through your product, belief follows.

3. Protect partner relationships religiously: Create separate lead routing in your CRM. Tag every partner-sourced opportunity. Build automated rules preventing outreach. Make sure your BDRs and AEs DO NOT bombard partner prospects.

Then comes enablement.

Most create training videos and documentation. Partner reps won’t watch or read them. They're too busy hitting their own quotas.

Partner AEs learn by watching deals that close, not by memorizing feature lists. Thus, invite them to observe your sales calls. Let them see which prospects convert, what objections arise, and how you position joint value.

Collateral should be max 1 page, consisting of why you exist, 3 capabilities relevant to their customers, specific integration benefits, and a mutual success story with hard metrics.

Anything longer goes unread.

On top, run joint 60’ monthly ops reviews with a rigid agenda: pipeline review (15’), integration updates (10’), blocker resolution (15‘), co-marketing planning (10’), and next steps with clear owners (10’). You as an early stage founder have to run these on your end.

Lastly, track if partnerships drive profitable growth:

• Partner-sourced pipeline value

• Average deal size vs direct sales

• Time to close vs other channels

• Cost per opportunity (including revenue share)

• Partner satisfaction scores

Warning signals that partnership health is deteriorating are:

• Declining meeting attendance

• Longer response times

• Generic referrals without context

• Partner AEs unfamiliar with your value prop

• No executive engagement

Partnerships are a lot of work. But if you do these things right, they can pay off significantly.

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Enjoyed reading this?

Then check out my conversation on the focal podcast with Natasha Ratanshi-Stein, Founder and CEO of Surfboard, a rare example of a company that was able to nail partnerships from Day 1 and exited successfully to Dialpad after raising a $5M seed round.

Youtube | Apple Podcast | Spotify

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