Should you double-down or branch out?
We are often asked for advice on a crucial decision: should partnership leaders double down on their current partners to deliver better results, or should they recruit new ones?
04.30.25
We are often asked for advice on a crucial decision: should partnership leaders double down on their current partners to deliver better results, or should they recruit new ones?
Topics: Partnering Tips
10.02.24
In the ever-evolving landscape of partnerships, the debate continues over whether to start with a partner program or a partner portal. Both are crucial for fostering successful partnerships. In fact, some people might say one without the other is just as bad as having neither.
Topics: Partnering Tips, PRM
08.07.24
Partnerships play a pivotal role in driving growth and innovation. However, not all partnerships are created equal. When the long lunches and social events are over, you may be faced with tough conversations about missed growth goals. A friendly partnership may seem beneficial on the surface, but it doesn't always translate to a successful and mutually rewarding relationship. Check out three strategies to help you navigate the complexities of professional collaborations and build partnerships that stand the test of time.
Topics: Partnering Tips
Recently, I had the pleasure of going ‘on tour’ in Europe to help Impartner host three Partnership Leaders Meetup events. PartnerPath is the Impartner Partner-of-the-Year for 2024 (what a mouthful) and I jumped at the chance to meet partnering enthusiasts on my side of the pond. The ‘tour’ was more networking and finger food than guitars and trashed hotel rooms, but still a very cool experience.
Topics: Partnering Tips, PRM
04.17.24
Your PRM, known as the Partner Portal to your partners, should hold all the sales tools, automated processes, and enablement necessary to help partners sell your joint value proposition (and deliver on it). That’s easy to write, but in reality, it’s more complex. Anyone who has been through the experience of solution evaluation, implementation, change management and ensuring post-launch success has at some point asked themselves whether “the juice is worth the squeeze.”
Topics: Partnering Tips, PRM
03.15.24
At the 2024 Impartner customer event Multiply, we assessed the PRM/partner portal of attendees in a service called ‘Check your PDX’. My co-worker and I conducted these checks in tandem, back-to-back, in 30-minute segments for six straight hours. It was interesting to see the wide landscape of different partner-facing systems but by the end the meagre snacks and prolonged period in front of the screens had us running for the poolside to talk through our findings. One thing that became obvious was how many vendors face the same PDX roadblocks. From lack of focus to partner program alignment, navigating these roadblocks is essential for optimising collaboration and driving mutual growth.
Topics: Partnering Tips, PRM
The new generation of partners are digital-first. They want to self-serve partnership information online – not pick up a phone and make a call (do phones still do that?) to then be emailed a fuzzy scanned PDF (which is probably out of date). From onboarding and enablement processes to opportunity registration and marketing, all partner information should be easily accessed from your partner portal/PRM (Partner Relationship Management) solution. However, a basic implementation of a PRM (where you throw every document you have every created online behind a gated login) isn’t going to cut it anymore. Purchasing and deploying a partner portal is not enough to drive success with your partners. An effective partner portal follows the same design principles as the partner program and the user experience should be designed for maximum partner engagement.
Topics: Partnering Tips, PRM
Does working for a high-tech company make you uniquely positioned to pick the perfect technology to support your channel strategy? Not really. The partner relationship management space is so busy, choosing between the overwhelming number of options can be daunting.
Topics: Partnering Tips
In our latest channel chief roundtable, we asked leading technology channel executives what was keeping them up at night. Amongst their answers of: ‘doing more with less,’ ‘marketplaces,’ ‘the big lay-off’ and the ‘slow but steady demise of the “tech alliance,”’ a big topic was the challenge of rewarding partners based on the influence they have on customers and where along the customer lifecycle that influence and value is realised. With the increasingly wider role partners play throughout the customer lifecycle, vendors should take a closer look at how to reward partners for their influence. We don’t have all the answers, but we have thoughts on how to get you on the right track.
Topics: Partnering Tips
My tradition of watching the annual channel predictions chat between Diane Krakora and Jay McBain with a large mug of glühwein didn’t change when I joined PartnerPath as our EMEA principal. What has changed is the depth of the notes I write. I used to scribble down some key quotes and throw them into conversations with peers and management to sound smart and revisit them when I had a decision to make on positive change for the year ahead. These days I refer to the topics these smart people pontificate (Diane loves that word), add my opinion, share with clients, and write a blog for you. On the webinar, they chatted for an hour, with a promise of more to come, and I homed in on a few exciting bits. As the partnering world continues to evolve, I’m happy to see three ways in which the channel is making progress inside organisations.
Topics: Partnering Tips
