A simple success equation

I’m a fan of simple equations.

Sure, they’re never perfect (think 1+1=3), but they’re useful.

Here’s a key customer success equation:

Success = what customers want + the way they want it

Let’s break that down.

1. What customers want
   
   Customers have problems they want to solve and your solution helps them solve those problems.
   
   But to solve these problems you, your GTM teams, and your partners all need to understand what your customers want to use the solution for and the context behind their problems.
   
    

2. The way they want it
   
   Customers want a first-class experience.
   
   They expect fast, easy, complete, and affordable solutions delivered by and through people they trust.
   
   And if you can’t deliver, they’ll find someone else who can.
   
   For companies, this means delivering these intangibles through their internal teams and partners is a priority.

That’s the equation.

Now, here’s how it relates to partner pros:

Partner pros have the greatest potential for impact across these two domains. Why? Because Product, Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success don’t have access to the close, trusted relationships that customers have with your partners. 

By leveraging your partners, you can help give customers tailored experiences. 

You can help deliver your product the way your customers dream of it being delivered: like they’re flying first-class.

Partner ops and nearbound strategy

A good Partner Ops professional defines their company’s nearbound strategy.

According to Jessie Shipman (CEO & Founder of Fluincy),

Partner Ops builds the boundaries and breaks down the silos to make sure co-marketing, co-selling, and co-success are all pointed in the right direction and working toward the same goals.

The result of a good partner ops strategy is a unified partner revenue engine.

But, as Jared Fuller (Chief Ecosystem Officer, nearbound.com & Reveal) often points out, strategy is just a choice. Your strategy determines which choices you’re going to make (and not going to make), and thus, which consequences you’re willing to bear (and not bear).

Aaron Howerton (Sr. Program Manager, Partner Ops & Experience at Samsara) deconstructed how creating strategy actually works in 4 stages:

1. See the challenge or goal

2. Communicate the challenge or goal

3. Put the org to the question of addressing the challenge or goal now or later

4. Deliver

To make these tough choices, Partner Ops professionals must learn from their internal departments and around their ecosystems.

This pulse on their internal and external environments allows them to ask questions that pull out the deeper insights which facilitates making better strategic decisions.

Here’s exactly how a great partner professional would pull out an insight from something seemingly straightforward.

Let’s say there’s a request: build a new report with this specified information from this data set, scheduled to run monthly.

Normal/expected question: When should this be ready?

Strategic question: What are we trying to understand with this report?

Read Aaron Howerton’s full article on why Partner Ops is a strategic role.

And here’s a final tip he gave to Partner Ops professionals: have these convos in a 1-1 so your questions don’t make anyone feel like you’re trying to be difficult.

New partner job opp

Cory Snyder (Head of Partnerships at Teamwork) just posted a new job opportunity yesterday.

Know anyone who might be interested?

Share this link with them.

The PRM landscape is changing

Pete Rawlinson (CMO at Allbound) joined Jared Fuller and Isaac Morehouse to discuss PRMs, the current landscape, and how they’re evolving.

Check out this *brand new* Nearbound podcast episode now.

Stay tapped into the network

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