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PRINCIPLES

You can’t afford to lose them

Jay Nathan (COO at Churnkey.co) continues, 

"SaaS customer acquisition cost (CAC) has never been higher across the industry. Double down on the customers you have today. You literally can’t afford to lose them."

An important principle to remember in a market like this is that recurring revenue is the result of recurring impact.

If you want to retain customers, you need to make sure you’re not only keeping them happy but more importantly that you’re keeping them successful.

There’s no better or easier way to keep customers successful than through partnerships.

TACTICS

How GTM leaders track nearbound

You have the stats to prove the value of a nearbound strategy. You have the email templates to action the 3 I’s of nearbound. You even have a book detailing the steps to build and integrate your nearbound strategy across departments.

But how do you track your nearbound efforts and prove their value?

Here’s what the most successful GTM leaders are tracking and why you should too.

Sales Team Metrics

Daniel O’Leary (Senior Director of Partnerships at Box) emphasizes the importance of tracking key sales metrics:

• Number of pipeline activities involving partner influence

• Average deal size with and without partner involvement

• Average close rate with and without partner involvement

Tracking this, he was able to show 92% larger average contract values (ACVs), 55% higher potential ARR closed, and 27% shorter average deal cycles.

Marketing Team Metrics

Alex Hernandez (Head of Events at Reveal) focuses on metrics that show a clear picture of the impact of partners on marketing efforts:

• Conversion rates with partner involvement

• Open rates on emails with a nearbound ABM list

• Co-marketing event revenue

• Nearbound MQLs (prospects who are partner customers)

Alex uses Reveal’s Collaborate feature to track co-marketing event-led revenue, showing that 20% of Reveal’s open opportunities in Q1 2024 were influenced by co-marketing events.

Customer Success Team Metrics

Nigel Liaw (Director of Technology Partnerships at Fullstory) tracks metrics that tie partner involvement to customer success:

• Renewal rate with and without partners

• Adoption rate with and without partners

• Upselling opportunities with and without partners

• Retention rate with and without partners

• Customer success scores

• Churn rates

Nigel’s approach of using dashboards in Looker Studio to monitor integration adoption and retention resulted in a 14% increase in renewal rates for customers with two or more active integrations within eight months.

Partnerships Team Metrics

Loryn Ferreira (Senior Partnership Manager at Attentive, formerly Punchh) focuses on metrics that show partner influence and sourced revenue:

• Number of opportunities involving the partner

• Number of deal wins secured through partner involvement

• Partner engagement level

• New leads from partners

• Opportunities moved to the pipeline from those leads

• Deal wins converted from those opportunities

Loryn’s tracking of partner-referred/influenced opportunities using Reveal’s Collaborate feature helped Punchh achieve 2x higher close rates and 50% higher revenue per deal.

Every successful partner professional agrees on one truth: nothing earns buy-in faster than results.

Once you’ve defined your focus, make sure you’re tracking the numbers that will allow you to showcase your success.

Continue reading here.

RESOURCE OF THE DAY

Successful ecosystems breakdown

Greg Sweeney (VP of Partnerships at AMNI), a regular reader of the Nearbound Daily newsletter, passed along this article on ecosystems last week.

The article talks about ecosystem strategy and poses a question that I’ve also heard from other leaders like Allan Adler (Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners) and James Hodgkinson (SVP of Ecosystems at 360insights)—what role do you want to play in an ecosystem-led future?

This is undoubtedly the era of the ecosystem but each company and individual must answer—how will I participate?

"A successful ecosystem delivers for everyone involved—orchestrator, complementors, and partners—but it will only succeed if all participants play the right role...

 

The goal of building an ecosystem strategy and a portfolio approach is to create more value for the business and customers...In this brave new world of possibility, it’s imperative that firms make the right decisions about the roles they want to play."

Check out the full article.

Shoutout to Greg for sharing!

• May 23rd—From Recruitment to Revenue: How to Turn Your Ideal Partner into ARR—Join Will Taylor (Head of Nearbound Partnerships at Reveal), Nelson Wang (Founder of Partner Principles), and Margaret Adam (Head of Product Marketing at Allbound) to learn to win new revenue for their companies, and retain current revenue by driving value to customers. Register here.

• May 30th—Driving Revenue Through Technology Partners—Learn from Kelly Sarabyn (Head of Product Partnerships Advocacy and Enablement at HubSpot), Asher Matthew (CEO at Partnership Leaders), and Robbie Ptaszynski (Director of Strategic Pursuits and Priority ISV Co-sell at Microsoft) as they discuss the revenue impact partnerships teams can have and evolving from re-selling to co-selling. Register here.

• June 4th—Happy Customers Festival—Join tactical sessions with top HubSpot app partners to discover real strategies you can implement to level up your marketing, sales, and customer success efforts in HubSpot. Register here.

• Nearbound Summit 2023 Recordings—The future of GTM is nearbound. Watch the recordings to hear how B2B leaders across departments unite with Nearbound strategies and tactics. Listen here.

You’re all caught up.

RECENTLY PUBLISHED ON NEARBOUND.COM

• Your Deal Isn’t Dead, It’s Just Not Partner-Led by Andrea Vallejo

• How Sendcloud Achieved an 80% Increase in New Leads Sourced From Partners Using Reveal

• The Elephant in the Ecosystem by Chris Messina

• The Era of Ecosystem Orchestration is Finally Here by James Hodgkinson

• How Fullstory Builds their Tech Partnerships Program with Reveal’s Help to Increase Their Renewal Rate by 14%

• Nearbound and the Rhythm of Business by Jared Fuller

• Rhythm of Business Checklist by Jared Fuller

• How Pigment Increased Win Rates 5-10% with a Nearbound Overlay & Reveal by Shawnie Hamer

• How to use Reveal for Co-marketing Events

• Unleashing the Power of Nearbound: The Stats You Need to Know by Andrea Vallejo

• Howdy Partners #72: Psychology of Team-Wide Buy-In: The Answer to Partner Program Success with Maurits Pieper

• Mastering the Nearbound Rhythm of the Business: Key Takeaways from the Nearbound Book by Andrea Vallejo

• A Deep Dive Into the Nearbound Book, with Mike Midgley, Part 3

• What’s an IPP—and (when) do you need one? by Martin Scholz and Bernhard Friedrichs

• The Future of Sales Enablement: Integrating the Nearbound Strategy in Your Cold Outreach Efforts by Jeremy Chatelaine

See you tomorrow

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