An idea and a relationship.

You need both to do good co-marketing.

It’s easy to assume that just having a good relationship with another company is sufficient to do something valuable together. "Oh I’m really tight with X, so we can totally partner on something."

But you’ve got to have a concrete, compelling idea that’s clear, simple, valuable, and doable by both parties. An easy "YES!"

Harder than it sounds.

Of course, if you have ideas and no relationship, you’re not going anywhere either.

Build the relationships always so that when those ideas come, you’re already in a place where you can pull it off.

But don’t forget - you actually need to have an idea worth doing!

We need different perspectives on sales

Lori Richardson has been in selling in tech for over 30 years. She noticed some differences between the way men and women tend to sell.

Lori says men tend to promote metaphors of war like, "let’s kill ’em," or "go crush ’em." She says women bring a unique perspective on selling that hasn’t been given a fair shake.

We need multiple perspectives on how to win at co-selling. Check out this clip from the Nearbound Sales podcast with Lori Richardson and Jessie Shipman:

Lori says sales needs a new perspective. Click here to watch.

Don’t sell alone

But don’t "loop in" a bunch of partners just for the heck of it either!

The sales pro often errs in being too focused on closing the deal as quickly and easily as possible, which means no added complexity of tapping into the network of partners surrounding each buyer. This kills them in the long run.

BUT

The partner pro sometimes just loves everyone connecting to everyone else and holding hands and finding (sometimes flimsy) joint value props that they can err in the other direction.

Adding complexity and partners when it doesn’t add value.

Here’s an NFL analogy of what each approach looks like...

 Deliver value FIRST. Sometimes that means adding partners; sometimes, it doesn’t. Click here to watch Isaac compare NFL strategy to partnering 🏈.

Happenings

• Reveal - Australia Partnerships Event - March 23 6 PM – Join Reveal’s VP of Partnership Activation, Antoine Roubaud, Sally Van der Linden, and Jobadder Partnership Manager Shuba Paheerathan, plus some of Australia’s brightest B2B partnership professionals for an evening of learning and networking. Register here.
• Firneo - How to Kick-Ass in Your First Partnerships Role - Wednesday, March 29th, 12 – 1 PM ET – Learn practical, tactical insights to conquer your new role so you can start putting wins on the board immediately. Register here.
• PartnerXperience Partnerships Meetup Berlin March 29th - This event is for Partnership Professionals, who would like to connect, learn and exchange best practices on how to build successful partnerships with other peers. Register here.
• InFUUSE – The Future of Business: Unleashing the Ecosystem Blueprint to Redefine Growth – Thursday, March 30th, 5 PM EST – Join Jared Fuller and an incredible panel of futurists, disruptors, innovators, and dreamers for an electrifying virtual round table to discuss the future of business. Learn why Nearbound is the GTM blueprint. Register here.
• Kiflo Roundtable: Partner Onboarding – Thursday, March 30th, 11 AM CDT – Join Juhi Saha, CEO of Partner1, Jennifer Snyder, Senior Director of Channel Partnerships at Customer.io, and Shawnie Hamer, Head of Marketing & Partner Marketing at Kiflo as they tackle partner onboarding. Register here.

Meme of the Day

Thanks for the meme Aaron Howerton!

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