Beware of the give/get paradox

It’s natural to think that for every referral you send a partner, you should get one back.

Or, for every co-marketing campaign you bring a partner into, your partners will ask you to participate in one of theirs.

But if you dive deeper, that way of thinking is actually pretty illogical.

• Did the lead you sent fit your partner’s ICP?
• Was the prospect actually ready to evaluate and potentially purchase your partner’s solution?
• Was the prospect easy to work with or difficult?
• Did it close?
• Was it a deal your Partner Manager can use to evangelize the partnership or was it pretty insignificant?

• Was the event you invited your partner to co-sponsor effective?
• Were there prospects in attendance that they cared about?
• Was the event "on-brand" for your partner?
• Did you do most of the heavy lifting, or did your partner need to do a lot of the work themselves?

All of these variables (and more) factor into how your partner perceives the value you believe you provided, which inevitably will affect how willing they are to reciprocate in the future

The reality is, you could feel like you’ve given your partner a great deal of value, and they could feel like you wasted their time.

Giving with no regard to whether or not it provides value to your partner is a dangerous game, and could actually negatively impact the partnership.

Instead, understand:

• What the strategic initiatives are for your partner org
• How your partnership can help your partner org reach their goals

• What your Partner Manager cares about and what they are measured on (these could be two different things so pay attention)
• How you can help your Partner Manager reach their goals

Notice that "give" wasn’t mentioned once, but "help" is the operative word.

Help > Give.

Thanks for contributing to this section of the PhD, Noah Rahimzadeh.

Partnerships start with great co-marketing

Last week, Justin Zimmerman of Partner Playbooks and CMO of Airmeet, Mark Kilens, gave a crash course on how Partner Managers and Marketers can use events for explosive growth.

You can have as many integrations as you want, but you’ll have ZERO results until you have a GTM co-marketing plan.

Check out the replay here:

Partnership alignment is critical

It’s never too late in partnerships to work on your internal alignment.

You will see results a LOT faster if you start as early as you possibly can.

Many know that in partnerships, your successes and failures are extremely dependent upon collaboration with other internal teams.

You cannot do it all by yourself, trust me. You will plateau and burn out...

Alignment is absolutely critical to getting the support from CS, Sales, Marketing, Product, etc., and the sooner you work on it and really nail it, the sooner you will start to see your results SCALE.

Learn from my previous mistakes; it will save you loads of time 🙃.

Click here to listen to Marco De Paulis on the Selling Together Podcast.

Thanks for contributing to this section of the PhD, Marco De Paulis!

Happenings

• Firneo’s Partner School Series – Today, May 10, 12 – 1 PM EST – Navigating the Microsoft Partner Ecosystem with Juhi Saha, CEO of Partner1 and former Managing Director at Microsoft – Join a conversation with Juhi Saha, CEO of Partner1 and former Managing Director at Microsoft as she shares the insider secrets of how to effectively navigate the Microsoft partner ecosystem. Register here.
• Lead Forensics x PartnerHacker – Thursday, May 11th 2023, 11:30 EDT, 16:30 GMT – Unlock The Secrets of Partner Marketing with Jared Fuller – Jared Fuller will be diving deep into partner marketing tactics you may not even know you’re missing. Register here.
• PartnerHacker x OneFlow – Thursday, May 11th, at 9am EST – Surviving and Thriving in 2023: Unveiling the Secrets to Unbeatable Customer Retention and Win-Back Strategies – Join us for an upcoming live discussion with industry leaders from Oneflow, HubSpot, and Avidly, as we explore the critical roles that customer retention and win-back strategies play in driving business growth in today’s uncertain environment. Register here.
• PartnerHacker x Magentrix – Thursday, June 1, 1 PM ET – How We Incentivized Resellers to Grow Our Program by 26% – Learn how Magentrix activated their partners to increase pipeline by 26%! Register here.

Quote of the Day

Partnerships start and end with co-marketing. There is no co-selling or co-servicing without co-marketing. – Pete Caputa, CEO at Databox

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