You're looking to streamline your partnerships. What's the best way to do it?

To make your partnerships easier, try concentrating on channel partnerships. First, figure out which channels match what you want to achieve and who you're trying to reach. Then, make sure to talk and work closely with your channel partners, making sure everyone knows what they need to do and what they'll get out of it. Keep checking how things are going and what people think, so you can make things better as you go along.

While expanding on partnerships assessment, here are my two cents: 1- Understand your partners’ strengths and weaknesses and formulate your GTM strategy that complements their strengths. 2- Create a partnership evaluation framework based on cost, control, and customer insights, for both existing and new partners.

Focus on clear communication, set mutual goals, and leverage technology for efficient collaboration. Regularly review and adjust agreements to reflect current objectives and market conditions. Prioritize relationships that offer mutual growth opportunities and align with your strategic vision. Simplify processes with standardized contracts and clear performance metrics. Foster trust through transparency and consistent engagement, ensuring both parties are aligned and can achieve shared success efficiently.

I had to do this regularly as PM on a large DoD contract. Our capture team often included partners that were potentially of marginal use during execution. During pruning, there are a few key considerations: 1. What does the contract say about workshare and contract termination? 2. How important is the relationship with the partner to other activities/pursuits/contracts? 3. How much work has the partner brought to us on other opportunities? 4. Is the partner involved and providing effective input and ideas or do they simply provide some people and sit back and collect revenues from the positions? I think a good leader determines objective assessment criteria is open and honest about them, and applies them consistently across the team.

Rationaliser vos partenariats peut être crucial pour améliorer l'efficacité de votre entreprise. Voici quelques étapes que vous pouvez suivre pour y parvenir : 1. Évaluation des partenariats actuels : 2. Définir des objectifs clairs : 3. Segmentation des partenariats : Une fois que vous avez évalué vos partenariats, classez-les en fonction de leur importance stratégique. 4. Communication ouverte avec les partenaires : Communiquez ouvertement avec vos partenaires sur vos objectifs, vos attentes et vos plans futurs. 5. Analyse de rentabilité : 6. Optimisation des processus : Identifiez les processus inefficaces dans vos partenariats et cherchez des moyens de les améliorer. 7. Exploration de nouvelles opportunités :

Use feedback from the partnership rankings assessed above to set guidelines for establishing partnerships 1) goals 2) timing 3) deliverables This can be fluid, flexible and change but a leader needs to continuously be watching, analyzing and policing.

Before diving into a workout, you gotta figure out what exercises you'll do and what muscles you want to target, right? The same goes for partnerships! Think of your partners as different types of gym equipment. Some are great for building strength (technology partners), while others help with endurance (resellers). Make sure you choose partners who help you reach your fitness goals (joint objectives). And just like you wouldn't share weights without clear instructions, set expectations beforehand! What's each partner responsible for? How often will you check in? By being clear and upfront, you ensure everyone's working together for the same awesome results (mutual success)!

Partnerships which are effective and have longevity are ones that provide mutual benefits. Clarity with expectations and goals in the beginning is critical to yield these mutual benefits. A strategy meeting for defining these is helpful to launch the partnership with scheduled meetings for checking in and benchmarking progress and opportunity to update or adapt as needed.

Imagine building a sandcastle on the beach with your friends. Instead of endless bucket relays, you have handy tools: a wheelbarrow to haul sand (partner portals), molds for intricate designs (co-marketing tools), and a shovel to track how much sand you've moved (performance dashboards). These tools let you work smarter, not harder, building a magnificent castle (partnership success) together. In the SaaS world, these tools automate tasks, streamline collaboration, and provide real-time insights, making partnerships efficient and impactful.

Imagine you're building a Lego spaceship with your friends. You wouldn't just set it up and forget it, right? You'd check to see if it's flying smoothly, fix any wobbly bits, and maybe even add cooler features! It's the same with partnerships. Don't let them gather dust. Regularly "play together" with your partners to track progress, solve any problems, and brainstorm ways to make your partnership even better. Talk about renewing your "Lego subscription" (partnership), and keeping the fun (mutual success) going!

An annual partnership review is a great idea, trimming your list and establishing new partner relationships based on the coming year's goals.

Partnerships, as organizations have life cycles. Communication and assessments are important to maintain awareness of not just measuring goals but also benchmarking process and how effective it is. Transparently assess how the partnership is working with each partner completing assessments and discussing results with the intent to improve where needed.

Imagine you're building a treehouse, but instead of guessing what works, you peek over the fence at your neighbor's awesome, sturdy treehouse. Partnerships are the same! Learn from the "cool kids" of SaaS by checking out industry reports (think blueprints) for successful partnerships, analyzing real-life examples (like case studies of other treehouses), and even chatting with other SaaS companies (your friendly neighbors) to swap tips and tricks. By learning from the best, you can build an even cooler, more successful partnership treehouse!

Picture your partnership as a delicious pizza. You wouldn't just toss random ingredients on the dough and hope for the best, right? Instead, you'd learn fancy pizza-making techniques (partnership training), maybe hire a dedicated pizza chef (specialized personnel), and even get your coworkers excited about trying new toppings (internal champions). Investing in your team's partnership skills ensures you craft delicious collaborations (successful partnerships) that everyone enjoys!

Partnerships require time and attention and often bring together organizations with different cultures and business models. Investing time in understanding your partners’ culture and model will help the partnership flourish.

80% of your partnerships revenues will come from 20% of your partners. Don’t scale to fast, test & learn and focus on your best partners which are not always the ones you think will be …

To enhance the effectiveness of your partnerships, it is crucial to proactively seek feedback. Engage with your partners by inquiring about their motivations, preferences, and any aspects of your program they may not favor, along with suggestions for improvement. Remember, fostering a long-term relationship is fundamental, so it's important to ensure alignment and cultivate mutual benefits. To ensure you consistently request feedback, integrate reminders or tasks into your calendar or Partner Relationship Management (PRM) system. Consistency is vital for achieving outstanding outcomes.

Optimizing your partnerships often occurs outside of the channel-partner ecosystem, through the evolution and transformation of your sales strategy. Changing the rules of the channel-partner program risks damaging relationships and eroding trust, potentially leading partners to align with other products or seek partnerships with your competitors. By addressing your overall sales strategy, including inbound and outbound business models, your product's position in the market, and your pricing strategy within the channel-partner ecosystem, you can develop a clear action plan to enhance performance and reduce costs in the partnership effort.

Entertain your partners regularly with cool activities. Keep an eye on partners who faded away at some point. They may be interested in coming back to you.