ELG Insider

Successful partnerships require clear alignment and realistic expectations across all departments. Every team — whether it's sales, marketing, product, legal, or finance — plays a critical role in partnership success.   However, misaligned priorities and unclear communication can lead to unrealistic demands, delays, and missed opportunities. What you need to make your ELG strategy work is an unified strategy, cross-functional collaboration, clear metrics and accountability, and support for partner managers:   👉 Establish a shared understanding across the company of what you aim to achieve with partnerships, whether it's market expansion, product integration, or lead generation.  👉 Involve product teams early in partner discussions to align on integration needs, and loop in legal to streamline contract processes. 👉 Define clear ROI metrics and realistic timelines for partnership outcomes. Finance teams should align budgets with strategic priorities, while executives should back their partnership goals with sufficient resources. 👉 Recognize the complexity of managing partnerships and provide partner managers with the resources, authority, and cross-departmental support they need to navigate challenges effectively. Learn more about how to break down silos so every GTM function wins through your ecosystem: https://lnkd.in/gGRz9VYS

Imagine walking into your next sales call with a goldmine of proprietary data about the buyer at your fingertips. Kristen Kelly, Global Technology Alliances Director at Netskope has been doing just that by arming Netskope's sales teams with these actionable ecosystem insights: 📊 Customized reports: Every sales team gets reports highlighting tech partners with existing integrations in their top 10-20 target accounts. This means reps instantly know where they have a friendly face and a strong joint value prop. ✉️ Ready-to-use email scripts: Netskope has even crafted email templates and joint value prop content to help reps reach out seamlessly. And with Crossbeam Copilot's AI-powered tools, they can personalize their outreach in seconds! 🤝 Warm intros via partners: By identifying connected accounts, Netskope’s reps can quickly connect with counterparts at partner companies to leverage existing relationships and close deals faster. If you want to know how to crush your targets, Kristen's session during Justin Zimmerman’s  Tech Stack Summit '24, is one you won’t want to miss. Watch her session on demand: https://lnkd.in/gPryuwPg

Gartner‎ says that nearly 90% of sellers report feeling burned out from work.  Why? They are exhausted, frustrated, and overwhelmed by ongoing social, economic, and geopolitical disruptions, changes in customer behaviors, and impassable quotas. The key to increased commercial returns and increased productivity actually lies in understanding  “drive’s” evil twin: drag. Drag occurs when sellers feel disengaged, bored, or overwhelmed, leading to procrastination and poor focus.  Here’s how you can motivate and empower your sales reps by providing ecosystem data: • Spot high-potential accounts: Identify overlaps and warm leads to prioritize sales efforts. • Personalize coaching: Use ecosystem insights to tailor guidance for each rep. • Refine strategies: Align go-to-market tactics with data on prospect overlaps. Pro tip: incentivize tasks where both reps and leaders can take ownership, supported by data and a mix of freedom and structure. This approach boosts engagement and drives better sales outcomes. Read Gartner’s full report here: https://lnkd.in/gRrJR3Nu

Kristen Kelly, Global Technology Alliances Director, and Keith McManigal (former Sales Director) from Netskope's team use partner influence and trust to secure warm introductions. Through Crossbeam, they identify prospects already working with their partners, leading to faster, more meaningful conversations. As Keith shared, "The value is in the conversation... once I had a rep tell me, ‘That was the best call I ever made.’" Swipe through the carousel to see how Netskope, commercetools, LeanData, Skylark, and Spectrm used ELG to win deals and boost revenue. Curious to learn how these strategies can transform your GTM approach? Read the full article for all the tactical insights. https://lnkd.in/gg-4k8pq

Gartner has shared a framework for orienting your partnerships around customer outcomes and trust.  These 4 pillars will help you set plans and goals around the ecosystem data you share with partners, and the intelligence you gather through mapping accounts:  🔹Mindset: Focus on your client outcomes and seek adjacent markets for continued partnering success 🔹Value creation: Lock-in on your client’s challenges and identify what is the strongest value-add 🔹Operating model: Design the appropriate structure and select across federated, centralized, and center-led operating models 🔹Mechanisms: Remove friction from invoking and engaging partners

Every company needs revenue to survive, but if you base your GTM motion on a transactional mindset, you will leave aside what really matters to your customers: value. Just as 🌏 Linkon Axon, Founder of Arys, said: “The best I’ve ever worked with/for didn’t try to find the perfect partner, they concentrated on creating a perfect environment for their partners in which value-led relationships thrived. They started with creating value for the company’s customer, then their company’s internal teams, then stakeholders, and so on until value was baked in across all touchpoints. The outcome of this approach was clear — the increase in value he was creating directly reflected the increase in sustained revenues generated.”

Cheers to another ELG win.  Here’s what the aggregated win rate data of our 30,000-strong network proves about the power of ELG.   Spoiler alert: your ecosystem is your biggest growth lever.  To find out why and to get a more detailed analysis of how win rate is affected by ecosystem size, ecosystem type, and involvement of sales teams, read the full story (link in the comments). 

Recent research from Gartner‎ found some fundamental truths about partner ecosystems that closely align with the stories we hear from GTM leaders.  Simply building ecosystems without focusing on how those partnerships serve customers won’t earn customer trust and deliver new revenue.  But when the agreed intention between partners is to better serve customer needs, the partnership’s shared intel and efforts are a powerful driver of growth.

The key to generating millions in partner-sourced pipeline within the first year of leveraging your ecosystem is …. focusing on building a foundation that emphasizes strategic alignment, partner selection, and long-term value creation. Here’s a step-by-step tactic based on the insights from Marco De Paulis, Director of Partnerships at Loop to increase your partner-sourced pipeline in your first year. 👇

Getting internal ELG buy-in can be a challenge, especially when working across large, distributed teams. Kristen Kelly, Global Technology Alliances Director at Netskope, speaking at the Tech Stack Summit '24, shared valuable lessons from her experience with Crossbeam about how to build alignment and enthusiasm for ELG strategies. Her key advice for securing internal buy-in: 🔹 Targeted messaging: Adapt your content to the audience. Use specific data and examples that resonate with the team's day-to-day challenges. 🔹 Smaller groups = more engagement: Focus on intimate sessions where people feel more comfortable asking questions and engaging deeply. 🔹 Champions matter: Once a few key people are on board, they can help spread the message across the organization, creating organic buy-in. Incorporating these strategies can make your internal enablement more impactful and foster stronger alignment across teams. If you're looking for tips on enabling your organization to leverage ecosystem growth effectively, Kristen's session is one you won’t want to miss. Watch her session on demand: https://lnkd.in/gBiA79Xq