salesVP80 profile picture
salesVP80 profile picture

salesVP80

VP Sales

Opinionated
Catalyst
Valued Contributor
+3

Outbound & Partner Alignment

We are considering aligning teams - outbound (AE, SDR) with partner (AE, SDR, PRM).


As partner establishes quality verticals, they don't have the resources to realize ideal revenue.


Partner team is booking at higher ACV, deal velocity while outbound is struggling with the same KPIs.


I'm interested in challenges and successes you've experienced if your sales org has tried this before or this is your current structure.


Thank you!

👑 Sales Strategy
💆‍♂ Mindset
🏋️‍♀️ Leadership
7

16 comments

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braintank
Politicker
2
Enterprise Account Executive
What exactly are you asking?
CPTAmerica
Opinionated
2
President/CRO
I think it would be tough to have the two teams fully aligned on the same KPI's. The persona's can be so different. I'm sure it's possible but would need more info to really make solid recommendations.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
1
🦊
Yup. And what size companies we talking about too?
salesVP80
Opinionated
0
VP Sales
SMB - 50-250 employees
salesVP80
Opinionated
0
VP Sales
When you say the personas can be so different, what exactly do you mean?
CPTAmerica
Opinionated
0
President/CRO
Often the person an SDR/AE is calling on through partner channels will be in very different situations and often different roles. This makes aligning metrics across this role vs. true cold outreach difficult. Again, it would depend on the product, deal cycle, etc.
FinanceEngineer
Politicker
1
Sr Director, sales and partnerships
Generally, Partners/channels is a one-to-many where you act as a sales manager to help the process. Once a partner is big enough/integrated, you can just overlay the sales team. The issues I’ve seen with these approaches, is that it is double commission and sales gets lazy on their own pipe. You need to push the 1/3 of volumes from each of the sources - sales/partners or channels/marketing.
salesVP80
Opinionated
1
VP Sales
Our referral partner team is responsible for the quality verticals and partnerships within those verticals. They don't have the resources to work the end user referrals so my instinct is to overlay the sales team to work with end users while the partner team keeps them fed.

To your point, not to fed as they would need to be responsible for X of their pipeline, quota, etc.
FinanceEngineer
Politicker
1
Sr Director, sales and partnerships
Exactly, it provides deals that are further down the funnel. That adds a large amount of value, and depending on the size of the company, the ability to either work them or enable a sales team to handle those highly qualified leads.
salesVP80
Opinionated
1
VP Sales
Exactly - thank you for your perspective
pirate
Big Shot
0
🦜☠️ Account Executive
External partner right? I generally believe in the partnerships and they have worked well for me
salesVP80
Opinionated
0
VP Sales
External partner .. meaning what?
pirate
Big Shot
0
🦜☠️ Account Executive
Oh I thought it was partnership with external BDR/AE team for shared goals.

Internally not too much experience on this
CRAG112
Valued Contributor
0
Account Executive
Do you get paid when they close deals?
Do you get sales attributed to you when they sell in your territory?
If so, do whatever you must to help them out.
Otherwise, it sounds like the company is selling against you with intent.
Maximas
Tycoon
0
Senior Sales Executive
Would appreciate more context on this one tbh.
AnchorPoint
Politicker
0
Business Coach
A proven repeatable process is a key for success. Sounds like that does not exist here...

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