thepartnershipdude

Channel Development Rep

Prospecting Channel Partners - SaaS

Good afternoon dear fellows!

Wondering if anybody here has experience in building a Channel Partner Program for a SaaS company.

I find myself being quite challenged when it comes to prospecting new potential partners.

Any best practices (phone/email) on how to approach potential partners?

What's your messaging like?

🔎 Prospecting

🧠 Advice

📳 SaaS

10 comments

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1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

Step 1 is to find a partner that by working together you sell more of both of your products. That’s the first question I ask potential partners “does this agreement help us both sell more” sometimes, even if it seems like a fit the answer is no. Once that’s been determined approach more partners in the same vein and add them to your stack.

Also use partners to solve for a client problem and/or to build out a robust platform. Does embedding your product in a partner create a solution stack? If so go for it, great partner opp.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

Absolutely. You need to be able to benefit each other.

thepartnershipdude

Channel Development Rep

How do you balance growing your own business whilst having your own people selling your partner's solution?

This seems a bit like an unscalable approach when building channels...
How would you transition from this to acquiring multiple partners that solely sell and implement your solution?

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

I think that you need to identify teams that would partner well and create a holistic product. That would make selling of both products easier.

Next, identify which partners make sense. If you’re building this program you should probably avoid a big system implementation company like Infosys or a consulting group like Deloitte or KPMG because your product isn’t gonna move the needle and bring them measurable revenue. Find a partner that’s currently the right size for you and the product.

After that, you’ve got to run dual sales enablement with their sales team and yours. Get each other familiar with the products and how they fit. Help both teams identify the right use cases and when to bring each other in.

Building channels takes a lot of time and effort, but can pay off hugely when it does land.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Hey @thepartnershipdude what are you exact challenges finding them or approaching. Our team use cold approach + we also generate quite a good partner leads from partnerstack.

p.s. I'm not into partnership but I hear what's going on during our sync

thepartnershipdude

Channel Development Rep

Hey, @Diablo thanks for the comment. Identifying potential companies is not really the problem as I use a mix of existing partner directories of other tech firms whose products could go complementary with ours or simply do a filtered search on Sales Nav.

I feel like my approach/messaging is not strong enough when prospecting. Reply and conversation rates are not satisfactory, people seem to have little interest, despite us having a product at hand that was recognized by several review platforms as the market leader.

What's your messaging like in cold contacting? Do you just tease the opportunity and tell more in a meeting? Do you cold email with more concrete proposals? Curious to learn.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Yes, we do tease but we give them the picture of their earning potential (we have made a small calculator they can play around with - if I get 20 clients with ARR XYZ bucks, it will tell them how much they will earn (approx.), that excites them. Listen all care about how much they will earn so we show them what they want to see and once they are ready to hop on a call we discover more to understand about each other.

justatopproducer

Politicker

VP OF SALES -US

Find a partner that sells something that compliments what you sell or offer. What software is it that you sell? A good start that my company used back in the day were cpa’s for small businesses. I guess it depends on what software you sell and i could give you a little better direction.

Do.it.for.the.checks

Politicker

Account Executive

This has worked for me.

Start by getting a general agreement with their marketing, gtm, or business development leadership. Intro, verbal "this could work", but don't push a signed agreement.

Then move the AEs. Cold call them. Sales people pick up all the time. Hit them on LinkedIn. Make cold emails direct "Let me help you close more deals". And be persistent. Always appreciate the hustle. Secure 15 minute intro emails and get straight to the point. No-one gives a fuck about the weather. Here's the gap and here's how we fulfill it so you can sell more.

Once they admit to having a deal. Go back to their leadership and push formal partnership hard. "Hey i want to make sure you get paid. Can we get this thing taken care of?"

Each point is highly relevant and useful to that contact at the time you've connected.

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

Go for those where it can be structured as a Win-Win. It's all about how you frame that first conversation

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thepartnershipdude

Prospecting Channel Partners - SaaS

10 comments

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