RumRum

Enterprise AE

Working with partners

Is it me, or are is our own internal Partners manager simply shoehorning into deals?

They've been useful in probably 5-10% of my deals, but I wonder if it's worth the time and hassle.

what's a typical AE/Partner Manager relationship?

do you all hate it? lol

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Sunbunny31

Politicker

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

For an alternate view, here's what works from my recent experience.

For inbound leads: our partner team (usually proactively) sees the incoming, and will reach out to all our partners to see who has penetration into the account. If the partner is an SI, are they aware of the RFP/RFI or lead? Are they in the account already, do they routinely work with the customer/have an agreement/are preferred? They then make sure that the AE is aligned with the partner so that information can be shared and we can co-sell where appropriate or simply share intel if not. If the partner is a platform or application provider, do they have existing relationships? Can they talk up the power of combining our two solutions?

For outbound efforts into target accounts, our partner team will find our partners who are in our accounts, will broker meetings with the SI or tech partner, and enable us to develop relationships that can help us penetrate the account or expand our relationship in that account.

I've brought SIs into deals to help me, and in exchange, I've closed a few deals because those partners have helped me sell.

So in this case, my partner team is actually excellent and helpful. It's all driven by a motivated VP who doesn't like bs and wants to help sales.

1nbatopshotfan

Politicker

Sales

Well written detailed example. This is a very high value post, hopefully a lot of people see it!

Boutdamtime

Politicker

Client Executive

Our partner guy is absolutely useless. I’ve never used them for anything in fact I’ve had my wrist slapped on multiple occasions for “not letting them do their job” after emailing and waiting 2 weeks for a response lol.

In my humble experience sales is all about you owning the journey from customer meeting to close so I would not rely on anyone else besides yourself. I am also a huge asshole at work (though successful) so take it with a grain of salt.

What is the typical relationship?
AE: Is there a partner playbook?
PM: yeah here it is.
AE: what about this situation?
PM: we don’t have a playbook for that.
AE: cool I will make up the rules then.

Make decisions and deal with apologies/consequences after you get a PO.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

It's tricky. They often have extra hoops you have to jump through and then become responsible for closing the deal. Which they don't many times.

techsales

Politicker

Enterprise Account Executive

Our partner managers are high paid glorified SDRs. One of them is a total joke and will try to "sell" but is awful and then will sit on warm leads in their inbox for weeks. Our sales team basically has them forward us every introductory email and then we run the entire cycle. They are supposed to be creating playbooks and programs for how we work with both agency and technology partners, but they haven't actually done any of that.

E_Money

Big Shot

💰

Partners depts suckkkkkkk

Useless

Pachacuti

Politicker

They call me Daddy, Sales Daddy

Working with or through partners is all about mutual trust. Your partners guy needs to make his presence felt in your company and provide value. You just want to make the sale.

I like to make partners come to me whenever possible and own the customer relationship. Not always possible but it’s my preference.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

Professional Day Ruiner

In my experience, the partner managers are there moreso to facilitate getting partners onboarded with the company, answer any questions for them about general best practices in regard to working with your company, or to help the partner get you engaged if they've reached out and haven't heard back.

I've worked at partners, and I've worked for OEM's. That's been my general experience with it.

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