Unlock the secrets to building a successful B2B SaaS reseller program. Learn how to leverage trust, expand market reach, and boost sales through strategic partnerships.
The B2B SaaS industry is becoming increasingly complicated.
95% of the market is not in buying mode, and every company is flooding the market with noise to capture the attention of the 5% that is ready to make a purchase.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) has increased. From 2023 to 2024, according to FirstPageSage, the SaaS’ combined average CAC (organic plus inorganic) went from $150 to $239. Meaning there has been a 159% increase in combined CAC just in the past year.
And the way consumers buy has changed. They now rely even more on people they trust for advice rather than searching for information on their own to solve a problem. Seventy to 90% of your buyer’s journey is complete before they even get to speak to your sales team.
They aren’t making any purchase decisions based solely on price and features — trust is one of if not the most important factors.
So, what can you do to awaken interest and leverage trust to sell your solution?
Simple: Partner up to boost your selling motion.
We recently interviewed Juan Jose Castiblanques, CRO at WeTransact, and asked him how to boost the selling motion by building and executing reselling programs.
Juan brings a rich background of seven years at Microsoft. Leveraging this experience, he founded WeTransact, a startup that achieved $2 million in revenue within its first year.
WeTransact specializes in assisting software companies in developing reseller channels and enhancing their partnerships on the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace.
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know to build a reseller program. From what a reseller program is, to the tech stack you need to build one.
Reselling as a GTM strategy
When we talk about boosting your selling motion, we don’t mean duplicating the efforts you put into your outbound or inbound motion.
What we actually mean is to partner with companies that already have the trust of your target audience. And even though there are many ways to partner (referral, resell, affiliate, co-sell, etc.), this time, we’ll focus on reselling.
This type of partnership gives channel partners the ability to manage the sales cycle from lead generation to closed/won business, letting you access a new customer base through indirect sales.
In other words, with a reseller program, you’ll be indirectly adding Account Executives to your sales team — your partners will sell directly on your behalf to their clients and earn a commission.
Since your reseller partner already has the trust of your potential customer, they will be the ones owning the entire customer relationship. All you have to do is choose the right type of partner, give the relevant support, and build best-in-class enablement resources.
Why should you build a reseller program?
We’re not going to lie, setting up a reseller program is challenging, but the benefits that this type of partnership offers are higher than its costs.
First of all, you’ll have an indirect sales force which will allow you to tap into a bigger network. Each of those resellers has a portfolio of customers who already trust them and with whom they have existing relationships.
Ecosystem Led Growth (ELG) refers to an approach in business development and sales where a company focuses on engaging and leveraging its existing network of partners and connections to drive growth and expansion — building a successful reseller program is a classic ELG play.
“If you want to expand to a new market, and you go hand-in-hand with your reseller partner, that will give you a name, a reputation, credibility, and ease your sales journey.”—Juan Jose Castiblanques, CRO WeTransact
Secondly, a reseller program will help you expand your market reach. Just make sure to select resellers who already have customers in the market you want to enter.
The benefit here is that if you try to enter that market by yourself, you’ll have to build credibility, the CAC will be higher, and you won’t be able to leverage the low-hanging fruit (the resellers' existing customers).
“The benefits of partner-to-partner collaborations include achieving extended reach more quickly, allowing you to stay focused on product innovations by delegating part of your revenue generation, and diversifying your customer acquisition strategy.”—Juan Jose Castiblanques
Where to build your reselling program?
If you truly want to maximize the potential of your program, cloud marketplaces should be a key part of your equation.
Marketplaces like Microsoft Commercial Marketplace (i.e. sites Azure Marketplace and AppSource) offer a range of benefits that can enhance the effectiveness and scalability of your reseller operations.
And don’t forget about the trust factor.
Who wouldn’t like to leverage Microsoft’s trust, relationships, and payment assurance? Microsoft will collect payments from customers and resellers and transfer them to you monthly. In short, you will only process 12 invoices per year, corresponding to the 12 months of the year.
Customers using the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace saw a 587% return on investment (ROI) in less than six months.
A short glossary for Microsoft’s marketplace
If you want to leverage Microsoft’s marketplace, you first need to know the terminology (yes, including acronyms). We built a small glossary describing the types of channels and resellers you need to create your reseller program.
Types of resellers
As a general concept, you need to know that Microsoft’s resellers are known as Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) — Microsoft has 90k CSPs. And the action of partnering with CSPs is called Partner to Partner (P2P).
- Indirect Providers / Distributors: Resell products at scale with white-label services.
- Managed Service Provider (MSP): Offer managed services on a subscription basis. They usually resell licenses for your software. If your strategy is based on an annual recurring incentive, you must include MSPs in your reselling program.
- System Integrators (SI): Integrate multiple products into solutions. They are really product-oriented and project-based, and they will charge the end customer based on the extra services they can integrate into their offerings.
- Value Added Reseller (VAR): Resell products with additional services.
If you still don’t know which type of reseller you need to include in your program, here’s how each of the types can help you to better address your customer’s pain points:
Types of channels
You have three options to sell through the Microsoft marketplace. You can either sell directly to customers (through the web portal), co-sell jointly with Microsoft sales workforce, and sell partner to partner (through CSPs/resellers).
“Selling through resellers (CSPs) is the biggest competitive advantage Microsoft has.” —Juan Jose Castiblanques
If you want to leverage the Partner-to-Partner selling motion, you have to know that there are two different channels:
- Direct channel: when a direct CSP distributes (and sells) your product to the end customers.
- Indirect channel: when the CSP Indirect Provider works as a big wholesaler/distributor that sells your product to a retailer which can be a CSP Indirect Reseller or an unmanaged reseller (by the distributor) who will resell your product to the end customer.
Building a successful reseller program
Building a reseller program from scratch might feel like a daunting task, but you don’t have to do it alone.
Doing tasks like finding the right reseller (partner fit), identifying the market and cultural differences, getting an intro, building an execution plan, getting the tools, managing the reseller relationships, and tracking reselling impact is not a solo job.
Here’s where you can leverage a Cloud Go-to-Market (GTM) Platform.
Cloud GTM Platforms enable you to list, transact, and co-sell on Cloud Marketplaces via a single platform. It helps streamline and synchronize the journey between cloud providers, Cloud Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), partners, and buyers.
So, if you’re thinking of leveraging resellers in the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace, make sure you rely on specialized platforms such as WeTransact.
They can help you publish and manage your solutions and transactions on the Microsoft Commercial Marketplace quickly and without engaging your technical team. You can have a smooth, error-free, and compliant Microsoft Marketplace API integration and won’t need to deal with the Microsoft Partner Center.
Juan’s pro tip: The best way to start your reselling program is through intros, and Cloud GTM Platforms can help you with that. Just remember that the intro is just a bit of help to get your foot on the door of your potential partner.
So after you get the intro, make sure you create a personalized pitch and sell your solution — working with resellers is no different than working with end customers.
With both, you have to showcase the benefits of your product, including the potential revenue they could generate if they buy (and resell) your product.
Ready, set, resell
“If you go to market with an MSP (Managed Service Provider) that already owns a portfolio of clients in the market you want to expand, your expansion process is going to be easier. They already have a reputation. To leverage this, you can invest in co-marketing and co-selling opportunities with them to increase their portfolio. This will show you want to build a win-win relationship by investing in their business and caring about their revenue.” —Juan Jose Castiblanques
Building a reseller program can be a complex yet rewarding strategy to expand your market reach and boost sales through trusted partners.
By leveraging the relationships and expertise of resellers, you can tap into new customer bases and enhance your brand’s credibility.
Implementing your reseller program through a marketplace like Microsoft Commercial Marketplace can provide additional benefits such as broader visibility, simplified transactions, and enhanced trust — and the best way to leverage Microsoft Commercial Marketplace is by relying on the expertise of Cloud GTM Platforms.
A thing to keep in mind: A partner relationship starts when you give first, and resellers are no different. So, whenever you connect, or get introduced to one, make sure you explain how they are going to generate revenue with your solution.
Start by profiling all the customers they have and find who can be the best fit for your product.
