New to partnerships? Don’t make these mistakes

Year one of your partner program creation is exciting and intimidating.

It’s also crucial to get it right. The work delivered lays the foundation for future success.

Avoid these errors to set yourself up for year two of your partner program:

1️⃣ Not spending enough time and resources helping your first partner win their first few deals

2️⃣ Not spending enough time on internal education and success promotion

3️⃣ Trying to onboard too many partners too early in your partnering journey

4️⃣ Spending too much time chasing ’whale’ partners

5️⃣ Spending too much time thinking about your partner classification system

If you can avoid some of these traps you’ll be in a great place as you move into year two of the journey and start to scale your program.

Thanks for contributing to this section of the PhD, Joe Rice!

Double down on partnerships to reach your revenue goals

If you want to reach your revenue goals, you need to partner up.

Gwyn Edwards of Zift Solutions tells the strategy she’s used to double-down on partnerships and channel alliances.

Here’s her 5 step playbook:

1. Set goals and objectives for your alliance program - you can’t improve if you don’t measure your progress.

2. Identify right-fit alliance partners - not every partner is right for you. Learn to find the right partners.

3. Articulate the benefits for your alliance partners - communicate your value by showing the benefits of your partnership.

4. Operationalize your alliance program - don’t half-ass it; do partnerships right - whole-ass it!

5. Measure the success of your alliance program - keep track of leads, referrals, and retention rate.

No partner program is cookie-cutter. Get a strategic plan that works for you and your program.

Who do your buyers trust?

Ask yourself,

Where do my buyers live and who do they trust?

It would be dumb to do any content, campaign, or event that does not involve people your customers already trust!

I’m not pitching you anything right now. This is a reality.

It’s a macro shift.

It’s affecting everything in the marketing playbook — all those things you know you need to do.

Your prospects don’t trust you (yet). So go to the people they do trust and partner up with them.

That’s partner marketing.

Check out Jared Fuller’s words of wisdom on YouTube shorts.

Happenings

• May 24, 12 PM ET – Firneo’s Partner School Series: WTF is an Ecosystem? Allan Adler from Digital Bridge Partners will be joining Firneo to share his insights on building a kickass partner ecosystem.
• June 1, 1 PM ET – PartnerHacker x Magentrix – Increase Partner Engagement and Grow Partner Pipeline by 26%. 
• June 15, 12 PM ET – No B.S. Guide to Co-Selling Millions with Partners (from partnership people who’ve really done it). Chris Lavoie, Rob Rebholz, and Justin Zimmerman will share the real-world sh*t that works. 
• June 27, 17:00 - 21:00 CET – Partnership Leaders x Reveal: Elevation Tour - Europe – Aircall’s Office, 11 Rue Saint-Georges, 75009 Paris, France.

Image of the Day

Thanks for the image, Mark Kilens.

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