Here’s a recent photo of me with some partners at a customer event in Los Angeles (I’m based here btw!). Meeting in person makes a huge difference accelerating trust in partnerships - I can’t recommend it enough.
Anyway, let’s dive into the topic for the week:
Here’s my 3 step process on how I present partner strategy to CxOs & the board for decacorns ($10B+) and a unicorn ($3.8B) to get executive alignment and resource allocation:
1. Leverage the Amazon memo approach.
Here’s how it works.
Step 1: You write a business memo outlining the partner strategy in a Google doc. This forces you to write with clarity, brevity and data.
Write the Amazonian way:
- Instead of using adjectives like “fantastic” or “great,” write with concrete data to make your points.
“We grew partner revenue by 45% QoQ” is much better than “We great partner revenue at a rapid pace.”
- Focus on one idea per sentence and keep it short (aim for less than 30 words per sentence)
- Make sure you do the “So what?” test to each of your points
- If needed, what action do you want to CxO or board to take or make a decision on?
Step 2: Everyone reads it in silence in the room together. This ensures everyone actually reads it.
What’s beautiful about this memo approach is that you’ve done the heavy lifting on data, sharing learnings and bringing a strong opinion on the business. You can then supplement this memo with a thoughtfully created presentation.
This allows you to share your point of view with the executives so that they can...
2. Give you feedback on what they view as priorities
By sending this memo in advance as a pre-read, you’ll be able to understand the CXO’s and the board’s priorities, concerns, and key focus areas because they usually read it in advance and mark it up with comments and questions. This ensures you align the partner strategy with the overall business objectives that they care about most.
Should you ask in advance for what they are looking for? Definitely. It helps.
But I find this pre-read memo process to be even more effective.
Know your audience.
3. Practice, practice, practice
I once practiced for 3 hours in a hotel room prior to a CxO meeting. I would walk through the memo narrative, anticipate objections and review the data to ensure I had it at my fingertips. And guess what? It made all the difference. Practice keeps you sharp.
Here’s the best part: The hardest part about presenting to CxOs and the board is having a really well structured narrative and partner strategy deck that is customer centric and thoughtfully done...and I’ve built it for you.
It’s called “The Partner Strategy Deck Template.”
I’ve easily spent 80+ hours building partner strategy decks for a single company. I don’t want you to have to go through that pain. This 77 slide template (including a business memo template) is critical to saving you a lot of time, helping you get clarity on your partner strategy, getting executive alignment for resource allocation and helping you improve time to revenue. It’s the same template I’ve been refining over the last 17 years and has been absolutely critical to helping me go from zero to $100m+ ARR. Get it here.