Partner pros aren’t just relationship folk
Companies need to stop hiring that one person who’s just “great at making friends.”
That’s not enough to make a great partner professional.
Great partner professionals are relationship-oriented AND they’re results-oriented.
They understand how their company makes money, how different GTM teams operate, and how to help others achieve their goals.
Partner professionals are great at building and maintaining relationships, not just because they’re nice people (although most of them are).
They have a lot of relationships because they’re the kind of people who show up and fulfill their promises, which in effect builds strong reputations of trust and effectiveness.
How Everflow optimized its referral engine
In late 2022, Everflow’s executive team decided they wanted to ramp up performance with two clear goals in mind: to accelerate new partner recruitment and get more referral partners activated.
Less than one year later, they had restructured their program and optimized their referral engine, "increasing customers from the channel by 121% YOY."
Ed Ceballos (Head of Partnerships) and Tony Cohn (Director of Customer Marketing) shared how they did it in a recent whitepaper with the help of leaders in the ecosystem like Adam Glazer (President at Partner Commerce), Asher Matthew (CEO at Partnership Leaders), and Danielle Brockmeyer (Senior Technology Partner Account Manager at Tipalti).
While reading the whitepaper, two things stood out to me.
How Everflow restructured its program.
The original program paid 10% of what Everflow earned from customers for 12 months, but the team realized their referrers weren’t motivated enough.
So, they restructured the program to track and reward partners through all parts of the funnel.
They made it so:
A referral partner will earn $250 for every qualified lead referred to Everflow.
Leads classified as “opportunity” will earn the referral partners an extra $500 per opportunity.
The referral partner will also receive $1000 once their referral becomes a client.
In the new structure, referring is both appealing and easy.
How they got their teams involved.
Everflow realized they weren’t optimizing for low-hanging fruit: referrals made or facilitated by their internal teams.
Here’s what Everflow did to rally their internal teams around the company-wide goal:
Invited all team members to enroll in the referral program which increased participation almost immediately
Gave each team member access to promo materials: landing page, email copy, QR code, and a catchy signature banner
Made referrals a priority at events.
Made referral generation a part of core daily work
Made it easy for internal teams to track their referrals
By getting their internal teams involved, Everflow began tapping into some of their greatest evangelists.
Shoutout to the Everflow team for sharing such a cool “learning out loud” moment! They made a hypothesis, documented their journey, and are now sharing for others to learn from their success.
Read the rest of the whitepaper to learn how they optimized their new referral program and how ecosystems fit into it.
Download the whitepaper FREE here.
Quote of the Day
I recently read an article entitled, Churn - The Silent Killer on how the impact of churn compounds over time.
Churn is quietly and continuously digging a hole that gets deeper and deeper and, over time, becomes incredibly difficult to pull your business out of.
—Ben Williams (PLG Advisor)
Retention was always important, but with a new focus on efficient growth, companies are doubling down on customer satisfaction.
Isn’t it a good thing partners can help you drive more value, faster!? 😉
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