Over the past few months I’ve had lots of conversations with Fortune 500 executives about how to make their co-sell initiatives successful after investing in PartnerTap. These massive companies are all in different stages of their co-sell transformations and co-selling rollouts across their partners. But they all share a common goal: embrace co-selling to scale up revenue with and through their partners.
Some companies have been actively co-selling with partners for years, even decades. These companies have figured out their incentives and compensation models, and are now investing in PartnerTap’s enterprise co-selling automation platform to kick their co-sell motions into hyperscale mode.
Other companies are just starting to think about co-selling, or are at early stages of their co-sell transformation process. But they all understand the big opportunity co-selling presents for their companies and want to do everything they can to make it wildly successful.
Regardless of where you are in your co-selling journey, there are steps you can take to increase the likelihood your co-sell program will take hold, scale, and exceed expectations. Here are seven strategies for short and long-term co-sell success, at enterprise scale:
#1: Get sponsorship from a strong executive owner with a stake in co-sell success
Every project is poised for success with a strong executive owner who has conviction and a vested interest. Co-sell transformation is no different. Ideally this person is a top sales executive who either has channel and partner teams reporting to them, or holds significant sway over the channel and partner teams.
An executive with this purview (along with their direct reports) will have line of sight into the top partners they are already working with region-by-region. Getting input from these leaders helps to identify the best starting point for their teams and more importantly, keeps co-selling initiatives a top priority to prevent them from getting lost in the mix of other sales plays.
#2: Be bold and loud about co-sell
Get your co-sell messaging crystal clear and then shout about it from every rooftop. Partners won’t believe you’re serious about co-selling if your message is muddled and they don’t hear it reinforced everywhere they turn. Make it a program, brand it, run a press release, tell the media, launch a marketing campaign, and don’t forget to do an equally strong internal communications campaign to every channel, partner, and sales team.
Read: Build, Brand, and Launch Your New Co-Sell Program
#3: Ensure incentives are designed to support co-sell behaviors
Even with the best of intentions, every now and again, a partner program will get rolled out that unintentionally disincentivizes participation through a poorly thought out (or outdated) commission plan. Let’s be honest, the reason a partner agrees to help you sell your product – and the reason many people choose a career in sales – is to make money. Successful co-sell programs require incentive and compensation structures that make putting effort into your program worthwhile.
It will be of the utmost importance to review (or build!) your incentive programs for partners and sellers to ensure that it encourages co-selling behaviors. One common way we’ve seen this done is by comping both the partner and the direct seller or reseller (also known as double comp). Too many programs prevent the right co-selling behavior by one or both parties taking a commission hit if a partner and a seller are co-selling. Oftentimes this deters co-selling from even happening or worse yet, your direct and indirect teams are now knee deep in channel conflict. Once this happens partners are going to turn to the competition. Double compensation is a larger upfront investment. The question finance teams should be asking is, “Would I rather pay more to acquire this customer or not have the customer at all?” If the finance team won’t get behind a double compensation co-sell strategy then,consider paying out additional bonuses. Whatever route you take, one thing is clear, there needs to be added benefits to closing deals with and through partners.
#4: Start building a culture of co-selling
The era of the lone-wolf sales rep is over. Moving entire sales organizations from pure direct sales to a co-sell motion is going to take time. But there are things you can start doing now to get that transformation started.
Stop celebrating the “heroic” direct sales wins
I’m pretty sure that 8/10 of the last sales reps you publicly recognized were praised for their individual heroics on bringing in an important deal. Odds are that deal included partners, but they’re rarely mentioned. That emphasis on the hero sales rep reinforces the outdated strategy of selling alone instead of selling together. If you want your sales reps to start actively selling with partners then change who gets praise and recognition. This doesn’t require any changes to comp plans or committee approval, and doesn’t need to wait for the new fiscal year.
Shine the spotlight on great co-sellers
You can immediately start shining a spotlight on the sales reps that are showing the most positive co-selling behaviors: bringing partners into deals early, spending time getting to know partners, proactively helping your best partners get into your accounts to build trust and good will. We are happy to share lots of best practices in this area. We also have partners like Spur Reply and JSG that have decades of experience helping enterprises go through these co-sell transformations.
Measure pipeline sourced and accelerated by partners
You can’t shine a spotlight on the partners’ financial impact if you can’t measure it. So start tracking the new pipeline sourced, and existing pipeline accelerated, by each partner. Use an enterprise co-selling solution that gives you visibility into all the conversations happening between your sales team and partners on their accounts and opportunities. And make it easy for sales reps to tag and track the opps where partners helped them get in the door or win a deal faster.
#5: Don’t wait for things to be perfect
Don’t wait to change your culture to launch your co-sell initiative. You’re never going to have everyone equally ready before you start. But you know what can change peoples’ minds and get them on board? Seeing evidence of success. So it’s better to start, let your naturally curious and most innovative reps take the lead, and then promote their co-sell successes every chance you get. Most naysayers will get on board once they see the top co-sellers earning Presidents’ Club. And there will always be some reps who don’t want to evolve and will need to be moved out eventually.
Read: Why is Co-Selling is Suddenly So Important?
#6: Commit, go big, and start with your best partners
Don’t start small and roll out co-selling as a trickle. It’s impossible at the beginning to know, guess or predict which partners and which sales reps will excel at co-selling until you start. That’s why it’s important to commit to a co-sell program and go all in. As mentioned earlier, build it, brand it, and talk about it constantly. You have to show you’re all in so your partners and sellers will be too.
We recommend starting with at least 25 of your best partners out of the gate. Not every partner will be able to move quickly because of their own internal issues, but some will move fast. Those that move fast will be able to drive the most co-sell revenue – giving you co-sell wins to put on the board. And once you have those wins, highlight them to get other partners and sellers excited. Then sit back and watch the virtuous cycle begin.
#7: Invest in co-sell technology to help you scale
Without co-selling technology, the volume of deals moving through the channel is surprisingly, just scratching the surface. Investing in an enterprise co-selling platform, like PartnerTap, gives you the ability to scale far beyond what your co-selling programs can support today. While other account mapping technology exists – we are the only enterprise co-selling solution that has the automation, partner data, and workflow orchestration you need to take co-selling with partners to the next level. Plus, our solution is designed for channel teams and sales reps, so it’s easy to use. When it comes to enterprise co-sell solutions, we’re in a category of one. But you can take a look and judge for yourself.
Want to learn more about how to accelerate your co-sell program? Check out our webinar.
