TL/DR
PartnerTap is sharing this 9-step process for co-selling enablement to give companies a clear framework to enable their sales teams to co-sell effectively with partners.
We get lots of questions about how to enable and incentivize sales teams to co-sell with partners. We’re sharing this co-selling enablement framework to help companies establish and scale a successful co-selling program.
Quick context: co-selling is a go-to-market motion where sales reps collaborate with peers across companies to source, influence, or accelerate an opportunity. Co-selling programs are often started by partner teams, and ultimately owned by the CRO. Here’s more information about what co-selling is and why co-selling is is a top priority.
Here are the 9 steps to enable sales teams to become successful co-sellers:
1. Survey sellers and sales leaders
- Purpose: Gauge the current mindset, practices, and true culture around partnering so you can understand and measure your honest baseline.
- Action: Develop a survey with both quantitative and qualitative questions to capture attitudes and experiences. It’s important to understand and measure their baseline opinions, attitudes, motivations and expectations around co-selling so you know where to start. Questions might include:
- How often do you engage partners in accounts?
- How often do you engage partners in your sales process?
- What has been your experience with partner-driven deals?
- What challenges have you faced in co-selling?
2. Analyze pipeline data
- Purpose: Identify patterns in deals involving partners.
- Action: Run reports on open, closed/won, and closed/lost deals. Look for key data points including:
- Percentage of deals involving partners.
- Win rates with and without partners.
- Common loss reasons, especially in partner-involved deals.
3. Identify patterns and align training
- Purpose: Understand the underlying reasons behind successes and failures.
- Action: Chart loss reasons, identify trends, and understand the impact of partners on your pipeline, sales velocity, and revenue today. Then create and align training content to address these pipeline, velocity, and revenue generating opportunities. Examples might be:
- If deals are lost due to partner misalignment, include training on better partner selection and alignment.
- If successful deals consistently involve early partner engagement, emphasize this in training and coach sales reps on how to best engage partners early.
4. Interview top co-sellers
- Purpose: Capture best practices from those who excel at co-selling and make them famous. Read more about why it’s important to stop celebrating the Lone Ranger sales rep and start celebrating your sales reps that sell with partners.
- Action: Conduct interviews with top-performing sellers to understand:
- How they establish and build trust with new partner relationships.
- How they nurture existing partner relationships.
- Their process for collaborating with partners throughout the sales cycle.
- Specific tactics that contribute to their success.
5. Segment the field teams
- Purpose: Customize training based on the current partner selling capabilities and mindsets of sellers.
- Action: Segment sellers into:
- High performers: Already successful with partners.
- Moderate performers: Occasionally engage with partners.
- Low/Non-performers: Rarely or never engage with partners.
6. Develop tiered training programs
- Purpose: Provide relevant training for each segment.
- Action:
- Beginning level for those new to co-selling. Focus on the basics, such as identifying the right partners and initial relationship-building.
- Intermediate level for those with some experience selling with partners. Focus on refining strategies, overcoming common challenges, and scaling successful practices.
- Advanced level for your top co-sellers. This may be less about training and more about peer-led workshops, showcasing best practices, and refining strategies.
7. Track progress and adjust
- Purpose: Ensure that training is effective and adjust as needed.
- Action: Monitor metrics such as:
- Weekly pipeline additions from sellers in training.
- Changes in win rates post-training.
- Movement of sellers from beginning to intermediate levels.
8. Celebrate and promote success
- Purpose: Reinforce positive co-selling behaviors and encourage reps to sell with partners.
- Action: Regularly highlight success stories in team meetings, sales kick offs, newsletters, or other communication channels. Celebrate co-sellers and use their stories as case studies to inspire others.
9. Understand limitations
- Purpose: Recognize that not all sellers will be enthusiastic or effective in co-sellers.
- Action: Focus resources on those open to co-selling, while understanding that some may never fully embrace it. Tailor your approach to maximize the potential of those who are willing to learn and grow in this area.
This method provides a structured and measurable approach to enabling co-selling, leveraging both qualitative and quantitative insights to drive targeted training and ongoing support.
For more co-selling best practices we recommend you read: