Co-selling is suddenly the hottest topic in partner, channel, and sales circles. Why? Because companies are realizing the old sales playbook is broken and finally making sales transformation a top priority in 2024. Co-selling transformation is a journey that requires the right people, technology, and best practices. Our CEO, Cassandra Gholston, just shared our co-selling transformation playbook, so this article details the modern co-selling tech stack and related co-sell transformation services every company will need to co-sell and win going forward.
Every type of B2B company is converging around co-sell
Every industry with B2B go-to-market motions are vocalizing their “better together” strategies with partners which are all part of a broader co-selling movement. Some companies have publicly announced new “partner-first” or “channel-first” sales strategies. And many direct sales-led businesses are working hard to help their sales reps align more closely with partners. All of these partner-involved or partner-led sales motions are part of the convergence around co-selling.
But companies today don’t have systems designed for co-selling. Channel and partner teams typically have a PRM platform as their system of record for their partner ecosystem. Sales teams already have their CRM system as their system of record for customers and internal sales processes.
Co-selling happens between sales reps, channel managers, BDRs, and product specialists across different companies. PRM and CRM systems were never designed for this type of cross-company collaboration.
To co-sell at scale, companies need an enterprise co-selling tech stack
To operationalize and scale up a high-performing co-sell motion across thousands of partners, tens of thousands of sellers, and millions of accounts, companies need an enterprise co-selling platform that makes it easy to share data and collaborate with sellers across companies. Enterprise co-selling platforms like PartnerTap give companies a digital clean room to share sensitive information and co-sell automation to run co-sell plays with and through partners.
Co-sell automation can quick execute all types and combinations of sales plays:
- Co-sell plays that connect your sales reps with partner sellers for pre-opp discovery conversations, opportunity sourcing, and deal support.
- Through-channel sales plays that automatically distribute accounts to the right reseller rep for each account, with the right incentive and the best next step. (Example: Partner Shuffle Co-Sell Play).
- Direct sales plays that automatically action target accounts to the right sales rep, with the right next step, and partners available to help. (Example: New Territories Sales Play).
The new enterprise co-selling tech stack
PartnerTap’s co-selling platform sits within a larger enterprise co-selling technology stack that includes advanced partner data solutions, automation for scale, and the ability to collaborate with sellers and teams across companies.
Co-selling tech stack for partner and channel teams should include:
- PRM platform as their ecosystem system of record and operations. We recommend Impartner’s enterprise PRM platform.
- Advanced data solutions like Partner Optimizer for data-driven partnering.
- Automation to run through-channel marketing campaigns and through-chanel sales plays.
Co-selling tech stack for sales teams should include:
- CRM platform as their system of record for customers and sales activity
- Mapped partner data to zero-in on the highest value accounts to focus on with each partner
- Co-sell automation to quickly action the highest-propensity-to-buy account to each sales rep while the information is fresh.
Unfortunately most companies lack the advanced partner data solutions and automation they need to scale up co-selling.
Keys to co-selling transformation success
As we shared in the first episode of the The Co-Selling Transformation webinar series, co-selling transformation success starts with change-agent leadership, a clear co-selling strategy and program, and an investment in a co-selling automation platform to scale.
Technology alone can’t achieve transformation, which is why we recommend our partners Spur-Reply, JSG, or Achieve Unite for co-sell transformation expertise and growth acceleration services.