TL/DR
Here’s the official definition of co-selling: co-selling is the active collaboration between sales people across different companies so they can source, influence or accelerate a sales process.
Co-selling is a verb.
Direct sales and channel sellers co-sell.
Why companies need an internal definition of co-selling
It’s hard to get buy-in and support for co-selling transformation without a common understanding of what co-selling is. Before building a co-selling program companies need to have a clear definition of co-selling so everyone can get on the same page.
When revenue leaders read the Co-Selling Manifesto they realize how important it is for their organization to embrace the first principles of co-selling. Building a bridge from theory to practice starts with a clear definition.
This co-selling go-to-market motion must be embraced across every level of the company. The CEO, CRO, CMO, Chief Partner Officer, and every team below each chief, need to adopt the same definition and work together to build a successful co-selling motion with your best partners.
What is co-selling
Co-selling is the act of collaborating with sales reps at partners to source, influence, or accelerate a sales process.
- The “sell with” motion direct sales reps use with partners is co-selling. But don’t be fooled into thinking co-selling is only for direct sales teams.
- Channel sales teams support a “sell-thru” motion to help selling partners sell more. The channel sales reps who actively support and collaborate with their selling partners to help them sell more are co-selling as well.
Who should be co-selling?
Anyone who sells products or services to business buyers should be co-selling. Selling products or services to business buyers requires earning the buyer’s trust, becoming the vendor of choice, and getting all the validation and approvals needed by everyone influencing and approving the deal.
- Direct sales reps regularly sell with partners. This is co-selling.
- Channel sales reps regularly help their selling partners sell more to end buyers. This is co-selling.
- Partner sales reps regularly help sales reps sell more with partners. This is co-selling.
At the end of the day, anyone selling to an end buyer account, or helping someone else sell to an end buyer account, should be co-selling with partners that also have relationships with their buyers or customers.
What’s the difference between “co-sell” and “co-selling”?
“Co-sell” is the term coined by cloud marketplace leaders like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud to describe the act of purchasing an ISV solution through a cloud marketplaces.
The cloud marketplace “co-sell” process happens at the very END of a sales cycle… when a prospect has already selected a company as the vendor of choice and plans to purchase their product or service. At this time, the prospect has two choices:
- Purchase directly from the vendor or supplier, or
- Purchase through one of the cloud application marketplaces.
There are pros and cons to each purchasing option.
The most important thing to remember is that the“co-sell” process with cloud hyperscalers is just the purchasing transaction process. It is not the act of selling – which requires account planning, discovery, developing a deep understanding of the buyer and their needs, solutioning, educating, and getting buy-in across all the stakeholders influencing and approving the decision to purchase.
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