2024 is the year companies admit the old sales playbook is broken and invest in sales transformation. Buyers have changed how they buy products and services for their companies and deal dynamics are exponentially more complex. Selling to the modern buyer in this more complex environment requires a seismic shift in how companies sell and empower their sellers. Companies that don’t modernize their sales playbooks won’t survive.
Over the past year we heard the announcements from companies about their moves to “partner-first” or “channel-first” strategies. These are just the start of a tidal wave of sales transformation initiatives that CROs are undertaking across all industries.
At PartnerTap, we’ve helped companies such as ADP, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Lumen, LastPass, eSentire, AT&T and Softchoice on their co-sell transformation journeys. In this article I’ll share why sales transformation has hit the tipping point in 2024, how partner and channel teams can save sales, and what it takes to build and scale a high-performing co-selling motion that accelerates growth. We also have an 11-Step Co-Selling Transformation Playbook to help enterprises get their sales transformation right.
Companies come to us for co-sell transformation because they know B2B sales is broken. The market correction and slowdown in corporate purchases last year masked two much bigger problems that everyone who sells products or services to businesses are facing.
Problem 1: B2B buyers have changed and our selling motion must adapt
B2B buyers have changed. The modern business buyer is younger and has completely evolved how they create their short lists, evaluate solutions, and make purchases for their companies. When your team needs a solution, you call someone you consider an expert in this area for advice. Your buyers are doing the same, leaning on personal advisors they trust for recommendations.
As Maria Chien from Forrester Research shared recently on a Co-Sell Transformation webinar: “B2B buyers are turning to personal advisers for advice on the products they should consider and the companies they should work with.”
Problem 2: Deal dynamics are exponentially more complex and sellers haven’t adapted
Deal dynamics are exponentially more complex than they were a decade ago. The typical buyer today is making their decisions based on how new products will work with their existing technology stack. They’re also considering which service partners will be able to install, implement, rollout and support each new solution. And simultaneously, they’re deciding the best way to purchase each solution – which could be directly from you, or it could be from an existing supplier, or through a cloud marketplace to burn down their cloud credits.
Each additional technology vendor and company considered, evaluated, and involved in their purchasing decision increases the level of coordination required by each sales rep on every deal. Plus, there are more people involved in every decision these days. Everything is under so much more scrutiny and purchases are not made in a vacuum, it’s a consensus decision with lots of influencers involved.
Sales reps don’t know who to engage
The process of identifying and pulling in each of the sellers from each of the companies involved in each deal, at the right time, is almost impossible today. Sales reps are expected to be the quarterback for each deal, but they’re playing the game blindfolded.
Sales transformation is now a top priority
We’re hearing from huge companies every day about new sales transformation initiatives. Sales, partner, and channel teams know that the current Random Acts of Co-Selling that reps do today can’t scale, making it hard for reps to win deals with these complex dynamics.
Partner teams hold the keys to sales success
The good news is companies already have most of what they need in place to build a high-performing co-sell motion and transform their sales process to support both modern B2B buyers and your sales reps. Partner leaders already have an ecosystem of partners around your companies that complement your technologies, provide valuable products and services for your customers, and help you lock out competitors out of your customer base.
Partner teams hold the keys to the new sales playbook, which empowers sales teams to sell more efficiently and sell more with the best partners already engaged at each account.
Co-selling is the key to transforming sales, helping your sales reps sell more efficiently, and unlocking faster growth. And yet I’ve personally heard from many that it’s “impossible to operationalize and scale co-selling across thousands of partners and thousands of sales reps.” Here’s why that’s not true.
Definition of Co-Selling
Co-selling is the active collaboration between sales people across companies so they can source, influence, and accelerate a sales process.
Co-selling is not just something you just do with cloud marketplaces. Co-selling is something your sales teams should be doing with ALL types of partners. Salespeople co-sell. Marketers don’t co-sell. Partner account managers don’t co-sell. And channel managers don’t co-sell. Only salespeople close contracts and sales people are the employees that need to co-sell. These sales people may be on your direct sales team, or they could be your resellers, or agents that sell your products through a distributor. They are all salespeople out there selling your products and services, and they can sell more if they can connect and collaborate with others involved in their accounts.
The status quo approach to co-selling can’t scale
We at PartnerTap, call what most companies are doing today “random acts of co-selling.” Random acts of co-selling are manual, inefficient, and plagued by favoritism, data leakage, and poor or no attribution. It can’t scale, it doesn’t make sales reps more efficient, and you can’t show the pipeline that comes from this manual process.
Co-selling at scale
Operationalizing and scaling up a high-performing co-selling motion with partners is critical. Co-selling at scale can source more pipeline for your direct sales teams and source more opportunities for your channel partners. It can accelerate sales cycles and increase your win rates. But only if you do it right.
Successful co-selling programs must be centered around customers and target accounts, not designed around your org chart. Successful co-selling programs must bring together channel, partner and sales teams into a unified process, instead of treating each team as a separate silo. And like with every meaningful transformation program, co-selling requires automation to scale across millions of accounts, millions of opportunities, thousands of partners, and tens of thousands of salespeople.
If you’re serious about co-selling at scale, check out the 11-Step Co-Sell Transformation Playbook next. You can also stay tuned to hear the stories from co-selling transformation leaders from AT&T, eSentire, and BeyondTrust shared at Impartner’s Multiply conference – recording coming soon!