guides8 in this area
choosing partners and setting the terms.
Recruiting a partner is a sale with its own business case: demand, profit, effort and risk. The terms you set before the first signature, from tiers and deal registration to the price waterfall and the pay plan, decide how the channel behaves for years. These guides cover both.
The reasoning behind this order: trust transfer, the thesis behind the site.
read them in this order.
choosing who to work with
- 01one distributor per country or two: the arithmetic for a mid-sized European marketTwo distributors look like twice the coverage. In a market the size of Poland they usually split one investment into two halves that are each too small. How to run the numbers, and when two is the right answer.
- 02an ideal partner profile fits on one pagePartner revenue is concentrated in a small share of partners. An ideal partner profile tells you which ones to recruit, which to invest in and which to serve only digitally. How to build one from your own data, and score partners on two axes instead of one.
- 03what a partner needs to hear before it adds your lineA partner doesn't add a security vendor because the product is good. It adds one when demand, profit, effort and risk add up, and keeps selling when support, conflict rules and people hold. How to pitch the business case, not the feature list.
- 04the Cyber Resilience Act: what your European distributor will ask youThe Cyber Resilience Act gives importers and distributors their own checks before they may sell your product in the EU. What they have to verify, the dates as of November 2026, and the readiness pack to send before they ask.
setting the terms
- 05partner tiers that change what partners doMost partner programmes spend their design effort on tier names and logos. Partners care about rebates and deal protection. How to set tiers on capability as well as revenue, calibrate thresholds to a European country, and tie every requirement to a benefit.
- 06deal registration is a promise. here is where it breaksDeal registration tells a partner: find the deal and we will protect your price. Partners stop registering when that promise fails, and the vendor loses its view of the pipeline. Where it fails, and the rules that hold.
- 07the channel price waterfall: from list price to the CISOThe price a CISO pays is the last link in a chain of prices set by contracts the CISO never sees. Draw the chain for one product and most channel arguments about discounts, deal registration and direct deals get easier.
- 08why partners ask for more discount, and what to give them insteadA request for more discount is usually a symptom: margin that does not pay for presales and POCs, a lower quote from another partner or your own team, registration that does not hold, or rebates that arrive too late. How to tell which, and what to offer instead.
- 09paying your channel team without starting a war with direct salesA channel manager's pay plan decides which partners get attention, which deals get registered and whether direct sellers take deals away from partners. How to set the mix, the measures, the credit rules and the payout curve, with the benchmarks that exist and the ones that don't.
tools for this area.
- channel price waterfallFollow one deal from list price through distributor and reseller to the customer, and see what each party keeps.open →
- partner program scorecardTwenty statements on how easy your programme is to sell, from the partner's side.open →
- distributor shortlistDo you need a distributor in this country, which kind, and how up to three candidates compare.open →
- the distributor selection kitInterview questions, the one-or-two arithmetic and a price waterfall worksheet. Sent with the welcome email of the newsletter.open →
questions these guides answer.
What is an ideal partner profile?
A one-page description of the partner most likely to produce repeatable revenue on your product within 12 months: the attributes it has, the thresholds that matter and the disqualifiers. It is built from your own best partners first, then from external evidence.
Why do partners add a new vendor?
When four questions have good answers: will my customers buy it, can I make money, how much effort and risk does it take, and does it fit my practice. Whether they keep selling after the first deal depends on support, channel conflict rules and whether the vendor's people answer the phone.
More in what a partner needs to hear before it adds your line
What is deal registration?
A process in which a partner tells the vendor about a specific opportunity and, once the vendor approves it, gets protected status: usually a better buy price than other partners quoting the same customer and project, for a fixed period.
More in deal registration is a promise. here is where it breaks
What is a channel price waterfall?
The chain of prices from the vendor's list price to the price the end customer pays: the distributor's buy price, the reseller's buy price and the reseller's selling price. Each layer's margin is the gap between what it pays and what it charges.
More in the channel price waterfall: from list price to the CISO
Should a vendor give partners more discount when they ask for it?
Only after finding the cause. If the partner is losing to another quote, extra discount for everyone usually goes to the customer. If its margin does not cover presales, POC and service work, paying for that work directly is usually cheaper and easier to target than raising the licence discount.
More in why partners ask for more discount, and what to give them instead
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How security vendors build pipeline.