guides12 in this area
making partners sell.
Recruiting a partner ends with a signature. Activating one ends when their seller brings you a deal. These guides follow a partner from the first 90 days to the renewal in year two, with the rules that keep both sides selling and the signals that show a channel going quiet.
- 01getting the first deals4 guides
- 02campaigns partners send2 guides
- 03partners with their own business model3 guides
- 04year two and the health of the channel3 guides
The reasoning behind this order: trust transfer, the thesis behind the site.
read them in this order.
getting the first deals
- 01a signed partner is a logo, not pipeline: the first 90 days after signatureRecruiting a partner ends with a signature. Activating one ends when their seller brings you a deal. Where activation stalls, where first deals come from, and a 90-day plan with an end date.
- 02partner enablement that ends in a registered dealMost partner training teaches the product. Partners lose deals in the first conversation and in the POC. How to build enablement around the steps of a deal, keep certified people on the books, and test whether any of it produced revenue.
- 03co-selling with a partner: who owns what in the dealEvery partner wants your engineer in front of its customer. Your engineers' time is the scarcest thing in the channel. How to ration co-selling with rules partners accept, split the roles in a co-sold deal, and move partners towards selling without you.
- 04a joint business plan a partner will followMost joint business plans are a page of targets the partner signed to be polite. A plan that works is short, names what both sides commit, and gets reviewed every quarter with data the partner couldn't produce alone. How to build one in six weeks.
campaigns partners send
- 05content your channel partners will actually sendPartners don't forward vendor brochures to their best customers. They send things that make them look good in front of a client. How to build partner campaigns that get used, and how to tell whether they produced pipeline.
- 06a partner roadshow that ends in registered dealsSeminars, breakfasts, CISO dinners and webinars run with partners can fill a European pipeline, or a photo album. How to choose the format, who invites, what to put on the agenda, and how to make every attendee end as a registered deal or a logged next step.
partners with their own business model
- 07when an MSSP wants to build a service on your productA managed security provider doesn't resell your product. It turns it into an input to its own service, priced per seat, billed monthly, run for dozens of customers at once. What it needs from you, how to price it, and where vendors get it wrong.
- 08partners make money on the services around your product, so design for themA licence margin of 10% to 20% rarely pays for a partner's sales and presales effort. Implementation, health checks and managed operation do. How to build service blueprints partners can sell, measure attach properly, and decide when you deliver services yourself.
- 09when the customer wants to buy through AWS or Azure: marketplaces and your channelEnterprise buyers increasingly ask to buy security software through their cloud marketplace, because it burns down a commitment they already have. How the fees and partner constructs work, who gets squeezed, and the rules that keep marketplace deals from becoming channel conflict.
year two and the health of the channel
- 10renewals through partners: who owns the customer in year twoOn a subscription line, renewals become bigger than new business by year three. Through the channel, many of them are lost to a late quote. How to assign renewal ownership, run a renewal calendar that starts six months out, and protect the partner that keeps the customer.
- 11channel metrics that tell you something: sourced, influenced and the partner health score"Partner revenue" says little when most of your revenue goes through partners anyway. Which metrics answer real questions, how to count sourced and influenced deals without double counting, and a partner health score you can build in a CRM in a week.
- 12how a partner channel fails, and the signals that show up two quarters earlierChannels rarely collapse overnight. They go quiet: fewer registrations, the same three partners carrying everything, POCs waiting for an engineer. The anti-patterns that cause it, an early-warning table you can run monthly, and how to change a partner programme without a revolt.
tools for this area.
questions these guides answer.
How long does it take a new security partner to close a first deal?
There is no public benchmark for security channels. HubSpot tells its own solutions partners that readiness to deliver takes two to three months on average, which is readiness, not a deal. For a security product sold through integrators into mid-market and public sector, my working assumption is three to six months to the first closed deal.
More in a signed partner is a logo, not pipeline: the first 90 days after signature
What is partner enablement?
The activities that make a partner's people able to spot, sell, design, deploy and support your product. Its purpose is measurable: more registered opportunities, higher win rates, more services attached and fewer escalations.
What is the difference between partner-sourced and partner-influenced revenue?
Partner-sourced means the partner found the opportunity and brought it to you, usually through a deal registration. Partner-influenced means a partner materially helped win a deal it did not find, for example with a POC, an integration or access to a sponsor. Report them separately and never add them together, because the same deal can appear in both.
More in channel metrics that tell you something: sourced, influenced and the partner health score
What is the difference between an MSSP and a reseller?
A reseller sells your licence to a customer and often implements it. An MSSP operates security for its customers and charges a recurring fee for an outcome. Your product becomes a component of its service, often invisible to the end customer.
More in when an MSSP wants to build a service on your product
Why do partner programmes fail?
Mostly for reasons inside the vendor's control: too many signed partners that never sell, direct sellers closing deals around partners, too few presales engineers, certifications that don't test skills, and programme changes announced without notice. External shocks such as acquisitions happen too, but they are rarer.
More in how a partner channel fails, and the signals that show up two quarters earlier
Security Revenue · every Tuesday
How security vendors build pipeline.