how to build high performing partner ecosystem in 2025

This event hosted by Sharkdom discusses 'building high-performing partner ecosystems', featuring Kaushik and Alex Richards, both experience in partnership domain. The session covers key areas such as partner program foundations, important metrics like sourced leads and time to closure, and actionable playbooks and frameworks.

You would found why Alex Richards highlights partnerships to be more than just LinkedIn announcements, it's a go-to-market motion, essentially "a company within a company" and what's the importance of understanding internal teams and driving influence to achieve impact.

🤝 What more is covered in this event?

->What are the elements for building a successful and effective partner program?
✅ How to identify patterns and analyze data from the last two years of "closed won" and "closed lost" deals?
✅ Why to begin with smaller, impactful partnerships that don't require constant oversight?
✅ Why to Avoid rigid, hierarchical structures Instead, the focusing on creating a "business intelligence engine"?
✅ How to Identify opportunity gaps, highlight high-ROI opportunities, leverage audience influence, provide expertise and accelerate execution.
✅ Fireside Chat with other Partnership Nerds

Updated Transcript

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Thank you for joining us this morning. And all right, we're going to jump right into the brass tacks with you here. We have Mr. Partnerships himself, Alex Richard, joining us this morning and this is yours truly, Kaushik.

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I take care of strategic partnerships at Kintsugi and Podcast host at Sharkdom.

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Alex, why don't you say hi?

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Hi everyone, thanks for having me. Alex Richards, been in partnerships for about either thirteen or fifteen years roughly, based in the New York area. Recently been working in the customer experience in the digital experience space, but now also doing my consultancy at the moment, helping startups and partner professionals out.
Yeah, so that's who I am,

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Thank you, Alex.

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And hey, all the lovely folks here, why don't you tell us what you're hoping to see in this conversation?

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Because you have us live here and the next twenty to

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thirty minutes is just going to be us having a conversation with you.

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We do have an umbrella.

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In the next fifteen odd minutes,

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we're going to see what

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partner program foundations look like,

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what matrices actually matter.

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Should you be looking at source leads?

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Should you be looking at time to closure?

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What does that look like?

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We're going to look at

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playbooks and actual

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frameworks that you can steal right away.

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And finally,

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we will wrap up with how you

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can tie all of this together.

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Now,

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we are more than happy to customize

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this based on the questions you have.

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So you have a question,

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you drop it right there,

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and we will get to you but in the meantime, I love what Cade has done there. So Cade says, Hey, he's from the customer success team at Kintsugi. Why don't you tell us where you're from and what you do, and we'll ensure this conversation is attuned to you. All right, then with Alex, I'm going to throw you a Yorker to begin with. What is one thing most people don't know about partnerships?

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Interesting question. I would say that partnerships is more than just announcing on LinkedIn.
no get out of here yeah um I know I know everyone wants to be linked in famous and have their image that says x company plus x company but um it's more than an integration it's it's far more than that it's a go-to-market motion in itself a company within a company typically

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Oh, I love that. A company within a company.

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When we say we're all part of the same team, you take it a layer deeper and you say, hey, company within a company.

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I love it, Beautiful!

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But even before we dig in, Alex, how do you avoid that ego where we say, which is the company outside and which is the company inside? I'm curious with what you just brought up. I mean, I think it's more from a skill set point of view.

I think you have to have an understanding of all the different team members and all the different orgs within a company so when I say that I mean it more from sort

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of an awareness point of view and having the ability to strategize and understand where you can have impact if you treat yourself as being a silo in a company that's all you're ever going to be and really a company within a company is understanding like where to start, how to identify the right areas that you need to be driving impact and measuring and then also, how do you drive influence within your own company to make sure that you can help others?

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And in turn, that will help you and create champions as well. So I would say being impactful is probably the most important thing without the versus sort of, you know, a them and us point of view. Lovely, lovely. We're all part of the same team and Alex, we have David Meeker here who's asked a brilliant question and that actually falls right into the idea of building a partner program, right? Now, the whole idea of anything is we build, pivot, iterate, it's crawl, walk, run all the way.

However, what have you seen as one thing

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where if we get this wrong, t's just a slippery slope from there because the foundation is important.

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Yeah, so I think that's a really great point to start with because foundation is critical to, I would say, any role within a company, but especially an org that there are a lot of different things that can impact things that happen so I mean I would say that most teams build partner programs like org charts typically tiered rigid and focused on head count but the best understand that they're actually building a business intelligent and intelligence engine.

Partnerships really help synthesize what internal teams often miss.

So they surface opportunity gaps faster, spotlight high ROI plays, unlock audience influence, but also bring domain expertise and also accelerate execution as well. So you really need structure and process but what separates high performers is the ability to interpret those partner signals and I would say act in a decisive manner on there as well.

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Okay.

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Set that sentiment from day

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one so that that builds off

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your program as we continue.

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Love that.

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Now,

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I'd love to delve a little deeper into

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David's question here.

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It's a little more tactical, which I love,

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David.

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Thank you for that.

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David wants to understand

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how do you narrow down on

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your ideal partner persona?

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Do you use tools or what is

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your thought work in terms

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of arriving at that?

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So this kind of delves a

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little bit into what I

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would typically call is

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sort of your kind of playbook.

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But any partner program

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that's being stood up or

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when you're going into a company,

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I would say that you first

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of all have to identify

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information.

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And that typically is

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looking at the last twenty

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four months of close won

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deals and close lost deals.

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So you can understand where

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patterns and rhythms are

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sort of happening within that,

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because if you go in bold

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saying we're a tech company

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and we specialize in financial services,

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that's great.

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But there are plenty of

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other companies that do the same thing.

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So you kind of going.

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yet this is the company you

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want to work with, it's really hard.

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And the really good thing

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about looking at your data

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is you can actually act off

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real information.

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And Jay McBain's mentioned

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this a number of times, around sort of that magic, that magic piece of having seven partners that overlap with a customer or a prospect.

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So it could be adjacent technology, it could be a GSI, things like that. And the thing that I've seen work really well by looking at your closed won and closed loss data is understanding, well, in the companies that I'm targeting, which technologies constant come up that are complementary to ours or service partners, and how can we bolt on and create a playbook to help sort of, again, keep using the word synthesize, but synthesize the right motion to make sure that

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you're showing value and you can go from there And then you can essentially identify, this is the type of partner that we want to work with. This is the messaging.

This is the motion And then I would say start small.

Always pick companies that can drive the most impact without you essentially having to chase your tail. Because unfortunately, a lot of the tech companies that you typically will end up working with, if you have an integration or something like that, them pushing you isn't necessarily their sort of MO or what they're being sort of comped on or anything like that So it can be a little harder than working with, say, like a services company who is intrinsically that's what they want. They can generate services revenue from those types of things.

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So yeah, So I would say start with data and elevate yourself from that.

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Beautiful. Love that, Alex.

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Thank you And David, So historically with all my organizations, invariably I'd been tasked with creating playbooks on who our ideal partner persona is, which persona to go after. And I'll give you the one-liner that I love to use, David And that is your ICP needs to be similar to your partner's ICP.

That's always been one line, which has been the first step to even identifying that ideal partner persona. you and your partner need to be selling into similar accounts, not necessarily the same logos. If I'm selling to e-commerce scale-up companies, the partner should be selling to e-commerce scale-up companies.

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If you're selling to, as we do this conversation, drop us and let us know what you and your business do. Maybe you're selling to B to B SaaS companies. Your partner should also be selling to B to B SaaS companies.

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Without that alignment, everything becomes force-fitted. There are multiple tools to do this. Sharkdom lets you look at overlaps. Crossbeam lets you look at overlaps. So those are great first steps. And we can delve into this a little deeper as well.

If you have questions, let us know But thank you for that wonderful question And Rachana, Nihal, great to see you folks here as well. I hope this conversation is going to be helpful.

All right, now that we know how a partner program can start and work, what are some metrics we should be tracking, Alex?

Because I noticed you brought up data, but what are data metrics that we should be looking at so that one month from now, a quarter from now, a year from now, we know if we were going in the right direction.

Great question.

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And I think the data component is really important because a lot of people get caught up in the minutiae of the day to day. Oh, I've got to set this meeting up or there's this deal or this integration And unless you know daily in real time where you're pointing, how do you know that you're going to hit your target? KPIs, your targets, and essentially drive the impact that the business is looking for. So if I could only track one metric, it would be partner sourced revenue velocity. And that might be a long term for me just to say out, but basically how fast a partner moves from first engagement to close one for me, especially in a lot of people that I work with is

really impactful. It's sort of the intersection of quality and speed, and it tells you whether a partner is truly embedded in your sales motion or orbiting around it. And the reason I say that is you'll meet a lot of people that say,
Logo count, tier status, portal logins.
If we're looking at that, we're looking at the wrong things because we all know that if you log into something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're driving the output that you need. So it's about signals and outputs and they don't predict revenue. So if you're chasing engagement metrics like that,

you really should be looking, I would say, at tracking impact metrics And there's a really good component to all of this as well. So everyone's talking about AI and jumping on the hype train of just putting that on everything, but it isn't really here just to automate data hygiene, but it also can uncover the patterns that we often miss as well. So it helps us drive the actions consistently and also making sure that we can actually have the lift that we need to.

So I would say utilizing AI in sort of like an embedded workflow, not so you're showing off any glitz or glamour, but it's helping you really drive or surface that intelligence and that sort of partner sourced revenue velocity and joining data points up and stuff really allows you to sort of be a

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Swiss army penknife and and have the impact that maybe others might not have beautiful and nikita thank

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you for thank you for

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phrasing that out for us

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what alex just mentioned

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but alex I want to clarify

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are you referring to

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velocity in terms of the

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partner's life cycle

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themselves were they close

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or are these deals that

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partners are bringing in

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so they're they're both one

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of the same so I know some

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people might say on the

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chat or they're ready to

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say I can't believe he just

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said that but your sourced

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and influenced revenue are

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somewhat the same they all

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have a place and whether

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you're a value-added

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reseller or a transactional

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reseller and you're

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managing the deal from

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start to finish on behalf

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of the tech company or

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you're a agency that's reserved

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sorry,

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referred some business in and your

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A's are working it,

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or a deal got stuck in the

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pipe and you're at stage two,

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you've had your first

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meeting and nothing's happening.

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Everything has value,

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but it is what is perceived value.

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And this is where if you are

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treating things just as sourced revenue,

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might you might not be

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driving some of the outputs

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that you want unless you

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are very successful.

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I'm sure there's some people

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on here that are, you know,

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they have that working really,

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really well.

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But a lot of companies are

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being impacted by, you know,

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geopolitical things that are going on or,

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you know,

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just the industries that they're in.

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It can be tricky.

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So I would say on that front, if you can.

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attach yourself both from

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sort of an internal and an

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external standpoint of what that means,

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then that's the most important thing.

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Last couple of roles that I've been in,

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we treat everything one of the same.

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So when we're really looking at that velocity, we're looking at close one deals that have got attached or sourced revenue against them and then you can filter the data based off if you want to get into any specifics and filter stuff out if you want but it's really valuable for you to know where a referred deal might have more velocity over one that

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was a value added and then

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your geos and things like that.

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So it all has a place.

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love that and as you brought

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up right that is one of the

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whole fascinations to the

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world of partnerships

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themselves where ideally

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your sales cycles are

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shorter where ideally the

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deal sizes are larger and

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you already have foot in

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the door with the partner's

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relationship vice versa

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both ways for both parties

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involved or multiple parties involved

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Thank you for that, Alex.

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And I also see Ashish's note here.

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Ashish, Klaasar representation.

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I'm a fan of what Klaasar is doing.

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I've met the team multiple times.

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Huge shout out.

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Thank you for joining us.

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All right, then.

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We know how the program is built.

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We know the metric for us to look at.

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Now, let's talk about what this means,

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Alex.

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I've built my program.

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I know what metrics I'm tracking.

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Now, a partner and I shook on it.

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We say, hey,

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I put that LinkedIn post of

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partner plus partner is happening.

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What does this mean?

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What is a quick win after that?

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And how do I show value for both parties?

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So I would say from a

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playbook point of view, again,

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making sure that we've

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identified what works so

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you can make sure that

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you've got the right tools in place.

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So I would say that for your

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first thirty days,

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you're making sure that you

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package your best playbooks, use cases,

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ROI value stories to make

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sure that you can enable.

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I think

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The thing that I've been

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talking about a lot with

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people recently is enablement.

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It gets lost.

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Everyone's focused on integrations, AI.

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They're talking about

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account management or account mapping.

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If you can't sell your product internally,

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well and you don't have it documented,

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if your value, your ROI,

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simple things on how to use

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it and your industries that you work with,

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that sort of stuff.

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How is anyone else going to

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do that for you?

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And really, even if you're working with a

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with a tech partner that

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might be referring some

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business to you or helping

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you mid-deal cycle,

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for somebody to position

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you or even bring you up in conversation,

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they have to have some sort

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of understanding of the

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value that you have.

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And as I mentioned, value is perceived.

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So if you're a tech partner

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and you're driving

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I don't know,

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like a survey in your whole

00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:01.441
MO is your tech product is

00:19:01.461 --> 00:19:03.161
like a VOC survey platform.

00:19:03.560 --> 00:19:04.080
Well, great.

00:19:04.121 --> 00:19:05.781
How does that complement what I'm doing?

00:19:06.021 --> 00:19:08.923
And so you really have to know that.

00:19:08.962 --> 00:19:09.982
And I would say that making

00:19:10.002 --> 00:19:11.003
sure that partners have the

00:19:11.044 --> 00:19:12.364
tools to do that properly

00:19:12.903 --> 00:19:14.105
is very important.

00:19:14.605 --> 00:19:15.525
So investing in your

00:19:15.845 --> 00:19:18.746
enablement will allow your

00:19:18.786 --> 00:19:19.826
partners to be able to do that.

00:19:20.047 --> 00:19:20.846
And back to your point

00:19:20.886 --> 00:19:23.968
around sort of the success component.

00:19:24.867 --> 00:19:27.009
I would say it's just

00:19:27.049 --> 00:19:29.311
getting activity and making

00:19:29.332 --> 00:19:30.153
sure that you're driving

00:19:30.173 --> 00:19:31.252
the outputs that you want.

00:19:31.272 --> 00:19:33.775
So if your end goal is that you want,

00:19:34.536 --> 00:19:34.895
I don't know,

00:19:35.096 --> 00:19:36.438
a referred business that

00:19:36.478 --> 00:19:38.338
hits a stage two or stage

00:19:38.358 --> 00:19:39.519
three where you've got your

00:19:39.559 --> 00:19:40.401
proposals out.

00:19:42.142 --> 00:19:43.584
versus somebody that is

00:19:43.644 --> 00:19:45.386
actually doing full close one deals,

00:19:45.406 --> 00:19:46.428
then that's fine.

00:19:46.847 --> 00:19:47.809
But making sure that you're

00:19:47.890 --> 00:19:49.172
tracking and that you're

00:19:49.231 --> 00:19:50.673
able to achieve that is really,

00:19:50.713 --> 00:19:51.414
really important.

00:19:51.454 --> 00:19:52.916
So I would say just making

00:19:52.957 --> 00:19:53.897
sure that you're you're

00:19:53.958 --> 00:19:54.778
locking into that and

00:19:54.798 --> 00:19:55.480
you're doing the right

00:19:55.519 --> 00:19:56.582
activities around maybe

00:19:56.602 --> 00:19:57.762
account mapping in the

00:19:57.982 --> 00:19:59.285
early stage with planning.

00:20:00.526 --> 00:20:01.067
and that you're not

00:20:01.247 --> 00:20:02.468
overwhelming yourself with

00:20:02.508 --> 00:20:03.288
signing up too many

00:20:03.347 --> 00:20:04.749
partners or saying yes to

00:20:04.808 --> 00:20:08.290
everyone is really important.

00:20:08.371 --> 00:20:09.672
And to Francisco's point as

00:20:09.731 --> 00:20:12.314
well is it's really the

00:20:12.354 --> 00:20:13.755
joint value proposition.

00:20:13.795 --> 00:20:16.036
So I would say when it comes

00:20:16.096 --> 00:20:17.917
to the joint value,

00:20:18.817 --> 00:20:21.019
Is it what a integration drives?

00:20:21.318 --> 00:20:23.499
So is it streamlining a process?

00:20:23.959 --> 00:20:26.359
Is it simplifying something?

00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:28.820
Or is it adding, for instance,

00:20:28.921 --> 00:20:30.580
more data to your platform

00:20:30.601 --> 00:20:32.020
so anyone that uses it can

00:20:32.061 --> 00:20:33.001
get more out of it?

00:20:33.041 --> 00:20:35.342
So I would say that there's

00:20:35.362 --> 00:20:37.042
going to be the end customer value,

00:20:37.722 --> 00:20:38.323
and then there's going to

00:20:38.363 --> 00:20:40.703
be the value position to your partner,

00:20:40.723 --> 00:20:41.324
which could be

00:20:42.324 --> 00:20:43.884
It could be compensation based,

00:20:43.924 --> 00:20:45.464
it could be SPF based,

00:20:45.505 --> 00:20:47.746
it could be an end goal for

00:20:47.766 --> 00:20:48.786
that other business as well.

00:20:48.806 --> 00:20:50.007
So there's lots of things to

00:20:50.047 --> 00:20:53.567
consider in that matter.

00:20:53.647 --> 00:20:54.528
True, love that.

00:20:55.148 --> 00:20:56.148
Thank you for that, Alex,

00:20:56.249 --> 00:20:57.349
Francisco and Nihal.

00:20:58.289 --> 00:20:59.269
I love that question that

00:20:59.309 --> 00:21:00.431
Nihal has and it looks like

00:21:00.471 --> 00:21:01.550
he's trying to bamboozle you.

00:21:01.911 --> 00:21:02.832
Nihal's a good friend.

00:21:03.112 --> 00:21:04.051
He's with Stitch Flow.

00:21:04.511 --> 00:21:06.353
And if any of you do any

00:21:06.393 --> 00:21:07.553
sort of documentation,

00:21:07.874 --> 00:21:08.574
you should go check out

00:21:08.673 --> 00:21:09.773
Async that he's building.

00:21:10.575 --> 00:21:11.434
But Alex,

00:21:14.025 --> 00:21:15.266
I love Nihal's question, right?

00:21:15.586 --> 00:21:18.166
Because this is honestly the

00:21:18.287 --> 00:21:20.907
biggest challenge a lot of

00:21:20.968 --> 00:21:21.788
partner teams face.

00:21:22.548 --> 00:21:23.809
You get on that first call,

00:21:24.650 --> 00:21:25.789
the alignment looks great,

00:21:26.070 --> 00:21:27.290
everybody's enthusiastic,

00:21:27.371 --> 00:21:28.211
everybody's happy.

00:21:29.711 --> 00:21:32.532
But it's just crickets after that, right?

00:21:34.534 --> 00:21:36.015
The value that you brought up right now,

00:21:36.055 --> 00:21:37.576
the whole cycle, that's beautiful.

00:21:38.175 --> 00:21:40.076
But Nihal's question is exactly that.

00:21:40.867 --> 00:21:42.189
How do you ensure you

00:21:42.209 --> 00:21:43.669
shorten that time to first

00:21:43.709 --> 00:21:47.290
value before things go cold?

00:21:47.411 --> 00:21:47.671
I mean,

00:21:47.810 --> 00:21:49.131
isn't it just saying that you've

00:21:49.151 --> 00:21:50.172
got a partnership and

00:21:51.011 --> 00:21:52.992
everyone just throws deals at you?

00:21:54.113 --> 00:21:55.294
Exactly, right?

00:21:55.334 --> 00:21:56.513
There's more to that?

00:21:56.855 --> 00:21:57.375
What?

00:22:01.634 --> 00:22:03.435
It's a really good point.

00:22:03.655 --> 00:22:05.376
A lot of conversations I've

00:22:05.396 --> 00:22:06.938
been having recently with

00:22:08.198 --> 00:22:09.699
C-suites in a number of

00:22:09.739 --> 00:22:10.659
different businesses,

00:22:10.798 --> 00:22:13.279
it's about executive alignment.

00:22:13.560 --> 00:22:15.000
There can be a number of

00:22:15.040 --> 00:22:15.882
different things on here.

00:22:17.486 --> 00:22:19.165
a one-man band or a

00:22:19.306 --> 00:22:21.326
one-woman band in a in a

00:22:21.366 --> 00:22:23.886
company if you don't have

00:22:24.366 --> 00:22:25.728
executive sponsorship in

00:22:25.748 --> 00:22:27.387
your company and they are

00:22:27.428 --> 00:22:29.568
not really um sort of

00:22:29.608 --> 00:22:31.328
helping support you have a

00:22:31.388 --> 00:22:33.009
successful function like

00:22:33.068 --> 00:22:34.369
when you hit a roadblock

00:22:34.509 --> 00:22:35.410
you need somebody there

00:22:35.430 --> 00:22:36.750
behind you to be to be

00:22:36.789 --> 00:22:37.950
there saying hey this

00:22:38.009 --> 00:22:39.211
partner manager at x

00:22:39.250 --> 00:22:40.871
company is not getting back to me

00:22:41.330 --> 00:22:43.511
Their reps are dicking me around.

00:22:43.551 --> 00:22:44.731
They're not being responsible.

00:22:44.771 --> 00:22:46.653
They're throwing me curveballs left, right,

00:22:46.673 --> 00:22:47.173
and center.

00:22:47.633 --> 00:22:48.413
You need somebody who can

00:22:48.452 --> 00:22:49.773
back you up and say, listen,

00:22:49.913 --> 00:22:52.555
I understand what's going on here.

00:22:52.694 --> 00:22:54.134
Let me help you.

00:22:54.714 --> 00:22:56.455
Or alternatively as well,

00:22:57.695 --> 00:22:59.116
respect your decision and say,

00:22:59.376 --> 00:23:00.777
maybe we don't go here.

00:23:00.797 --> 00:23:02.738
We messed up, but we need to go this way.

00:23:03.817 --> 00:23:04.077
Again,

00:23:04.759 --> 00:23:06.739
there's a whole number of different

00:23:06.759 --> 00:23:08.279
things that can factor into this.

00:23:08.759 --> 00:23:10.000
you you're essentially

00:23:10.040 --> 00:23:11.281
driving a number of

00:23:11.342 --> 00:23:12.583
different things that help

00:23:12.624 --> 00:23:13.765
drive activities so you've

00:23:13.805 --> 00:23:14.785
got for a partnership to be

00:23:14.825 --> 00:23:16.146
successful you have to do

00:23:16.186 --> 00:23:17.407
your research first of all

00:23:17.807 --> 00:23:18.528
so you have to make sure

00:23:18.548 --> 00:23:19.269
that you're sort of a

00:23:19.490 --> 00:23:21.451
strategy person you have to

00:23:21.471 --> 00:23:22.051
make sure from an

00:23:22.112 --> 00:23:23.232
operations and a legal

00:23:23.272 --> 00:23:24.013
standpoint you've got the

00:23:24.054 --> 00:23:25.075
right agreements in place

00:23:25.095 --> 00:23:25.755
you're spiffing you're

00:23:25.775 --> 00:23:27.056
making them work for you

00:23:27.416 --> 00:23:28.577
and that's typically one

00:23:28.597 --> 00:23:30.199
thing as well if you can if

00:23:30.219 --> 00:23:30.920
you're not you

00:23:31.339 --> 00:23:32.840
driving the right behaviors,

00:23:33.800 --> 00:23:35.662
which usually is driven by incentives,

00:23:36.021 --> 00:23:38.063
that's usually your first red flag.

00:23:39.084 --> 00:23:40.523
Everyone wants to give up, you know,

00:23:40.604 --> 00:23:41.765
ten percent or fifteen

00:23:41.805 --> 00:23:43.705
percent on a referral and say, hey,

00:23:43.726 --> 00:23:44.865
you got your fifteen percent.

00:23:44.885 --> 00:23:45.987
That's that's good.

00:23:46.467 --> 00:23:47.847
But typically that doesn't

00:23:47.928 --> 00:23:48.847
end up in the pocket.

00:23:48.968 --> 00:23:50.048
If the person that's helping

00:23:50.108 --> 00:23:51.489
you goes into the companies,

00:23:51.548 --> 00:23:52.529
but it doesn't come back to you.

00:23:52.569 --> 00:23:53.809
So I would say trying to

00:23:53.829 --> 00:23:55.651
break down those barriers, first of all,

00:23:55.971 --> 00:23:56.951
to make sure that can help

00:23:56.991 --> 00:23:58.092
them drive the behaviors

00:23:58.112 --> 00:23:59.073
and the impact you want.

00:23:59.692 --> 00:24:00.574
That's the key thing.

00:24:00.693 --> 00:24:01.713
And then after that,

00:24:02.174 --> 00:24:03.715
it's usually operational.

00:24:04.036 --> 00:24:05.217
So it will be typically on

00:24:05.257 --> 00:24:06.317
your side or the partner

00:24:06.357 --> 00:24:08.239
side where there might be

00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:09.559
marketing issues,

00:24:09.599 --> 00:24:12.142
there might be enablement issues,

00:24:12.182 --> 00:24:12.903
things like that.

00:24:13.303 --> 00:24:14.523
And it usually is operational.

00:24:14.564 --> 00:24:15.584
So it just makes sure that

00:24:16.424 --> 00:24:19.906
incentives and process down

00:24:20.627 --> 00:24:21.828
um and is set up right and

00:24:21.848 --> 00:24:23.990
then additionally from a um

00:24:24.009 --> 00:24:25.770
sort of a a process and

00:24:25.810 --> 00:24:27.573
operation standpoint making

00:24:27.633 --> 00:24:28.854
sure that you're able to

00:24:29.034 --> 00:24:31.194
execute is really really

00:24:31.234 --> 00:24:32.115
important if you've got

00:24:32.155 --> 00:24:33.596
those together that's good

00:24:33.656 --> 00:24:35.298
but having an executive

00:24:35.337 --> 00:24:36.778
sponsor really helps make

00:24:36.818 --> 00:24:39.580
those things happen one

00:24:39.621 --> 00:24:40.882
hundred percent I couldn't

00:24:40.942 --> 00:24:42.583
agree more and actually

00:24:42.603 --> 00:24:43.683
makes a big difference

00:24:44.664 --> 00:24:47.048
Being transparent and genuine is a no-go.

00:24:47.067 --> 00:24:48.229
That's the name of the game.

00:24:49.069 --> 00:24:49.589
However,

00:24:49.790 --> 00:24:51.531
that executive alignment and

00:24:51.592 --> 00:24:53.253
mapping across organizations,

00:24:53.875 --> 00:24:55.836
I've seen that to make a huge difference.

00:24:56.758 --> 00:24:58.559
And the larger the organization,

00:24:58.599 --> 00:25:00.321
the more critical it is for you to do it.

00:25:01.123 --> 00:25:01.923
If it's a GSI,

00:25:01.942 --> 00:25:03.384
there's no questions whatsoever,

00:25:03.424 --> 00:25:04.846
like what Alex brought up earlier.

00:25:06.809 --> 00:25:08.371
Can I just add one thing as well?

00:25:08.431 --> 00:25:10.153
So I also just want to say

00:25:10.192 --> 00:25:11.973
that a shortened deal cycle

00:25:12.034 --> 00:25:13.394
doesn't also necessarily

00:25:13.454 --> 00:25:14.836
mean that it's not

00:25:14.895 --> 00:25:16.238
necessarily a good thing.

00:25:16.758 --> 00:25:17.538
And I'm just going to throw

00:25:17.558 --> 00:25:18.900
the spanner in the works here as well.

00:25:18.980 --> 00:25:22.522
So you could have a deal that is shortened

00:25:23.123 --> 00:25:25.124
But if it's misrepresented,

00:25:25.545 --> 00:25:27.205
it's not supported in the right way,

00:25:27.645 --> 00:25:29.207
that company might not renew.

00:25:29.467 --> 00:25:31.409
They might think that

00:25:31.429 --> 00:25:32.529
they're buying something that's wrong.

00:25:32.569 --> 00:25:33.509
So I would say again,

00:25:34.171 --> 00:25:36.853
that is your signal isn't

00:25:36.932 --> 00:25:37.913
always a good thing.

00:25:38.394 --> 00:25:39.013
I would say again,

00:25:39.034 --> 00:25:41.296
it's the value and the

00:25:41.415 --> 00:25:42.997
other metrics that you're measuring.

00:25:43.537 --> 00:25:45.038
that really will have impact.

00:25:45.118 --> 00:25:47.299
You can't just measure short

00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:48.080
and deal cycle.

00:25:48.340 --> 00:25:49.721
There's, you know, there's revenue,

00:25:49.742 --> 00:25:51.124
there's ACV, there's, you know,

00:25:51.344 --> 00:25:52.785
happiness that the end

00:25:52.825 --> 00:25:53.685
customer is getting.

00:25:54.006 --> 00:25:55.126
There's so many different things.

00:25:55.166 --> 00:25:56.667
So whenever I hear that,

00:25:56.748 --> 00:25:58.490
I think it's a good thing, but any board,

00:25:58.549 --> 00:26:01.471
BCP, C-suite is gonna turn around and go,

00:26:02.491 --> 00:26:04.012
Everyone says that,

00:26:04.252 --> 00:26:05.994
but they want to see other

00:26:06.035 --> 00:26:08.096
signals and those outputs

00:26:08.115 --> 00:26:09.196
that I've mentioned before

00:26:09.557 --> 00:26:10.759
to make sure it's driving

00:26:10.798 --> 00:26:12.000
the right things that you need.

00:26:12.059 --> 00:26:13.901
So it's a great question,

00:26:13.941 --> 00:26:16.222
but I would say it's much

00:26:16.262 --> 00:26:17.824
deeper than that.

00:26:17.923 --> 00:26:18.444
Interesting.

00:26:18.664 --> 00:26:20.066
Oh, wow.

00:26:20.086 --> 00:26:21.287
That throws me in for a loop.

00:26:23.176 --> 00:26:23.356
All right,

00:26:23.376 --> 00:26:24.458
we're starting to see a lot of

00:26:24.478 --> 00:26:25.298
questions racking.

00:26:25.337 --> 00:26:25.978
Thank you, folks.

00:26:26.157 --> 00:26:27.138
We only have five more

00:26:27.179 --> 00:26:28.098
minutes here with Alex.

00:26:28.118 --> 00:26:29.680
So if you have any last questions,

00:26:30.099 --> 00:26:30.820
please drop them in.

00:26:30.921 --> 00:26:32.300
We'll try and make sure we

00:26:32.320 --> 00:26:33.001
get them addressed.

00:26:33.662 --> 00:26:35.623
We did have a rapid fire round for Alex,

00:26:36.103 --> 00:26:37.183
but I would love to answer

00:26:37.203 --> 00:26:38.845
the questions you have instead.

00:26:39.005 --> 00:26:39.884
So we have Jeffy.

00:26:40.265 --> 00:26:41.125
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:41.165 --> 00:26:41.826
Go ahead, Alex.

00:26:42.125 --> 00:26:43.366
So Jeffrey wants us to know,

00:26:44.207 --> 00:26:46.848
are there timely incentive payments?

00:26:46.949 --> 00:26:48.749
And what does effective

00:26:48.788 --> 00:26:49.990
partner enablement look like?

00:26:50.029 --> 00:26:51.411
Because you touched on both of these,

00:26:51.451 --> 00:26:51.671
Alex.

00:26:52.807 --> 00:26:53.108
Okay,

00:26:53.148 --> 00:26:58.395
so the best way that I can put it is

00:26:58.455 --> 00:27:00.018
that if you do not have the

00:27:00.077 --> 00:27:01.661
right tools to arm your

00:27:01.780 --> 00:27:03.082
sellers and your account

00:27:03.123 --> 00:27:04.163
management teams to be

00:27:04.203 --> 00:27:05.306
effective in their role,

00:27:07.826 --> 00:27:09.327
you shouldn't be expecting

00:27:09.367 --> 00:27:10.208
that your partners can

00:27:10.268 --> 00:27:12.067
deliver the same things for you.

00:27:12.568 --> 00:27:14.348
So I would say on that front,

00:27:15.189 --> 00:27:16.609
effective partner

00:27:16.650 --> 00:27:18.829
enablement is it's regular,

00:27:19.170 --> 00:27:20.270
it's in person,

00:27:20.790 --> 00:27:23.311
it is aligned to use cases,

00:27:23.432 --> 00:27:24.531
it's bite size.

00:27:24.551 --> 00:27:25.412
I'm seeing a lot of people

00:27:25.432 --> 00:27:26.372
that are firing Slack

00:27:26.392 --> 00:27:27.292
channels and other things

00:27:27.333 --> 00:27:30.432
like five slides and it's bite size, boom,

00:27:30.452 --> 00:27:30.874
boom, boom.

00:27:30.894 --> 00:27:31.913
They've learned a new feature,

00:27:31.953 --> 00:27:32.534
things like that.

00:27:32.554 --> 00:27:34.394
Don't expect people to do certifications.

00:27:36.134 --> 00:27:37.977
it's very time intensive and

00:27:37.997 --> 00:27:38.757
if you want to drive the

00:27:38.836 --> 00:27:40.318
outputs it can be hard and

00:27:40.338 --> 00:27:41.359
then from like a from a

00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:43.040
timely incentive payments

00:27:43.361 --> 00:27:45.323
um component I would say

00:27:45.383 --> 00:27:47.664
that respect is important

00:27:47.765 --> 00:27:49.145
and trust is important if

00:27:49.165 --> 00:27:50.287
you can't pay people on

00:27:50.346 --> 00:27:51.827
time then yes that is an

00:27:51.929 --> 00:27:53.710
issue um but I would say

00:27:53.769 --> 00:27:56.192
that making sure that a

00:27:56.231 --> 00:27:57.173
first of all the payments

00:27:57.353 --> 00:27:59.575
are driving the behaviors

00:27:59.914 --> 00:28:00.955
that's also an important

00:28:00.976 --> 00:28:02.156
thing as well so so yeah

00:28:03.057 --> 00:28:03.618
Good question.

00:28:03.699 --> 00:28:04.619
Beautiful.

00:28:04.660 --> 00:28:06.162
Jeffrey, you shocked him.

00:28:06.843 --> 00:28:11.827
That's the plug I was... There we go.

00:28:11.848 --> 00:28:12.690
That should help you with

00:28:12.710 --> 00:28:13.509
the incentive payments.

00:28:13.530 --> 00:28:14.692
But beautiful questions.

00:28:15.432 --> 00:28:16.473
And try to make it as

00:28:16.513 --> 00:28:18.135
frictionless as possible, Alex.

00:28:18.155 --> 00:28:19.958
Just make enablement easy.

00:28:20.298 --> 00:28:21.980
Don't expect them to commit too much time.

00:28:23.816 --> 00:28:24.155
Love that.

00:28:24.215 --> 00:28:24.516
Love that.

00:28:24.556 --> 00:28:24.896
Perfect.

00:28:25.336 --> 00:28:27.116
And we do have a bunch of other questions.

00:28:27.958 --> 00:28:30.338
We only have two last minutes.

00:28:30.479 --> 00:28:32.579
I'm sure Alex would love to answer these.

00:28:32.660 --> 00:28:33.720
Alex, would that be all right?

00:28:34.259 --> 00:28:36.641
Yeah.

00:28:36.661 --> 00:28:37.801
These are good questions.

00:28:38.622 --> 00:28:38.882
Yes.

00:28:39.021 --> 00:28:39.582
I love these.

00:28:39.942 --> 00:28:41.042
Alex, where do people find you?

00:28:42.494 --> 00:28:43.454
Where do they find me?

00:28:45.855 --> 00:28:47.556
You can message me on LinkedIn.

00:28:48.536 --> 00:28:50.476
I'm generally pretty responsive.

00:28:50.516 --> 00:28:52.497
You can also visit my

00:28:52.537 --> 00:28:53.596
website that's on LinkedIn

00:28:53.636 --> 00:28:55.277
as well and find me there as well.

00:28:55.376 --> 00:28:56.497
So yeah,

00:28:56.517 --> 00:28:57.758
I'm always about if people want me.

00:28:57.817 --> 00:28:59.698
But yeah, there's some good stuff.

00:28:59.718 --> 00:29:00.958
All right.

00:29:00.978 --> 00:29:02.317
So we're just going to jump

00:29:02.377 --> 00:29:03.278
into the rapid fire.

00:29:03.659 --> 00:29:04.179
But before that,

00:29:04.199 --> 00:29:05.019
there's something I want to

00:29:05.058 --> 00:29:05.979
show Francisco.

00:29:06.138 --> 00:29:09.180
And if we still have David Meeker on call,

00:29:09.839 --> 00:29:10.720
check this out, folks.

00:29:10.819 --> 00:29:10.880
So

00:29:13.299 --> 00:29:15.122
This is a template that we

00:29:15.201 --> 00:29:16.343
use for joint value

00:29:16.383 --> 00:29:17.804
prepositions here at Kintsugi.

00:29:18.765 --> 00:29:20.227
It talks about what does the

00:29:20.267 --> 00:29:21.728
executive snapshot look like,

00:29:22.248 --> 00:29:23.829
the problem we solve together,

00:29:24.509 --> 00:29:25.872
the joint value preposition,

00:29:26.051 --> 00:29:27.272
how the integration works,

00:29:27.732 --> 00:29:28.914
personas who benefit.

00:29:29.555 --> 00:29:31.017
So you can steal this from me.

00:29:31.656 --> 00:29:33.459
I also have a Notion template of this.

00:29:34.179 --> 00:29:35.019
I will get in touch with you after the conversation, send it over to you.

00:29:37.281 --> 00:29:38.542
I'm a huge Notion fanboy.

00:29:39.723 --> 00:29:40.904
My conversations with Alex were mostly on Notion.

So I have a bunch of templates for the partner landscape, like building your ideal partner persona, all of that good stuff on Notion. I will send that across And Shikha, Karth again, thank you, Beautiful questions But unfortunately, we are at time.

00:29:57.095 --> 00:29:59.037
Alex, quickly, last two minutes.

00:29:59.116 --> 00:30:00.837
I'm going to have three questions for you.

00:30:01.837 --> 00:30:03.118
What is one partnerships myth you'd love to bust?
One partnerships myth I'd love to bust that partnerships are just top of funnel channel.

00:30:11.836 --> 00:30:14.778
The best partnerships influence the entire customer journey from demand gen, implementation, expansion, through to retention as well. So if you're only thinking of referrals, then you're missing eighty percent of the value, I would say.

Love that, love that.

00:30:30.008 --> 00:30:30.909
Your favorite book or podcast or resource for partnerships?

00:30:34.656 --> 00:30:35.238
There's a few.

I don't really have a favorite book because I dip into a few different things. Jay McBain's analysis of a lot of things and canalysis stuff is very, very good.
I'm very specific to different industries.

00:30:47.461 --> 00:30:49.462
So I find advertising interesting.

00:30:49.583 --> 00:30:51.344
I find verticals that I

00:30:51.443 --> 00:30:52.585
operate in exciting.

00:30:52.724 --> 00:30:54.845
And I'm always looking for innovations,

00:30:55.066 --> 00:30:56.105
M&A, and hype.

00:30:57.346 --> 00:30:58.606
If I can find those things,

00:30:58.666 --> 00:30:59.846
you can sniff out the bullshit.

00:30:59.926 --> 00:31:00.867
You can sniff out the good

00:31:00.887 --> 00:31:02.147
stuff that's going to help you as well.

00:31:02.208 --> 00:31:02.628
So yeah.

00:31:04.295 --> 00:31:05.655
And we close us out with

00:31:05.675 --> 00:31:06.517
this last question.

00:31:07.317 --> 00:31:08.057
And Alex,

00:31:08.837 --> 00:31:11.039
what is that one underrated habit that separates good partner

leaders from the great ones?

I would say internal selling.

00:31:18.496 --> 00:31:19.557
The best partner leaders don't just build external relationships, they build internal buy-in and they know how to align with sales, product and execs early on often. So partners aren't treated like a side hustle and also siloed within a company. And you've got to be a people person and you've got to understand that everyone matters both internally and externally to be to be successful.

Right.

Evangelism, part of the job.

Love that.

00:31:48.309 --> 00:31:50.290
Oh, David talks about net retention rate. I love that. Folks, can I tell you that as well? I was on the back of some of the other questions. There were some other metrics that I wanted to talk about. But I yeah, there's there's a lot here.

This is good.

Thank you, David.

Folks, can I tell you how impressed I am with the level of knowledge the audience here has?

This has honestly been more than a conversation with me and Alex, a conversation with all of you.

So thank you so much for these wonderful ideas, thoughts, and for joining us this wonderful Friday. This has been an absolute treat.
Go say hi to Alex after this.

You can also find me on LinkedIn, more than happy to talk partnerships.

00:32:29.223 --> 00:32:30.546
And anything PRM, you know where to find Sharkdom.
Thank you, folks!
This has been an absolute treat.
Bye, guys. See you at another time with another Mr Partnerships.