HockeyStack reposted this
It only cost us $5,642 in referral fees to land a $7B tech giant as a customer. Next month, we'll spend 10x that to acquire 8 more customers. Here's why we're going all in on partnerships as a channel: In the classic B2B SaaS funnel, you're: - Advertising - Holding events - Sponsoring events - Hosting webinars - Sending email - Running SEO The goal is to distribute your content. To build brand awareness and trust with your target accounts. THEN you can start a productive conversation. But the process can take YEARS. And sales-cycles can take 6-12 MONTHS. That's where partnerships comes in... There are 1000's of agencies, vendors, and consultants who ALREADY built the trust you need with your target accounts. Honestly, I had overlooked partnerships as a channel. I was overly focused on brand, content and ads. But then agencies/vendors started sending us referrals... And boy, did I see the light! We have a 9X ROI (yes, that's right) on partner-sourced deals so far. - Sales Cycles are shorter - Win rates are higher - CAC is lower You can't argue with the math. So in Q4, we're doubling down on partnerships. You should too.
What is your process of finding, pitching and forming partnerships?
Absolutley agree, we built an entire business based on being a partner (HubSpot) and using partners to support our focus (growth advisory) enabling us to complete over 700 projects in 3 years across a diverse range of SMB Growth and business scaling services. It is also an incredibly rewarding way to work as you are involved in growing your businesses together in service of the client. Absolutley have to have the right partners and put in the work to properly vet and align with them prior and have ongoing conversations around how you can grow together. It doesn’t always go smoothly but when aligned there is always a solution.
Partnerships have worked well for me, but not always. Even with something seemingly automatic like website affiliates, you often find, say, 20% of the partners providing 80% of the revenue. There are many factors that create tight partner-market-fit...and even with that, many partnerships require time and effort to keep them productive. Example: a reseller of software with many partners told me that he needed regular on-site visits for us to stay top of mind. By contrast, another just became a regular source of POs without much additional contact from us.
And this math is why go to network makes sense. Treat every influencer, investor, customer etc as a potential partner.
This is the kind of perspective and numbers we need to see from more CEOs and CROs. Kudos to you Emir for understanding the value that partnerships provide and seizing the opportunity to invest in this growth channel that is unparalleled in its ROI.
Love this! 👏 Happy to help you with any resources you need Emir
GTM models(Take the model below with a grain of salt as it differs from sector/company/product): Approaches to sales strategy: No brand equity=Focus on Partnership sales Some Brand Equity=Partnership sales channel sales direct sales High Brand Equity=Direct Sales
Partnerships is an under utilized channel. We hvave a couple partnership but not near enough of them. Would love to learn more about your process for this!
Here for this strategy. Why start from scratch when you can work together
CEO & Co-founder of TACK ⛵️ | Helping B2B companies match their go-to-market to how people actually buy today.
2moPeople-first GTM all the way. Partner-led should be part of everything you do.