How to Make Sure Internal Folks Understand the Value of the Channel

“I just don’t see the value of the channel.”

“Why should I share deals with partners?”

“Can you explain what you do again?”

We can hear you grinding your teeth from here. 

Misconceptions about the channel are so ingrained that it’s really tough to convince your peers and senior leaders that partners can have a huge impact. Not only on revenue, but on your company’s brand presence, product roadmap, and expansion plans, too.

But — it’s not impossible.

We interviewed 6 experts who’ve been around the block a time or two to gather their best tips for getting partnerships the attention they deserve. Below, we bust the most common myths people have about the channel and share 6 strategies for overcoming them from seasoned partner leaders.

Common Misconceptions About the Value of the Channel (and Why They’re Wrong)

“They Don’t Lead to Revenue.”

If we take a step back and look at this misconception objectively, they sort of have a point. Partnerships is inherently slower than sales. It will take longer to start generating revenue from partnerships than it does selling direct.

The key is to be patient — an investment in partnerships is one that pays off in the long run.

Brandon Swain, Strategic Partnerships Development Manager at Tithe.ly, shares,“For sales, their default is ‘Always be closing.’ Partnerships is not about that. Not every call or lunch is a closing motion. It’s about building strong relationships that lead to bigger, better opportunities.”

If your company is new to partnerships and you’re standing up a program for the first time, you will encounter this misconception a LOT. And it’s going to be tough to prove that things are working before you win some deals. More on that below.

“They Aren’t Strategic.”

We know you’re thinking, “Au contraire.” And you’re right. As we’ve already established, good partnerships require time and effort to build. As such, partner managers carefully select which partners to prioritize — even if it may not be obvious to others.

Asif Mansoor, Cloud GTM Lead at Writer, points out: “When execs think about their TAM, they’re usually thinking about one big number, not about what makes up that big number.”

He continues, “In my experience, companies that get to $100M in ARR in a few years are the ones that understand that a chunk of their addressable market is really only accessible by partners, and they go out and find the people who can build out a strong channel.”

Besides reeling in new revenue, the best partners are skilled at upselling, making your product stickier, increasing your customer lifetime value, and making your entire go-to-market more efficient.

George Klippel, Director of NA Channel Sales, highlights: “Our partners bring localized trust and knowledge that our people just don’t have. They’re a force multiplier. They can scale our brand, help us enter new markets, and develop deeper customer relationships. It would cost us a fortune to replicate that.”

Steve Arlin, VP Global Technical Alliances at Superna, echoes that statement, underscoring the importance of partnerships for startups in particular. “The biggest risk to startups is poor hiring. The channel gives you the reach and scale you need. Leveraging partner sales teams gives you better coverage and reach into more customers and more geographies.”

How’s that for strategic?

“They Make Me Cede Control Over My Deals.”

To say salespeople are under a lot of stress to deliver is an understatement. Anything that threatens a deal is more than just annoying: it’s taking away their livelihood.

“Look, I used to work in sales, and my boss did not want to hear that a channel partner was involved in an opp,” Steve explains.“They wanted to know that I was owning every part of that deal, start to finish.”

But often, giving some control to partners is absolutely necessary to get deals across the finish line. Per Asif: “The truth is that a huge bank or healthcare company leader isn’t going to talk to your salesperson. They only procure software from a CDW or WWT, and they only do post-sales with an Accenture or a Deloitte. The only way you’re going to penetrate that account is through a partnership connection.”

“They Slow the Sales Cycle Down.”

If you’ve been in the partnerships world for a bit, it’s hard to believe that some people think the channel is a blocker to deals. But it’s really a mismatch of expectations. 

“Salespeople are coin-operated. They want as much margin as possible. If you can’t offer net neutrality, offer SPIFFs, or other incentives for working partner deals and try to highlight how much quicker deals get closed with a partner’s help,” says George.

“Your sales team needs to understand that channel partners aren’t just fulfillment mechanisms. They enable and accelerate the sales process — they don’t dilute it.”

6 Strategies to Highlight the Value of the Channel (and Partnerships in General)

Misconceptions don’t have to hold you back. Here are five strategies to elevate your channel and demonstrate the real value partnerships bring to your business.

1. Make Your Internal Process Seamless (and Known)

Without a solid process — and strong reasons — for engaging with the channel or other partners, salespeople simply won’t. Come to them with a well-thought-out plan for:

• How Deal Registrations, Referrals, and Lead Distribution will work. Are these flowing into and out of Salesforce or HubSpot? Who is responsible for what, and how will they be notified? Make sure to test all of this out in your Partner Portal to work out any kinks.
• How sales should engage with partners. If a Deal Reg comes in, will the partner want sales present in the first conversation or not? Are partners expecting to come up with a joint co-selling strategy with your sales team? Clear rules of engagement will help your partners and your sales team work well together.

As you start building this plan, try to anticipate your sales team’s reactions and questions. Often, this will cause you to think of things you hadn’t originally thought about and make your plan that much more thorough.

And, one more point here: be prepared to go through it more than once.

“Partnership leaders are constantly educating and re-educating. Sales teams have a lot on their plate. But if you continue to emphasize the value of the channel, explain how compensation is structured in detail, and get some wins under your belt, sales folks can become big believers,” says Stacy Desrosiers, VP of Business Development at Lewis Rhodes Labs.

2. Advertise the Value of the Channel to Other Teams

Partners are a never-ending source of information — about your product, your competition, and how people perceive your brand in the market. And that information can be extremely valuable to your colleagues in product, marketing, and customer success.

“There are so many things the channel can give outside of your direct sales force,” Stacy says. They have a better pulse on larger market dynamics, customer requirements, intel on pricing and licensing — they just have a much broader view.”

Perhaps even more importantly, partner feedback contextualizes GTM and engineering team value. Steve highlights:

“Often, there’s a disconnect between the folks who build and market the software and the people who use it. Commentary from channel partners(who are gathering feedback from real users) shows the real-world application of and appreciation for that work. Hearing about the wins can be really motivating for your peers.”

So, how do you share that knowledge and reinforcement? There are a couple of ways to go about it.

Form a Partner Advisory Council

Inviting sales, product, marketing, and strategy teams to PAC roundtables gives people a chance to ask deeper questions of channel partners. Plus, it simultaneously elevates your partners’ role in hitting company objectives.

Host Coffee Chats

“Have as many meetings as you can with other managers of other departments. If you’re new, start by sharing a little about your vision for the program and how you think partners can help their team,” Brandon recommends.

“But mostly, be listening. Ask what you can do to make their lives easier. Over time, you can make it more of a structured agenda based on those needs and interests.”

For example, Brandon was chatting with a partner who said they were sunsetting a particular product — one he’d just heard the product team say they were struggling to build.

“I told our internal teams about that partner’s offering and introduced them to the partner’s leadership team. We ended up inheriting that website product and its 1,200 users as a result of the partnership. The conversations I’d had helped me connect the dots.”

3. Deploy an Internal Sales Strategy

If you’ve got supportive leaders, that’s great, but you’re still going to have some doubters. Brandon explains:

“You’ve got to buddy up to the power players and build internal partnerships with them. A good way to do that is to highlight wins that matter to them. For example, when I moved into partnerships, I noticed our CX team had a problem with churn. As our program grew, I made sure to stress how partner-sourced deals were more likely to get upgraded to a higher subscription, stay longer, and process more donations through the platform.”

Stacy tends to agree.

“When you join an org, your first job is to figure out what the big problems are. Maybe your comp plans are bad, or marketing is not supporting the channel. Involve other teams as much as you can in solving those problems. That way, as you tick down those issues, people will feel like they’ve had a hand in your success.”

4. Launch Your Own Promotion Strategy, Too

To really hammer home the value of partnerships, you need to keep them top of mind — internally and externally. Showcasing all of your and your partners’ work builds momentum and helps people understand the channel’s value.

Some ideas from our interviewees include:

• Setting up a partner Slack or Teams channel where you can share partner feedback, joint case studies or blog posts, highlight new integration builds, spotlight partners expanding into new geographies, and request input from other teams.
• Asking for a spot at All Hands meetings once in a while. This is an excellent opportunity to highlight deal and partner recruitment wins across the company. Steve suggests inviting partners to share feedback or a win story live to add more color.
• Creating a partner newsletter. Mari Jackson, CMO at Global Telecom Solutions, helps her channel team send a monthly newsletter that is internal and partner-facing. “We also publicize recent wins and new channel initiatives through social media and our Channeltivity Portal. We want to show that we are heavily invested in our partner community and their growth and development.”
  • Another bonus of sending out a newsletter? It motivates partners who haven’t closed deals yet. “At first, I was afraid that sharing executive summaries of our partner wins would result in channel backlash,” says George. “But instead of getting jealous, our partners told me how excited they were to see new ways of selling and implementing our technology.”
• Host industry impact awards. Get everyone in your company involved in nominating and selecting partners to recognize. Not only does it celebrate your best partners, it also brings attention to your brand and your program. “We’re thinking of instituting a President’s Club for partners who hit our highest revenue targets and sending them on an amazing outing or trip. It gets our program and our business more attention,” Steve mentions.

That being said, be careful not to saturate public channels too much. Stacy warns, “Finding different ways to showcase the value of the channel is fantastic, just don’t do it to the point where people say,‘Oh, here goes the channel again…’ The point is to engage, surprise, and impress them.”

5. Lead with Numbers

One of the best ways to win over skeptics? Hit them with cold, hard numbers. 

Asif puts it, “Revenue is how we in partnerships earn the right to exist.” The more partner-led, partner-sourced, or partner-influenced deals that come across the finish line each quarter, the more respect you’ll get.“In most cases, you couldn’t have closed without them, which shows that a partner’s clout, an intro to a specific contact, or much-needed intel can make a huge difference in winning.”

Of course, revenue isn’t the only thing that matters. If you’ve just launched a partner program, you won’t have revenue to report for a while. And even if you are able to put numbers on the board, it’s not necessarily evidence that you’ve got a sustainable partner strategy.

“Think beyond revenue to show total health of your channel as well,” Stacy offers. “For example, how many partners have more than one rep generating revenue? How many deal regs are actually qualified? How many partners are going through training and not producing revenue?”

George likes to use the number of leads partners are sending him and his team as a benchmark for channel maturity.

“We’re giving out leads to partners all the time, but at a certain point, they should also be fishing on their own. I know I’ve been successful in training and onboarding if we’re getting closer to a 50/50 outbound-inbound split.”

Creating dashboards in your Partner Portal can help you identify what’s working and what’s not, pinpoint the partners who are actually investing in and capitalizing on your program, and help you identify opportunities for improving your program over time.

Want more inspiration for your reporting? Read Partner Analytics: What It Is and How to Do It

6. Align Incentives

Ideally, though it’s not always possible, a net-neutrality model can work wonders for boosting sales engagement.

“Everyone is coin-operated. They want as much margin as possible. If you can’t offer net neutrality, offer SPIFFs for working partner deals and try to highlight how much quicker deals get closed with a partner’s help,” says George.

Clear rules of engagement will also help your partners and your sales team work well together. Make sure you’re explicitly clear in how reps’ commissions on partner-related deals will work and that everything is mapped properly in your CRM.

Think you might hit some roadblocks? Read our Guide to Managing Channel Conflict.

Bonus: Do Your Due Diligence Before Accepting a New Role

There will still be some non-believers — even if you follow these strategies to a tee. Stacy recommends trying to get a pulse on leaders’ views on the channel (as best you can) before joining a new company.

“Personally, I try not to join organizations whose execs don’t believe in the value of the channel. It’s different if the sales team is apprehensive — you can fix that by getting some wins under your belt. With skeptical leadership, I know I’m just constantly going to be hitting a wall.”

Hungry for more ways to show the value of the channel? Get advice on building a career in partnerships.

Or, see how you can get your partner data organized with Channeltivity. Schedule a demo today.