Forecastable Blog

Forecastable's Education Center -- The best advice on building partner programs that produce forecastable revenue.

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A channel sales manager running a partner deal review with a reseller's account executive at a conference table, a printed pipeline list and a joint account plan between them in an open office, deep navy and warm amber palette

Channel Sales Manager: What the Role Really Does

What is a channel sales manager? Short answer: A channel sales manager owns revenue produced through a set of partners, recruiting the right ones, enabling their sellers, and driving joint deals to close. It is a quota-carrying sales role where the sellers work at another company. The job is to make partners produce, not just […]

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Editor's Picks

Channel Marketing: What It Is and How It Works

What is channel marketing? Short answer: Channel marketing is the practice of generating demand through your partners rather than only through your own direct team. It equips resellers, agencies, and technology partners to market your product to their audiences, and it measures the pipeline that motion produces. Done right, it turns partners into a demand […]

Partner Marketing: What It Is and How to Run It

What is partner marketing? Short answer: Partner marketing is marketing done with and through your partners to reach audiences you could not reach alone. It spans co-branded campaigns, joint content, referral and affiliate motions, and technology-partner integrations, all aimed at borrowing a partner’s trust and reach. The goal is pipeline that comes recommended, not cold. […]

What Is Channel Marketing? A Clear Definition

What is channel marketing? Short answer: Channel marketing is marketing that generates demand through your partners rather than only through your own direct team. It equips resellers, agencies, and technology partners to promote your product to their audiences, and it measures the pipeline that motion returns. In short, it is marketing that reaches buyers through […]

A founder and an outsourced partnerships lead reviewing a partner-as-a-service engagement on a wall monitor showing a managed partner program with milestones and handback points, a printed scope of work on the table, deep navy and warm amber palette

Partner-as-a-Service: What It Is and When to Use It

What is partner-as-a-service? Short answer: Partner-as-a-service is a model in which a company hires an external team to run some or all of its partnership operations, recruiting, onboarding, enabling, and managing partners, rather than building that capability entirely in house. It lets a company stand up or scale a partner motion without first hiring and […]

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A partner sales exec walking a CRO through a partner-sourced pipeline forecast on a wall monitor while two account executives look on, printed account list on the table, deep navy and warm amber palette

Partner Sales Exec: What the Role Actually Owns

What is a partner sales exec? Short answer: A partner sales exec is a quota-carrying seller whose pipeline comes through partners rather than direct outbound, responsible for sourcing, co-selling, and closing revenue that a partner relationship makes possible. They live between the partner team and the sales floor, which is exactly why the role is […]

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A partnerships consultancy advisor walking a founder and a head of partnerships through a partner program build plan on a whiteboard, printed program roadmap on the table, deep navy and warm amber palette

Partnerships Consultancy: When to Hire One

What is a partnerships consultancy? Short answer: A partnerships consultancy is an outside firm that designs, builds, or fixes a company’s partner program, bringing the operating expertise a team does not have in-house yet. They work across recruitment, enablement, co-sell, and measurement, which means the good ones leave behind a working motion rather than a […]

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A fractional partner operations specialist screen-sharing a partner pipeline hygiene report with an in-house partnerships lead at a desk, a printed partner ops scope-of-work between them, deep navy and warm amber palette

Partner Ops as a Service: When to Outsource It

What is partner ops as a service? Short answer: Partner ops as a service is an arrangement where an external team runs the operational backbone of a partner program, the data hygiene, deal-registration administration, reporting, and process design, so the in-house partnerships team can spend its time on relationships and revenue. It is the operational […]

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A partner program design consultant facilitating a working session with a client partnerships team on a wall monitor showing a program blueprint and milestone plan, a printed engagement scope on the table, deep navy and warm amber palette

Partner Program Design Consulting: What to Expect

What is partner program design consulting? Short answer: Partner program design consulting is outside expertise hired to architect or rebuild a partner program, covering partner types, tiers, incentives, enablement, and metrics. It compresses the learning curve a team would otherwise pay for in wasted quarters, and it brings patterns from many programs to a company […]

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A partner manager at a desk running a co-sell deal review with a partner-side seller over video, a printed account list and a weekly cadence checklist visible beside the laptop, deep navy and warm amber palette

Partner Manager Day-to-Day: The Real Job

What does a partner manager do day-to-day? Short answer: A partner manager’s day is built around advancing partner-sourced and partner-influenced deals, running a touch cadence across a tiered book of partners, and unblocking the co-sell motions already in flight. It is a sales-adjacent operating job, not a relationship-management job, and the calendar of a good […]

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A CRO and a head of partnerships at a small conference table reviewing a printed scoping memo for an outsourced partnerships engagement with named partner targets and a forecast scorecard alongside a laptop showing a partner pipeline dashboard, deep navy and warm amber palette

Outsourced Partnerships: When It Works, When It Fails

What are outsourced partnerships? Short answer: Outsourced partnerships is the engagement model where a B2B company hires a fractional partnerships leader, a partner-sourced GTM agency, or a partner-as-a-service vendor to run all or part of the partnerships motion instead of (or alongside) building an in-house team. It exists because partnerships is a slow-to-build function with […]

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A head of partnerships and a CRO sitting at a desk reviewing a printed partner manager scorecard alongside a candidate's deal review notes and a quarterly pipeline forecast, deep navy and warm amber palette

How to Hire a Partner Manager in 2026

What does it take to hire the right partner manager? Short answer: How to hire a partner manager is to write the scorecard against the partner motion you actually run, screen for sales DNA over relationship enthusiasm, run a deal-review interview where the candidate walks a real co-sell account, and make the first ninety days […]

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A fractional VP of partnerships and a founder CEO sitting across a small desk reviewing a printed ninety-day partnerships plan with a tiering chart visible on a laptop between them, deep navy and warm amber palette

Fractional VP Partnerships: When to Hire One in 2026

What is a fractional VP of partnerships? Short answer: Fractional VP partnerships is a senior leader engaged part-time to install the operating model, run the first two quarters of cadence, and either hand the function to a full-time hire or stay on for ongoing oversight. The role exists because most companies need senior judgment well […]

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Head of partnerships interviewing a candidate at a calm modern conference table, deep navy and amber palette, right third clean for headline overlay

Partner Manager Job Description: What to Include

What is a partner manager job description? Short answer: a partner manager job description is the hiring document that defines the role’s scope, owned outcomes, and operating cadence, written specifically enough to filter candidates accurately and pay the role correctly. In 2026, the JDs that produce strong hires are concrete (name the partner relationship and […]

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