Forecastable's Education Center -- The best advice on building partner programs that produce forecastable revenue.
What is nearbound sales? Short answer: Nearbound sales is the GTM motion where the AE works partner-derived signal (account overlap, partner-of-partner relationships, joint customer alerts, ecosystem-level engagement) as the primary prospecting input, instead of cold outbound or inbound MQLs. It sits between inbound and outbound, runs on signal from the ecosystem, and produces a higher […]
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What is an MDF event? Short answer: An MDF event is a partner-funded or jointly funded field marketing motion where market development funds underwrite a customer-facing activity (executive dinner, regional workshop, conference booth, or industry breakfast) with a named pipeline target and a sourced and influenced reporting back to the funding partner. It is not […]
Demand generation that runs through partners by borrowing their trust, measured as pipeline.
Short answer: most MDF (Market Development Funds) programs in B2B SaaS waste 50 to 70 percent of their budget. The cause is structural, not size. MDF gets framed too narrowly as marketing money. It then goes to partners who will not run the activity that drives pipeline. The fix is a defensible MDF program that […]
What is nearbound sales? Short answer: Nearbound sales is the GTM motion where the AE works partner-derived signal (account overlap, partner-of-partner relationships, joint customer alerts, ecosystem-level engagement) as the primary prospecting input, instead of cold outbound or inbound MQLs. It sits between inbound and outbound, runs on signal from the ecosystem, and produces a higher […]
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What is ecosystem-involved vs ecosystem-led? Short answer: Ecosystem-involved vs ecosystem-led describes how much of a deal a partner ecosystem actually drives, and the difference is degree, not type. A deal is ecosystem-involved when a partner touched it somewhere along the way, and it is ecosystem-led when the ecosystem set the strategy, sourced the opportunity, and […]
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What is an ecosystem-led growth deal size increase? Short answer: An ecosystem-led growth deal size increase is the measurable lift in average deal value that appears when a partner ecosystem shapes an opportunity instead of the company selling alone. It is not a rounding effect, and it has identifiable causes a partnerships team can engineer […]
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Demand generation that runs through partners by borrowing their trust, measured as pipeline.
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Nearbound is a sales motion in which a vendor uses its partner ecosystem as the primary signal and channel to enter a buying account, rather than relying on inbound or outbound. The motion runs on overlap data, partner-led trust, and joint deal mechanics. Done well, it produces materially higher win…
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Ecosystem partnerships are the network of technology, services, and channel partners whose combined presence at the same customer accounts produces co-sell, co-build, and customer-expansion opportunities. The operating model is different from one-to-one channel partnerships, ecosystem partnerships compound through overlap, integration density, and shared customer success rather than through bilateral commercial agreements. Run them well and […]
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ELG, or ecosystem-led growth, is a go-to-market strategy in which a company’s partner ecosystem becomes the primary source of pipeline, expansion, and retention rather than a sidecar to direct sales and marketing. ELG companies measure ecosystem-influenced revenue as a first-class number, design their CRM and operating cadence around partner overlap data, and treat the partner […]
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ELG works. The honest question is when to use it and when to use something else. Here are the three situations where ecosystem-led growth moves pipeline best, and the four where another motion fits better.
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A partner ecosystem is the network of companies a vendor sells with, sells through, and integrates with. That includes tech alliances, resellers, distributors, OEMs, agencies, ISVs, and service implementers. Together they produce more revenue than any single direct motion can. A modern partner ecosystem is not a logo wall. It is an operating system for […]
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ELG (Ecosystem-Led Growth) is a real third revenue motion alongside outbound and inbound. The conversation around ELG in 2026 is mostly wrong: roughly 70% of public content is about tooling; the actual revenue split is the inverse. Here’s the operational frame.
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