Forecastable's Education Center -- The best advice on building partner programs that produce forecastable revenue.
What is MEDDIC for partnerships? Short answer: MEDDIC partnerships is the application of the classic sales qualification frame (Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion) to co-sell and partner-sourced deals, with a partner-side mirror on every letter so the host AE and the partner counterpart qualify the same opportunity on the same […]
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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 […]
Short answer: Channelnomics reports that early adopters of AI in partner management see up to 40% faster deal velocity. However, that outcome is conditional on one prerequisite the citations leave out: data trust. Specifically, partner-attribution data, deal-registration data, partner-activity data, and joint-Slack data have to be reconciled before AI on top of them produces signal […]
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Short answer: Almost every partnership-AI vendor in 2026 sells automation while telling buyers they are selling impact. However, automation and orchestration are different categories. Specifically, automation delivers scale and orchestration delivers impact. Therefore, the question every buyer should put to every vendor pitch is one specific line: show me the orchestration outcome your platform produces, […]
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Short answer: Atlassian’s Komal Shah said it on the ELG Summit stage: five to eight partners are now involved in each enterprise deal. However, most partner-program architectures, the deal-reg system, the comp plan, the partner-manager assignment, are still built for one partner. Therefore, the cadence problem is structural. Specifically, four operating layers, the shared mental […]
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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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Partnerships is the function inside a B2B company that builds revenue-generating relationships with other companies. The defining feature is owning a revenue number. Here’s the four-question diagnostic that tells you whether you have a partnerships function or a partner-marketing function with the wrong title.
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Alex Buckles
A fractional channel chief is one experienced operator working part-time as your head of partnerships. A partnerships consultancy is a firm with methodology and execution capacity. Most companies pick the wrong one and waste 6 to 12 months. The right answer hinges on whether your gap is leadership or execution.
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Partner-sourced pipeline is revenue originated by a partner referral. Partner-influenced pipeline is revenue where a partner participated but didn’t originate the lead. Most teams blur the line, which kills CFO trust and makes the entire partnerships investment indefensible at budget time. The fix is operational, not editorial.
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Alex Buckles
Forging strong partnerships has emerged as a core to how B2B revenue actually compounds, but the market demands not just innovation in products and services, but also strategic alliances that can extend reach, enhance offerings, and ultimately drive revenue. Let’s dive into the system for sourcing revenue from large SaaS partners, with the practical playbook […]
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Alex Buckles
Stop Focusing Solely on Sales Reps as Referral Partners When organizations go to market to source partner revenue, they often focus on engaging the partner’s sales team. They’re thinking about how to get them to refer business, or how to ensure they recognize and communicate their value proposition without having to ask them. This fixation […]
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