*Frontline Sales Managers:* How to Know Which Partners Can Help or Hurt Your Team’s Deals

Alex Buckles

Frontline Sales Managers: How to Know Which Partners Can Help or Hurt Your Team’s Deals

As a frontline sales manager, your team’s success can hinge on your ability to identify partners who can make or break your deals. The best way to gain this insight is through the experiences and observations of your sales reps. They know which partners stand out as valuable assets and which pose barriers to closing deals. More importantly, their insights can shed light on why certain partnerships shine while others struggle.

So, how do you get this info from your reps? You simply need to ask – but you need to do it the right way!

How To Ask Sales Reps for Feedback

You can’t get sales rep feedback efficiently in one-on-one sessions and random surveys are sure to be ignored. Gathering this valuable partner information requires an intentional and systematic approach.

1. Conduct an Effective Survey

For best results, use a structured and easy-to-complete survey approach.

Use a private survey format. Ensure each sales rep has their own siloed space to work within by using a dedicated survey tool or providing individual documents for each person.
Integrate the survey into your team’s weekly call routine. A weekly team call is a great time to do a quick survey. Carve out 5-10 minutes for reps to complete the survey, keeping it short with no more than three to five questions.

This PartnerNPS approach is a quick and effective way to get meaningful answers and stimulate insightful conversations.

2. Ask The Right Questions

You need to ask the right questions to gather meaningful insights from your sales reps. When you ask these three questions to every sales rep in your organization, you’ll understand what’s happening in the field and your sales reps’ views on partners.

Services partner: If you could only work with one services partner for the entire year, which partner would you choose and why?
Technology partner: If you could only bring one integrated technology partner in on your deals, which partner would you bring and why?
Friction partners: Have any partners caused friction in deals or personal frustration? List these partners and provide a high-level reason for the friction.

3. Analyze and Act on the Data

Once you’ve collected feedback from your sales team, the next step is to analyze the data and take data-driven actions. This process involves looking for commonalities and understanding the reasons behind them – the ‘whys’ – which will guide your decision-making and help you advocate for strategic improvements.

Identify Commonalities

Look for patterns and commonalities in the responses to the first two questions suggested above:

Common names. Partners mentioned frequently are adding value. Maximize their awareness throughout your org. You can deploy automated listening tools like Fluincy or you can configure your existing call recording platform (i.e. Gong, Otter, Sybill, etc.) to listen for these keywords.

New names. Explore less-common partners, those you haven’t seen historically, and even non-partnered companies for untapped potential.

Understand the ‘Whys’

Dive deeper into the reasons behind these patterns to understand why certain partners excel and why others create friction in deals.

Metrics that Matter

Look for the metrics that matter. If a partner consistently delivers value to your team, you want to amplify and invest in that partnership.

Is this partner helping the sales reps win deals? Is the partner primarily impacting win rate in general or win rate specifically over competition?
Do they give the team an edge over the competition? You may regularly use one partner to win in a particular competitive situation. For example, I often included Knak as a design tool while selling Marketo, a marketing automation product. This gave us a competitive edge and gave buyers confidence. As a result, the partnership with Knak was highly successful, creating a win-win situation.
Are they helping reps increase deal size? This result is common with services partners in particular because once a buyer has great confidence in the solution, buyer spend increases. With high deal confidence, buyers not only buy more, they buy faster, meaning a shorter sales cycle.

Barriers and Blockers

Understand the reasons why partners have caused friction with sales reps so you can take steps to address any problems. There are many reasons, such as the partner taking unplanned actions, that can significantly hurt deals. Dig for the why:

Did the partner call the customer when they weren’t supposed to, reeking of commission breath?
Did they set the stage for an individual close instead of a joint close?
Did they go to the customer with pricing without first speaking with the other co-selling partners involved, causing misalignment?

Determine if a partnership is viable with additional partner enablement and support. Or it could be time to reevaluate the relationship and potentially replace it with a more-viable solution that drives bigger, faster, and more wins.

Whether tech or services, having strong partners who can deliver value and co-sell effectively with your team is paramount. If you’re limited to one solution for any category of partner and they’re not delivering, advocate within your partner organization for more substantial options.

Driving Strategic Improvements

Implement and advocate for strategic improvements based on the feedback gathered from your team.

Mine existing partners: Consider partnerships that fell into a middle ranking or were not even mentioned in the feedback. Explore opportunities to increase their awareness with the sales team or better articulate their value to drive better sales outcomes.

Explore new opportunities: Look for opportunities with recently-added partners offering a competitive deal edge. Don’t ignore small companies or startups – they can be the difference between a win and a loss!

Trim the fat: Advocate to drop partners that aren’t delivering value and have a poor value story – they’re a potential distraction for your sales reps.

Push for stronger partnerships: Communicate the feedback you’ve gathered to your partnership team. Tell them where you need stronger partners, where you have too many, and where you’re lacking quality.

Strengthening Your Partner Strategy with Sales-Rep Insights

Let your sales reps help shape your partnership strategy! By conducting a brief survey during a team call, you unlock valuable insights into standout partners and deal barriers.

Dedicate time to analyze this feedback. Identify strong partners to maximize sales performance, discover new opportunities for collaboration, and address challenges by removing ineffective partnerships.

This data-driven strategy, informed by frontline insights, strengthens your partnerships and equips your sales team for greater success.

Uncover Your Growth Potential

Whether starting with a single sales team or a single partner, any co-sell motion can be live within 30 days.

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