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 on sales is common, and there are strategies to achieve alignment, although they require time and effort. However, there’s an avenue most organizations don’t think about –  tapping into the non-sales roles within partner organizations. These roles are often easier and faster to reach and have a higher likelihood of supporting your objectives.

If your partnership has a slam dunk, better-together value story that directly impacts the partner’s sales quotas, starting with the sales org makes sense. If not, begin engaging elsewhere and get some wins under your belt. That way, when you get to the sales team, you have more credibility and a higher chance of success.

The Importance of a True Value Story

Before interacting with any partner org personas, sales or otherwise, make sure your value story, or better-together story, sets the stage for a meaningful partnership. Having an actual value story with the partner is table stakes. It must be a genuine narrative that resonates with you both deeply.

A joint value story:

• Makes an authentic connection: Go beyond transactional gains to create a meaningful relationship based on mutual understanding and shared objectives.

• Solves real pains: Address your customer’s pain points with proven solutions that alleviate their challenges.

A value story that rises above surface-level interactions drives collaboration and yields long-term success.

5 Non-Sales Allies in Partner Organizations

After establishing a solid foundation with a genuine value story, it’s time to explore personas beyond the sales department. The following five personas can serve as excellent referral sources within partner organizations.

1 – Customer Success Managers

Customer success managers (CSMs) are the closest touchpoint to customers. While customer support deals with day-to-day firefighting, CSMs drive customer success through a plan with clear milestones, objectives, owners, and benchmarks.

A CSM who understands your value story and is committed to driving success is well incentivized to integrate your technology or service offering. By answering the ‘what’s in it for me’ for both sides, you can pave the way for an effective collaboration.

CSMs typically handle renewals and may be responsible for upselling, cross-selling, or at least interacting with the sales team for such activities. Because they’re close to the customer, they can quickly validate pain points and provide access to key stakeholders.

This persona offers a great entry point. At Forecastable, we have strategies and tactics for engaging with CSMs and expanding those relationships into executive and sales relationships.

Pro tip: Most CSMs don’t get the same attention as sales reps – stand out by sending them gifts through platforms like Sendoso or Alyce. But a gift alone won’t cut it. Remember, you need a compelling value story for the partner’s account executive/CSM and one for the customer/prospect, backed by an excellent offering (product and service).  

2 – Presales Organization

When co-selling or aiming for revenue generation through a major partner, whether SaaS or services, there’s typically a pre-sales organization in place.

This team is comprised of two key roles:

• Solutions Consultants. Experts who conduct functional demonstrations and tell a story through their demos. They can answer questions related to feature function capability and similar aspects.

• Solutions Architects. Professionals who play a critical role in designing the technical aspects of deal implementation, such as data flow, integration options, and configurations. The way these elements are architected can be the difference between a win and a loss, especially in competitive deals.

Solutions consultants and architects excel at discovery, which is essential for providing exceptional demos and architecting effective solutions. Their focus on finding solutions naturally leads to a strong interest in what you bring to the table, especially if it enhances how they do their jobs.

In larger sales teams, particularly those with numerous less experienced sales reps, the pre-sales org often dictates what gets into the deal regarding technologies and services. If your story warrants you being on that order form, prioritizing engagement with the pre-sales organization can be more impactful than focusing solely on the sales team.

3 – Executives

Executives are essential to successful, long-term partnerships. Their buy-in drives sourced revenue and overall partnership success. However, executive alignment doesn’t happen overnight; typically, you must earn credibility with the organization before you get executive attention.

• Start by getting even small, validated wins. Getting two wins is table stakes; get three or more, and you’re golden! Repeatability is vital for execs.

• Leverage advocates for introductions to executives. CSMs, frontline managers, and other leaders you’ve proven yourself to can connect you with crucial stakeholders like the chief customer officer.

Executive attention drives top-down advocacy. These leaders often prescribe repetition of successes in the field – a prime opportunity for deep relationship building. For hesitant folks just following directives, you can earn their respect by providing valuable support and servicing for the accounts you share.

Pro tip: Leverage executive relationships for reach. For example, once you gain the chief customer officer’s attention, share the value you can bring to the other orgs. Like: ‘Here’s what we can also do for sales. Did you know that?’ Make them aware and instantly get some top-down buy-in, direction, and advocacy to expand your spread in the org.

4 – Marketing Stakeholders

Gaining direct access to a partner’s marketing organization can be challenging if you seek attention without offering value. However, there are strategic ways to engage them. For example, you can invite them to collaborate on webinars or events. We have partners at Forecastable that deliver amazing partner webinars and drive fantastic results for joint webinars.

Marketing teams won’t likely turn down an invitation to be included in your marketing activities.

Why? Because it doesn’t cost them anything, so no approvals are needed. It also allows them to achieve their KPIs through your efforts, like generating marketing-qualified leads.

So, as a tactic, invite one of your partners to an upcoming event. Ask your contact for access to the marketing team to request assets or inquire about tracking. When you start the relationship by giving, you get marketing’s attention willingly.

Then, deliver on your offer. Include them in your event. Don’t bait and switch them and start selling them and asking for access to their events. You should, however, conduct some light discovery during that first give. Learn what the team is like, their workload, and how often they do things with partners.

5 – Partnerships Org

Hidden opportunities exist to win and retain business or achieve your objectives within the partnerships org. For example, during meetings with a partner manager or other key people, ask:

• What partnerships are working well?
• What has the attention of the sales team or customer success?

Identify the top five partners everyone in the organization loves and find out why. Look at tech and services, aiming for three tech and two services partners.

Next, understand the reasons behind these partnerships’ success, like: ‘We work with this tech partner because they give us this extra piece of functionality, which helps us win deals in this particular segment.’

Finally, see how your value proposition fits into their narratives. Is there anything you offer that aligns and makes an existing story sing? Attaching yourself with a top-performing partner can be a swift path to revenue generation.

Pro tip: To understand the top five ‘whys’ for an organization, learn who they’re partnering with the most, why they do it, and whether it makes logical sense for you to join forces with them. Don’t force it. Make sure aligning with their value story is rational and beneficial.

Conclusion

Don’t just focus on the sales reps at your partner organizations. There are so many other folks who can help you win deals! Customer Success Managers, pre-sales teams, executives, marketing departments, and even the partnerships organization itself all hold untapped revenue potential.

Build relationships with these different people. Show them how your offering helps them do their jobs better and makes their customers happy. Start small, get some wins under your belt, and soon, you’ll be maximizing the revenue potential of your partnerships. Remember, it’s all about building trust and providing value!