The best advice on building partner programs that produce forecastable revenue.
What is partner pipeline for the CFO? Short answer: Partner pipeline for the CFO is the view of partner-influenced and partner-sourced revenue translated into the language a finance leader uses to make budget decisions, conversion rates, attribution clarity, and a defensible return on the program’s cost. It is the difference between a partnerships team that […]
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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 […]
Partner incentives are the financial and non-financial mechanisms a vendor uses to motivate partner behavior beyond the baseline margin. Strong partner incentive programs are designed around four principles: tied to outcomes the partner team can actually drive, paid out fast enough to influence behavior, simple enough to communicate without a deck, and audited often enough […]
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The ServiceNow Partner Program (run through the Now Partner Hub) is a tiered partner program that gives partners access to ServiceNow’s enterprise customer base, joint go-to-market support, and certification credentials. The program organizes partners into a tier structure (Registered, Specialist, Premier, Elite, plus designations like Build Partner and Service Partner) with progressive benefits at each […]
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Account-mapping tools are the data layer that lets two companies see overlap between their CRM accounts without sharing raw records. The category is mature, the tier-one vendors are well known, and the buying decision can be wrong because teams pick a tool before they define the operating motion. Pick the motion first; the tool selection […]
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Partner onboarding is the structured 90-day program that takes a newly signed partner from contract close to first sourced deal. Most teams treat onboarding as a one-week checklist; the partners who actually produce revenue went through a 90-day cadence with weekly close dates, an executive sponsor, and a forcing function on the first joint deal. […]
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An alliance manager is the person who owns the operating relationship with a strategic partner: the joint motion, the joint pipeline, the executive cadence, and the deal-by-deal field execution. The role is not a single role; it’s a spectrum from co-sell ops to strategic alliance lead. Most alliance manager hires fail in the first 18 […]
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A channel sales strategy is the operating plan that defines how a vendor sells through partners: which partners, in which segments, with which economics, on which cadence, against which pipeline target. Most published channel strategies are partner-count plans. The right strategy is anchored in partner economics: the producer-consumer ratio, the partner-attached pipeline target, the operating […]
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Partner program examples are most useful when you read past the logo gallery and study the structural mechanics: tier requirements, deal-registration rules, MDF gates, certification thresholds, co-sell expectations, and attribution policy. The same five or six structural patterns repeat across every successful program, regardless of category or scale. The patterns are what’s portable; the brand […]
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Channelscaler is a partner relationship management platform that wins consistently in the SMB-mid market band: a clean partner portal, accessible content management, deal registration that works out of the box, and a price point that doesn’t require a finance approval cycle to renew. The platform is a strong fit for partner programs in the 5-50 […]
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A channel manager job description that just lists “manage partner relationships” predicts a hire who underperforms in the first 18 months. A channel manager JD that names the producer-consumer ratio target, the partner-attached pipeline expectation, the operating cadence the role will run, and the compensation tied to revenue outcomes predicts a hire who hits quota. […]
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The layer where forecast accuracy is made or lost, and why most revenue orgs under-invest in it.
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What are perpetual mindshare partnerships? Short answer: Perpetual mindshare partnerships are the ones where a partner reaches for your product by default, recommending it without being prompted because you stay continuously present and useful to their sellers. It is earned through a steady rhythm of value rather than a launch event, which is why most […]
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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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My journey from Education to Operations has equipped me with a unique perspective and skill set that perfectly aligns with Forecastable’s mission to help businesses improve sales collaboration through partner co-selling strategies.
At Forecastable, I am passionate about empowering teams and organizations to unlock the full potential of strategic partnerships. By leveraging my expertise in communication, leadership, and operational efficiency, I contribute to creating seamless co-selling processes that align with business goals and deliver exceptional results.
The intersection of my educational foundation and operational experience fuels my dedication to fostering alignment, building trust, and enhancing collaboration between partners. I am driven by the opportunity to contribute to a platform that not only optimizes sales strategies but also strengthens relationships that lead to long-term growth.
Paul Johnson has 20+ years of software development and consulting experience for a variety of organizations, ranging from startups to large-enterprise organization with highly-complex needs.
Mr. Johnson has a long track record of successful technology deployments.
This, combined with his deep passion for machine learning and exceptional user experience design, allows him to lead our technical direction from the front with confidence.
After serving in The United States Marine Corps, Alex Buckles spent the next two decades as a student of revenue production and an advocate for innovation.
Along the way, he has helped numerous companies achieve double and triple-digit growth by crafting and executing high-performing go-to-market strategies, with co-selling at the center of each.
As a once-advanced technical marketer, an expert sales & partner professional, and a strong customer success advocate, Mr. Buckles understands the impact of these functions aligning not only on revenue production, but on the day-to-day execution of the go-to-market strategy. This concept of revenue-team alignment is what quickly became the foundation of Forecastable back in January of 2018.
In his free time, you’ll find him spending quality time with his children, one of whom is on the autism spectrum. 1 in 36 children in the U.S. are on the spectrum and boys are four times more likely to be diagnosed than girls.
With that in mind, Mr. Buckles plans on dedicating the rest of his life serving those living with autism, through his organization Pathways for Autism. From his perspective, there must be a scalable and financially self-sustaining infrastructure established to put as many individuals with autism as possible on a path towards complete independence as adults.
