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]]>Happy 2026. Any partner executives still working on your goals and plans for this year? If so, here’s a strategy that will help you impress your CRO… and the entire c-suite.
Your company already has a robust marketing team, a sophisticated sales organization, and partner teams managing GSIs, SIs, hyperscalers, strategic partners, ISVs, and resellers. But so far, multi-partner selling efforts haven’t ever gone beyond a few individual field motions.
CRO’s need high-quality pipeline their sales reps can close this year. Partner-sourced pipeline is the highest quality pipeline in most companies, far outperforming pipeline generated by marketing and sales programs. According to Forrester, Deloitte, and Canalys these deals are 2× larger, achieve 3× higher win rates, and close 30% faster.
CROs are stressed right now. They have big targets, not enough pipeline, fewer operational and support resources due to layoffs, and worsening sales efficiency numbers with fewer reps expected to hit their quotas.
All the ingredients for a multi-partner sales program are already in place:
- The majority of Account Executives are bought into selling with partners. The Salesforce State of Sales 2026 report emphasized that ‘89% of sales professionals say partner selling is increasingly important to hit revenue targets’.
- PartnerTap’s platform already has all the functionality in place to operationalize, automate, and scale a multi-partner selling program.
- And large companies already have an existing partner ecosystem that wants to make more money with you…. they’re just waiting to be orchestrated.
The Partner Executive’s 2026 Gift for Your CRO
What if you could hand your CRO something early in 2026 that materially improves pipeline coverage, win rates, deal velocity, and gives sales a competitive advantage? That’s what a great multi-partner selling program looks like, and what it enables for sales:
- Account Executives orchestrate influence early around each customer and buyer – before there’s even a qualified opportunity. They’re able to engage the right partners around each account, with the right messaging, to influence the buyer and get them predisposed to choosing your solutions. They’re able to do this because they have real-time visibility to all the partner sellers already engaged with their buyers.
- Sales Reps focus on the most-likely-to-buy accounts, know which partners can help them sell into each account, and see all the whitespace gaps they can fill – right inside their CRM, Tableau or Power BI dashboard, or Sales Agent. They know which accounts these are because PartnerTap gives them a combined view of your company’s CRM data + propensity-to-buy data + partners’ CRM and propensity-to-buy data all mapped and triangulated in one place.
- Sales Agents recommend which partner(s) a rep should work with based on which partner(s) already have existing relationships or MSAs with each account…. and then tell them exactly who to call for each of their accounts.
- Marketing is running Sales Activation Campaigns that connect sales reps with partners on the top priority sales motions.
- Channel marketing is running Partner-to-Partner Activation Campaigns that kick off sales conversations between partners around the new logo accounts most likely to buy your products.
At PartnerTap we have a clear understanding of what this multi-partner selling program looks like, what it requires, how it scales, and what it delivers. And I’m confident because we’ve done this before.
Sounds like too much? Think you can wait?
Thinking of putting this off to 2027? Good luck. The Chief Partner Officer role has become a revolving door with an average tenure of just 13-25 months. The #1 reason for partner executive turnover is they didn’t show rapid, profitable growth. It’s always about pipeline, sales, and revenue.
Re-designing and launching entirely new partner programs won’t hit your bottom line for at least a year. Similarly, focusing on partner experience improvements are important, but they don’t help you keep your job. If you want to buck the high-turnover trend then we recommend you focus on just three things:
- Help sales by activating more partner-sourced pipeline
- Empower sales to orchestrate multi-partner sales motions around their buyers
- Contribute more to indirect revenue from your top channel partners
Putting $$ on the board is what keeps executives in their seat at the revenue table. Investing in a strong multi-partner selling program will give you the net-new numbers you need.
Run a multi-partner selling proof of concept in 90 days
So, let’s make it happen. In the next week we will be co-launching an offer with Bridge Partners to help technology companies design and run multi-partner selling programs that deliver measurable impact within 90 days, with global expansion options beyond that.
Impress your entire C-suite
Wait, there’s more upside than just impressing your Chief Revenue Officer. Showing the impact of your multi-partner program will make everyone in your c-suite happy:
- Chief Marketing Officers will love your multi-partner selling program because it’ll give their marketers the multi-partner data they need to triangulate the best ABM lists for co-marketing campaigns, programs, and events. Furthermore, marketing leaders can now ensure the right messaging and revenue plays are carried through to the sales teams with automated sales campaigns.
- Chief Partner Officers will get the additional benefit that it turns PAMs into data-driven pipeline drivers for their partners and your sales teams, and hopefully puts to bed the ‘hug-and-chug’ image of your team.
- Chief Product Officers will love your multi-partner selling program because it gives them a structured and automated way to align the top ISVs for their line of business and activate multi-partner sales campaigns designed to strengthen your moat around your customer base.
- Chief Financial Officers will like your multi-partner selling program because of the higher sales efficiency and lower cost of sale.
- Chief Security Officers will be happy because partner managers and sales reps no longer need to email around sensitive customer lists and instead are sharing approved customer data through a GDPR-compliant data-sharing policy governance platform. The best part is that PartnerTap’s data sharing platform has already been approved by companies including Salesforce, SAP, American Express GBT, HPE, and many other publicly traded companies.
To recap: to impress your CRO in 2026, focus your best resources on a 90-day multi-partner selling pilot and put those $$ on the board.
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]]>Revenue is Now Multi-Partner
The highest-performing revenue organizations no longer measure success by how many reps they hire or how many calls they make. They win based on how effectively they orchestrate multiple partners around accounts and opportunities at scale.
The revenue leader’s mandate moves from:
- “How do we sell more?” to
- “How do we activate the full power of our ecosystem to source and influence every deal?”
What B2B Enterprise Revenue Demands Now
Revenue leaders are no longer defined by sales execution alone. They now own multi-partner sales play design.
Elite CROs already operate this way. They treat partners as a primary growth lever not a support function. They build GTM models where multi-partner influence is intentional, measurable, and repeatable. They align sales, partners, and product around shared outcomes rather than siloed motions. And they operate with a clear assumption that no meaningful enterprise deal is EVER won alone.
If this mindset feels unfamiliar, the data backs it up. Enterprise buying decisions are influenced by six to seven partners across the buying journey. Jay McBain highlights this research in a recent article, a clever play on “6–7” (and a funny read if you have kids over eleven) but more importantly, it reinforces the reality modern CROs are already designing for.
At the same time with market headwinds we’ve watched partner and channel teams be materially reduced across most organizations. The result is straightforward, sellers no longer have expanded partner teams hand holding them with the partner by sourcing opportunities, managing relationships, and driving enablement for them. More field level partner engagement is now owned in the field. Working effectively with partners is now a core selling skill. Sales leadership and enablement must step in to equip reps to operate cross-functionally and partner-first. The most advanced companies are already enabling their field teams to engage partners early, intentionally, and collaboratively far beyond the old era of “chug and hug” training.
The Best Enterprise Rep’s are Multi-Partner Orchestrators
When you study the best enterprise reps, not the ones with a single breakout year followed by inconsistency, but the ones that have consistency year over year. They all have a common trait, they all work with partners. Year after year, they succeed because they know how to mobilize influence around their accounts, both internally and externally. Their strength isn’t just selling, it’s their ability to activate others to win together.
The Model That’s Breaking
- Product-centric pitches
- One-to-one selling motions
- Reactive partner engagement (bringing a partner in late)
The Model That Wins
- Sellers are accountable for activating the right partners early
- Influence is built before pipeline is created
- The rep leads their coalition of partners around their buyers and opportunities
The best reps don’t ask, “Who do I sell to?”
They ask, “Who do I need aligned to win this account?”
What a Top-Tier Enterprise Rep Looks Like in 2026
1. Laser-focused on their territory and the partners that influence and surround their accounts
Every rep owns accounts but the ones that activate the partners on the other side of those accounts have a higher probability of winning. Oftentimes knowing who is on the other side takes hours and teams of people to provide a simple list of partners a seller should be engaging early. The reason this is so hard is territories aren’t created equally across companies. Each account requires different partner relationships across their territories. These “account lists” are often hidden or siloed across the organization. No matter what every seller needs to know all of the different people they should be working with across the companies different partner types:
- Global system integrators & systems integrators
- Cloud partners
- ISVs
- Industry specialists
- Resellers
They know:
- Who has relationships in each account
- Who influences which stakeholders
- Which partners work best together
This is no longer tribal knowledge, it’s core job competency.
2. Partners Work With Them and For Them
These reps don’t need to “ask for favors.”
They align incentives and outcomes so partners are motivated to engage together.
Their job is to:
- Create clarity on why this deal matters to each partner
- Align multiple partners around a single customer outcome
- Coordinate action so partners reinforce not fragment the message
The best reps become the single point of orchestration within their territories.
3. Multi-Partner by Default, Not by Exception
Today:
- One partner is rarely enough
- Multi-solution deals are the norm
- Buyers expect integrated answers, not point solutions
Top reps build deal teams inside of their own companies that work cross functionally with their coalition of partners as a standard operating model. This is intentionally designed around the best outcomes with the customer at the center.
4. Technology Augments Judgment, Doesn’t Replaces It
AI and automation don’t replace the rep, they amplify their leverage.
Reps are guided by:
- Where partner influence already exists
- Which partner combinations historically win
- What actions will move a deal forward fastest
The rep knows if they are leading the deal or if they are supporting their partners to lead and win the deal on their behalf. They are using ecosystem intelligence across their accounts and opportunities instead of gut instinct.
How Revenue Organizations Must Adapt
Revenue leaders must change the system around the rep:
- Compensation rewards partner-influenced and partner-sourced outcomes
- Enablement teaches partner co-selling strategies, not just product knowledge
- Forecasting includes partner signals and influence data
- Territories are designed around ecosystem density, not just accounts
- Multi-partner visibility is available to all reps wherever they work, right inside their CRM and other systems they use every day
You don’t scale this by hiring more reps. You scale with automation providing every rep more leverage.
This Is How Revenue Is Won in 2026
The winners will be the companies where:
- Revenue leaders design multi-partner sales plays
- Enterprise sellers act as orchestrators
- Partners are activated early, often, and together
Revenue today is no longer driven by individuals, it’s driven by multi-partner orchestrators.
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]]>
SAP’s Industry-leading Blueprint for Multi-Partner Sales
Authors:
- Laura Merkelo, Senior Director, Power of 3 Partner Sales Program, SAP
- Rebecca Jones, Chief Growth Officer, Bridge Partners
- Judy Loehr, Chief Product Officer, PartnerTap
Partners have been co-selling with SAP Account Executives for decades. Sometimes deals start with opportunistic introductions; other times, the reps have known each other for 15 years.
But every Q1, territories are re-assigned and co-selling grinds to a halt. It can take all Q1 for partner teams to understand new sales territories and plays, identify the right target accounts, and rebuild joint business plans. That only leaves nine months to build pipeline and sell.
SAP’s New “Power of 3” Multi-Partner Sales Program
While most technology companies are still debating whether to invest in co-selling transformation, SAP is already five steps ahead. Led by Darryl Gray, SVP of ISV Partners, SAP has launched one of the industry’s most advanced multi-partner sales initiatives: Power of 3.
The Power of 3 program is SAP’s scaled “better together” sales motion with ISVs, GSIs, and resellers. Where many companies run these plays informally, SAP has built a highly scalable program fueled by new technology from PartnerTap and strategy + execution support from Bridge Partners.
The program launched at SAP’s Worldwide Partner Manager Summit, where SAP trained global and regional partner managers on PartnerTap’s platform, introduced the Power of 3 program, and invited top-tier ISV partners to participate.
What makes SAP’s approach groundbreaking isn’t just the strategy—it’s the speed and scale of execution. As the largest company in Europe and one of the largest software companies in the world, SAP is setting the industry standard for multi-partner selling.
Whether you’re ready to lead these sales plays within your own ecosystem or simply want to participate more effectively in plays orchestrated by the world’s largest cloud and technology companies, SAP’s “Power of 3” playbook offers a tested blueprint.
SAP’s “Power of 3” Playbook
Here’s how SAP is operationalizing multi-partner selling at scale:
1. Scale Up Co-Selling with Your Top Revenue-Driving Partners
Move from reactive, opportunistic, one-off co-selling to a systematized, orchestrated, and accountable motion with your most important partners. SAP does this by rolling out PartnerTap to all Solex and Endorsed ISV partners, automating account mapping, giving partners comprehensive product-level whitespace analysis, and enabling partner managers to run precision targeting sessions with each partner.
2. Invest in a Partner Ecosystem Management Platform
Mapped partner account data is the foundation for scalable, insight-driven multi-partner selling. SAP uses PartnerTap to generate AI-ready mapped data that will power co-sell agents for field sellers. This isn’t a future-state vision—it’s happening now.
3. Develop Your Multi-Partner Sales Strategy and Playbook
A clear, repeatable strategy is essential for enabling cross-partner execution at scale. SAP works with Bridge Partners to design the Power of 3 strategy and playbook – an operational framework that supports thousands of partners and sellers.
4. Accelerate 2026 Business Planning
Annual planning becomes faster and sharper when you use mapped whitespace to identify top opportunities early. SAP partner managers and partners leverage PartnerTap’s mapped product-level whitespace data to identify the best SAP customers for each ISV to focus on, dramatically streamlining 2026 business planning. Executive teams then use these target account lists to design sales territories, compensation structures, marketing campaigns and sales enablement content.
5. Train and Enable Sales Teams to Become World-Class Co-Sellers
Effective co-selling starts with helping your teams adopt a partner-first mindset. SAP provides ongoing training and change management to help sellers shift from lone-ranger habits to a partner-first mindset, ensuring smoother multi-partner engagement. Multi-partner selling requires cross-company coordination at scale – and that only works when everyone is equipped to build trust and momentum with peers.
6. Prepare Campaigns and Sales Content
With targets locked in, marketing and enablement teams can begin crafting the campaigns and sales tools that power each sales play. SAP partner managers and partners now complete account mapping, targeting, and business planning in early Q4, giving marketing and enablement two months to develop sales play content before launching new pipeline-generating motions in January 2026.
7. Activate Multi-Partner Sales Plays Early in Q1
Kick off sales plays as soon as new sales territories are finalized to maximize pipeline-building runway. SAP uses PartnerTap’s Co-Sell Engine to run sales play workflows that automate the double opt-in and introduction process across sales reps at each company.
8. Proactively Manage Multi-Partner Sales Engagements
Provide active oversight and coaching on top-priority deals. With precision targeting enabled by proper account mapping, SAP, ISV and GSI partners have already identified the SAP customers most likely to buy each ISV solution and aligned them with the GSI that has the strongest existing relationship. Given their high value, these target accounts warrant proactive monitoring of sales engagement and progress. Bridge Partners manages this process for SAP, proactively coaching SAP and ISV sellers on how to engage and co-sell effectively with their GSI counterparts. This ensures every deal has the momentum, clarity, and collaboration it needs to close.
9. Track Net-New Pipeline and Revenue
Preparing, operationalizing, and scaling a multi-partner sales program requires significant commitment. Tracking and celebrating net-new pipeline and revenue driven by each multi-partner sales play ensures visibility and momentum. SAP and Bridge Partners use PartnerTap pipeline attribution reports to monitor and report on new pipeline and revenue driven by each sales play with each partner.
10. Celebrate Multi-Partner Selling Behaviors
Recognition drives behavior change. SAP recognizes top-performing co-sellers in team meetings and quarterly events. When sellers see their peers getting recognition for selling with partners, they take notice and adapt.
The Accelerators: Technology, Expertise, and Program Support
A multi-partner sales transformation of this magnitude requires all three:
- Technology for automation, data, and sales collaboration workflows that make scale possible.
- Expertise to design your strategy and program from specialists who know what good looks like.
- Program support to help partner and sales teams move quickly and effectively.
PartnerTap: The New Technology for Multi-Partner Selling
SAP selected PartnerTap as the technology foundation for their Power of 3 program for several reasons:
- Secure Data Sharing Platform: For the first time ever, SAP is sharing their customer data with partners through digital clean rooms that give both parties full control over what data is shared.
- Automated Account Mapping and Precision Targeting: PartnerTap automates account mapping and product-level whitespace analysis, enabling SAP and their partners to identify the best accounts to target in minutes rather than months.
- Co-Sell Engine for Sales Play Activation: PartnerTap’s Co-Sell Engine automates co-selling and partner-to-partner (P2P) sales play activation through workflows that handle opt-ins and introductions at unlimited scale.
- Attribution Reports: PartnerTap’s attribution reporting tracks net-new pipeline and revenue from each sales play and each partner, giving executives clear visibility into program ROI.
Bridge Partners: Strategic Program Design and Management
SAP selected Bridge Partners as their strategic consulting partner and worked closely with Laura Merkelo to design the Power of 3 strategy, develop the playbook, and support ongoing program execution. The program is now underway and preparing for the next wave of Power of 3 sales plays that launch in January to jump-start new pipeline for FY2026.
Bridge Partners provides:
- Strategy and program design for multi-partner selling
- Comprehensive playbook development and partner sales enablement
- Program execution and seller coaching
- Performance monitoring and optimization
If you’re an SAP partner interested in learning more about SAP’s Power of 3 Multi-Partner Sales Playbook, contact Laura Merkeo at [email protected].
To discuss how PartnerTap can help your company operationalize and scale multi-partner selling, contact them here.
To explore how Bridge Partners can accelerate your multi-partner program with strategy and program design and execution services, contact them here.
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]]>The post The Multi-Partner Selling Imperative for 2026 appeared first on PartnerTap.
]]>Whether you’re a hyperscaler that needs to drive more consumption, or a tech company building your strategic plan for next year, scaling multi-partner selling better be a top priority for 2026.
50% of sellers miss their targets
Most revenue executives have looked externally to explain their declining sales numbers. They point to macroeconomic uncertainty, AI budget shuffles, and cite budget freezes. And yes, these external factors are real and contribute to missed sales targets each quarter.
But executives need to also look inward. The market changes over the past 5 years distracted CROs and CFOs from a bigger change impacting sales performance. The B2B buying process has completely changed, yet sales DNA and playbooks haven’t changed.
- Business buyers have changed how they evaluate and purchase technology solutions. They now turn to experts they trust for which products to consider and which companies to work with [Forrester].
- Deal dynamics are more complex, with at least seven partners now surrounding every mid-market and enterprise account [McKinsey].
- Deals are influenced by partners and experts advising your buyers long before your newest Account Executive assigned to their account ever talks with them.
Sales organizations stuck in 2016 won’t hit their numbers in 2026.
Sales is at a Breaking Point
The sales process must evolve. When sellers get their new territories in Q1 they should not start calling in to these accounts trying to build new relationships. Instead, sellers should engage and learn from the partners already involved in their accounts. Understanding which partners have influence and figuring out how to align with these partners should be the top priority when Account Executives get their new accounts. The successful AE of the next ten years will be those sellers that can orchestrate influence around the buyers and decision-makers before, during and after the sale.
The need for multi-partner selling
Every big company already drives revenue with partners. That’s how they got big. The sales reps that get invited to President’s Club already co-sell with partners, that’s how they crush their quotas. But co-selling today is an opportunistic or one-off process. We wrote about the business imperative for companies to scale-up co-selling with their best partners back in 2024. The need for co-selling today is even greater and more complex because co-selling with just one or two partners is no longer enough.
Winning in 2026 requires multi-partner selling. Setting sales teams up to hit their quotas and company sales targets requires an investment in new multi-partner sales programs, new partner sales tools, co-selling skills, and access to multi-partner data so Account Executives can collaborate with all the partners influencing their buyers.
Multi-partner selling examples
Multi-partner selling takes co-selling to the Nth degree by orchestrating influence and collaborating with multiple partners on the same accounts. Here are some real-life examples:
- Technology Partners Co-Selling with SIs: Two or more technology partners recommend each other’s solutions because they’re complementary, create better outcomes for customers, and keep competitors out of their accounts. Instead of working in isolation, these partners share customer whitespace information with each other, and work with the same SIs to sell an integrated solution that addresses the buyer’s complete needs.
- Co-Selling with Resellers: Companies that sell through channel partners already work closely with VARs that have established relationships with target buyers. These resellers provide the local presence and trusted advisor status, but often need co-selling support from a vendor’s product specialist to win deals. In a multi-partner sales motion, the vendor’s product specialist or channel sales rep, the reseller, and often another technology or cloud partner work together from the beginning of the sales cycle to deliver a complete solution to the customer.
- Co-Selling with GSIs: Global systems integrators have the most coveted relationships in the enterprise. Their customers literally pay them millions of dollars each year to advise and solve their biggest strategic challenges. Everyone wants to co-sell with GSIs, but doing so effectively requires that Account Executives are well-trained in the nuanced art of co-selling and understand their supporting role within these deals.
- Co-Selling with Hyperscalers: Hyperscalers have locked down billions of dollars’ worth of commitments to spend through their marketplaces. Within just a few years, these cloud commitments and credits have become the tech industry’s new corporate credit card. Everyone wants to transact through these marketplaces to make purchasing easier and tap into the unspent committed cloud spend. Hyperscalers call transacting through their marketplace “co-sell”, but this limited focus on the sales transaction misses the first 26 miles of the marathon sales cycle.
- Distribution-Led Co-Selling with Multiple ISVs: Distributors are quickly becoming go-to orchestrators of multi-partner sales plays. By pairing complementary ISV solutions, and coordinating with their network of resellers, distributors can deliver larger, more strategic solutions to end customers. In this motion, distributors work directly with the ISV channel teams to align messaging, combine value propositions, and drive bigger deal sizes through bundled offerings. This alignment not only accelerates revenue for all parties but also strengthens the distributor’s role as an orchestrator and revenue driver rather than just a point-of-sales transaction and fulfillment service.
- Reseller-Led Solutions with Hardware and Software Vendors: Resellers are increasingly turning into GSIs that can deliver complete, multi-vendor solutions that combine hardware, software, cloud components, and professional services to solve complex customer challenges. In this motion, resellers bring together multiple ISVs and OEM vendors, aligning their sales teams with product specialists from each vendor early in the sales cycle, and sell an integrated outcome. The result is a seamless customer experience where hardware performance, software capability, cloud scalability, and the services to manage it all come from a single supplier.
Make multi-partner selling a top priority for 2026
The biggest cloud and technology companies are launching multi-partner sales programs with their best partners. Companies that fail to orchestrate partner influence around buying teams will continue to lose deals and miss targets.
A multi-partner sales transformation initiative is a journey, not a destination. But using the “Power of 3” framework, PartnerTap’s technology for automation, and strategic expertise and program support from experts at Bridge Partners you’re able to build your foundation and start running multi-partner sales programs within months, not years.
The executives who understand the new multi-partner selling reality and act now will hit their 2026 numbers. Those who don’t will be explaining to their board why they missed sales targets, again.
The choice is yours – invest in the new era of multi-partner selling or risk being left behind.
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]]>The post The Wake Up Call: What Does Your Operating Plan Say About Partnerships? appeared first on PartnerTap.
]]>You’re spending money on partner programs, but why?
The answer should be simple: To sell more. Period.
I’ve talked to several executives who still see their partner managers as relationship builders. Don’t get me wrong this is a very important part of the job but let’s be real, if that’s how your executive team views your partner org, you’re on the wrong side of the P&L. (Yes, that means the cost center side.)
In this market, partner teams must drive revenue and prove it.
Here’s the real problem: The systems partner teams have today don’t drive revenue. PRM is necessary to build a foundation of tracking and management but it’s not going to magically “source or influence” more revenue for your company. Partner teams lack the systems to “do more with less” It’s a huge problem because in today’s market they need to deliver the gold, PARTNER SOURCED REVENUE.
Here’s the real rub, sales and marketing teams have the best-in-class systems and tools. Partner teams? PRM maybe.
Jay McBain talks about the early adopters of technology in his “end of resell” post. The most innovative companies today are using systems to orchestrate the 28 moments prior to a sale transaction and have full attribution tracking. Take a look at your partner tech stack. What systems do you have that can truly help top of funnel motions? What systems are you using to find the gold and then fully attribute to revenue?
The truth is, partner teams haven’t lacked ambition. They’ve lacked the systems to move fast, scale impact, and automatically track revenue back to their work. The good news? That’s finally changing.
New tech is here to identify and source the gold partner-sourced pipeline. automate account mapping, and enable direct co-selling between reps and partners, without needing partner managers to be the middlemen for every touchpoint. The partner team continues to do more strategy, relationship building and assisting the sales teams to close more business that they (the partner teams) have generated. This is how partner teams start landing on the left side of the P&L.
The Hidden Opportunity Inside Your Partner Ecosystem
Every ecosystem large or small has untapped revenue hiding in plain sight:
- Overlapping high propensity new logo accounts to my partners install base
- Overlapping product level whitespace for increased wallet share across companies
- Opportunities in flight across your high propensity new logo accounts
- Shared customers aligned on products where integrations need to be sold
- Aligned account executives waiting to be connected
The companies winning today are those that are turning relationships into revenue. They map the money. They activate through channel and/or co-selling motions that were hidden in the data. And they measure real impact. Partner teams should not be fighting for credit, when partner teams can drive net new logo introductions (at scale), and they have the dashboards and reports to prove that revenue started with them, the revenue was truly influenced by them, there’s no fighting in boardrooms. The already lean partner team becomes indispensable.
1. Partner Teams Move from “Supporting” Revenue to Driving It
No one in the C-suite cares about how many meetings or trainings you ran last quarter. They care about:
- Partner-sourced pipeline How much is coming in, and how much will close? Ask yourself: how many of the right targeted AE-to-AE or AE-to-Channel Manager introductions does it take to get to one sourced deal? And how many more could you make if those intros weren’t manual? Without a system, partner managers are maxed out. Partner and Channel Managers need software to scale more top of funnel activities.
- Influenced revenue What was your role in creating it, moving it forward and over the line? Influence happens in the gaps, in the 28 moments before a sale, when sellers share intel, your partners whispering to your buyers behind closed doors. This influence can be orchestrated at scale. But if every interaction depends on Slack/Teams DMs or inbox roulette, you’ll never capture or unlock the full value of what partners can truly bring to the table. This will never scale without more people.
- Cost per $1 of partner-driven revenue Are we spending smart to scale partner motions profitably? Manual processes aren’t just slow, they’re expensive. You’re paying partner teams to play matchmaker, instead of scaling through tech and letting the partner teams spend more time moving more new business forward. If you’re not automating, you’re not only bleeding margin, you’re absolutely missing out on revenue your competitors are being ushered into.
2. Execute an ecosystem data sharing strategy
The best companies are data-driven, yet many fail to procure and harness ecosystem wide data. A robust data sharing strategy gives sellers the right insights and relationships at the right time. This is the gold, uncovering deals they’d never know existed. Most partner and channel managers don’t know what data they should be requesting from partners to drive effective GTM success.
3. Embed partner data everywhere
Partner insights must be seamlessly integrated into CRM, account planning software, sales enablement platforms, Slack and Teams, everywhere sales teams live. The easier the access, the more sellers will take action. There needs to be a bottoms up approach to serving partner data to sellers. The best sellers know how to work with partners, feed them the data, that gets them the right partner with the right relationships necessary to win the deal. Now in tandem with a bottoms up approach there should be top down orchestration approach to fully unlock the hidden revenue at scale.
4. Orchestrate Automated Co-selling Workflows
Once your organization has a true ecosystem data lake of the mapped relationships and product level whitespace analysis, it’s time to become the orchestrator of your ecosystem. Bring sellers together across multiple companies around the best accounts. I’m talking net new logo introductions these are the deals that no one can be fights in a boardroom for credit. Sellers, can opt in to work together or not, but your partner team is allowing the richest data to inform the best new sales motions. I always say, if you have a vast ecosystem, you need to take control and orchestrate it with data. If you are driving the plays, you hold the keys, you control the speed and have the ammunition in the boardroom with the full picture of defendable attribution.
5. Enable Your Sellers to Work With Partners
When partner data is readily available where sellers work all the time. Train these modern sellers to orchestrate the ecosystem in their territories. (more on this my previous article https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/biggest-shift-happening-enterprise-sales-how-win-cassandra-gholston-sygmc/ )
Partnerships Is a Revenue Play
When your board asks where the next $100M will come from, make sure partnerships are part of the equation.
Companies that align their partner teams to real revenue KPIs and provide these teams with the systems and innovations available they supercharge growth.
Double down. Measure what matters. And activate the spark that fuels your next chapter of growth.
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]]>Inside the largest companies in the world, AI isn’t a pilot program anymore. They’ve built internal AI boards, they’ve selected LLMs and are actively training them on proprietary data and now they’re deploying agents.
AI is Unlocking Superpowers
From true precision propensity models to predictive revenue roadmaps, the speed and intelligence it’s enabling across Go-to-Market teams is fascinating.
KPMG‘s Todd Lohr was quoted in their June 2025, AI Quarterly Pulse Survey, his observations echo exactly what I’m hearing from both our customers and prospects.
Our clients are no longer asking if AI will transform their business, they’re asking how fast it can be deployed. This isn’t just about technology adoption. It’s about fundamental business transformation.” – Todd Lohr, Head of Ecosystems, KPMG
Further the study uncovers that Enterprise leaders are accelerating their agent strategies. 51% now plan to deploy a mix of pre-built and internally built agents (up from 27% last quarter). Pre-built-only dropped from 67% to 46%.
But here’s the Billion-Dollar Blind Spot in Enterprise AI for Go-to-Market
Even the most advanced agents can’t make decisions with data they can’t see. And most companies are starving their AI of the richest, most revenue-ready signals the ones that live outside their four walls.
Imagine, your AI identifies 100 high-propensity accounts, it predicts their next likely purchase. Then it drafts messaging, sequences, sales plays, and contacts.
Your sellers execute flawlessly…
The results, well, they are the results that everyone is getting – just ok
Meanwhile, your sales rep’s partner is one phone call away from the decision maker. They’ve worked with the CTO for a decade, they’re running a parallel initiative.
They could make an intro TODAY.
But your AI didn’t know any of that because your partner ecosystem data isn’t connected.
Here’s what AI can see inside your walls:
- Website visits
- Content downloads
- Installed products
- Intent scores
- Every piece of data in your data warehouses
Here’s what it doesn’t see:
- Which partner rep can accelerate the next meeting
- Which partner has the strongest executive relationship
- Who’s already engaged in complementary deals
- Which people across your partners account teams align with your account teams
- Who actually WANTS to co-sell (not just says they do)
The AI Ready Ecosystem Data Layer
I spoke to a customer yesterday who’s been using PartnerTap for three years. He said:
“Since day one PartnerTap data has helped us sell more. Three years in, the mapped partner data in our PartnerTap account is now our competitive advantage. Today this valuable AI-ready ecosystem data that now is being used to build and inform agents.”
This is the future:
Ecosystem aware agents
Ones that know:
- Which partners are already influencing the deal
- Who has executive relationships
- Where complementary selling motion is already in play
- Who’s actually willing to co-sell
It’s happening, the agentic revolution is real.
The question CRO’s should be asking, Is our partner data ready?
At PartnerTap, we’ve been building toward this moment since 2016.
Our north star and heart beat has always been clear and has not waivered: drive more revenue for our customers.
We’re sellers ourselves, and we know what it takes to win. That’s why we built PartnerTap to give sellers and partners the data they actually need to drive real pipeline growth and turn it into closed-won deals.
This is no longer a hypothesis or theory. It’s execution at scale. And we’re just getting started.
Shoutout to Judy Loehr, our Chief Product Officer.
She was right on all the boring data sharing parts. When most people wanted flashy features, Judy Loehr focused on prioritizing the foundation: the core data sharing system so that publicly traded companies can and do share data. Then helping companies build up this powerful ecosystem data lake. That’s what it has always been for so many years. It wasn’t always glamorous, but it was exactly what we needed to both inform and build ecosystem-aware agents that can power revenue at scale.
PartnerTap would not be what it is today without you Judy. You pushed hard to built it the right way from the start. If you don’t know her give her a follow.
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]]>For me, it was a happy hour I wasn’t invited to.
I consistently kept the #1 spot in a division and team I helped build from the ground up. Top performer. Accountable. All in. And yet, I still became the outsider.
A new leader had just been been promoted, from a sales leader in another division to the Senior Director over ours. One of his first moves? He gathered every male sales rep without their leaders from every team and took them out for drinks. Team building, he called it. Rooting out what needed to change to make this division better.
Not one woman was invited. Not even me, the #1 rep.
And let’s be honest: most of those men weren’t even performing. The women on the teams? We were the ones hitting and exceeding the number. But no one asked us what needed to change.
That moment wasn’t about drinks.
It was about access. It was about who got protected, who got included, and who got the inside track.
But looking back now it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
Because had I been brought into that circle… Had I been invited, included… Had I been part of his plan…
I might have never seen the vision of a new category.
Instead, I left for another leader quickly. I stepped into a brand new territory. New accounts. No relationships. No knowledge of those accounts. But I did have one thing: I knew the history of our partners’ companies.
Over the years, I had routed hundreds of leads to our partner companies. But in this new territory, I didn’t know a single seller at those companies. That was terrifying.
So I started from scratch. I begged the partner team for my territory aligned seller contacts at multiple partner companies. Some helped. Others “had to check on that.”
So I hit the pavement with tremendous focus. Every coffee. Every lunch. Every happy hour. I was building relationships from ground zero with my aligned partners. It was tedious. But within six weeks, I had a solid network of trusted partner sellers.
And with every inbound lead I received from marketing or my MDR, I looped in my partners immediately.
That’s when the flywheel kicked in: Give. Get. Sell. Repeat.
I now had a pipeline from inbound and my partners who were bringing me in. My deals closed faster and they were larger. My partners were co-selling with me. And somewhere in the middle of all that grind of account mapping, spreadsheets, being blocked by ineffective partner managers.
PartnerTap was born.
Because I didn’t just want to fix this problem for myself. I wanted to fix it for every seller out there.
No more spreadsheets. No more waiting on partner managers. No more chasing partner contacts that don’t match your patch. No more wasted time on people who will never help you close.
No more meetings with partners who don’t align on your accounts (I had too many of these to count)!
So yes, thank you. To the leader who made sure I knew I was being left out.
I love you and I’m grateful for you. Today, I’m publicly thanking you, because you helped me see something no one else saw. You lit the spark for a category no one had built yet.
And that was the moment the stakes changed for me. That moment lit the match, for PartnerTap, and the Fempire Ecosystem that would follow years later.
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]]>The post The biggest shift happening in enterprise sales (and how to win it) appeared first on PartnerTap.
]]>The rise of the Partner led model
Jay McBain, lead analyst at Canalys, notes that seven partners influence every enterprise buyer. In an average buying cycle, 13 stakeholders make up the decision committee, each shaped by multiple partners validating their choices.
Winning in this new era means aligning with those partners, not just to win new logos but for expansion, retention, and long-term growth. Companies that embrace a partner led motion must build multi-partner relationship data lakes with automation, introduce clean rooms, partner to partner automated co-selling workflows and AI insights and agents to get to the right information around who influences buyers at every stage and which partners will I make the most money with.
The companies that move fast will gain a massive competitive advantage. Those that lag? They don’t just risk falling behind, they will lose, just as we’ve seen in every major transformation. The AI revolution is no different. The only difference is the speed at which this revolution is moving.
What Partner led really means
Going partner led isn’t just about having a channel or alliances strategy, it’s about fundamentally changing how you sell. Partners must be core to your revenue motion, with partner-sourced and partner-influenced deals at the heart of your GTM strategy. To do this, companies must:
1. Align compensation to a Partner first model
If you want sellers to embrace partners, their incentives must reflect it. Aligning compensation across direct and partner teams drives real behavioral change. When sellers win bigger with partners, they’ll prioritize partnerships.
2. Enablement for the modern seller
Today’s sellers don’t just close deals, they orchestrate an ecosystem of partners across their territories. Enablement must teach them to leverage partnerships, co-selling effectively, building trust through an extended network. Shoutout to Eric Loper, CEO of 3Seven Consultingfor their work developing ” The Modern Seller Academy.” The best training I’ve seen for sellers in a partner led world.
3. Automation is a must
A partner led motion is only as strong as the tech supporting it. Traditional PRMs and basic account mapping tools won’t cut it. Companies need ecosystem driven co-selling platforms where partners and sellers can share insights, track opportunities, and engage in real-time. Sellers are given the right partner data visibility in their current workflow streams and systems they already use.
4. Execute an ecosystem data sharing strategy
The best companies are data-driven, yet many fail to procure and harness ecosystem wide data. A robust data sharing strategy gives sellers the right insights and relationships at the right time, uncovering deals they’d never know existed. Most partner and channel managers don’t know what data they should be requesting from partners to drive effective GTM success.
5. Embed partner data everywhere
Partner insights must be seamlessly integrated into CRM, email, and sales enablement platforms. The easier the access, the more sellers will use it, unlocking a true competitive edge.
6. Drive the right pipeline coverage
Companies that get this right aren’t just closing more deals, they’re closing bigger deals, faster. A partner led approach fuels pipeline growth within the exact ICP, focusing on accounts with the highest propensity to win.
The Time to Move is Now
Enterprise sales is changing fast. Some companies will lead. Others will fall behind. If you’re serious about scaling beyond billions, your partner led transformation journey is a must start today. The AI revolution is here, make sure your sales team is on the right side of it.
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]]>The post Co-Selling Best Practices appeared first on PartnerTap.
]]>You received an introduction to talk with a partner sales person about a mutual account…..now what? This article breaks down what to do, what not to do, and best practices for building a productive co-selling relationship with salespeople at your partners. These co-selling best practices are important for direct sales reps, partner sales reps, partner managers, channel sales reps, and channel managers.
Who needs to have co-selling conversations?
People in all of these roles should have regular co-selling conversations with partners:
- Direct sales reps
- Channel sales reps
- Channel managers
- Partner sales reps
- Partner Managers
Co-selling effectively with partners is a must-have sales skill in this next era of B2B selling.
We built PartnerTap to help every B2B sales professional co-sell with the right data, automation, and co-selling best practices to sell more and win. Official definition of co-selling available here.
Why have a co-selling introduction call?
Getting the chance to talk with a fellow sales person about one of your accounts is an opportunity not to be wasted. It’s an opportunity to:
- Learn something new about your account
- Understand who this person has relationships with inside your account
- Share information about your knowledge of the account
- Explore ways to make your customer more successful with a better-together approach
- Brainstorm ways to block out competitors
- Get competitive intelligence
- Strategize how to sell more into this account
- Figure out ways to land a new account
- Build trust, and introduce each other into more accounts
Best practice approach for initial co-selling conversations
An initial co-selling conversation isn’t the same as getting a lead from a partner. It’s a chance to learn about this fellow sales professional, share what you each know about your mutual accounts, and gain trust that can lead to access into more of your partner’s accounts.
- Get on the phone! Have an initial conversation with your counterpart about your mutual account. An email or text won’t get you what you need. Only a human-to-human conversation will give you the chance to compare notes, share information about what you each know about the company, and figure out if there’s more business or a new angle you could take with this account. Here are some conversation openers to get you started:
- “Thanks for getting on the phone with me, I find it’s the best way to get to know each other and compare notes on [ACCOUNT NAME].”
- “How long have you been at [PARTNER COMPANY NAME]?”
- Let them get to know you. Start by sharing a few things about yourself. A little openness or vulnerability at the beginning of a call can really help open up the conversation. Work on building a personal rapport and let them know you value conversations with partners. And always remember that people remember how you make them feel, so be authentic.
- “I’ve been working with [MY COMPANY] for [X years/months], and I know how important it is to collaborate with partners like you.”
- “How long have you been selling into these types of accounts?”
- Get to know this person. You want to get a sense of how this partner approaches selling, treats their customers, and works with partners like you. Here are some questions that may help:
- “How do you typically engage with your customers?”
- “What’s your usual process when working with partners?”
- Be helpful. Be the first to share information about your mutual account. Sharing some valuable insight or information about your account shows that you’re not a taker and could be a valuable resource for them.
- Share what you know about the account’s business challenges and goals.
- If you haven’t engaged with the account at all, review as much information you can get your hands on and share anything you’ve learned in recent press, linkedin articles, 10K reports, CRM notes, etc.
- Offer insights on any recent conversations or activities within the account.
- Ask for their thoughts or experiences with the account—what’s working, what’s not.
- Explore if there are opportunities for joint selling efforts, such as combining products/services or leveraging relationships.
What NOT to do on an initial co-selling call
Consider this list the anti-best practices list. Doing these on your introductory call violates a first principle of co-selling: don’t be an a**hole.
- Don’t expect the partner to give you a lead. You are talking with this person for the first time, they’re not going to hand over their contacts or make an introduction until they get to know you.
- Don’t be a taker. Embracing a give-now-to-benefit-later mentality will serve you well over time.
- Don’t expect the partner to trust you just because your companies are official partners. People build relationships at the 1:1 level in the field. Each relationship has to be earned through trust and may take a few calls to remove the barriers.
Approach co-selling as an investment in your future
Even if there’s not a specific opportunity to go after together today, offer to stay in touch and keep your ears open for them. Sales careers are long. Building trusted relationships with sales professionals now will help your career for years to come.
Recommended reading:
- Go Beyond Random Acts of Co-Selling
- The Co-Selling Manifesto
- First principles of co-selling
- The Co-Selling Movement
- The official co-selling definition
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]]>It’s hard to scale beyond billions by yourself. The Co-Selling Manifesto spells out the hard truths, choices, urgency, and principles revenue leaders must embrace to avoid relegation.
I wrote this article for people to share with revenue executives who need to hear the unvarnished truth from someone outside their organization. Here are the top three punchlines:
- No one wants to build a new relationship with yet another vendor sales rep.
- B2B buyers already have people they trust who advise them on the products they should consider and the companies they should work with (Maria Chien, Forrester, 2023).
- There are 6 – 7 partners already involved in every account and sales deal (Forrester, 2024).
Selling with partners is no longer a nice-to-have option. The modern B2B buyer doesn’t want to talk with sales reps from every vendor, and they’re trusting sales reps less and less. Co-selling with partners that have existing relationships with buyers and customers has become a must-have GTM motion. Companies that continue “going it alone” will struggle to scale beyond billions.
The best sales reps have been winning more deals and making more money selling with partners for years. Just analyze who goes to club, and why they’re the top sellers.
But co-selling can’t be forced or bought. It requires an authentic win-win scenario for every partner involved that is centered around each buyer or customer.
Operationalizing and scaling a customer-centric co-selling program requires the right data, automation, workflows, and best practices. Top companies are already figuring out how to operationalize and scale new co-selling programs.
HARD TRUTHS: the status quo approach will slow your growth
- Sales playbook is dead: buyers don’t have relationships with your company’s sales reps, and don’t care to.
- New logos are scarce, but necessary to keep your cross-sell wheel growing.
- Partners don’t trust your sales reps. Too many sales reps have screwed partners over without consequences.
- Partner incentives are broken. You want more leads and intros from partners, but current incentives don’t outweigh the risks to partners when they bring their relationships to your reps.
URGENCY: CEOs and CROs must make co-selling a mandate
There are three critical reasons why companies must make co-selling a C-level mandate and priority:
- Growth: partner-led sales are the key to faster growth.
- Partners are the best source of new logo pipeline.
- Partner-sourced deals are twice as likely to close.
- Partner-sourced deals are worth twice as much.
- Sell with and co-sell motions can accelerate partner-sourced and partner-led sales.
- Customer success: sales should respect each customer’s existing relationships with SIs, ISVs, VARs, resellers, and cloud hyperscalers.
- Retention: if you don’t work with partners, someone else will. Competitors have incentives for partners to migrate your customers, but they’d rather help customers renew and expand with the right incentives.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Appoint a VP Co-Selling who reports to the CRO
- Align partner teams incentives to your core business (ie: helping grow sales of your core products or services)
- Don’t try to monetize your partners
- Ensure partners have incentives to help you source, expand and renew customers over time
- Treat co-selling as the sophisticated go-to-market strategy it is and ensure the program has the cross-functional support and resources to build, measure, and constantly improve over time
- Invest in a partner ecosystem platform that gives you the data, automation, and orchestration capabilities you need to sell more with, through, and across partners
Learn more about B2B co-selling:
- Go beyond “Random Acts of Co-Selling”
- The Co-Selling Transformation Playbook
- First-principles of co-selling
- The official definition of co-selling
- The emerging Co-Sell Quarterback role
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