The hiring trap many Partner Managers fall into

Partner management is one of the most exciting roles in SaaS—you’re at the intersection of strategy, sales, product, and ecosystem growth. The best PMs are entrepreneurial self-starters who thrive in ambiguity and see opportunity in every corner of the business. They don’t wait for someone to fix things for them; they go and do it.

But here is the trouble: some Partner Managers end up in the wrong job. They find themselves in roles with no revenue impact and little executive buy-in. I've seen some of the best performers burn out like scorched marshmallows hovering too close to the fire.

Building is always an element; a partner programme is hardly ever complete. But the truth is, it's not all in a PM’s control. I've interviewed countless PMs. The best ones ask the right questions and vet their role like investors. Basic due diligence during the hiring process can make all the difference between a thriving career and just another job.

How to diligence your next role

How do you separate the real opportunities from the dead-end jobs? You need to do a little bit of work. I am nearly constantly interviewing new candidates. The ones who come prepared with thoughtful, challenging insights make my day. Nothing is more dull than a week of interviews with candidates who keep asking the same boilerplate questions.

Outside-in due diligence

Outside-in research is all the nitty, gritty fact-checking you can do before directly talking to your target company. This includes some of the most apparent but crucial points:

• Product leadership: Do customers love it? Having 3.5 stars on the average review site is not enough; customers must love the product. No product, no revenue.

• Revenue growth and profitability: Does your target company have an impressive revenue growth track record? Most SaaS companies are private, making determining their actual revenue and profitability difficult. However, with every new investment round PR announcement, you might get a glimpse of the company's valuation and metrics.

• Employee growth: Similar to revenue growth, employee growth indicates the company's growth stage and health. This is typically very transparent on LinkedIn or LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Beware of companies that hire aggressively but have flat revenue. This can mean either one of two things: either this business is at the brink of a supernova revenue explosion, or it’s about to lay off employees.

• Investor backing: Does the business have strong investor backing, especially if it is private? Unless the company is pre-Series A, look for some of the top names in the VC and growth fund world. The investor landscape is a topic in itself, but based on who invested in the business, you can gauge what the likely strategy of the business is going to be. Spoiler alert: A Silicon Valley VC-backed AI company will not be happy with high growth; they will want substantial growth. On the other hand, a buyout PE-backed player might focus on decent growth and push for more productivity instead.

• Culture: Check all employee review sites. They will give you some indication of the type of people you will be working with.

• Tech stack & product: Does the company have a substantially differentiated technology underlying its product, or can other players replicate it with the same or more resources?

Don’t rely purely on online materials to answer some of the questions above. Reach out to people you know who work with or for your target company to get a bit of colour on what otherwise would only give you high-level facts.

Questions to ask during the hiring process

Now, you can only get so much information from outside sources. It is more important to ask the right questions from HR, your hiring manager, and the team you will be working with during the hiring process.

You want to make sure of:

• The company has existing revenue from partners—or a well-funded plan to grow it

• The CRO or CEO sees partnerships as a critical GTM motion, not an afterthought

• Partner-sourced revenue is in sales comp plans, and the team values your contributions

• Strong integrations and co-selling motions that drive real customer value

Here are a few example questions for your hiring manager:

• What % of revenue is partner-driven today? (If it’s near zero, why?)

• Who owns partnerships in leadership, and how senior are they?

• What’s the most significant internal pushback partnerships get?

• What % of the sales team actively engages with partners?

• What does the partner team focus on? (e.g., pipeline, ARR, CSat, etc.)

• How are partners compensated?

• How do you run partner enablement?

• What’s the company’s top priority for partners in the next 12 months?

• What is the expectation for me in this role, and what does success look like in 6, 12, and 24 months?

Look for an opportunity, not just a job

Make your next job an opportunity to build a track record; don’t just look for another paycheck. The best Partner Managers will vet companies as if they would invest their hard-earned money in them.

Want to break into a high-impact partnership role? My network and I are always looking for great people to work with.

If you want to build a thriving partner business, fill out this survey below and leave your email address in the final question, adding the comment: ‘Interested in launching a partner business’. Depending on a few time constraints, I will do my best to respond to your note.

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If partnerships and ecosystems are so great, why do many SaaS companies struggle to generate significant partner revenue? In this article, I wanted to highlight a few root causes. I’ve made some of these mistakes myself and learned personally from them. I am convinced that each of these challenges can be overcome.

1. Customer, what customer?

Too often, we obsess over partner activity, losing sight of the customer. It’s no rocket science; partnerships only succeed when they create substantial customer value; think 10x, not 1+1 = 2. Customers should have an undeniable reason to buy into the joint solution.

Assuming you are selling a strong product, this will only be possible if partners offer something your direct sales team cannot, such as deep vertical expertise, a clear understanding of the customer’s business model and profitability levers, or integration with other solutions.

What does not work are partners who tag along in a sales process, waiting for an order form to drop. Vice versa, software vendors who chase partners for leads and do not understand the partner’s customer base are doomed to fail.

If a partnership doesn’t create exponential customer value, it surely won’t create exponential revenue for you, either.

Ensure exponential value creation for the customer:

• Why would a customer go with you and your partner? What do you both have another vendor cannot offer

• You and your partner should address the same buyer

• Jointly create your materials, pitch, demo, etc, which articulate how the combined solution generates value in a way a standalone product cannot, e.g., tap

2. Designing for failure

Isolated partner business with siloed OKRs

Many SaaS companies, especially early-stage ones, fail to properly align their partner programs with their overall business objectives or OKRs. Partner business leaders who are left to create their isolated objectives and fend for themselves are unlikely to succeed in building a substantial business.

Such misalignment might often lead to a lack of clear partnership objectives, inadequate resource allocation, and a partner programme not designed for the overall business. Partnerships will struggle to gain traction without being included in the overall growth strategy.

Partner leaders might just have to win a seat at the table. Build a partner business that nobody can ignore. Create visibility and aim to include a partner OKR in every part of the business, such as product, marketing, sales, and operations.

Key results could include:

• Generate $30m in partner-sourced revenue in FY25

• Increase partner-influenced pipeline contribution from 10% to 25%

• Achieve an average partner deal size of $250k, up from $175k

• Ensure at least 70% of active partners contribute at least one deal per quarter

• Sign 5 new strategic technology alliances that generate at least $1m in pipeline each

• Build a partner marketplace and promote 25 partner-driven integrations in FY25

No GTM strategy for partner sales

If a partner leader does not meet with his CRO once a week, that’s not a good sign. Partnerships require a tight-knit go-to-market strategy that maps out how partners contribute to overall ARR. Partner sales leaders and CROs should be jointly accountable for delivering partner revenue.

Make partners an integral part of overall GTM execution:

• Define a partner-led sales motion with a structured co-selling approach

• Include partner sales in your regular forecast calls

• Build a partner revenue growth plan by identifying where in the sales cycle partners add value

• Align partner motions with existing sales motions, whether through referrals, resellers, or co-selling deals - make sure compensation and incentives align at every stage

• Communicate a high-level version of your strategy to your closest partners and include them in the overall ambition

Poor partner selection

You have a large book of partner business, yet little revenue. This means your Ideal Partner Profile does not reflect reality. Or your IPP may work, but most of your partners do not fit your IPP.

Partner managers chase big logos or well-established partners in their niche but do not consider whether partners have a real incentive to sell. While those logos look great on a slide or a press release, I’ve seen them too often on the bottom of the partner sales dashboard.

Review your portfolio and refine your IPP:

• Try to really understand your partners’ business and how exactly they make money. Identify partners that benefit from selling or referring your product

• Prioritise smaller, engaged partners over prominent names that will not actively drive business - sometimes it’s better to touch 80%+ of revenue of a more minor partner than fifth-wheeling a global household name consulting practice, which will only occasionally throw you a bone

• Use L3Y sales data to refine your IPP, segment partner revenue by segment, partner type, business model, and other categories

• Based on your refined IPP, build a predictive partner scoring model to evaluate customer overlap and the likelihood of co-selling

• Obviously, you can use tools to assess customer overlap as part of your initial diligence process

No partner sales team

Early startups typically have AEs that do partnerships on the side, hoping that partner relationships can be self-sustaining. If you have a killer product, this might work for a while. However, to amplify growth, you’ll need an active partner sales team to drive deals.

Hire your ideal partner team:

• Hire Partner Sales Managers whose sole job is to recruit, enable, and co-sell with partners

• Provide back-office support to help partner sellers navigate partner data tracking, legal negotiations, partner payments, and other critical infrastructure

• Treat your earliest partners like your own sales team by training, coaching, and rewarding them

Incentivise direct sales for partner deals

One of the most common blockers to partner sales is to create a channel conflict between partners and direct sales. If direct sales cannot earn a fair commission on partner-led deals, they will avoid them like the black death. If, on top of that, partners slow down sales cycles, your partner business has a close to zero chance of surviving.

Ensure a proper compensation structure:

• Reward AEs for partner-sourced referral deals. Ensure partner-influenced revenue counts toward quota retirement

• If your partner business focuses on generating pipeline, allow for collaboration between partners and SDRs

• Set clear rules of engagement that require sales engagement when a partner brings in a deal and enable the team to work with partners

• Design commission plans so that direct sales teams and partners are not competing for the same deals

3. Weak partner engagement

Lack of partner enablement

Enablement is one of the biggest levers for expanding revenue share within a partner, yet most organisations fall short in this area. Without strong enablement, partners struggle to sell and support your product effectively, leading to lost deals. On the flip side, some partners may not be committed to spending time on enablement. Unless these are new partners, they are likely doing plenty of business with your competitor.

Bring your enablement to life:

• Develop an onboarding journey that includes training, playbooks, and certifications

• Ideally, run training sessions in person, especially with your highest potential partners or, if you’re starting out, your early partner cohort

• Do not leave enablement to partner sellers, but assign a partner success team to actively engage partners, ensuring they have access to the right resources and support

Competitive pressure

Even with a well-designed partner program, competitive pressure can make getting more revenue share from partners challenging. Many SaaS companies struggle to differentiate their partner offering in a crowded market. Many partner leaders respond with superior margins.

However, raising a partner's margin is equivalent to providing exorbitant customer discounts—it’s not always about price. Put yourself in your partner’s shoes and consider how the partner is making money—not all partners care purely about margin.

Be clear about what you’re selling:

• What sets your partner program apart from competitors? Emphasise benefits and consider how it can help grow partner revenue

• Ensure the partner experience, including enablement, is at least on par with or better than those offered by competitors

• Regularly assess competitor partner programs to stay ahead

• Invest in co-marketing to increase visibility, demand, and joint commitment

4. Unclear financials

Lack of partnerships ROI

This might feel counter-intuitive, but hear me out. Financially speaking, partner sales are useful for several reasons: low CAC, higher win rates, shorter sales cycles, better NRR, etc. Partner leaders are responsible for achieving these metrics.

Not all businesses track these metrics transparently, and not all partner leaders have direct access to them. This state of ignorance typically works until a CFO encounters a weird approval for a partner-sourced deal, which can then lead to a cascade of analyses questioning the partner business.

Prepare for this ROI question ahead of time:

• Ensure to track or get access to the most critical financial metrics around your partner business - check if these are being tracked in the first place

• Set up a partner executive dashboard that ties operational partner sales metrics to overall board-level KPI

• Review historical partner commissions paid and validate each payment, identify any skeletons in the closet that may be left over from your predecessor

• Review partner commissions vs. market level, ensure competitiveness for your business, but don’t overpay

• Provide a quarterly executive update, including win rates, deal cycles, ACVs, and more

Fuzzy revenue attribution

It goes without saying that tracking partner deals is crucial. There are multiple ways of attributing partner revenue; the simplest model is usually partner-source and partner-influence. In some cases, there can be clear delineations between partner sales territories or segments vs. direct sales, which makes attribution even easier. If leadership does not see revenue impact, partnerships do not receive budget and eventually fail.

Track partner revenue:

• Track partner deals in your choice of CRM

• Create clear criteria for partner-influence to avoid over/under-attribution

5. Cultural shift

Lack of patience & resilience

Building successful partnerships takes significant time and effort. Most of the founders I’ve worked with expect near-immediate results from their partner programs. We measure partnerships in revenue. However, partnerships are not your typical sales job. They require long-term vision and are core to strategy. Realising this fact, some companies put their Head of Strategy and Partnerships roles together.

Partner leaders need to be influencers, builders, sellers, and strategists. The most significant partnerships can take months to produce peak revenue - the time and investment are worth it.

Manage expectations:

• Integrate the partner sales plan into the overall business plan of the company, considering that partnerships take time to mature and generate meaningful revenue

• Build deep engagements with your top partners rather than treating them as transactional sources of leads

• Recruit and onboard as quickly as possible to get a partner from 0 to 1 in less than a month

• Communicate early wins to direct sales teams to encourage co-sell

• Provide regular updates to leadership to manage and set expectations

… and this is just the beginning

Most of the challenges we discussed above are internal and primarily within the control of a partner leader. The reality of the external market is hard enough to overcome with a half-baked partner programme. The real challenge is not deal with attribution in your SFDC; the real challenge awaits out there.

What are the most prominent partner challenges you’ve encountered?

Share your experience here

IPP ≠ ICP: We’re selling a business, not a product

Most partner leaders approach an IPP similarly to an Ideal Customer Profile, where they look at partner capacity, pain points, etc. No, it’s not the same. We need to be clear: what are we selling to a partner? Revenue, plain and simple. Who pays? The customer. The challenge in creating an IPP is to not only consider the partner. The stars must align: the customer, the partner, and our business. What unifies the three? Value.

From a partner’s perspective, we’re selling them a business that encompasses not just the product but a lot more.

1. Start with value

Customer value

The most essential factor in selecting partners is their impact on the customer. A typical way to gauge whether a partner can deliver is to determine whether they already serve your ideal customer or even have some customer overlap. In addition, your partners should have the same buyer. Do they have excellent customer reviews? These are the typical table stakes questions.

A question that comes up a lot less is:

Will this partner improve our customer impact by 10x?

Customer impact could include, for example, product adoption, increased cost efficiencies, and faster time to market. By the way, I’ve seen fewer escalations with partners who are primarily customer value-focused. There is something magical about working with partners who want to get things done for the customer.

What’s in it for the partner?

A typical partner fear is keen partner managers chasing them for leads but not articulating what’s actually in it for the partner. Most partners don’t care as much about you; they care about what you can do for their business. (It’s obvious, but it gets lost easily in discussion.)

What’s in it for the partner? Is their business model primarily sales-focused, or does it focus on service revenue? It’s nearly impossible to incentivise a global consulting practice with merely a referral share.

What’s in it for us?

What value will the partner provide? It’s crucial to get a sense of the partner’s customer portfolio. Some large partner empires are harvesting an installed base with mostly existing customers who already have a solution. Such a partner might look good on paper but will do little to help build market presence. Ideal partners are hunters and industry shapers eager to grow with you and provide outstanding customer outcomes.

2. Readiness to execute

If you do the above correctly, you’ve done 90% of the work. The second section concerns feasibility and the partner's ability to deliver. If your IPP starts here, and many do, you’re wagging a dog by its tail.

Partner market presence

Capacity is an important factor, but it sometimes gets too much attention. I’ve seen one-person partners outperform organisations of 1,000+ people. Why? Depending on the product, your business might be playing in a niche that matters more to the one-person partner with extensive industry knowledge, board-level contacts, and a drive to sell that would put your best AEs to shame. Ways to gauge capacity should include revenue, the number of active partner-selling employees, the number of consulting employees, digital presence, and online traffic.

Partner know-how and experience

Partners should have the expertise and the ability to execute to provide value. This includes not only technical knowledge but also the ability to sell if your programme is geared towards revenue growth. Do they already have first knowledge of our product? This can be tested by reviewing customer cases and getting references from other partners or customers in our network.

Reliability and commitment

It’s challenging to gauge partner reliability upfront, and commitment can be difficult to sense. However, this is usually established as a partner relationship progresses. In addition, the best partners can sometimes work 90% with your competitor. Partner leaders watch very closely and look for signals of commitment. These can include, e.g., taking time out for in-person enablement, assigning a dedicated relationship manager, proactive drafting of a joint value proposition or business case, and willingness to invest in co-marketing.

3. How to refine an IPP

Your IPP is never complete; it will constantly evolve as your business grows. Your company might introduce new products or shift its strategy, ultimately impacting your IPP. Moreover, defining an IPP requires tailoring and a deep understanding of your partner portfolio. Developing those insights can take time.

Build a partner leaderboard that measures commercial (e.g., ARR, ARR growth, pipeline, win rates, sales cycle duration) and success metrics (e.g., CSat/NPS, NRR) for each of your partners. Segment partners by IPP vs. non-IPP, size, vertical, region, buyer persona, and more. This will allow you to diagnose who the best-performing partners are. Do not leave it to metrics alone; talk to the best-performing partners and their customers and gain a deep understanding of what makes them successful.

4. Scaling your IPP

Once you clearly understand your IPP, you can boost your program by focusing recruitment on these types of partners. Look for the kind of partners that are in your top 2%. Don’t be too rigid, and leave the door open for inbounds. Your IPP may not have accounted for new types of partners that may be viable, exponential growth avenues.

Why this works

We started developing our IPP with value first. This customer-first, data-driven approach ensures that every partner you work with can be successful from the get-go. Focusing on value before volume will turn your partnerships into sustainable revenue engines—not just vanity alliances.

This is a reader-supported publication, and we want to jointly build this into a community for everyone interested in creating and exploring partnerships.

We’re launching a survey to gather insights from partner leaders, revenue leaders, and partners across the software industry.

By participating, you’ll gain early access to the results. You’ll see what’s working, what’s not, and where the industry is headed.

Your voice matters, and your experience can help refine the best practices that drive real partner-led revenue growth.

I'm in - Let's go!!!

Ecosystems are the single most powerful driver of exponential growth. Software companies with a deeply integrated, diverse ecosystem of partners scale faster, develop more substantial market positions, and thus achieve superior enterprise valuations.

Our manifesto is for those who refuse to build incrementally and who refuse to waste time with a mere relationship-focused partnering approach. If you see an opportunity to create exponential, compounding value through building a partner ecosystem that defines market leadership - this newsletter is for you!

Hyperscale buzz

Partner-led growth, Ecosystem-led growth—buzzwords are the rage. (… and I do notice the self-irony here.) Whatever you want to name it, networks of partners drive scalable, defensible, and sustaining growth. Revenue leaders know this, in theory. However, building partnerships is hard.

Crane kicks in a street fight

Buying is time-consuming. Most buyers increasingly rely on peer reviews and vendor audits performed by partners. You confidently respond with multi-thread and MQAs. No one pitches like you, closing with your signature Karate Kid crane kick at the end, but your competitors’ Cobra Kai might leg-sweep you out of the room. Unless your company already has a thriving partner ecosystem, you’re probably just playing in your competitors’ backyard, which is to say, in their partner network.

Trust

We are asymptoting towards a world where AI augments, if not replaces, sales functions one by one. This includes pipeline gen, early customer touchpoints, CRM hygiene, and other back-office tasks. Chances are we won't recognise our sales motion in 5 years. AI will do a lot of great things. However, it cannot do trust, credibility, and a deep ecosystem of partnerships.

It's a forest, not a channel

Treating partnerships like a linear distribution ‘channel’ is as old as Windows 95 on twelve floppy disks; that is ‘Day of the Tentacle’ stuff. Your partner ecosystem isn’t just another sales motion. It’s a living, breathing forest—diverse, resilient, self-sustaining, and nearly impossible for competitors to uproot. A diverse partner ecosystem is a platform customers can’t afford to leave. Forests are resilient; channels dry up.

Monoculture is bananas

Monocultures are fragile; a single disease can wipe them out. The Gros Michel banana was the world’s dominant banana until the 1950s when a fungus wiped it out. We replaced it with the Cavendish banana, but guess what? A new strain of fungus is coming for that one, too. Forests thrive on diversity—different species, interconnected networks, and an ecosystem where every piece strengthens the whole. The strongest partner ecosystems include product partnerships, VARs, consulting partners, you name it. Not all partners will be sales-focused, but they can add value in other ways.

Substance over infotainment

It’s not how many partners, but how productive they are. Partner managers love activities, e.g., meetings, breakfasts, lunches, QBRs, and discovery calls. Some will talk about grandiose plans for the future. We all love grandiose plans on a slide; it's so comforting; it’s partner-business ASMR. This is infotainment; it’s the partner business equivalent of sitting at home watching a documentary where a gazelle escapes the fangs of a lion, after all. You are happy for the gazelle, of course, but it makes little to no difference in your life.

Momentum

In direct sales, the feedback loop is clear: You have to eventually close an opportunity, win or lose. If left unchecked, partnerships can fizzle along on your dashboard with little to no outcome for months. Newly minted partnerships must deliver their first opportunity within 30 days or risk irrelevance. Signed agreements are not pipeline, nor is a new partner logo added to a slide.

Spelunking for diamonds

The fact that 20% of your partners generate 80% of your partner revenue is a deadbeat horse. Don’t look for the 20% - find the 2%. Design and tailor your IPP to identify the best. Diligence throughout, are they ready to co-sell and motivated? Does this product partner cover an immense customer opportunity, or is it just a favour to a vocal SE with 2-3 deals in the pipeline needing a widget?

Persistence & commitment = compound interest

Partner Lifetime Value comes with persistence and commitment. Persistence builds trust. If partners can source $100k this year, they can potentially source $1m next year. Often, this is down to attitude rather than some technical skill. Follow-through delivery and resilience in the face of setbacks are hard traits to find. If you have them, you’re probably at the top of the crop.

Anti-fragility: no crisis goes to waste

Every partner team has war stories—it’s part of the game. Weak partner relationships collapse under pressure, while good ones use moments of truth to strengthen trust and alignment. Bad partners might threaten to pull out of a relationship, write emails to your CRO/CEO, or pressure your sales teams. Great partners worth strengthening do not finger-point. They facilitate problem-solving sessions and are proactive about committing to solutions. For them, it’s all about the long haul.

Flywheels & network effects

Partnerships are sometimes seen as a cost centre or a CRO side hustle. Some revenue leaders use Microsoft and SFDC daily, not realising that these empires are built on ecosystems in their own right. Strong partnerships are compounding revenue engines—they bring in new customers, create stickiness, and enhance competitive differentiation over time. Well-designed partnerships create recurring revenue and exponential market reach. Investments such as a co-marketing budget and co-sell incentives are needed to spin this flywheel.

FOMO

Wedging yourself into an existing ecosystem is more challenging than building one from scratch. Depending on the market structure, the best partners may already be overloaded with partnership requests: “This is great, but not for us at this moment.” or “I have 10 partner contracts in my inbox right now; why should I go with you?”

Think, how can I FOMO this? Create scarcity and urgency, e.g., showcase partner wins, design invite-only early incentives, or cap cohorts based on territory or segment?

Backoffice telenovela

Everyone loves drama, just not in partnerships. Partner managers must focus on revenue, not endless debates over attribution, credit, and compensation. Drama says more about the maturity of the partner programme than the individuals involved. Get friction out of the way early, e.g., eliminate grey areas in attribution, automate partner payments, auto-tag partner-sourced deals, remove bureaucratic partner approval processes, connect systems, and more. The RevOps team should be your ally.

We can all win

Channel conflict strikes again when keen partner managers notice missing deals at the Monday morning dashboard stage. What ensues are lengthy attribution discussions which don’t serve the customer or the business. Meanwhile, the deal goes closed lost. Granted, they may not be avoided entirely; attribution battles are lame. Don’t pit channels against each other; you will get more growth by aligning incentives between partner sellers and direct sales teams.

Solving the data problem first

The data point is obvious, and in our world of increased AI and automation, there is more data than most people can handle. Data is your friend, as it can solve the most typical partnership challenges: ROI and relevance of the partner business, partner-influence attribution, partner performance, partner commissions, CAC reduction, partner win rate, and joint customer engagement. In my client engagements, I tend to solve the data problem first, revealing plenty of low-hanging fruit that can be addressed immediately.

Challenge & iterate

Partner models constantly evolve into living organisms shaped by market forces, relationships, business advice, pain points unique to your business, and other factors. This is to say there is no perfect standardised answer. No one really ‘knows’ partnerships. This manifesto is a living document; any of the above points can and will evolve.

Join the movement

If you’re not tracking partner-driven revenue, start today. If your partnerships take forever to activate, build momentum. If your company doesn’t prioritise partnerships, demonstrate relevance now. The next billion-dollar SaaS companies will be ecosystem-first.