Why your partnerships aren't selling (and how to fix it)
I speak to founders and VP's of sales every week who are frustrated. They signed a reseller or refferal partner, did a ton on onboarding, product demo's you name it, handed over the deck and then........ nothing.
The honest truth, partners don't exist to figure our your go to market, if it is hard for your direct sales team to sell your product it will be impossible for an external partner. Simplicity
If your channel is stalled, there is likely to be one of three things in your architecture that is missing.
Enablement, you need a structured framework, they need to know the exact buying triggers, your ideal customer profile, the solution value prop (in an sentence or two), how to handle standard objections, who are the competitors etc, if you are not training them like your own internatl hires, they will default to sellig something easier.
Commercials, are your fee's competative? are they easy to understand? How does the partner get paid, is that meaningful enough, it's the what's in it for me. And if your internal team is competing against your partners for the same accounts, your partners will drop you.
Certification, trust is a two way street, you need trust that they won't ruin your brand in a pitch and they need to know your solution works. A lightweight but manditory cerfication model proves they understand the tech before they are allowed to represent you in the wild.
The theme is stop treating partners like a magic lead generation button, treat them like an extention to your own business, they need onboarding, activating, clear structure and constant and honest communication
I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments if anyone is currently stuck trying to get their ecosystem off the ground