But your partners keep falling off

It’s because they haven’t learned how to crawl, walk, and run yet. In this article I’ll be breaking down the mentality you need as a partnerships professional to properly do partner enablement. Further, I give you a path forward of how you can help your partners crawl, walk, and run.

This is a blend of informational items + tactical, as I give you resources that you can start using today. Partner enablement is the key to your success.

Firstly, you need to treat your partners as a cherished friend… or as your child (a very mature child). By this I mean you should be invested in their growth. You can’t simply give your partners (or your children) something to do and then the just do it. It’s much like riding a bike, especially when it comes to a new partnership (there’s a case to be made for existing partnerships too, though).

When you learn to ride a bike, you don’t become an expert immediately and start from the stopped state. Partner enablement is no different. You have someone to push you along and then from there you maintain balance. For whatever reason, forward momentum gives a bike better stability. You need to give your partners forward momentum so that they can reach that stability.

“My partners aren’t getting me any leads…”

Sound familiar? This is the most common pitfall of all partnerships. We expect revenue from our partners. This is a backwards way of thinking. Yes… you do need revenue from partners (link here to other article), but that shouldn’t be your end goal (rather, your starting point). 

A successful partnership (especially one that benefits your business specifically) gives partners a path to success through proper partner enablement. This could be in the form of certifications (link here to other article), titles/status (link here to other article), tiered rewards or access (link here to other article), or a roadmap that incorporates it all (link here for downloadable resource). 

Let’s take a step back and think about why this is. There are 2 main reasons: 

1. Your business is not your partner’s priority 
2. People don’t take action unless they’re compelled to, especially when it’s not a priority. (I wrote about how partnerships is similar to sales here)

When it comes to anything in life, people require proper enablement. It is not just information that compels us, nor is it only emotion. It’s a combination of the two where we can envision a future state. Much like in sales, prospects don’t realize they have a problem until they are guided (through good questions) to a solution that they come up with themselves. 

The below 3 are the epitome of a compulsion to take action. 

1. Individual conclusion (ie. autonomy in the decision), 
2. Guidance to a better future state (information/ROI based), and 
3. A personal attachment to the outcome (emotional drive)

As you can see, none of these things rely on your business. Not unless you can attach your business outcomes to each one of these. You are selling the idea of your business goals being their business goals in a true win-win(-win) fashion.

I’ve built out how you can properly enable your partners, fitted with different programs + frameworks, and you can download them all from my website. The main sentiment is that you must bring them something upfront so that they can see the value. A habit is not built until we have done the crawl-walk-run to really feel what that habit can do for us, and if we’ve enjoyed the process.

Enable your partner to crawl, first

This first phase of partner enablement will give the first impression of the partnership. If you’re already engaged, you’ve built trust, but now they’re digging deep into the partnership itself. The maturity of your program and how excited your partner will be is solidified at this stage. This will give them an “external” view of the partnership, ie. how does it look to you, which will set the precedent for the next phase, for them.

Give them upfront value. Set the goal. Give them that North Start to start working towards. You can do this by having a proper kick-off with them. Set the stage. You get the point – this part is focused on guidance + upfront investment. Show them the value, show them the potential, show them the path.

In your kick-off, you need to focus (as mentioned), on their goals. Understand their business, their current focuses, and most of all, your champion’s personal goals. This will set the precedent of how you can build a workback plan, and deciding who is responsible for what so that you can properly engage your partner.

Layout a path forward (you can pre-bake this to help the discussion along) and then have your partner agree to, and explain back to you the reason they are getting into the partnership and what they hope to get from it. This will be a phenomenal tool and reference point for how to engage this partner and help them win (causing your business to win). Ask the questions:

• How do you see this partnership helping your business?
• What are some of the outcomes you care about in this partnership?
• What are your personal core metrics that you’re held accountable for?
• How do you prefer to engage in a partnership?
• What would make a successful partnership in your mind?
• How will X (your business) help Y (their business)?
• Who are the people that will engage in the partnership? Head of sales, marketing, etc.?
• And so on…
• (More questions can be found in this resource on kicking off a partnership (link to opt-in resource here))

Grab your jacket, we’re going for a walk.

Enable your partner to walk

This next phase of partner enablement is to have the partner testing out ideas, programs, etc. This is a vital stage, as this will give them an internal perception of the program. Ie. what are the initial feelings of it? Were you talking a big game, or is it actually walking the walk.

This phase will require some hand holding. Do you remember your first time walking? I don’t… but I’ve seen enough babies try, and they fall, a lot. Your partners aren’t babies, but you get it. So, you need to be giving more attention to the partner during this stage. Help them run the program. Consider yourself an extension of their team. 

This is their first time, so reduce the amount of work they need to do. Here are 3 things you can do to help your partner walk through pre-made paths:

Email copy + messaging

They don’t know your product/service – you do. So give them the right materials. NOTE: Don’t overload them. Give them a few options, and then collaborate on right-sizing this for their business/audience.

Social announcement template

If you have any social following, this will help boost your partner’s brand (and vice-versa). This seems straightforward, but with everything going on in the world today, priorities overcome menial tasks. Writing a social post is a menial task. Bonus: If you have graphics on top of this that are plug + play, this will perform better.

Blog post wireframe

This one requires more upfront work on your end, but can be well worth it. Imagine each partner having a blog post related to your product or service, but also provides a high level of quality to their audience (further helping them promote and convert)… So how can you do this?:

• Create X number of subheadings on topics that are relevant to your solution + their audience
• It doesn’t have to be 100% original (no idea is original) – so pull inspiration from your other posts
• Get quotes from those on your team or customers – they will help add more human context + uniqueness to the post
• Bonus: If you write the whole thing, this is even better. Try having a bank of “plug and play” topics that you can slot into a listicle of (top 3 things X type of business can do with (your solution/type of solution). 

Most of all, collaborate with them. Pre-baking stuff is great, but forcing them to use your verbiage exactly won’t fly well. Again, this is the hand holding or “fill-in-the-blank” type content that will further enable your partners.

After this is all said and done, review the program that was run. What was engagement like? Any first few wins to celebrate? The results of the program will be fuel for the momentum to capitalize on. This is also a great litmus test of how good of a fit the partnership is with your overlapping communities. Further, this is the best foot forward to partner enablement success.

Tie up those shoes, we’re going for a run.

Enable your partner to run

This phase of partner enablement gets your partner to invest more energy. They are going to execute on something that requires more effort on their end. Luckily, they’ll have the context of your previous activity (and any other support you give) to help push them along. They’ll be feeling more confident, but we can’t run forever – running can’t help you coast (ergo, the bike).

From here, you’ll start inspiring more autonomy with partners. The programs with them done prior to this would have been higher-level, and now you’re getting deeper (akin to marketing > sales). Do a review of their current client-base (I like to use Crossbeam) and see what kind of low-hanging fruit can be picked. I recommend looking at top-users (be it of their software, services, or an integration to your platform) and align that with your top prospective sales accounts.

Here you’ll be getting into the specifics of the client situations. Choose a few clients to do an analysis on. This will help you build a profile that your partner can also use to perceptualize your solutions fit with their client-base. Understand what your partner is solving for them, learn more about their business size, demo, industry, etc. Build a mini ICP and align your solution with the problems solved.

From here, again, give the path forward. Give them the “what’s next” and “what do we do with this information”. Always consider what kind of preferences the partner has for communications with their clients – ie. do they want to take lead and then intro you? Or do they want to intro you right away? Or do they want you to reach out directly? This will inform the engagement strategy they prefer + will again help set the precedent of the partnership moving forward.

My advice? Make it absolutely crystal clear what action needs to be taken, by who, and who else will be involved. Here’s an example:

• You find a good candidate for your services of your client’s
• You understand their business problems and now how your solution can help
• Establish what the engagement strategy will be like for your partner
• From here, you will either give the assets, or get your best salesperson involved for the situation
• Ideally your team is also on the call with the partner, but if you feel confident that they can portray back the value proposition, then you can let them run it
  • Not sure about this? Then do a mock scenario with them – it will help them at least dry-run what they will say, vs stumbling through pitching it the first time. Further, you can give immediate feedback here
• Protip: make the info even more digestible by using a video, I recommend Vidyard (link affiliate link here)

Now, this isn’t the end of the scenario, because just as you did with having the partner walk, you measured success. You want them to be able to have the eureka moment. Build an individual success story with that partner based on their first win (whenever it happened) and use that as the frame they can work through. Revisit the original reason you engaged the client, the medium with which you engaged them, the meat of the content of the interaction, and then the outcome.

Voila, you’ve built them a solid frame to work with.

You’re not done yet though! Let’s make transportation even easier… And we’ve already built the bike!

Get your partners on the bike

Biking > running. It’s simple, riding a bike allows one to coast without having to exert much energy. Running can exhaust you, then you stop… but riding a bike allows you to build momentum + even when you get tired, you can still cover ground. 

This is how you should think of the partnership. You don’t want to hand hold the whole time – that would drain too many people hours and wouldn’t be efficient. You want partners to be self-sufficient and at this point, they will have a sturdy foundation to work with. At this point, they should understand where they are headed in the partnership, the value-proposition of your solution, and what kind of programs they should be running to make it a success for themselves.

As with any kind of enablement, they have to work towards things now. For your partner enablement it’s no different. There has to be a goal other than “win” or “get my company revenue”. Remember, humans are selfish and they want to have their own investment… and a great way to inspire that is through a sense of achievement. Check out our post on enablement programs to have partners work towards here.

This is the hand-off. This is the push to keep your partners balanced. They are no longer starting from a stopped state; you are going to push them along. Much like the hand-off in a relay… momentum has already started before the hand-off is complete. You made

This is the best time to do a review of the progress so far. Whether it’s a quarterly review you do it at, the 1 year anniversary, or even just a few months in. Make it official. Make it feel important. Hold people accountable and feel responsible for showing up, speaking their part, and feeling a sense of achievement!

You have 2 items of review you can speak to: 1) the initial kick-off and how it performed, and 2) the more in-depth + intimate interaction. You’ve given them an idea of programs that can be run, as well as building that ICP. They can now repeat and iterate on the process as needed. Most importantly you have success metrics not only for the individual situations, but take a look at the macro impact – how did it influence their business?

The main thing here is to build that sense of internal investment on your partner’s side, both on the individual level, and now their organizational level. They should now see the value in the partnership (in full, rather than in theory). This will help them actively work alongside your business to bring you more revenue.

Partner enablement isn’t showing your partner how to give you more leads, it’s showing your partner how they can succeed because of your business.

So, what do you do next to get you on the right path?

Firstly, if you have feedback on anything, please leave a comment, or reach out to me here. Further, if you enjoyed this content and want to see more, sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of this page linked here. I will be updating this post as more resources are developed. There will be a downloadable resource attached to this blog. Lastly, if you need more direct advice, please reach out to me here, or connect with me on LinkedIn here and let’s continue the discussion.

Although this won’t immediately make you an expert in partner enablement, you’re one step further down the path to the right mentality and building the right frameworks.