A partner GTM plan (go-to-market plan) is crucial to systematically drive desired brand and revenue results.

In the absence of that, most partnerships languish (~85% – 90%) without making any meaningful revenue.

You can access a free GTM template I created here. Read on below to see how to use it.

PS: This post is primarily targeted towards an SI or Consulting firm. But product companies may also find it beneficial in monetizing their vast partner network.

Why A Partner GTM plan?

Most partnerships languish (85% – 90% of them). They start out with the best of intentions but then fade away as daily pressures mount. There are simply too many things to do for everyone – marketing, sales, account managers, and practice/product teams.

So, as much as we want to “just get out there and sell”, without a plan to guide execution towards the north star, reality sets in in as little as a few weeks.

An actionable partner GTM plan helps us keep things on track and delivers both brand and revenue results with 90-120 days. It also enables us to gain co-operation and buy-in from our partners across the table.

In the partnership maturity model, I had outlined 4 key pillars of partner GTM success.

1. Sales
2. Marketing
3. Competency
4. Governance

A practical partner GTM plan makes these 4 workstreams simpler to execute, It allows us to  check for things that are de-railing the partnership goals achievement  and then adjust course as needed.

It acts as an early warning system.

Before You Build The Plan

As you will see, the template has a bias for action.

But whether you use the template or not, there are some best practices to keep in mind.

Start with the right goals and targets. Without these, as soon as things get hectic, you’ll be questioning the value of everything you are doing.

In addition, in order to get to the goals and targets, a little bit of work is involved to figure out the right value-proposition.

These should be the first steps in creating the plan. It gives you drive a bias for targeted action.

For example:

• A partnership goal of “win 5 fortune 100 clients” or “raise brand awareness by 30%” needs some kind of rationale for achieving it
• Likewise, “build an AI solution for wealth management with partner” is a nice action but does it align with our current client base or solve a real problem for clients? Will the partner benefit if we create this solution? How long will it take? Should we start with something simpler? How about finding a target client and speaking with them first about a pilot?

To reach the targets, we need to be able to go in with a game plan that pushes us closer to the goals every week. Read my blog on design thinking for growth to get started with problem definition by following an outside-in process.

Finally, any GTM depends on people. Not just within your company, but at your partner too. So create those relationships based on a strong alignment to the goals. And then maintain them by keeping trust, transparency, and accountability front and center.

Here are some governance tactics to make sure your plan will be worth more than the cloud storage it uses:

• Think of it as a P&L. Make a single person supported by a named cross-functional team accountable. I think this should be obvious but just wanted to get it out there.
• Make the status of the partner GTM a line item on regular business, sales, and marketing reviews. If you don’t, then you send the signal that it’s not important, and it’s most likely not getting done.
• Finally, regardless of how slow the movement on the plan is (e.g. certifications taking longer, demos not ready, prospect list not ready, webinar dragging along, etc.), don’t skip the weekly or biweekly reviews of the plan. It’s quite easy to let things slide as workload increases but it’s vital to bubble up the status so long as the priorities haven’t changed (or to change them if needed).

How to Build an Actionable Partner GTM Plan

Building and executing the actual plan is quite simple once you have the pre-requisites taken care of. All you have to do is to follow the template and fill out marketing, sales, technical, and governance activities.

The partner plan has these 6 simple components:

1. Who are the internal and external key stakeholders (marketing, sales, practice, partner sales, etc.)
2. What goals are we setting, when will we measure them, how will we measure them
3. What is the target account map – current clients, prospects, partner clients, which stakeholders, why
4. Marketing actions categorized into brand awareness, sales enablement, and lead generation activities
5. Competency plan – the bedrock of a partnership – trainings, certifications, solution concepts/integrations
6. Sales – outreach, enablement, field connects

Most of the activities in a partner GTM are standard activities such as webinars, sales outreach, point-of-view content, certifications, presentation to partner sales team, connecting with the field sales team, creation of a demo, and so on. The sequencing and actual execution is what trips us up in most cases.

Remember to create regular and early gratification.

In the world of loyalty programs, it’s common to give customers options to redeem their points often even as they are working towards something bigger. That keeps then engaged with the program.

Try to build in shorter milestones that give the team a sense of accomplishment and progress. Celebrate them without reservations.

If wins come regularly, the motivation stays up.

Brand Awareness & Positioning is Important

Like with everything, brand positioning and awareness dramatically enables B2B sales.

Your positioning is governed by two things:

1. Parity – are we playing the game? This earns you the right to play. For example, without training and certifications, it will be hard for you to connect with partner sales teams. You’ll be one of the 90% who languish
2. Differentiation – This earns you the right to win. For example, you may create a specific solution concept that will connect two partner products better together, or you may solve a business process issue at clients.

Lean on the partner’s brand messaging, and align your brand with theirs. They have a product that sells already so they must be doing something right!

Remember to stay focused on the goal. For example, LinkedIn posts are good but if you are reaching the same people with every post, it’s probably ok to scale that back and try something that will reach clients and partners better.

Your target audience includes your partner. For example, if you are posting about the joint value proposition, then the more sales team members you reach the better.

Finally, in marketing, there is a concept of campaign uplift – basically it means that given the same volume how can I drive up the response rates.

So if your email campaigns or advertisements are not getting the desired effect, perhaps you need to change the messaging or try other channels. Warm contacts always work better than the cold ones all other things being equal. So revisit your list and optimize it. This goes for sales outreach too.

Who can use the partner GTM template

The partner GTM plan template leans a bit towards channel partners and SI firms, but is generic enough to be used by product companies to structure their collaboration with their partners.

In either case, it works best if you put in some upfront effort to define the value proposition and problem statement clearly.

It also helps if both partners have a single named contact vested in making the partnership a success and meeting the goals set out. However, sometimes that’s not possible. Especially if you are a consulting firm in the early stages with a well established product or platform company. In those cases, making progress on the formal partner tier criteria will be needed in addition to some more-creative-than-usual blocking & tacking on the field with sales and marketing.

Some Common Gotcha’s

As is often famously quoted, “idea don’t really matter, execution does”.

So here too, if the business case has been validated, the major pitfalls will be in execution.

Creating the value proposition, bringing the team together, reaching out to clients and asking for a meeting, writing the actual content to publish, getting a demo built, etc. is where some of the challenges will arise. Don’t underestimate how how long it can take for each of these.

However, there’s no short cut to these except recognizing our weaknesses, rolling up our sleeves, and getting down to business.

Some best practices are applicable.

Avoid the not-invented here syndrome.

For the marketing messaging, we don’t need to come up with ground breaking messaging. Your partner is already going to market with a messaging that has resonated successfully with clients. Build on it, borrow their material, add your twist, and test it out.

Your solution concepts need not be unique.

Just because a few others are doing something similar does not mean you’ve lost out. To find your point of differentiation, you can find an extension of the problem by reviewing the business process. Perhaps data quality upstream could be an add-on, or perhaps a pre-built template, a useful AI based accelerator, or an architecture blueprint.

Be agile and avoid finished products.

Your solution need not be 100% ready. In fact, unless you have checked with a few actual customers, it may be wiser not to build it. Start with a UX prototype, or a concept on slides. Then incrementally create as things become clearer. Apply the same principle to marketing. Do a blog before you do a webinar and get client feedback by having sales send the blog to friendly clients.

Maintain focus on sales outreach

At the end of the day, if we are doing things right, then everything is a funnel. Output is a percentage of input. Keep reaching out to partner sales team to showcase what you have. And keep reaching out to prospective and current clients. See discovery sessions to talk about their challenges and examine your value proposition. It doesn’t take too long. Your flywheel can be ready in 90-120 days.

Next Steps

Following and tracking a well defined partner GTM plan is a great way to successfully monetize your partnerships.  It provides a structure to execute against, lets you celebrate the incremental wins, and compels you to keep an eye on the prize.

Access the template here or just build a custom one yourself. Be sure to define the value proposition and justified goals beforehand.  Like with any strategic endeavor, it requires collaboration between marketing, sales, and practices / products.

If you want help, then please contact me for a discussion.

On this page, I also have a short partner monetization quiz you can take.

Happy executing!