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An ecosystem parable

It’s not the ecosystem, it’s what you do with the ecosystem.

Consider this: there are partner pros who dwell in ecosystems full of promise and potential. Yet, despite this abundance, they fail to harness its full power. 

On the flip side, there are partner pros who dwell in seemingly barren ecosystems, where the odds appear stacked against them. Yet, through sheer determination and ingenuity, they carve out paths to extraordinary success.

This phenomenon reminds me of one of my favorite stories.

In a quaint town, a wealthy merchant entrusted three of his best employees with portions of his wealth before embarking on a journey.

He gave five pouches of gold to the first, two to the second, and one to the third.

The first two diligently invested and doubled their talents, while the third, filled with uncertainty, buried his pouch out of fear.

Upon the merchant’s return, he commended the first two for their resourcefulness but condemned the third for squandering his opportunity, teaching a valuable lesson about the importance of using one’s abilities wisely and productively.

In this parable lies a profound lesson: the importance of utilizing one’s abilities wisely and productively, regardless of the circumstances.

Every partner pro, irrespective of their environment’s perceived limitations, has the opportunity to tap into the gold hidden in their ecosystem.

There’s no better day than today.

Build momentum with the easy stuff

There’s so much opportunity hidden in your ecosystem. 

If you’re unsure where to start, don’t overwhelm yourself trying to create new opportunities. Start with low-hanging fruit.

It’s super important to get your first wins to build momentum. What most get wrong is that they think getting early wins has to be hard.

The easiest way to get early wins as a partner pro is to get off your partner island and talk to other departments.

Here are questions you can ask each of your departments to determine where there might be low-hanging fruit.

Marketing

• Which companies have you co-marketed with in the past?
• Have you noticed any patterns with the types of companies that we do informal co-marketing activities with?
• Are there any companies that consistently refer customers or leads to us and vice versa?

Sales

• Which companies do our sales teams frequently interact with during the sales process?
• Have we ever collaborated closely with another company to win a deal or provide additional value to customers? (maybe run one of the 3 I’s)

CS

• Which companies are we already working with to address customer needs or provide additional support?
• Which service companies do our customers typically work with?
• Have we identified any customers who have successfully implemented our product/service in conjunction with solutions from other companies?

Product

• Are you currently talking to anyone about a product integration?
• Which products do our customers use either before, after, or with ours?
• Are there recurring requests or feedback from customers that involve partnering or enhanced product functionality?

Extra tip for Reveal customers: Connect with your current partners and analyze key data points—such as win rate boost, deal size boost, the number of overlapping accounts, and the number of new prospects—to decide who your next partner should be. You can even filter through their network by ecosystem, location, or level of business overlap to align your partnerships with key business initiatives.

Partner emails done right

Two weeks ago, Casey Hill (Senior Growth Manager at ActiveCampaign) shared how their last partner email blast drove 2,242 unique clicks and 52,966 eyeballs.

The big change? Storytelling.

People take shortcuts with partner promotion. If you want impressive results you’ve gotta treat it like it matters.

Check out the LinkedIn post here.

And check out Casey’s conversation with Logan Lyles on 5 steps to webinars that don’t suck.

Make it easy for ’em

We outlined the questions to help someone win, now you just have to send it to them!