Learn the 4 things you need to consider for getting internal teams on board with your Nearbound strategy.
If you’re here, you are one of the many who have joined the movement that’s changing B2B forever.
You’ve seen the power of nearbound. You know it’s the only GTM strategy that will get your company out of survival mode and into success.
Now, how the heck do you get your company on board, too?
Getting internal buy-in is hard; it’s one of the things Partner Managers struggle with most. And now you’re trying to not just get stakeholders bought in on partnerships, but how partnerships can influence every corner of your company to drive revenue with a newfangled term called Nearbound.
We get it, and we’ve got you covered.
Just like The Nearbound Sales Blueprint gives you every answer to the Sales + Partnerships test, we want to do the same when it comes to tackling your internal teams.
From how to explain the How vs. Who Economy, to the most frequently asked questions, to the deck you can use to pitch Nearbound, this blog has everything you need to get your teams’ support.
Let’s get started.
Key points to cover in your nearbound pitch
Every good pitch starts with the story. Numbers matter, sure, but the way you tell your story matters too. Your audience needs to be able to see themselves (and in this case, your company) in the story you’re telling.
Make sure that your story has one problem and one solution. Sell the importance of the problem, then sell your strategy to solve it.
This is how your story flow should go:
- State the problem by defining the How and the Who Economy
- State your solution by defining Nearbound
- State the process by mentioning the benefits and the platforms you’ll use to get them
- Provide proof with stats about nearbound’s impact
The How vs. Who Economy
The good news is that the beginning of the Nearbound story is one every single B2B professional can identify with.
And here’s how you can tell it:
“A major shift has happened in the digital world.
Nearbound has emerged from the outbound and inbound eras that preceded it. The outbound industry was born from the digitization of customer data to target customers.
Outbound allowed sellers to go direct through email and phones without “hitting the pavement”. Then came the Cloud, which opened customer data to workflows and applications.
The inbound industry was born from the automation of information through content creation to attract customers. Inbound allowed sellers to focus on accounts that had an identified challenge and exposure to the brand they sell for without targeting them cold.
But now, the world we live in is no longer a battle of information because there is simply too much.
Buyers don’t trust what companies say—they trust what their network says.
This is more than reviews. A 4.9/5 star rating doesn’t say much these days, because everyone has it. Buyers are proactively seeking out those they know and trust to get the answers.
That’s what we call the Who Economy, and Nearbound is the GTM strategy that leverages the who to drive 2-3x more revenue. “
Comparison of the key aspects between the How and the Who Economy
In case your CRO needs some numbers to support your argument:
- Americans see up to 10,000 ad impressions per day - they are tuning out! (Deloitte)
- 80% of sales leaders say agencies, consultants, vendors, and individuals in their network have the biggest impact on a customer’s purchase decision (HubSpot)
- Integrations with existing tech are top priority to 76% of buyers(E&Y)
- 82% of B2B sales leaders say referrals are the best leads (Williams)
- A16Z, Bessemer, OpenView proclaim partner-led growth is the future (PartnerHacker)
The Who Economy is not about getting the right info to people, but connecting the right people to people.
What is nearbound?
At this stage in your pitch, you’ve set up the problem and the opportunities that lie within it. Now it’s time to pitch the strategy and the solution.
Here’s the script you can use to do so:
“Nearbound GTM is the operationalization of Product, Marketing, Sales, Success, and Partnerships to drive revenue by working with companies or individuals who already have trust and influence with your target market.
These are opportunities that are already hiding in your ecosystem, Nearbound is just the key to finding and actioning them.
Nearbound leverages the relationships that your team (as Partnership Managers) creates to drive more revenue. Deals that involve one or more partner have a 41% higher win rate, close 35% faster, and have 43% higher LTV (Reveal).
It’s not about reinventing the wheel; Nearbound is layered on top of your current inbound and outbound strategies to give them the boost they need to make them so much more successful."
Nearbound helps you drive 100% of your revenue
What nearbound looks like for your company
You know what your stakeholders will be asking next: But, how does it actually work?
Here’s how you’ll respond:
“With Nearbound you can create the right process that gets the right information to the right people at the right time to boost partner revenue.
Instead of trying to reach buyers cold, like outbound, or get them to come to you by searching and coming across your content through inbound, it’s tapping into the people that are already influencing them.
And to do so, you have to follow the 3 I’s ofNearbound:
The 3 I’s ofNearbound:
- Intel is any information that your partners and/or partnership technology can provide you about an opportunity.
- Influence is using your relationships to advance the prospect to the next step. The goal is to surround the buyer with influence at every step of their journey.
- Intros are the holy grail. You are leveraging trust at its highest level with your partner to get you connected with the right people.”
Results of leveraging the 3 I’s of Nearbound include:
- AEs close more deals with the help of partners
- Marketing teams can target accounts with a better and tailored message and produce NQLs (Nearbound Qualified Leads–accounts that have a high potential to convert).
- Customer Success teams can get signals that will help them reduce their churn rate.
Remember to weave in examples that are relevant to your company. For example, you could show what influence could look like for your particular ICP and/or sales cycle.
Reveal: The Nearbound Revenue Platform
The last piece of the puzzle is how you can operationalize Nearbound and track the outcomes you’re proposing.
The last thing your stakeholders want to see is something that 1) requires them to overhaul their current tech stack, and 2) can’t be measured.
Here’s where Reveal’s Nearbound Revenue Platform comes in.
Reveal allows you to easily operationalize and track Nearbound by:
- Identifying the “who” in every deal
- Connecting to the “who” in every deal
- Engaging with the “who” in every deal
Reveal brings partner data directly into your source of truth, your CRM, so you can leverage intel, intros, and influence from those your buyers already trust. This empowers your GTM teams to tap into partner intelligence at every step of the customer lifecycle to close more and bigger deals faster.
Partnership Managers save time with instant Account Mapping, giving them the ability to identify and prioritize leads and partners (according to revenue potential, net new leads, and overlaps), drive more sales, and track how much ROI partners generate.
Reveal’s Analytics dashboard
Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams are also a part of this equation.
The key is to build a seamless process between Partnerships and yourGTM teams that allows them to leverage the right ecosystem intelligence at the right time and in the right channels.
For example, with Reveal Engage, you can give your Sales team the freedom to successfully work the deals they want to work on and tap into partners to help close, all while being able to track the influence the partner program has on company revenue.
The Get Intro button is located directly in yourCRM, so Sales teams can efficiently get the 3 I’s needed to work their accounts. Partner Managers can define the permissions of how partners can be contacted and direct the requests to the right channels with all relevant stakeholders tagged.
Reveal Engage gives you the power to deliver:
- The right information on the right accounts at the right time by proactively giving your Sales teams the key partners who can help them close the deal.
Get the right info on the right accounts.
- The right process in the right channels by delivering requests through their CRM and receiving them by email or Slack (the channels your Sales team is already working on).
You can decide on the channel and include stakeholders to be notified upon intro request
- Autonomy to decide when and how partners can help them with certain accounts and get notified when they get assigned a new account or an open new opportunity. After all, timing is everything.
Reveal Engage delivers account briefs to your email or Slack
Proof, proof, proof
Your stakeholders aren’t just going to take your word for it. They’ll want some concrete evidence that Nearbound works, but that people THEY TRUST are also bought into the concept.
Here’s social proof that points to the fact that industry leaders and experts are evangelizing the Nearbound strategy:
Scott Leese’s take on the importance of implementing a Nearbound strategy on LinkedIn
Mike Gonzalez’s take on how to build trust with Nearbound on LinkedIn
In addition, here are some stats that prove that running a Nearbound strategy in tandem with Reveal can lead to:
- Increasing the number of open opportunities by 33%
- Increasing win rates by 41%
- Reducing time-to-close by 43%
- Driving 2-3x more revenue
- Decreasing your CAC
- Increasing productivity per rep
You may also want to login into your free Reveal account, pick a highly-qualified partner and show your CRO your partner’s overviews, overlaps, the net new opportunities (net new leads), and the revenue potential they will generate if you work with them.
Reveal’s partner overview
Nearbound FAQs
To help you be more prepared for your pitch, here are some common questions about Nearbound and how you can respond to them.
Q: Is Nearbound just another word for Partnerships?
No. Partnerships are relationships between companies that want to drive growth and revenue together. Nearbound is how you leverage these relationships to access intel, introductions, and influence deals.
Think of it like a bank account:
- Partner Managers make trust deposits into the relationship by ensuring they are aligned, enabled, and mutually beneficial.
- Sales and Marketing teams make trust withdrawals by asking the partner for the 3 I’s of Nearbound to drive revenue.
Q: Is Nearbound just another word for outbound/inbound?
Not at all.
Outbound is based on reaching out to prospects through thedigitalization of sales (with email, calls).
Inbound is based on marketing automation and pulling in your target market (with content).
Nearbound leverages existing relationships to surround your target market with brands and people they already trust. This can be layered onto both outbound and inbound strategies.
Q: Are we going to have to completely overhaul our current workflows?
No. Again, Nearbound is layered onto your current activities to bring partner intel, influence, and introductions to every step of the customer journey. It lives directly in the channels you’re already working in.
Q: Is this going to require the Sales Team to work on another platform?
No, Sales teams can get all the intel they need right in their CRM (thanks to the Reveal HubSpot/Salesforce widget). They can also leverage influence and intros in the channels they are already working on Slack and email (thanks to Reveal Engage).
Q: Is this a strategy that only benefits Partnerships?
Nearbound is made for GTM teams, not just partnerships.
For Sales teams: With the click of a button, AEs can connect with partners and “get the answers to the test” during the sales process. They can also customize their sales pitches based on Nearbound intel, such as partner presence and tech stack, which can help build stronger connections with potential customers and improve conversion rates.
For Marketing teams: They can generate qualified net new prospects and build effective marketing campaigns that drive revenue growth. By using partner insights and data analytics, your Marketing team can identify new target audiences and develop hyper-targeted email marketing strategies that speak directly to their needs and interests.
For Customer Success teams: They can reduce churn rates by leveraging Nearbound intel. By using partner insights and data analytics, your Customer Success team can proactively identify issues and provide timely support to prevent customer churn, offer relevant product upgrades and complementary solutions that add value to the customer’s business, or develop integrations with joint customers.
For Product teams: They can use Nearbound intel to get an edge over the competition and craft irresistible product strategies. By diving deep into partner data and understanding their unique needs, your Product team can develop targeted integrations that not only add value to both businesses but also widen their customer base.
Q: Why Reveal vs. other competitors?
Reveal is strategically designed to empower you to act upon shared data, focusing on the actions that yield the greatest revenue impact through features like Partner Signals, Potential Revenue, and Partner Analytics. The platform is specially designed to enable revenue professionals to achieve ROI while being GDPR-compliant and SOC 2 Type II certified.
Our network of 12k+ companies prefers Reveal’s UX (with data set by default and filter-drown approach) because helps you to get started in an easier and faster way.
Plus there’s an entire team dedicated toonboarding your partners and helping your team.
Resources for your Nearbound pitch
Here’s a deck template and some additional assets and resources you can use to nail your Nearbound pitch:
The Nearbound Sales Blueprint
The Nearbound Sales Blueprint is the step-by-step tactical playbook that answers “How do you execute a Nearbound strategy systematically in your sales cycle?” Jared Fuller dives into the granular tasks (down to the email templates) that Sales Leaders, AEs, and Partner Managers can start using today to drive 2-3x more revenue with Nearbound.
You’ll learn how to set a target, attach the target, and run the activities to hit the goal.
The Nearbound Marketing Blueprint
Discover how to execute strategic integration and alignment, multi-channel campaigns, and the exact plays needed for educating, engaging, and expanding your customer base through effective partner collaboration. Jessica Fewless, Isaac Morehouse, and Shawnie Hamer share the step-by-step guide to reaching buyers with the voices that surround them to drive more revenue.
Case Studies
Make sure you include in your deck or speech some case studies of companies that are similar to yours, and that have won with a Nearbound strategy. For example:
- Learn how Contractbook generated 2x to 3x more demo meetings by adopting a Nearbound strategy.
- Discover how Rydoo had a 3x increase in pipeline after implementing a Nearbound strategy in tandem with Reveal.
- Read how Payfit had an increase of up to 60% in lead-to-demo conversion rate and an increase of up to 50% in demo-to-customer conversion rate.
Videos
Here are some videos stakeholders can watch to learn more about Nearbound:
Let Jared Fuller, Chief Ecosystem Officer at Reveal, walk you through the activation of your Nearbound Sales process:
Let Per Allin, Head of Partnerships Revenue at Contractbook, explain to you the impact that a Nearbound strategy can have on pipeline acceleration:
Adapt and succeed in the ever-changing market landscape
You know the power of Nearbound, now we want to see you win with it.
If you’re still struggling with pitching Nearbound to your internal stakeholders, let us do the heavy lifting for you.
Book a call and we will walk your leaders through how Nearbound can help your specific business use cases.
