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Fast track your next promotion with this document to track growth, created by Ben Bassett, Senior Manager of Channel and Alliances at PayStand.
Your years of experience in marketing, sales or customer support gave you an in. You wowed the hiring manager with your distinct combination of hard and soft skills. You were enthusiastically offered a role in partnership management. Now the fun starts!
Depending on the size of your company, the partner manager role can be a stepping stone that propels you forward toward a successful career path for partner managers. If you’re eager to hone your skills in this role, grow your career, progress over time and, of course, earn more money, you first have to know what this career path looks like.
What Roles Are Possible Within Partner Management?
Depending on the scope of a company’s partnership program, it’s common to see overlap between roles in partnerships, particularly the further up you get in the hierarchy. New, more defined positions may be created along the way, such as senior partnership manager or director of partner strategy.
It’s also common to see roles in partnerships referred to as the head of ‘alliances’ or ‘channel’. In many instances, the career path for successful leaders in the partnership space jumps around from organization to organization, rather than following a linear path to the top within the same company.
An example of career progression in partnerships could look like the following:
- Business Development Representative
- Account Manager
- Senior Account Manager
- Account Manager Team Lead
- Partner Manager
- Director of Partnerships
- VP of Partner Programs
- Chief Business Officer
A less linear career path could look more like this:
- Graphic Designer
- Creative Team Lead
- Marketing Specialist
- Graphic Designer
- Project Manager
- Partner Manager
- Branding Consultant
- Director of Partnerships
No matter your specific background or area of expertise, the role of partner manager is the entry point for the majority of career opportunities in the partnerships space. The typical qualifications for this position include a bachelor’s degree, proven project or campaign execution with results, excellent communication skills and the ability to form and maintain professional relationships.
Let’s take a look at each role common in the partnership management space, from entry-level up to senior-level executive.
Partner Manager
- Average annual salary: $60,000
- Traditional career path: 2-5 years in marketing, sales, account management, customer success or product management
- Roles and responsibilities: Initiate, maintain and strengthen relationships with partners and collaborate with internal teams on partner strategies
- Reports to: Director of Partnerships or Sales Manager
Director of Partnerships
- Average annual salary: $120,000
- Traditional career path: 1-9 years as a partner manager or account executive, director of brand strategy or design, marketing director
- Roles and responsibilities: Manage a team of partner managers, plan go-to-market activities, coordinate cross-functional strategies to achieve partnership goals
- Reports to: VP of Partnerships
VP of Partnerships
- Average annual salary: $140,000
- Traditional career path: 5-10+ years in partnerships, plus entrepreneurial or consultant experience
- Roles and responsibilities: serving as the direct liaison between individual contributors and company leadership, defining strategy and impact of partnership programs and managing partner managers and directors
- Reports to: C-Suite Executives, e.g. Chief Business Officer or Chief Revenue Officer
After a few years of exceptional performance in the early stages of your partner manager career, you may be wondering what it takes to rise to the top. Or, at least, taking steps toward advancing along your professional journey in this field. These common next steps involve managing a team and having a larger role in expanding your company’s partnership program.
Getting to the next level requires more than just letting your hard work speak for itself and hoping the right decision-makers notice. There are several actions you can take for rising the ranks and progressing as a partner professional. Note: A good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that it will take about two years as a partner manager to make the right connections, fully understand the ins and outs of the role and have metrics to prove your success
5 Tips for Preparing to Advance in Your Partnership Management Career
- Build a Strong Network
The world of partnerships, while relatively new, is ultra-connected. As you interact with your company’s partners and conduct outside networking for new partnership opportunities, consider which contacts could help you professionally as mentors or possible future colleagues. - Choose a Specialty
For more robust partnership teams, there’s opportunity for individual partner managers to specialize in niche fields or industries. Selecting an area of interest to hone your expertise and skills gives you an advantage, particularly if you look outside your organization for a larger role in partnerships. - Gain Outside Experience
It’s not uncommon for partnership managers to enter this career path as an entry-level position, then move to another company to gain more experience. Working in partnerships at multiple organizations can offer different perspectives you can then take to a smaller startup in the future to lead efforts in building out partnership programs and manage a team. - Align Teams
A key part of any partner manager’s role is coordinating across departments to achieve singular goals. The more you prove how well you can lead strategies, campaigns and projects that involve input from multiple departments, the bigger upper-hand you’ll have when vying for management or leadership positions down the road. - Document Everything
Keep good records of your successful partner initiatives and results, not only to prepare application materials for future roles but also to better perform within your current position. Documenting goals, meeting notes, partner objectives and detailed descriptions of each partner will help you more clearly define which tasks need to be completed and further aligns the teams you’re working with.
Metrics for Success
As you advance in your partnerships career, you’ll have a more active role in building out partner programs and coordinating individual contributors to achieve overarching goals. So, how do you make your partner program stand out, and what will success look like? Consider both of these questions as you navigate the partner landscape and work to get executive buy-in.
Steps to Building Our Your Partner Program
First, determine whether the partner program you’re leading is brand new or already established. In either case, prove you can work with, expand and retain existing and new partner opportunities. Regularly ask questions about partners’ goals and gain a deep understanding of how the relationship will help both parties succeed.
Next, figure out where you want to go as you settle into your leadership role. Which partners do you want to attract? Where does it make the most sense to show your company’s product or offering? Which companies will be most powerful to form alliances with?
These are all great questions you will work to answer, but don’t worry if you can’t answer all of them in the first few weeks. The most important step is to just get started. You can experiment early on and iterate on your partnership strategies and initiatives later on.
Take Action Depending on Program Maturity
New programs allow for some wiggle room and creativity. However, you have to work to build an internal culture that supports partner goals to get everyone rowing in the same direction. Focus on this internal buy-in while working to build an external network of partners. Creating a solid foundation first will drive more revenue and value both for your organization and your partners.
Established partner programs require you to deliver on predetermined revenue goals as a baseline, then expand upon existing strategies with new integrations, technology for automation and operationalized go-to-market plans. Keeping the program fresh while continuing to nurture and refine what’s already working will increase your chances of success.
Measure the Right Data
Identify areas to improve, expand and repeat by reporting on metrics that matter. Zoom out to view your big-picture goals. Where do you want to take your partner program in the first 60 days, 90 days, six months and/or year? Having larger goals will help you incrementally break down your plans into smaller, actionable steps. Then, you can measure the results of these smaller tasks to see if you’re on track to meeting those bigger milestones.
Set the following KPIs and parameters for analyzing your success within a given period:
- The # of new partners
- The # of new leads
- Revenue directly tied to deals your partners made
Revenue influenced by your partnership (i.e. you closed the deal, but your partner offers an alley-oop to help you get through the hoop).
Grow and Scale the Partner Program
No matter what phase of your partner management career you’re in, you will have a hand in growing your partner program and contributing to the success of your organization and partner network. Follow the steps below to better prepare for program growth and scalability as you travel along your career journey in partnerships.
- Get a mentor: Learn from others and stay curious; form close relationships with mentors who can help you navigate the world of partnerships and are rooting for your success.
- Expand your team: As you advance, hire the right partner managers with specific skill sets and areas of expertise so you have a strong, solid and diverse team.
- Wear lots of hats: A varied background is beneficial in partnerships because you’ll be taking on many responsibilities; remember, if you’re not an expert in a niche field, hire someone who is.
- Set mutual goals: Support partners by aligning on your goals in a given time and checking in on progress using the same indicators for success.
- Drive revenue: At the end of the day, all actions you take should play a role in boosting revenue for your organization – this will help you get the executive buy-in you’re looking for as well.
- Never stop learning: The channel industry continues to evolve as software becomes increasingly sophisticated and general awareness grows. Keep your finger on the pulse by regularly talking with peers and engaging with new training opportunities.
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Ali Spiric
Latest posts by Ali Spiric (see all)
- Affiliate or Referral: How to Pick the Perfect Partnership - January 2, 2020
- 5 Ways These Remarkable Channel Leaders are Improving Their Partnerships - December 18, 2019
- eBook–How to Get Your Partners to Step Up to the Plate - November 26, 2019
A Boost to Channel Programs: Allbound’s $43 Million Growth Equity Investment from Invictus Growth Partners
When building technology stacks, Sales and Marketing actively avoid tools with capabilities that heavily overlap in order to limit spending. This leads to a very common question: can I use my existing CRM platform to manage channel partners?
The short answer? It’s not recommended to rely upon your CRM for partner relationship management (PRM). This is because it’s not equipped with specialized features that speak directly to channel partners’ needs, such as content co-branding, onboarding, and automated content curation based on group types. The lack of comprehensive yet targeted PRM functionality will force you to rely upon multiple tools in addition to your CRM, complicating processes and erecting barriers to scalable operations.
Contrastingly, a PRM is a centralized hub intended solely to help companies enable partners through a variety of features and automations triggered by user actions and customizable settings. What’s more, PRMs are increasingly essential to staying ahead of the curve, as Forrester predicts the PRM market will grow to $679M by 2023 across all industries.
Still on the fence? Consider that PRM technology is relatively new and specifically designed to address CRMs’ insufficient abilities to service partners.
In this article, we’ll help you understand key differences between CRMs vs. PRMs and how to best integrate the two platforms.
What is PRM?
Partner relationship management software provides businesses with tools to track reseller and referral sales while also giving partners support, resources, and a portal to communicate with your business. The power of PRM comes from a personalized portal for partners where they can access documents, marketing content, market development funds (MDF), opportunities, and track deals.
PRM is considered the 3rd evolution of SaaS tools, the first being CRM and then marketing automation. When the market started changing, PRM stepped up to fill in the gaps.
What do PRMs offer in comparison to CRMs?
PRM software provides businesses with tools to track reseller and referral sales while also giving partners support, resources, and a portal in which to communicate with your business. When comparing it against CRM, PRM technology’s power can best be summarized by three points:
- It centralizes most functions and content within a partner-friendly interface - Content is housed in a library with a search bar. Features like market development funds (MDF) requests, deal registration, and prospect pages are all within a single platform. This allows both partners and your management team to be more organized, as well as to identify relationships between different portal activities and subsequent conversions.
- It grants partners controlled freedom - Partners can engage with training and quizzes when most convenient, co-brand select materials as needed, and find quick solutions using the portal’s search function. This results in partners having the autonomy necessary to be productive and achieve success on a mass scale.
- It utilizes automation to improve the partner experience - The portal micromanages partners on your behalf based on commands you set up prior to deployment. This means that you can gate some features and content from defined partner groups and map out content recommendations based on users’ past responses.
Another advantage of utilizing a specialized PRM is that it shows your partners that you invest in their success. You’re willing to spend to accommodate their needs rather than asking them to fit their square bodies into your CRM’s round hole.
Case in point, Serko, a technology solutions provider in the travel and expenses industry, uses Allbound to support their partners who manage over 6,000 customers globally. Channel sales managers at Serko were able to showcase a world-class partner program and portal in which each partner was provided with the right sales and marketing content for their needs. Serko now has 100% partner adoption, which you can read about here.
It’s not “PRM vs. CRM”, as you will need both
Your company’s CRM is not intended for managing your partner ecosystem. However, there are CRM capabilities that are indispensable to Sales and Customer Service that a PRM simply cannot provide.
The Value Your CRM Brings to Your Partner Program
Remember, CRM is an acronym for customer relationship management, meaning that it helps businesses track prospective and existing customers within a single system of record, regardless of whether they came from Direct or Indirect. Advantages of a CRM (in conjunction with a PRM) include:
- The ability for Customer Service to pull client information to better serve their needs
- Customer base data for easier analysis, enabling companies to create and test retention strategies
- The option to schedule emails to customers through the CRM and collect related open-rate data
- Comprehensive pipeline views and sales forecasting, achieved by pulling data from both your CRM and PRM into a single view
- Customer segmentation for intelligent automation and more in-depth analysis
In short, your CRM is essential to keeping all the won leads your PRM helped generate. Additionally, it grants long-term insights into the quality of partners’ leads. For example, if a particular partner group consistently generates customers with high abandonment rates, this could indicate that they’re pursuing the wrong audiences or are setting false expectations, both which modified training practices can fix.
How and Why to Integrate Your PRM and CRM
Your PRM and CRM should share real-time data with one another through integration. This will grant you:
- The ability to block duplicate deals across both platforms - when Direct Sales and a partner both lay claim to a lead, the results are messy. Avoid channel conflict by enlisting data-sharing between your PRM and CRM so both platforms will immediately notify users that the deal already exists within the sales ecosystem.
- A fuller understanding of your pipeline and sales forecasting - Your PRM and CRM should generate reports that give you an overview of today’s (and future) performance. However, why look at two separate reports when you can dive deeper into one?
- For data comparisons between direct and indirect sales performance - By enabling your CRM to pull data directly from your PRM, you can do side-by-side comparisons of how different audiences react to various strategies. This enables you to create better-informed hypotheses and have the sales channels learn from one another.
Allbound’s PRM technology has standard integrations with a number of CRM solutions, such as Salesforce, Pipedrive, SugarCRM, and Hubspot. We also can do custom integrations in order to accommodate new customers’ existing technology stacks. In order to have the process go as smoothly as possible, designated integration specialists will sync up our PRM with your choice of CRM (as well as with other technologies). The end result is seamless interactions between the two software with minimal maintenance required.
What About CRMs That Say They Offer PRM Capabilities?
Because of the rapidly accelerating interest in channel partners, the Sales world is abuzz about PRM technology. It’s only natural that some related software companies would want to capitalize on this interest by laying claim to the PRM title, even if their products don’t quite meet the definitions.
Remember, a true PRM acts as a centralized hub for partner management and sales prospect interactions. Read Automate, Scale, Integrate – PRM System Criteria for a fuller understanding of what features to expect, and remember that a tool that offers only a fraction cannot call itself a real PRM solution.
The Bottom Line About CRM vs. PRM
The market has already started moving to a comprehensive partner management approach. In fact, 65% of high-tech companies have already adopted PRM tools that deliver a significant amount of company revenue. Companies that continue to manage partners in traditional ways via CRM or spreadsheets are not only missing out on new end customer sales, but also valuable insight from the data provided by channel partners. Consider creating a great partner experience to see big returns on your bottom line.
To learn more about choosing a PRM that fulfills your program’s needs, we recommend reading Partner Portal Best Practices and Design Checklist.
How does PRM work within a complex partner ecosystem?
Channel partners are your company’s selling allies, an extension of your sales team. PRM tools give you the functionality to support a variety of partners and their end customers.
PRM tools automatically gather and analyze performance data and metrics, with a clear focus on revenue and activity metrics. Rewarding your most profitable partners with MDFs for hitting revenue targets, or training completions, ensures that you see ROI from your investment.
PRM and tracking revenue
The revenue metrics for partner programs are unique to the indirect sales model, which is why PRM tools have extensive features to track leads and revenue including:
• Partner portal software for easy communication and data exchange
• Access to relevant parts of the customer database
• Dashboards for tracking leads, deal progression, deal registration, and sales KPIs
• Data about which partners perform well and which individuals fail to generate or convert leads
• Integrations with contract, scheduling, expense, and content tools
What are the benefits of PRM?
Overseeing a partner program has traditionally involved complex spreadsheets and manual correspondence for every deal, which required switching between a CRM and other tools to fill in the gaps. This is a huge competitive disadvantage and makes it almost impossible to correlate partner activity and training to closed business. That’s why PRMs provide partner management specific features like:
• Business intelligence, automation, and template-based workflows
• Visibility on the impact of 3rd parties on reaching new buyers
• Partner segmentation for targeted experiences
• Partner channel avoidance through clear registration processes and pipeline integrations
• Planning, recruitment, onboarding, enablement, co-selling and co-marketing, and incentives
• Overview that channel managers can use to track how well training and content is performing in relation to deal registrations
Integrating your partner tool with your CRM
For a complete view of your entire revenue org, both indirect and direct, integrate your PRM with your CRM tool. Look for a PRM vendor that helps you get your integrations in order.
Allbound let’s users bring their existing sales tools with them into the partner management process. You can pass information between your PRM and CRM to create a consolidated pipeline that is your single source of truth and stays relevant with real time updates on deal registrations. Syncing your data also avoids duplicate deal registrations, making partner conflict resolution much simpler.
Conclusion
Guide to Implementing a Channel Loyalty Program
What's one thing that starts and never stops? You might be thinking that the answer is Newton's first law of motion, but you'd be wrong. The answer is much simpler than that: partner recruitment.
Expert panelists Adam Pasch, Co-Founder of Stealth Startup, Ben Wright, CEO of Partner Fuel, Blake Williams, CEO of Ampfactor, and Chris Murray, VP of Partner Ecosystem at Lead Forensics join us to teach you how to recruit powerful partnerships that will take your business to the next level. We're talking about partnerships that will crush your revenue goals.
In this webinar, we'll discuss:
- How to nail a partner pitch
- How to build an IPP
- Why you should use ABM as part of your recruitment strategy