Listen, selling in today’s world is more difficult than ever.

Especially if you are in B2B SaaS sales.

There is so much competition out there, and breaking through the noise gets tougher by the day.

Now, you could continue to do that old-school way of selling:

• Cold calling (ugh)
• Calling your prospect during dinner time (big yikes)
• Pitching the product instead of the solution (you should know better)
• Sell to anyone with a heartbeat (let’s not get too excited now)
  

OR, you could step into 2021 and really start closing some deals via co-selling!

In an era where companies are using interconnecting “tech stacks,” you can have the ability to close exponentially more business when you partner with the right company. 

Before you go looking for the perfect partner, we thought we’d share some valuable tips to help you find the right match.

So, let’s dive into five tips to help you close more deals by leveraging strong partnerships and smart co-selling:

#1 Take The Time To Think of Your Ideal Co-selling Partner

The reality is, nearly 60-70% of partnerships fail, as Knowledge points out.

It’s not that partnerships are ineffective; it’s actually quite the opposite.

When they work, they can bring significant value to both sides.

It all starts with having a better understanding of who your ideal co-selling partner is. 

Your company should look at the following when choosing a co-selling partner:

1. Ideal customer profiles that overlap with your own. With overlap in customers, you’ll have opportunities to think of complementary products, services, and something fresh you can offer your customers. Additionally, overlap in customer profiles can help you level up your customer service. 

And we haven’t even mentioned cross-promotion yet. That’s right. Cross-promotion. We like to think of this as the two birds, one stone approach. For example, you can leverage social media or even paid ads to expose both brands at once. 

2. Experience with a product/service similar to your own. 

Does your potential partner know your product? Do they know your industry?

You don’t want to enter a relationship, then spend a ton of time educating your partner about what it is that you’re selling. 

Prior knowledge and experience with your industry, product, and customers, should be a factor in the partner you choose.

3. Their overall influence in the market

Are they a leader? Are they known for great customer service and client relationships?

Your partner’s influence can help when they pitch your product or service.

This added perk can go a long way to further support your sales goals as your partner can get your business in front of a lot of prospects.  

Also, another very important piece is cultural fit. You’re looking to grow, so it’s assumed you have a performance-driven attitude. 

Do they share that? 

Do they have that sense of urgency?

That “get it done” attitude? For a successful partnership, you need long-term commitment. 

#2 Identify Existing or Potential Integrations for Your Customers 

You can’t service all your customers' needs, even if you wanted to.

This is where co-selling is key and can help you and your partner drive the most value for your customers.

Working with a partner that compliments your service allows you to deliver mutual value to a customer and continue to scale your business by filling your pipeline with warm, qualified leads. 

Let’s use HubSpot as an example. This inbound marketing giant, which now has over 2,000 partners, has grown its brand through the power of co-selling. 

The beauty is, some of HubSpot’s partners get a commission when they sell a complementary subscription to an existing HubSpot customer. That’s what you call a win-win.

We can take a page out of HubSpot’s book: incentivize your partners with a commission for sales of complementary products. 

So, to set yourself up for success, make sure that you are finding partners who are selling a complementary product to your audience.

#3 Take Time to Help Partners Understand Your Product (and Take Time to Understand Theirs)

To get in front of the right people, your partner needs to understand your product.

When a partner understands, or even better, uses your product, you’ve already got someone who values what you offer.

This will help them to champion your product and provide warm leads when appropriate and vice versa. 

The same goes for you understanding what your partners sell. 

This helps create a collaborative environment where you are actively looking for opportunities to introduce each other to a mutual customer. 

You and your partner can provide each other with training and marketing materials to help better understand each other’s company and processes. 

Each of you will know your customers best, so it’s essential to give your partner room to put their style in their marketing efforts. 

#4 Make The Relationship a Social Experience

Communication is key in partnerships.

It helps strengthen your relationship and decrease the chances of any roadblocks. This is why frequent communication is imperative to the success of your working arrangement.

Here are some efficient and easy ways to stay connected. 

You can set up private communities:

• Slack channels
• Facebook groups
• Linkedin groups

Whatever you decide on, it will be an easily accessible one-stop shop for communication. 

You can use these communication channels to: 

• Provide updates, feedback, success stories, and Q&A for you, your partners, vendors, and sales representatives
• Have regular communication with partners sharing expertise, information on mutual customers, tips, strategies, best practices, and more
• Share important or even urgent information regarding customers and anything that could further support your businesses

The goal is to provide partners (and they provide you) with just-in-time information to help close deals faster.

#5 Invest in the Right Partner Platform!

You probably know where we’re headed [insert shameless plug here], but hey, you came to our post, and we would be crazy to pass up the opportunity. 😉

A partnership platform like Partnered allows you to quickly determine your overlap with a partner or a potential partner.

The data you need most gets crunched and is then presented with everything you need to know about what leads, prospects, and opportunities are worth going after.

Partnered also facilitates a social aspect to co-selling within the platform itself and with integrations like Slack, HubSpot, Sale Force, Microsoft Teams, and more!

Additionally, Partnered has the ability to track conversations, uncover data quickly, and work collaboratively to gain warm introductions and close more deals ALL IN ONE PLACE.

Neat, huh?

Conclusion:

Co-selling can be a great strategy to help you scale by expanding your geographical reach and improving organizations’ efficiencies. 

Additionally, it allows you to better serve your customers by partnering with complementary business partners who have similar goals to you.

To make the most of co-selling, keep in mind the five tips we have discussed above. They will help you add value to your customers, qualify B2B sales opportunities, boost sales, and grow your collaborative partnerships.

Now, let’s go make some money! 

Get started with Partnered today!

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Using a platform like Partnered is the simplest and most effective way to allow your sales team to reap the rewards of a strategic alliance partnership. Partnered is a fully automated platform that crunches partner data and pushes key insights into the laps of your sales team, allowing your team to save time prospecting and use powerful insights to close more deals.

If you’d like to check out how Partnered can help you and your team boost sales and close more deals, get started for FREE today!