According to this Hubspot report, more than 40% of salespeople find prospecting the most challenging part of the sales process.

Amen to that one, am I right?

Finding key decision-makers, writing emails, researching leads—it’s a grind, and frankly, it’s not fun.

Actually making a sale? Now that is FUN.

Another stat from Hubspot’s report? Referral leads have a 30% higher conversion rate than leads from any other channel.‍

So how do you get said referrals?

Co-selling, my friend.

Co-selling is when your company partners with another to mutually help each other make more sales by sharing customer data, providing warm introductions, and making referrals.

If your sales team doesn’t yet take advantage of co-selling, that’s ok.

This article will help you understand how best to use co-selling to start closing more deals and having fun again!

Let’s get into it.

Map Your Customer or Prospect List To Your Partner’s

Alright, first things first.

You will want to meet with your partner and use account mapping to find overlaps between your list of customers and prospects and their list.

Now, you could go about it the old-fashioned way.

Endless spreadsheets, abusing the VLOOKUP function, getting angry because of a lack of useful information.

OR...

You can use a modern platform like Partnered to quickly uncover overlaps and even have top opportunities to pursue pushed into your lap.

Partnered Pro Tip: To make the most of your co-selling relationship, be transparent with your partner about expectations and ask the same in return. The best relationships are built on transparency.

Now that you have both found overlap via account mapping, work with each other to analyze the most strategic co-selling opportunities that will lead to partner-sourced revenue for both sides.

This is the first step to achieving more together through a strong co-selling relationship.

Use Mapping Data to Determine Which Customers Are Best Suited for Your Product

Armed with your partner's customer list, you should now ask for more context around that customer.

Here are a few key questions you should ask them:

1. Who is the best contact to speak with? This will be the customer’s key decision-maker.
   

2. What products do they currently use in their tech stack? According to Blissfully, companies spend more on SaaS than laptops. Therefore, you will want to know what tools a prospect is using in order to sell them on how they can do more with your complementary SaaS solution.

3. Has this customer verbalized any non-negotiables? Sometimes you lose a deal because a prospect you are speaking with doesn’t agree with something you are saying or offering. Getting this information helps you get ahead of that and bypass any potential blockers.
   

Partnered Pro Tip #2: Make sure to always share your information with your partner. The best relationships are mutual. Always check in and ask how you can help them. Find ways to help them close more business.

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Figure Out Which Customers Your Team Has a Strong Relationship With

Now that you and your partner have found customer overlap and you’re both armed with valuable information that will help you close a deal, work together to determine which customers you have the best relationships with.

Why?

Well, consider this question…

Who is more likely to take your advice? Your best friend, who you speak to daily? Or that dude you partied with once in your mom’s basement in high school?

By identifying which customers you have the best relationships with, you can improve the chances of a successful, warm introduction that leads to a sale.

From there, you can ask your customer if they would be open to trying a new technology that could benefit their business.

If they say yes? Boom! You can bring your partner into the mix and let them do their thing.

Partnered Pro Tip #3: Use the above information to identify the top 10-20 accounts that would be most likely to adopt your product or service.

Time To Act Fast!

Now that you have identified the best prospects to pursue, connect your sales team with your partner’s to determine the best next steps.

You will want to gather all the vital information you will need to make this deal happen when meeting with your prospect, including:

• Messaging that will be used on the sales call
• How your product is complimentary to your partner’s and how that will be beneficial to the customer

All that’s left to do is send out the new, informed pitch to your respective customer lists.

Aim for same-day intros to drive efficiency and improve time to close.

If the customer says they would like to try the product, make the introduction and you’re off to the races.

Conclusion:

Co-selling can be an amazing strategy for scaling fast.

It allows your team to quickly generate new leads, receive warm introductions to customers, and gain access to insider information.

Best of all? Co-selling can improve your time to close significantly.

If your team is struggling to grow and traditional sales channels are drying up, then co-selling may be the answer you’re looking for.

Get started with Partnered for free!

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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. Partnered is a fully automated platform that crunches partner data and pushes key insights into the laps of your sales team, allowing them 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 today for free (it only takes two minutes).