You Have A Lot To Offer: 5 Tools for Better Alliance Partnerships

This week’s entry is going to be a two-part piece that will explore Alliance Partnerships from the perspectives of both the upstart ISV (independent software vendor) as well as from that of the partner team on the Alliance side.  I’ll be tackling the ISV perspective with all of my usual grappling analogies and then I’ll be joined by my friend Jim Misuraca, formerly the Senior Director of Alliances and Channels at Oracle Marketing Cloud, who can talk about what it takes to break away from the pack when trying to achieve any level of notoriety and success with a company that has thousands of other ISVs, agencies, and other services providers all vying for their attention. 

After wrapping up our Friday night comp class a couple of weeks ago our head instructor, Professor Ethan Snow, took a few minutes to share some knowledge that I thought particularly applicable to the discussion on how ISVs should engage with 800-pound gorilla Alliance Partners with whom we all want better alignment.  

By way of a bit of background, Ethan is a formidable, solidly built, highly-skilled, human being standing a couple of inches over six-feet tall with about as many years experience as a black-belt as I have on the mats in total. Strong, and very technical, he’s a matchup nightmare for just about anyone but, on this occasion, he shared that he was feeling inadequate, and relatively useless, while helping another, even larger, younger, black belt, who also happens to have been an Olympic wrestler, get ready to compete in the upcoming Master’s World’s tournament.  

With a rare combination of size, speed, and skill, the Olympian has the ability to dominate people in ways few others can. When you’re his training partner (as I've been on a number of occasions) it’s quite easy to make the assumption that he’s not getting a whole lot out the encounter as you struggle to do...well...much of anything against him.

After enduring round after round of the aforementioned struggle, Ethan was feeling every bit of useless and inadequate and seriously began to wonder if he was helping this guy at all.  That was until the Olympian went out of his way to express his sincere appreciation for both the training and the skillset Ethan brought to their sessions.  Ethan's unique abilities provided an entirely different set of "looks" than anything the Olympian saw from his other training partners and, in turn, this made him much better prepared to compete against a wider variety of opponents than he would have been absent their matches.

The moral of the story: Even if you don't feel like it, both partners will derive lasting, practical benefit from the relationship if you and, by extension, your company, come prepared to do everything possible to make the partnership a success. 

It’s this idea that I want to hammer home when it comes to Alliance partnerships: even though you might be dealing with a massive company like Oracle, Salesforce, or Marketo, you still have a lot to offer if you approach the relationship with the right attitude and willingness to engage.  

Below are five principles that have served me well when working with Alliance Partners: 

1. Clearly Define What’s In It For Them.  You want access to Alliance Partner’s sales, and especially, customer success teams...and so does everyone else. Spiff’s aside, you’re not getting their attention unless you can demonstrate how your solution makes their lives easier.  Can it help with renewals?  Does it make their product stickier? Will it help them accelerate pipeline? Does it fill a major gap in their product offering?  Whatever the reason, clearly define, and simply articulate it.

2. Give to Get.  Even though the Alliance Partner’s teams are relatively enormous, individually they have no less responsibility than anyone else and, collectively, they have an even bigger ecosystem of partners all sticking their heads up like hungry, baby birds looking for a piece of their action.  If you want them to pay attention to you, bring something to the table that’s going to endear you to both the leadership and the rank-and-file.  Have some account intelligence that would assist with renewal, upsell, or retention? Share it. Is one of your clients an ideal target for their solution? Make an intro. Do you have prospects that would also be great prospects for them? Bring them up in your pitch and let the Alliance Partner's AE know you did so.  

3. Take Point.  Have a great idea for an event? Did you think of a novel way to engage their sales team? Did you identify a joint client that wants to tell their story of how both organizations helped them do something great? Perfect. Once you determine that the Alliance partner is interested in the opportunity, own it.  Even though they’re a giant corporation and you’re the upstart, there’s a better than average chance their resources are stretched almost as thin as yours.  Sure, they may have the budget (which they’ll most likely be willing to spend on your great idea) but they may not have the people-power to help execute your idea so, if it’s worth doing, don't wait for them, take the lead and make it happen.  

4. Remember You Have A Lot To Offer. Yeah, they’re huge and you’re not but there’s a reason they’re partnering with you so never forget that you’re bringing something they need to the table.  Whether that’s a client base, a solution, services, or something else, the Alliance partner benefits when you’re a good partner and, the better you are as a partner, the more willing they'll be to give you access to their teams and, ultimately, their customer base.  

5.  Use Simple, Clear, Concise Communication.  As in any relationship, communication is foundational and that's especially true with Alliance Partners.  They have hundreds, if not thousands, of partners all vying for their attention with messages that don't sound that different from one another. When you think you've simplified your message enough, simplify it three more times and you might have the right message.  If the Alliance Partner's team doesn't get it, change it.  It's not their job to remember your message, it's your job to deliver a message they want to remember.