Driving pipeline using partnerships as a GTM motion

Ep07 - Driving pipeline using partnerships as a GTM motion

Episode Description

In this episode of The Revenue Stream, I had the opportunity to chat with Gayathri, the head of global partnerships at Intercom.

Having scaled partnerships as a channel previously at Freshworks, Gayathri shares with us all the things she has learned in the last 11 years on what it takes to successfully set up and scale partnership initiatives within organizations. We cover key strategies for introducing partnerships, different approaches across different regions, necessary organizational structures, partnership-driven pipeline building, CAC calculation, and effective co-marketing activities.

I had loads of fun chatting with Gayathri in this episode and I hope you enjoy the show too. See ya on the other side. 👋

Show Notes

Follow Gayathri Padmanabhan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayathri-padmanabhan

‍Learn more about Intercom: https://www.intercom.com

‍Follow Chara: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charanyan/

‍Learn more about RevenueHero: https://www.revenuehero.io/
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Episode Transcription

‍Chara: Welcome to another episode of the Revenue Stream where we have conversations with revenue leaders from different organizations and different walks of life to understand what works at different companies and different stages. I'm Chara. I'm a co founder at RevenueHero. I'm learning the ropes in the GTM org and head the marketing team.

And we have with us Gayathri who was one of the earliest folks at Freshworks running partnerships. Gayathri, I'll let you do the introduction yourself so that I don't butcher it, and then we'll get right into the fun stuff.

Gayathri: Awesome. Thank you, Chara. It's so nice to be here. Uh, like Chara mentioned, I'm Gayathri.

I have over 11 years of experience in partnerships. I head global partnerships at Intracom, and I joined Intracom almost six months back. Uh, we're building our technology and solution partner ecosystem here at Intracom. Prior to Intracom, I was with Freshworks for almost 11 years. I joined Freshworks when we were a startup, uh, less than a hundred employees and was an early hire in the partner team.

I also had the opportunity to set up two of their biggest markets in partnerships, Europe and North America, ground up, and also managed global partner strategy and ops for a couple of years in between. So I was super fortunate to be part of the partner team from day zero to post IPU at Freshworks and taking on some of that learning here to build our partnerships at Intercom as well.

Nice to be here again.

Chara: Awesome. Uh, that's a great journey, uh, Gayathri, and that's one of the reasons I want to learn from, uh, somebody who's scaled partnership from day zero all the way through to a massive, uh, GTM org and seen the entire journey, right? So, I think that's a good segue for me to get into, uh, the questions that we have around partnership and what we think would be interesting for a broader audience, right?

So, um, I'm a founder and I'm naturally extremely curious and want to get things done quick. So anytime I think about new initiatives, new sources of pipeline, um, I'm always met with, uh, the question of, hey, but do you have all the structures in place to get this going, right? So on those lines, when it comes to, um, kicking off a partnerships, uh, motion or a partnership motion for an organization, what have you seen, uh, be the necessary org structures Um, you know, that need to be in place before you can think about, uh, introducing partnerships as a pipeline, uh, on an organization, uh, in your company.

Gayathri: Sure. So really when it, uh, I want to like try to simplify this as much as possible, right? Like, uh, like how every GTM org, when you're setting up a company and getting started, They kickstart with a sales team, right? I think we should start looking at partnerships in a very similar way. So as you set up your sales team, you should also set up your partner team or at least have one person to kickstart partnership motion.

As you build your GTM strategy, and this will really help companies look at their entire GTM more holistically across three different channels of pipeline generation inbound would be one outbound would be one and partnerships would be another. And this is specifically for GTM. And for product team, it gives them an ability to identify which tech partners to double down on and which they can build in house based on really their product vision.

So I think it's beyond GTM with partners, right? It's GTM plus a lot of product and engineering, uh, that benefits that you get from partners. So I would really say, like, as soon as you set up your GTM, It really makes sense to think about a partner strategy alongside, so it's more holistic. And then later introducing a partner component to it might be tricky and difficult.

And also you're losing out on all the benefits you would have reaped from partners from your day zero.

Chara: Got it. So, um, don't just look at it as a,

Gayathri: uh,

Chara: GTM initiative. There's a lot of product heavy lifting also involved. So the earlier, uh,

Gayathri: the better.

Chara: So in your early days, um, at Freshworks, uh, Gayathri, when partnerships was, uh, being set up, like you mentioned, you need to look at it from a product angle as well.

But what were some of the other GTM constructs or just GTM structures that you had to have in place? Was there,

Gayathri: uh,

Chara: somebody who was dedicated to providing support to these partners, training them, onboarding them? Like, how do you get started? Uh, and what should you be cognizant of in terms of both people and structures to get it going?

Gayathri: Yeah. So when you get started, I can, I, again, just to keep it as simple, just have one person and that one person can be looking at both GTM partners as well as technology partners, right? Uh, so when it comes to GTM partners, when you start off, like I think it really makes sense to see. Who's your ICP, right?

Because with GTM, it starts from your customer. Understand your ICP and try to build out your ideal partner profile based off of your ICP. And that one person will be primarily to start with focused on recruiting the right partners who can maybe be an extension of their GTM. be it for sales or for services, right?

And then as you see is traction, the way the GTM side of partnerships evolves is regional teams where you have someone for Americas that includes North America, uh, and Latin America. And then you have someone for EMEA and then maybe someone for APAC, again, depending on where your ICP is, um, and then evolve, uh, slowly.

And that evolution involve partner marketing, partner ops, um, partner pre sales, um, and really partnership should be like a company within a company, like a startup within a startup, right? Because you're essentially getting partners outside of your company to represent you the best way possible, like how your employees would represent you.

And for that, You need to make sure they are trained, they are certified, they have all marketing materials required to sell and drive services for customers. So you want to make sure if you're putting someone in front of your customer, they're properly enabled. So really looking at it from a, uh, on how you would actually set up your company, you can replicate different functions in partnerships, depending on the scale and growth in which you're getting from partners.

But if you're just starting out, I would say one person who can just. kickstart things and that person would initially be focused on recruitment and then engagement. And then with technology partnerships, again, the way, you know, companies typically scale is, you know, have a global technology partnerships leader who's looking at both integrations marketplace.

And then again, having sub regional, uh, leader, uh, managers, partner managers. below them and those partner managers would focus on more regional, uh, integrations and, you know, again, more regional nuances of partnerships. Um, so again, depending on how important all of these would really be for the broader GTM, you can align based off of the stage in which you are as a company.

Chara: Uh, so like anything else, start off simple, hire one person to run partnerships, make sure that you at least know your ICP so that you're able to build out your IPP, your ideal group. And then you have the partnerships profile, uh, who are able to drive, drive those ICPs and build pretty much a funnel, right?

Gayathri: Yes.

Chara: So one of the things that was interesting was you mentioned that partnerships is like a company within a company, right? So I just want to, uh, you know, uh, get into that thread. So when it comes to building pipeline for any company, right? Like you have your classic inbound funnels, you have your outbounds, and then you know the cadence, right?

You run ads, you generate events, uh, you host events, generate content. Right. And then all the trust eventually turns into pipeline, and you're able to, at some point in time, get predictability, um, of that pipeline, right? So, when it comes to a funnel driven by partnerships, Gayathri, how do you think about building that pipeline?

Um, is there a cadence that you follow to continuously grow a network of partners? Just how does that funnel look like? Um,

Gayathri: So, uh, again, I'm going to reinforce on the ICP because I think everything really depends on your customers. So with partners, I would tie Uh the ICP first and based on every company's ICP They need to really identify what kind of partnership makes sense for their business.

And using this information, like build your ideal partner profile. And once you have that ready, it's about reaching out to the right partners. And I'm emphasizing on right, and I'll maybe get to it in a few minutes. Because our recruiting partners, what I've found helpful is really gauging how this partnership helps them in their business goals, then put together a joint business plan that meets their goals and our goals.

And this plan will have revenue goal, marketing goals, services, goal, and other GTM activities. It's all highlighted in this, right? How many people from their side will be dedicated for us, how many people will be certified. So really have a thorough plan because it's another company actually investing in your business and trying to grow their revenue, right?

So really, again, to simplify it, like how sales leaders work with their teams. Partner managers work with their partners to ensure these agreed goals are met and evaluate if performance isn't as expected. So we, in that sense, we have bi weekly cadence, we have QBRs, we have in person meetings. And in all the business discussions, I love to involve sales leaders also because partnerships team can only do so much from our side, especially if it's a bigger company, right?

Thank you. Um, and also partners love talking to salespeople more than partnerships people in reality, because that's how they can drive their business. So getting sales as close to partners as possible would also help, you know, grow that or accelerate that with partners. So yeah, I mean, ultimately, you want to make sure both partners and the companies are evaluating all the agreed upon business goals on a periodic basis.

And also it gives us all a good sense on where the partnership is progressing. And sometimes if we are conservative in the start and it seems like we're getting more traction, we also revisit and rebuild. Or if we see, like, it's the other way around where partners are not really performing, so we also, like, take corrective measures because ultimately they, I'm sure they also don't want to waste time and, uh, it's the same for your case as well.

Chara: Uh, and you, you know, you placed a lot of emphasis on the right partners, right? So once you emphasize or once you figured out your ICP, right, let's say you have a working inbound funnel or a working outbound funnel and you found out, Hey, these types of, um, buyers are the best for us. And at these company sizes, for instance, how do you identify the right partner, right?

Do you filter them down based on, let's say a tool out there, do you use some kind of product to filter it down? So just walk us through what that looks like, uh, for people building out the partnerships.

Gayathri: Sure. So first and most important lesson is quality over quantity. And this is a big lesson that I've learned by making mistakes, uh, my share of my mistakes there.

And the reason why I say quality over quantity is really, if you think about it, recruiting partners is relatively easier. Especially if you have the right program in place, it's easier to recruit partners, but recruiting good quality partners, uh, and by good quality, I mean, they may be really good, but are they good for you in your stage of business?

And in their stage of business, I think is the biggest mistake that many partner managers do. Uh, and I can maybe double click on that a little bit. So what ideally happens is. When you just keep recruiting partners and you think that if you recruit more partners, you get more revenue. Unfortunately, you're wrong because the more partners you talk to, the more time you get consumed by engaging with these partners.

And just because a partner is responsive is showing up on calls. It doesn't really mean anything to your business. I think what means or what is most impactful is. How does that partner view your company in their broader goals? Are they willing to commit people in terms of headcount or in terms of resourcing?

Are they willing to give you that commitment? Are they willing to take a goal, joint goal with you? And are they willing to go all out and execute on that joint goal is what partner managers need to assess early on and also partner leaders, right? They need to assess early on in the partnership. And if it doesn't really make sense, then I would say it doesn't make sense.

It probably, uh, does not make sense for you to move forward in the partnership or look at them more as a transactional or a lower tier partner if you have tiers so that you're putting in the right investment and time into the partners that is going to give you the most results. So, um, Yeah. So I, the way I like to practically make this easier for my team is I have like a discovery template, like how you have a discovery process for prospects.

I try to keep it simple, have a bunch of questions that I get my team to ask those partners. And then when we have an exec connect with their partners, I try to understand what their business looks like, what has been their year on your growth trajectory over the last few years. Um, If they want to work with us, then how do they look at us in their overall growth goals and really try to gauge, um, how they view us and see how we could start viewing them, if that makes sense.

Chara: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So TREAT, um, partnership acquisition, pretty much like another sales funnel. Yeah. Only that instead of a deal, it's you evaluating a partner, qualifying them. Yeah. See if they're a good match and then, uh, you know, close one if they're a good match. Yeah. You part ways if not,

Gayathri: right?

Um,

Chara: yeah, so given the number of, um, touch points involved and, you know, just the amount of processes involved, Gayathri, I think one of the things that, that's hard for me to understand is how you look at acquisition cost when it comes to partnerships, those deals, right? Because you're probably giving them a cut of, um, the deal value, right?

Um, and your marketing team is contributing to a lot of. What's resulting in the partner also being able to close the deal because your own product's reputation plays a part in it. So when you think about the customer acquisition cost for deal source through your partnerships or to your partners, just how do you calculate that?

Um, and how do you measure and optimize CAC for partnership source deals?

Gayathri: Yeah. And that's a really good question, Chara, because I feel like that's also what most CFOs are, you know, like matters to most CFOs also, when you're looking at setting up a new program, right? Because, you know, you probably in companies where you already have a motion set up, then you're already spending X amount in your sales team, you're spending so much in marketing and so on and so forth.

And then adding a partner channel might be tricky in those cases. So, which is why I, in the, in the beginning of the discussion, I emphasized, it makes sense to look at partnerships from, you know, from the beginning, because that of course can eliminate a lot of concerns that potentially leadership might, exec leadership might have in scaling partnership business.

And the reason being, and I, I'll get to your question in a bit, but, um, If you're starting out along with your GTM, I think it, you have the opportunity to gauge which channels are actually working and double down your investment in that. So that will simplify life for most founders who are starting up.

So that would be my ideal recommendation. Having said that, if at any point in time you haven't done that, and now you're looking at bringing in partnership, what I've noticed is if you look at CAC specifically to partner deals, it's always lower than rest of the, you know, um, uh, other channel CAC, like inbound or outbound.

And the reason being, when partner brings in an opportunity, in most cases, they have an existing relationship with that particular customer. And that's why I emphasize on the right partners, right? The right partners will Always have an existing relationship in most cases. So the chance of that opportunity moving to closed one is way higher.

So if you think about it, you don't really need a 3X or 5X pipeline with partners. All you need, I've seen this work is one, one and a half X, 2X is always good enough with the right partners at best 2X. And second is unlike inbound, you don't spend for every lead, right? Because a lot of leads get generated on account mapping discussions in one on one sales discussions.

Thanks. So you're not always generating opportunities with just events or activities, but even if you do, you're co spending that together with a partner. Like if you spend 1, 000, the company's investing 500 and partners usually invest 500. So it's, you know, a joint investment in that. But technically, in most cases, you don't really spend money for every lead.

Thirdly, partners can actually be an extension of your GTM where you don't have people, right? And this is zero operation cost for setting up entire partner motion in a different country where you don't want to hire people. So all of these together will actually lower your CAC. And also partner deals have a higher LTV.

So net net, it actually would make sense. But in cases where. Some companies have already an expensive sales motion going. There's always going to be a need to revisit how your overall GTM strategy would be structured along with partnerships. And that's going to be a larger discussion with your broader GTM team.

How do you want to like place people? How do you want targets to be split for your sales team? These are all like the broader discussion and bigger teams, which have thought about partnerships later in their GTM motion.

Chara: Yeah. So, uh, just of it is, yeah. Uh, lower CAC, uh, you know, you need to generate lesser pipeline, you know, 5x pipeline is enough for partnerships and a higher LTV sounds like, Hey, why wouldn't you be doing this?

Right? Uh,

Gayathri: yeah.

Chara: So one of the things I mentioned, Gayathri, was when you do marketing activities or events, Your partners tend to split the cost, and just by virtue of doing that, you're probably looking at lower costs as well, right? So, when it comes to partnerships, you mentioned events, but what have you seen work out,

Gayathri: uh,

Chara: and be really effective in terms of co marketing activities with partnerships?

Just some examples of, uh, things you've seen work out really well.

Gayathri: Yeah. So, uh, what has given and by really well, if I'm taking as ROI, then for, uh, for me, what I've seen work best with our solution partners or channel partners, intimate events, where you have like, I don't know, 40 people, 50 people, or maybe even lesser than that.

You have like a customer speaker, you have, um, you know, like a very generic topic. You're not really hard selling your product. So it's like an intimate event or an intimate dinner. Um, Um, or sometimes even fun activities like a pickleball event or Topgolf, like pickleball and Topgolf is pretty famous in the U.

S., so like such events have also given really good ROI for us. Um, and this is all with channel partners or solution partners. With technology partners, even webinars, a joint webinar, like just calling out what is your Together Better story and, you know, having really good content that attracts, um, audience has helped in generating a lot of both source revenue as well as influence revenue, um, for us with technology partners.

So both of these, um, I would say are like the two, um, you know, like, um, from an ROI perspective, events that have worked well for us.

Chara: Awesome. So, um, in person events with curated, with a curated guest list, which, um, you know, probably you also have a say in, you know, Hey, these folks are a good fit. Let's invite them.

And then the partners invite their own lot. Uh, they'd have a not too salesy, uh, event where you're not pitching a product and then, you know, go out of the way, have some fun, uh, with your partners and your prospects, uh, create memories and then eventually turn that into pipeline. Right. Awesome. Great. So, uh, having said that, Gayathri, what are some of your most memorable, quirky campaigns that you've executed with partners across the years, or just things that have stood out, both in terms of memories and in terms of, uh, ROI?

Gayathri: Yeah, I mean, um, memories for sure with at Freshworks. One memory I will never forget is, uh, we had our first event in Europe at Freshworks with a partner in Netherlands and in France. So we did it a back to back event. Um, we also got our CEO Girish to join us for those events and it was not a quirky event.

Definitely. It was a very professional event, but we were very nervous because that was, you know, Freshworks's first event outside of, um, outside in, in Europe, actually, I think they did one in Latam before, but in Europe, it was the first event. Um, the good news is they finally, like in the first event, we got 40 people, um, really good, uh, content and very well received event.

And it was a big success, both the event in Netherlands and Um, so that was a good win, both from an ROI perspective and also for the company to really, uh, you know, see the benefit of partner ecosystem within a few years of setting it up. I think that was something that was definitely memorable. And off late, pickleball was something we were very skeptical about.

And this was again at Freshworks. Um, Uh, we didn't really know how it will be received, but everybody was excited. They were like, even some of our sales leadership, they were like, Hey, I'll come if you're playing pickleball, I'll come ultimately. We, I think we got our first deal in like few weeks of hosting that event.

And I think we had like a 10 X ROI in that event that, that worked pretty well. Uh, Topgolf is also something that we do pretty regularly, at least at Threshworks. Intercom, we haven't started doing as many in person events yet. But I'm hoping we can replicate some of them here as well.

Chara: Awesome. So first European event turning out to be successful and landing large deals through pickleball.

Yeah.

Gayathri: Who would have thought?

Chara: Yeah. Right. Awesome. So, um, since you mentioned Europe, uh, Gayathri, one of the things that, um, so I've worked across both geographies, right? Yeah. So, uh, working with the US customers, uh, and European customers. You see quite a lot of difference, both in terms of, uh, communication, what type of, uh, selling and conversation works.

So how does that work out when it comes to, uh, partnerships, right? Like what are some of the stark differences you've seen in building, uh, partnerships in the U S or North America versus building partnerships, uh, in Europe. And, you know, typically, um, Just non North American regions, I think. What would you say are your biggest observations?

Gayathri: Yeah, I mean, um, personally based off of my experience and drawing this also at Freshworks, uh, is, So India is, first of all, a huge region with a lot of different languages and different countries. And if you look at India as a whole, UK is pretty much mainly, UK and Middle East, Africa and maybe Netherlands and a few other regions here and there.

Ireland are like some of the regions that speak English, right? But in most other countries, they require a non English support. Ultimately, I don't know how many companies can afford that. salespeople who can speak all the different languages that EMEA requires, one. Two is Middle East Africa, markets like Middle East Africa, France, Germany.

These are all really hardcore partner markets. Um, and those customers expect to work with partners. They need that regional support with partners. So naturally, it does make sense for every company to be thinking about a partner motion in these countries, at least to start with in EMEA. Um, so I think when I look at EMEA specifically, partnerships, it's just like obviously makes sense because of language reasons, the fact that they have so many different countries that they have to manage, and also that certain countries are very partner driven.

Um, so, you know, any company that wants to get into those markets have to adapt to that. When it comes to the US, uh, or North America specifically, um, every company that starts out wants to look at North America as, you know, the focus market because of TAM and obviously because, you know, there's, that's where you get most of your revenue in most cases.

So in that case, there's already a sales team who is selling. It could be an inbound motion, it could be outbound motion, it could be in region, it could be outside, either ways. Companies definitely need to have that motion going because, you know, like customers expect it from, from you. And in such cases, the way I would look at partner motion is in a few ways.

If as a company you're struggling to drive inbound, um, you know, like inbound revenue, if that's really stagnant or your outbound motion is still TBD yet to be figured out, then as a company, you definitely need a partner motion to drive your revenue and pipeline, right? So that's one way of looking at it.

The second way is if as a company you're doing really well in inbound and outbound, then you could look at a partner motion for maybe services because instead of investing in your big services organization internally, then you could maybe look at partners to drive professional services for your company and drive growth through that and through that also reduce churn, expansion, so on and so forth.

And of course, technology partnerships is definitely something that obviously is required for every company that's in this, um, in this space. So that's totally separate, but just from a channel and solution partner perspective, I would look at, you know, like really organizing your thought process around partnerships, really depending on how you think partners could help your overall GTM growth.

Chara: Yeah, makes perfect sense. So when you get into Europe, you probably Not as multilingual as you need to be. Hiring those many people or just folks who can speak all those languages isn't practical. So partnerships make perfect sense.

Gayathri: Yeah,

Chara: and in the U. S. You know, it's just another source of pipeline like you mentioned earlier much lower CAC, much higher LTV and retention.

So it makes perfect sense, right? So in English speaking countries Gayathri, do you, have you seen specific countries other than, you know, within the U. S. Um, have more of a tendency to buy towards partners because Europe, you mentioned, has a strong partnership,

Gayathri: um,

Chara: bias or rather prefer buying through partners, uh, in English speaking countries, which countries would you say are, uh, hey, don't even try entering that country to sell yourselves, start with partners, familiarize your brand, and then try selling yourself?

Have there, have you seen specific countries or regions work out like that?

Gayathri: Definitely. Uh, so, um, I think us also to some extent, I would say, depending on your, whether you're, if you're an enterprise, you definitely need partners, right? Like mid market enterprise, for sure. You need partners because all of these companies work with partners, but maybe SMB, not so much.

You could probably drive through in, uh, in house. and through partners. So U. S. I would still mark as one, uh, one country. Uh, U. K. I would say is very services driven with partners, right? I don't know how revenue driven it is, uh, but definitely very heavy on services through partners. Um, Middle East and Africa, 100 percent partners.

Um, they, they all need partners. If you don't have a team in India, you definitely need partners in India to even enter the India market. Um, outside of Austria, even Australia to some extent, but even Singapore, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia. Again, Indonesia is a big, you know, like it's a growing market for SMB.

So these markets also require partners. Canada is another market that's typically for most companies. It's a tough market to crack. But if you have a couple of good partners in the region who can actually connect culturally also, because their entire sales process is slightly different, right? Like they're, when you compare to US, their Canadian sales process is different.

So having a few good partners in Canada can also help. So I would actually put it again to keep it very simple, pretty much everywhere partners add value. It's just about what kind of value you want them to add in those markets. And really, how does that affect your ARPA, right? Like your overall revenue goals, because if it's too much investment and too much time, uh, taken to set it up, but then not enough returns, then I don't think it makes sense to prioritize it.

But if you have a TAM in those countries, then I think you should look at partnerships. Like nobody asks why inbound or why outbound, right? I think we should start looking at partnerships the same way, uh, is really something that I've tried to advocate over the last years. And, um, I'm hoping, you know, more leaders can, uh, accept that, uh, philosophy going forward.

Chara: Uh, so like something you mentioned, right, Gayathri, nobody asks why inbound, why outbound, right? Um, on those lines, there are just too many products these days to optimize your inbound funnel, your outbound funnel. Um, but I don't think a lot of folks are familiar with what products,

Gayathri: um,

Chara: somebody who's running partnerships or optimizing it or scaling partnerships,

Gayathri: uh,

Chara: can look at, right?

So what are your favorites? When it comes to products focused on, uh, enabling a partnerships person at companies. Have you have, do you have any favorites? Have you wished, hey, why isn't there a product like this? So just what is your experience with SaaS or products around, uh, partnerships funnels?

Gayathri: Yeah, I mean with respect to a PRM.

Very honestly, I think that there is still some room to build a product that is affordable as well as usable for partners. And I don't want to give names that I'm comfortable with because I feel like there's still a lot more scope for different companies to, you know, like establish there. Um, in fact, um, one of, um, my, uh, you know, my managers at Freshworks, uh, he's started up SAS 22.

That's really aimed at building that partner community together. Uh, Chris is a founder, uh, of SAS 22, and they're doing a really good job in, uh, trying to bridge that gap in that space. Um, but when it comes to account mapping tools, I really like cross beam and now cross beam and reveal have merged together.

So that's something that we use internally, especially in bigger sales teams. To account map and see where there are overlapping opportunities. It's a really, really good tool. I feel like every company that's serious about partnerships should look for like a account mapping tool that works for them because it makes their life easier and less Excel sheets for people to deal with.

Chara: Awesome. So shout out to Krish and SAS 22 and Crossbeam. You should check out both these products if you are thinking about running a partnerships team, right? Right. So, uh, just one last thing, uh, Gayathri, when, um, So, given that partnerships are very shared motion,

Gayathri: uh, the

Chara: responsibility of,

Gayathri: uh,

Chara: closing a deal doesn't just fall to the partners, it's equally important that the vendor themselves get involved, uh, and influences pipeline and closures as well.

So how do you run your forecasting and, you know, measure predictability of these deals? Because the number of factors involved in closing partnership led deals seems to be Slightly higher than, um, you know, an inbound or an outbound motion where things are a lot more in control of the company versus with partners, there's a lot of external factors as well.

So how do you run your forecasting, um, for partnerships? And how predictable would you say are partnership led deals?

Gayathri: Yeah, that's really another good question because it's something that I've made multiple mistakes over multiple years and then try to learn. So I think the first foremost thing that I want to reemphasize is quality over quantity, because if you have lesser partners who are good quality, then your, you know, your, uh, way in which you engage with partners will make your life easier.

One. Second is what I've tried doing, and that's really helped me, uh, and that worked is, When I recruit a partner, I recruit, I like my team does the due diligence first. And then I get on a call. I meet with their execs immediately after I try to get my sales leader to meet that partner. Uh, so it's not just the partner team recruiting a bunch of partners and nobody knows what's going on.

Actually, we are pulling in the right sales leadership into that discussion with the execs and trying to get the sales leadership also to gauge how their partner would. Help their teams in their overall sales goals. And that's worked beautifully. And from there on, if it's an in person meeting or an event or any activity we do with the partner, including QBRs, we jointly co own that together.

And even my biweekly forecasting meetings, I try to get sales. Um, a ease to join some of those causes optional if they have deals going on with their partners. So it is accountability, not just from partner team side, but also from sales side. And if services is involved, I also get services leadership to be part of those calls from the beginning, because ultimately, like you said, It's, it's, it's a joint effort takes a village to get one partner successful and all of the entire leadership needs to be committed.

Otherwise, we are not doing justice for that partner nor for yourself in trying to get that partner successful. So that's, that's definitely, um, worked for us when it comes to forecasting. And the other thing is. I look at our strategic partners and their forecast as a way to hit our quota. Anything that's transactional or one off partners that actually brings us those deals is a mean to cross our quota, right?

So the way I tell my team is your strategic partner should be giving you your a hundred percent of your quota. Anything that's over a hundred percent should be from the rest of the partners that are not strategic for us. So that's always helped my team think beyond a hundred percent. And I also believe in the ideology of a hundred percent.

is not enough. It's should be always more than 100%. Um, and we try to like just, um, you know, um, use our partner relationships and categorize the types of partners we work with to get us beyond 100 percent also consistently.

Chara: Awesome. Um, like you mentioned, start off with, uh, emphasizing on quality, make sure that your sales team is also involved in these conversations because, uh, without them having shared responsibility, you're probably not going to.

Headquarters, or at least it's going to be, uh, harder than it would be if your sales team is also involved, right?

Gayathri: Yes.

Chara: Great. Um, so I think as a founder, I have a lot more clarity on, uh, how to approach, uh, partnerships. Thank you. Gayathri. So for, uh, people who are interested in learning more from you, where should they find, uh, find you?

Who are some people who you follow, uh, to learn about partnerships, uh, communities, books, whatever your favorites are. So just give us the list so that,

Gayathri: uh,

Chara: listeners can go on ahead and learn more both from you and from your favorites.

Gayathri: Of course. Uh, yeah. If anybody wants to, first of all, thank you, Chara, that's, uh, I thoroughly enjoyed this because I feel like it's always good to revisit some things that work and some things that don't work.

And you know, you're also reemphasizing that for yourself. So that's been super helpful in this chat. And I will take that. on forward also. Um, few questions that you had asked. One, if people want to reach me, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Uh, I might take a few more days, few days to respond. I'm not always checking my messages, but if it's relevant, you will definitely get a response from me.

Um, second, um, some people that I really go to with respect to partnerships is I always go to Anand Venkatraman. He was SVP of partnerships at Freshworks, uh, for four, four plus years, and he also scaled the revenue from partners. Um, from like, um, you know, from where it was to where it is right now. Um, so he is definitely one of my go to, uh, leaders.

Um, Krish Ramachandran that I mentioned, he's also one of my other go to leaders. Um, I also go back to a few sales leaders that I work with. Brogan Taylor is, uh, still a VP of, um, enterprise sales at Freshworks. He's a big advocate of partnerships at Freshworks and, you know, have had a lot of great learnings from him.

So these are some of the leaders that I typically go to when I want to talk more about partnerships. When it comes to communities, I have been part of Partnership Leaders. It's a community that I joined a little over a year back. Um, the community just brings everybody in partnerships together. In fact, even last month, we had an event in Chicago where we had like thousand plus partnership professionals in one room and like for three days, like sharing different ideas on what worked, what did not work.

Asher Matthews, one of the founders of that community, and he's amazing, extremely helpful and the entire community is great. So if you want to check it out or if anybody wants to check them out, you should. Um, but yeah, these are some of my, uh, go to people and communities.

Chara: Awesome. That's a ton of great shout outs.

I'll be sure to add links to all of those so that listeners can go on ahead and follow these folks, join the communities. Great. Gayathri, it's been great chatting with you on the revenue stream. Thank you so much for taking time. Thank you, sir. And we hope you all take away something from this conversation.

Gayathri: Thank you, sir. It was great. Great chatting with you as well. Thanks again for having me.

Ep07 - Driving pipeline using partnerships as a GTM motion

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