When it comes to growing indirect revenue channels, it’s often the case that one partner might have the education, technology and marketing resources but another has the market access and direct contact with potential buyers. Instead of each of them spending time and money to match each other’s strengths, they work together and share costs and risks, all with the goal of expanding their customer base and their market share.
That’s why it’s necessary to have a healthy, high-quality partner network, according to Nick Latus, VP, Network Success at PartnerStack, who we spoke with to get her expert take on what makes a strong network.
In this article we will:
- Define key characteristics of a healthy partner network
- Share how the PartnerStack Network fulfills that brief as the largest partner network for B2B SaaS
What are partner networks?
A partner network is, like the name suggests, a group of businesses and individuals (including, entrepreneurs, vendors, sellers, agencies, independent business owners and distributors) who work together to leverage each other’s expertise, trustworthiness and resources to grow their businesses.
Many will say it’s about finding the right affiliate partners — and that’s true — but a healthy network needs nurturing of all varieties of partners, including resell or co-sell partners, referral, technology, alliance, influencer and service partners.
Individual B2B SaaS companies may have their own partnership networks that they manage, and PartnerStack, too, operates as a partner network. PartnerStack’s Network is a digital hub where top tier software brands and partners in the B2B SaaS industry can connect and partner up to scale their businesses and grow revenue.
Indicator: Diverse and complementary expertise for innovative partnerships
Partners and SaaS brands alike should both look for partner networks that provide breadth of opportunities. A network filled with similar partners puts you at a disadvantage. “You don’t want to be over-indexed on one type of business model,” Latus says.
A partner network that is diverse and has complementary expertise helps with risk mitigation. So if there is an issue in one category, the entire network isn’t affected by it. Think of it as a financial portfolio. You don’t want to put all your money in one stock. The same applies to building a healthy network.
Latus says that’s why it’s important that a partner network has a dedicated network manager or team in place to constantly cultivate the network and recruit new partners into it.
“It's having the diversity of audiences, diversity of reach, different business models, partners that can work on revenue share, cost-per-lead or cost-per-click. Having all those options within the network shows a healthy network because it gives partners lots of opportunity to grow, experiment and figure out what their exact niche is for going forward.”
Diversity not only opens up different markets, it also provides a broad database of innovation and problem-solving solutions. A partner working in one industry may have insight into a problem that another may not have faced. Tapping that institutional knowledge keeps a partner network running smoothly and saves the money that would have been spent creating a solution to a problem.
Indicator: Aligned business objectives and a commitment to shared goals
A network can accept any partner that applies but a large volume of new partners doesn’t necessarily make it a healthy, successful network. That’s why it’s key to have partner application criteria to understand that they align with the business objectives and goals that program managers are after.
On the partner side, things to consider include partners who have expertise in a relevant niche and skills to net in new business. It's essential that companies have the technology end users are after and expertise to support their ecosystem partners in selling it. It’s no surprise that appealing company logos help a network thrive.
But while diversity is helpful in the types of partners and SaaS products, another factor to consider is whether network partners share the same values and goals. That can include financial goals but should also consider overlap in mutual value missions, culture and customer experience.
Related: Critical points of trust within your ecosystem.
Indicator: Utilizing tools and resources as effective growth strategies
Everyone loves a high performing partner but Latus has another take, saying that PartnerStack has a network team that lives in their dashboards and data, which show them the commission trends on a weekly basis.
“Let's say that somebody's earning $200 a week in commissions, and then a few weeks later they've earned $500. I want to know what that person's doing.”
He explains that the team that will mine the network and look at that data and see if there's an opportunity to coach them through high-touch support, additional marketing or educational resources.
This guidance from a dedicated team who oversees the partner network allows for more opportunity and growth for all. Taking a fully transparent approach to your partners sets them and you up for success. From there it’s about partner program managers supporting them with marketing initiatives and business strategies.
Indicator: Continuous support and development (from humans, not AI)
When it comes to artificial intelligence, Latus says bluntly that while it is useful to parse data and run administrative tasks, he believes in one-to-one support to foster better partner relationships. Understanding them deeply can be, at times, more important than automation and speed in building relationships that are long-term and meaningful.
With reliable partner support within a network, Latus says, there’s more growth potential. “If I have somebody committing to talk to me once a week, every other week, once a month and introducing me to partners, showing me what's going on in the network or what's going on in the program — that's of higher value than me being able to just do something quickly on my own or having a tool that allows me to search for something.”
Indicator: Strong partner communication and training
Industries, technologies and markets move fast. Your partners may not have the resources or the time to stay up-to-date on new developments in every area, so offering them ongoing training opportunities and education within the network strengthens your relationship, builds their confidence and translates into sales.
No one can do it alone. A healthy partnership with good communication also means supporting each other when they need help. This includes sharing resources like technology, networks and marketing information. Providing feedback and aligning objectives leads to win-win scenarios for everyone.
“It's always taking in feedback, figuring out how to grow the product. How can we make it more useful for our clients? How can we make it more useful for our internal teams? How can we make it more useful for our affiliates?” he says.
Clients can provide feedback to your partners on the tools, education and marketing products. This can lead to improvements, such as removing features that aren’t used or updating and improving features that are used all the time.
An example of this in action: Latus says PartnerStack’s product team talks to their partners all the time, ranging from a weekly to a monthly basis. If a PartnerStack customer is looking for a feature that the product doesn’t have, he says it’s something they try to take action on. “If it is an easy fix, let's just go to our product team. They will say, ‘yes, we can absolutely do this’ or they might come up with a solution for them to get that information while they build out something new.”
“That shows a product team that's listening to the consumer, getting good feedback and not allowing egos to get in the way, by saying ‘yes, we can absolutely continue to improve, and here's how we're going to do it.’”
Learn about the latest PartnerStack product feature: Performance Reporting for affiliate programs.
Latus says there's no real turnkey solution that's going to drive commissions and revenue. Partner programs take time to see a return on investment, to really mature. “So that's why incorporating all five of these things to make sure PartnerStack is constantly evolving, constantly being viewed as a healthy network.
