There’s a reason why 72% of sales reps at B2B companies employ co-selling to close deals on SaaS. Co-selling is an essential part of doing business — making it possible for enterprise companies to efficiently scale their sales efforts.
The mutual relationship of co-selling allows companies to pair up and promote each other’s products and services, packaging the two companies as inextricable from each other in solving an end customer’s problem.
This package deal is especially helpful in the B2B landscape, where multiple services are often required to fulfill a need — a sales enablement tool alongside cloud management, for example.
However, many businesses struggle to build these partnerships because of stiff competition and fear that they have to take care of their own sales. How could they possibly also focus on a partner? An additional challenge is introduced when one partner loses sight of the mutual benefit or outgrows the other.
But the benefits are well worth overcoming the challenges. Effective co-selling with enterprise partners can result in:
- Bigger deals, faster
- Access to warm leads
- A stronger customer value story
- Shared resources and expertise
- Strategic growth for both partner businesses
But, it’s essential to understand how to effectively co-sell with a partner before you go-to-market. In this article, we’ll discuss strategies and best practices, as well as a case study of an enterprise co-selling partnership in action.
What successful enterprise co-selling partnerships look like
Before beginning a co-selling partnership, ensure you understand what to expect from the partnership and how you plan to move forward successfully together. Here are the key elements of a successful co-selling partnership.
Alignment between teams
Bringing teams together can be challenging, even within a unified company. Anyone who has worked in an enterprise environment knows how difficult it can be to bring two teams like development and operations or sales and partnerships together. Each team typically sits behind their silos and focuses on achieving their own benchmarks.
This attitude can make it especially challenging to bring teams from different companies together. Nevertheless, it is a critical element to address before taking on deals together.
To create alignment between the counterparts of partnering companies, ensure the messaging is clear from the highest levels of decision-making down to the newest sales rep. You expect cohesive collaboration and communication. The teams should have the same vision and access to the same information. There can be no competition. Instead, set the expectation that the teams work together for a supportive experience where all win together.
Related: How to build strong cross-functional teams in 2025.
Shared goals
One way to help align your team is to ensure everyone has the same goals. This is an essential element of any sales team, but it is especially important when bringing teams together from outside spaces.
Have an obvious, expressed mission with key metrics and shared objectives. Assign roles to every team member and ensure each role has a counterpart in the partnering company. This level of organization can foster creativity and collaboration between the two companies rather than an adversarial relationship.
Seamless technology integration
A great way to ensure open communication and collaboration is to ensure both teams have access not only to all the same information but also the same technology. All essential team members should have access to a platform — like a partner relationship management (PRM) — on which they can message each other, view assigned tasks, complete assignments and observe the big picture of the co-selling project as it unfolds.
Case study: CallRail’s co-selling success
As an example of effective co-selling, we sat down with CallRail, a marketing analytics platform that helps businesses convert calls to sales with the help of AI call tracking and lead intelligence.
When we asked Madelyn Wing and Bailey Beckham at CallRail how their team made sure they had successful partnerships for co-selling, the team answered that they always engage in preliminary vetting to be sure the partner company will be a good fit. They work with co-sell partners individually to create a custom partnership that feels good for all parties.
Wing explains, “In regards to our high-level co-selling strategy, we really let our partners lead the way. We offer as much standardized support as we can, but it’s really a choose-your-own-adventure in terms of what they’re looking for.”
CallRail specifically commits to partnering with companies, usually technology agencies that are already servicing clients with digital marketing services, because they know the value of technology like CallRail’s. And the team usually brings in co-selling partners early in the venture so the teams can align early and work as a unified partner team.
You might also like: How CallRail increased their total partner ecosystem by 99% with PartnerStack.
How technology makes enterprise co-selling partnerships seamless
CallRail works with PartnerStack to find successful partners and manage the partnership from end-to-end. PartnerStack’s PRM gives CallRail visibility over the pipeline of deals throughout the partnership and offers resource support to help partners work together.
Before making the switch to managing their partnerships with PartnerStack, CallRail had to manually track deals and had little to no visibility of partner pipelines. Wing adds another benefit, sharing that, “PartnerStack gives us visibility for tracking deals.”
Since working with PartnerStack, CallRail noted that they have been able to increase their volume of deals exponentially.
Measuring success and scaling enterprise co-selling partnerships
To measure whether co-selling is successful for the company, Wing says CallRail tracks leads and free trial volume. “The other big one is conversion rates, how they move through the funnel,” she says.
Beckham further explains the value in partner enablement. She shares, “Partner participation is a big part of tracking as well. How we are able to re-engage those who have gone dormant through some of the activities we’ve seen.” The team prioritizes factors like partner participation and engagement, which helps to identify when they need to re-engage dormant partnerships.
Beckham notes: “Anything that is happening in PartnerStack, I stay very close and our partner marketing team stays very close also, just to ensure we’re all on the same page.”
This helps ensure consistent communication and transparency while keeping both teams on the same page. Each team member must be able to put faces to names in their partnering teams.
CallRail also schedules joint meetings and training sessions so the team members all act like one large team that functions for the good of both partnering companies.
Wing says, “We bring our partners in to train our sales team (and vice versa) on different offerings, pricing and how to work together. And we always have a point of contact so our people can put a face to the name.”
And to keep training fresh, CallRail consistently adds resources for partners to access on-demand through PartnerStack’s resource center to ensure there’s always support and transparency. “It’s been helpful throughout this process,” Beckham notes.
See more: Why partner education can make or break a successful partnership.
Common challenges with co-selling
The CallRail team shares some advice for any companies looking to co-sell: be flexible and ready to invest in the program and partner relationships. Wing acknowledges that adapting to changing relationships can also be key. “Be okay with not insisting everything becomes a process. It’s okay to learn from what you’re doing now and let it go when it no longer works,” she shares.
The team advises their colleagues not to lose sight of common goals and mutual benefits. The rewards can pay off in tremendous ways. Beckham offers some sage wisdom about remaining focused on one unifying goal with co-sell partners. “It all falls apart if we’re not all marching toward the same goal.”
Best practices for enterprise co-selling partnerships
To be your most effective at co-selling, follow these best practices.
- Communication: Without communication, you can’t be sure you and your partners are on the same page and operating as one team. Have regular meetings, ensure partners have access to resources and tech they need and encourage your teams to collaborate.
- Transparency: While you’re at it, ensure your co-selling team are aligned to the same sales platforms and messaging systems. If everyone has a shared vision and goals, they should all be able to track and monitor progress as they go.
- Choose the right partners: You should not be partnering with competitors or organizations that are not complementary to yours. Choose partners with whom you can work well and whose products and services package well with yours. It also helps to ensure your companies have similar missions, visions and values.
- Track pipelines: You can’t know if your partnership is successful if you’re not tracking leads, free trials, conversions and other metrics of success. Make sure both you and your partner always understand how you’re both benefiting from this relationship.
- Focus on customer success: If you place the customer at the heart of the partnership, it’s really hard to fail. Both you and your partner aim to create a better experience for the customer, and together, you’ll figure out how to get that done.
PartnerStack offers that technology and network for co-selling enterprise partners to find each other and work together for mutual success. If you’re looking to co-sell at scale, get started with PartnerStack today. You may find a lasting relationship that takes your success to the next level.
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