If you lead a tech business, you may think that referral partners are not suitable for your partner program. Referral Partners are not just for local small service businesses, and certainly should be considered by enterprise B2B solutions providers.
You may think that Referral Partners typically don’t provide the same consistency as resellers and don’t solve all your needs in your target markets. Referral Partners can be part of the mix of different partner types provide all your needed capabilities and without increasing your partner commission budget.
Some points to consider for having a Referral Partners as part of your Partner Program:
- There is a Larger number of potential Referral
The capabilities you seek in a referral partner are easier to find than a full reseller or implementer. They can be trusted advisors to your target decision-makers with credible and domain knowledge in your space.
Small companies and even individuals can be credible referral partners, even for big deals.
In partnering with larger companies, starting them as a Referral Partner can be a lower resistance and faster path and build the relationship from there.
- Faster time-to-engagement decision cycles for Referral Partners
As less training and partner onboarding is required, Referral Partners can decide and engage their contact base very quickly. On the flip side of this argument, Referral Partners may not commit to being proactive sales partners and have a low deal-flow.
