“I’m sorry. My responses are limited. You must ask the right questions.”
— Dr. Alfred Lanning AI Hologram, “I, Robot” Movie 2004
Partnering Plans often begin with ambitious goals, but with all the information in the world at our fingertips and AI tools to distil what we need, the real challenge is knowing which questions to ask and what contextual information matters most. We don’t know what we need, and we assume so much without realizing it. When we know we’re making assumptions, we can seek to validate them. However, when we don’t realize we’re assuming, it can become costly. This series of blogs seeks to address this assumption trap for Tech CEOs starting in partnering plans.
The dream of partnering is undeniably compelling. As a tech CEO or sales leader, it is easy to get pulled into the “what-if” scenario of having a global, scalable network of partners actively selling your software, expanding your market reach, and generating international revenue without the need for massive internal investments.
However, there is a harsh reality that many ambitious tech companies face when launching a channel program: Hope is not a word found in a business plan, yethope is very evident in practice.
The greatest challenge tech leaders face when starting in partnering is the massive pool of unknown and unvalidated assumptions, even by the most experienced business leaders. They may have built up a momentum and confidence in their direct sales success, and now want to take this up a level to partners. With the desire to move fast, tech company executive teams frequently and unknowingly build their partner strategy and partnering plans on guesswork.
When you build a partner program based on “hope” and assumptions, your partnering plans are taking unnecessary risks, hurting your business momentum, and damaging your credibility in decision making. Taking risks is part of growing a business, but too much off target, misunderstood paths and you will inevitably burn through your opportunities to try again.
Expose Assumptions to Surpass Hope
To build a truly scalable and profitable partner network, you must stop operating on hope and start operating on evidence. Over the coming weeks, we will be publishing a weekly blog series designed to systematically dismantle the most expensive, value-leaking myths in global sales partnering.
In each post, we will tackle a specific trap that stalls channel growth, three-part diagnostic framework:
1. The Assumption: We will highlight the common, over-simplistic beliefs that feel intuitively correct but are dangerously flawed.
2. The Challenge: We will expose the challenges of the assumption, and what typically happens when continuing down a path of denial and wishful thinking leads to blind alleys, internal frustration, friction and wasted opportunities.
3. The Hard Questions: We will provide you with the checkpoint of uncomfortable questions to force you to look beneath the surface and determine whether your current partnering plans are built on solid evidence or fragile hope.
Take the Positive Path: from Hope to Clarity
If you recognise yourself or your company in any of these upcoming assumptions, the good news is that you’re not alone, and we will help you bring clarity to your partnering plans.
Recognising an assumption is a very good start, you now at least know what to work on.
Before you spend another cent or burn another month of runway, you must find out exactly where your plan has holes.
If you’re not clear on:
- Why your partnering plans are not moving as fast as expected
- Why a partner is not selling as expected
- Why the Website Partnering Page, or the PRM you implemented is not delivering
- Why you feel you’re wasting your time chasing a ‘very promising’ global partner
- Why your consulting partners are not delivering referrals
- …
There are clear explainable answers to all of these and more.
Stop guessing and start diagnosing your partnering plans to find out where you are right now, so you can progress with clarity.
Take the free Tenego Partnering Strategy Review today.
In just a few minutes, you will score your partnering readiness, identify blind spots in your partnering plans, and uncover the hidden bottlenecks that are stalling your international growth.
Watch out for next week’s blog “The “Push vs. Nurture” Culture Clash – Partnering Assumption”
