Partnering Strategy Review Checklist Pages

Step 1 of 9 - Introduction & Instructions

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Partners can relieve your biggest bottlenecks for growth—but only if your strategy is ready to scale. Many tech leaders make the mistake of assuming their direct sales success will automatically translate to partners. It won’t. If you try to scale an undocumented process, you simply scale your problems.

How this 3-Step Reality Check works:

For each section, we will guide you to separate "Wishful Thinking" from "Scalable Reality":

Decide Your Confidence: How certain are you (0-100%) that you have this area completely solved?
List the Evidence: You must list specific facts to back up that confidence (e.g., documented processes, specific wins, or signed agreements).
Score Your Reality: Look at your evidence. Does it support your initial confidence? Enter a score that reflects the reality of your evidence.

The Goal: By the end of this checklist, you will have a calculated "Reality Score" that highlights exactly where you are ready to scale and where you need to take action next.

Check Point 1 - Your Bullseye Customer Focus

Many technology companies fall into the "Generalist Trap," believing a wider net catches more fish. However, generalists are invisible to partners. If you chase every opportunity, you are asking partners to find your market fit for you—and they won’t.

This exercise fixes the dependency on "Heroic Sales" by defining the precise "Bullseye" scenario where you consistently beat the competition.

By separating "Hope" (unproven targets) from "Evidence" (proven wins), you avoid the mistake of bringing your challenges partners.

Score: How confident are you that you have clarity on your Bullseye Customer Focus for your target customer types? (0-100%)(Required)

100

How confident are you that you have clarity on your Bullseye Customer Focus for your target customer types? (0-100%)

Evidence: List 3 specific customer scenarios where your win rate is highest. e.g. Insurance Brokers with >50 staff growing at 20%+ pa(Required)

Rate Your Evidence of Your Bullseye Evidence:(Required)

100

Rate the strength of your Bullseye Customer Focus evidence (0-100%)

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BULLSEYE_Reality

Check Point 2 - Market Selection/Prioritisation

Are your target markets chosen by data or by the last random lead you received?
Many companies fall into the trap of Reactive Market Selection, chasing opportunities into territories they cannot effectively support.

Without a structured framework, the loudest opinion in the room usually wins.

This exercise moves you from "Gut Feeling" to a data-driven decision matrix. You must prioritize markets based on Deliverability (can you credibly support them?), Opportunity (market size), and Access (do partners exist?).

Score: how confident are you that your target markets are selected based on data rather than reactive leads?(Required)

100

Evidence: List 3 specific market selection criteria that your marketing and sales teams use in prioritising activities and leads: 1.(Required)

Rate the strength of this evidence (0-100%).(Required)

100

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MKT_SELECT_Reality

Check Point 3 - Partnering Requirements

Partnering is fundamentally about acquiring capabilities to accelerate growth, not just vaguely asking for "more sales.". To select the right partner, you must first diagnose the precise bottleneck limiting your business.

Is it a lack of leads, an inability to close complex deals, or a capacity issue in delivery? You can't ask a partner to help if you haven't identified what exactly tou want.

This exercise forces you to define your high-level business process and pinpoint the exact capabilities—such as specific domain knowledge or technical certifications—that a partner must possess to resolve that constraint.

On a scale of 0% to 100%, how confident are you that your current and planned product features directly address your key partner's requirements?(Required)

100

Evidence: Document specific requests from partners or documented gaps in your product that would unlock a partnership.(Required)

Rate the strength of this evidence (0-100%).(Required)

100

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PTNR_REQ_Reality

Check Point 4 - Your Partner Proposition

Your Partner Proposition is the single greatest bottleneck to partnering success. Many vendors make the mistake of thinking a "Revenue Share" percentage is enough to motivate partners. It isn't.

A strong proposition is a comprehensive value package that addresses what they want: helping them achieve their goals.

You must state clearly why they should invest time in your solution, clearly meeting their needs.

On a scale of 0% to 100%, how confident are you that you can articulate a clear, partner-specific value proposition?(Required)

100

Evidence: List 3 ways your proposition helps your partner achieve their goals (e.g. Helps them break into the Healthcare sector, Helps them displace a specific competitor):(Required)

Rate the strength of this evidence (0-100%).(Required)

100

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PROPOSITION_Reality

Check Point 5 - Your Market Ecosystem of Partner Company Types

Many vendors severely limit their growth potential by suffering from "Unconscious Bias"—looking only for "Resellers" who look exactly like them.

In reality, your target customer engages with a vast ecosystem of "Fellow Travellers" long before they buy your software. These include Consultants, Auditors, and Service Providers who already hold the trust of your decision-makers. If you only target transactional resellers, you are blind to 80% of the market influence.

The Market Ecosystem exercise maps teh market against your Customer Journey to identify all the company types that are already solving the needs and related needs and potential help you.

Score: How confident are you that you have considered the full ecosystem of company types that interact with your customers journey, rather than just looking for a narrow list of "Resellers"?(Required)

100

Evidence: List 3 to 5 "fellow traveller" company types interacting with your target decision-makers along their entire customer journey, that you considered as potential partner company types?

Rate the strength of this evidence (0-100%).(Required)

100

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ECOSYSTEM_Reality

Check Point 6. Partner Fit Alignment

Selecting partners based on "gut feeling," "good chemistry," or a promising conversation is a fatal error that leads to wasted resources. True Partner Fit is about objective business alignment, not friendship. You need a structured, repeatable process to evaluate a potential partner’s business model, customer focus, and future plans.

Does your product fit into their existing business without forcing them to change how they operate?

The less you ask a partner to change, the more likely the partnership will succeed.

This section moves you from subjective "liking them" to an objective scorecard that assesses true alignment before you sign.

Score: How confident are you that you have a sufficiently structured, documented evaluation process with specific criteria to assess every potential partner, rather than relying on “liking them”, "gut feeling" or "good conversations"?(Required)

100

Evidence: Review your last 3 partner discussions. List the first 3 specific criteria you used as part of your Partner Fit Evaluation Template. (Note: The listed criteria should be evidence of what you have done in the past, and should be objective and tangible, and not "do we like them?":(Required)

Rate the strength of this evidence (0-100%).(Required)

100

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PTNR_FIT_Reality

Check Point 7: Your Partnering Execution Plan

Ambition without a plan is just a wish.

To turn your partnering strategy into revenue, you need a coherent Partnering Execution Plan that breaks the journey down into specific, manageable activity streams.

If you are "Starting in Partnering," your focus must be on learning and validation, not instant scale. Jumping straight to "scaling" before you have proven the model is a recipe for failure.

This exercise ensures you have defined milestones for recruitment, enablement, and management, ensuring you are building on evidence rather than hoping for a lucky break.

Score: How confident are you that you have a detailed, resourced 12-month execution plan with specific milestones for recruitment, enablement, and validation?(Required)

100

Evidence: List your top 3 priority stated partnering activity streams for Month 1 and the goals end of Quarter 1 for each stream:(Required)

Rate the strength of this evidence (0-100%).(Required)

100

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EXEC_PLAN_Reality

Your Contact Details

Name(Required)

First Last

Company Email(Required)

Your Job Title/Role/Responsibilities

Company Name(Required)

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PARTNERING_STRATEGY_SCORE