Partnership Predictions 🔮

Hello everyone,

Happy New Year! I hope this newsletter finds you well!

I need to start off this week's newsletter with an apology.

I failed you!

When you signed up for the Partnership Pocketbook, I promised you a weekly newsletter, and I failed to deliver on that.

Frankly, it was a massive lift to write quality content, stuff that people would get value from, and therefore I wanted to go back to the drawing board.

The Partnership Pocketbook is starting off 2023 with a new promise: bi-weekly QUALITY partnership content!

Every 2 weeks, but with a renewed focus and dedication on the quality of content I am going to deliver.

I am PUMPED!

And I hope you are too!

From a personal perspective the new year has started with a bang, as I launch myself full time into consulting.

If you have a partner marketing or fractional leadership need, send me an email!

ben@partnerfuel.io

With that out the way, let's dive into this week's issue.

Partnership Predictions for 2023

Yes, I know, you are probably bored with new year's resolutions and predictions on the year ahead. However, I have been thinking long and hard about things that I think will shift in the upcoming year in the world of partnerships.

It's no secret that the news has been fairly grim in the world of tech.

Layoffs, layoffs and more layoffs.

It frankly sucks!

But we will get through it, and I truly think partnerships will continue to be an integral part of all businesses' go-to market strategy.

So with that, let's dive into my predictions in partnerships for 2023.

🔮 Real revenue will be key 🔮

I get it, partnerships are more than just net new sourced revenue.

I agree!

Influence matters!

However, with many SaaS companies trying to hit stretch revenue goals this year, there is going to be a need to get real revenue into your pipeline as soon as possible in order to build support and confidence in your partner program.

Once you start to see revenue growth, the conversations around influenced revenue become far easier to bring up to the executive team.

🔮 Partnership specific software will make everything easier 🔮

We are finally starting to see partner tech be built.

A lot of partner tech.

Historically the typical partnership tech stack included one tool, a PRM.

Now we have all sorts of cool tools:

🛠️ Account mapping software (S/O Reveal & Crossbeam)

🛠️ Partner Manager communication software (S/O Superglue and Viewpoint)


🛠️Partner Marketplace software (S/O Partner Fleet)

And there are many other tools in development!

I predict that this year we will start to see a complete tech stack for partnership managers, which will make the job far easier and enable partner managers to do more at scale.

🔮 Fractional partnership roles will become popular 🔮

This one might seem self-serving as I started off by saying that I was now consulting full time… however, the amount of demand I have received says to me that fractional partnership consulting is going to be the future and will come to the forefront in 2023.

Think about it…if you are an early stage startup wanting to start a partnership program, is it a better idea to blindly hire a full time employee to come in and create a program? OR is it a better idea to hire a fractional consultant initially at a quarter of the cost to test the waters and see if partnerships are a good fit for the business?

Especially in the current climate where belts are being tightened and pressure is being applied to balance sheets, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a partner leader might not be possible for some organizations.

On the other hand, hiring someone on a 1 day a week basis to get a partner motion started is far more manageable and worthwhile.

Fractional partnership consulting…it's the future!

Thanks so much for reading this week's issue.

It's good to be back!

Cheers,

Ben