Part 26: Be a Chameleon

Greetings everyone,

Welcome back to another edition of our Partnership Pocketbook, the newsletter where we cover everything related to partnerships.

It honestly feels like winter will never end here in Utah! We are eagerly waiting for spring to arrive in Utah, it seems like the snow is not going away anytime soon. Hoping that wherever you are, you are seeing some sunshine. Nevertheless, we have some exciting news and insights to share with you all.

Firstly, I would like to talk about an incredible podcast episode that we recently released, titled "Howdy Partners," featuring Will Taylor and Maurits Pieper. Maurits shared some invaluable insights on building an effective partner program at Dixa! Some of the key takeaways was to focus on a few key personnel in critical departments like SDRs, working with them to be successful, and then scaling it out to the entire team. This calculated approach is something that I think all partner managers should consider when building a program. You can listen to the episode here and learn more.

In other partnership news, I am thrilled to see the partnership between Crossbeam and Pavilion. Pavilion is a premier go-to-market community that features thought leaders across sales, marketing, and customer success. This partnership will provide Pavilion users with the opportunity to learn more about ecosystems, which is excellent for everyone. The more people know about partnerships, the easier our roles become.

Now, let's dive into this week's topic, which is about becoming a chameleon as a partnership professional. Yes, you heard that right, a chameleon!

A chameleon, in the natural world, can change the color of its skin in a matter of seconds. In the business world, being a chameleon means that as a partnership professional, you need to be versatile and know multiple disciplines to be successful.

Instead of color-changing skin, your skillset needs to be ever expanding and changing. Marketing, sales, and enablement are just a few areas that you need to be well-versed in as a partnership manager.

Think about it.

You are working with your partner counterparts on campaigns to drive leads and revenue for both of your programs.

That's marketing.

You are creating educational assets to be used to teach your partners sales teams to learn about your product.

That's enablement.

You are reaching out to potential partners and convincing them to strengthen their offering with your offering.

That’s sales.

Partnerships are one of the only roles where you need to learn a range of different skills in order to be successful.

It seems impossible on the face of it right?

How are you supposed to learn all these disciplines!?

The answer is to leverage your network and relationships.

You probably know people who are great at marketing or have internal experts in sales or enablement.

Learn from them, and don't be afraid to ask for their guidance and expertise.

I am not saying that you need to be an expert in all of these fields, but as a partnership manager, having a solid understanding of each will drive the most revenue through your partnership program.

Without taking time to learn additional skills, certain parts of your program will lack impact and result in a program that is not reaching its full potential.

My advice for this week's newsletter is to keep learning. Absorb the conversations and learnings of those disciplines surrounding you and use them for your success, just like a chameleon reflects their surroundings.

Become a chameleon who can do everything needed to drive success through your partnership program. Learn from your internal experts and network to upskill yourself and become a more well-rounded professional.

With that, I hope you all have a great week ahead, and until next time, keep partnering!

Cheers,

Ben