A partner, or channel, relationship is any arrangement where a third party helps bring your product to customers without sitting on your own payroll. Many companies we work with have resellers of their software, referral partners, technology partners who integrate with their product, or a services partner who delivers implementation on their behalf.
What is surprising is how often, despite partners generating a meaningful share of revenue, those relationships are managed exactly like ordinary customers. They rarely have their own account plans, dedicated resource or growth strategies. Get the fundamentals right and partners become one of the most efficient growth levers available to a mid-market business. Left unmanaged, and the channel underdelivers its full potential. What we have seen, both in helping management teams optimise these strategies and through our network of experts on this topic, are five disciplines that consistently separate a channel that works from one that does not.
1. Fewer, better-fitted partners
Because partners can feel like a no-loss route to market, companies often say yes to any willing partner, without a view of their ideal partner profile. What this leads to is a long tail of relationships that do not deliver deals at volume, and now cost more to service than they return.
One portfolio business had around 30 partner relationships on its books, ranging from technology resellers to smaller consultancies referring in new customers, but no shared definition of what actually counted as a strategic partner. Simply agreeing that definition, then ranking the list by where the real opportunity sat, which existing relationships were worth deepening and which types of new partner were worth pursuing, reset where time and resource went. The point is not to add more partners, it is to get clear on which ones will deliver.
2. Resource the channel like a business line, not a bolt-on
The businesses we work with that get the most from their partner channel tend to resource it as a distinct part of the business, not an add-on to an existing sales role. A dedicated partner manager matters, but several have told us the bigger unlock was appointing someone to own partner marketing specifically: content, campaigns and enablement material built for a partner audience, rather than repurposed from the direct sales deck. Making it someone’s job, rather than a shared responsibility, gives both the accountability and focus to drive performance.
3. Don’t fall foul of short-termism
Partner revenue tends to compound over years rather than quarters and judging it like a normal sales cycle is a common way to kill a relationship just before it turns the corner. One software business took several years to move from occasional, unplanned referrals to around half of its new business coming through partners, progress that would have looked unremarkable, even disappointing, if judged quarter by quarter.
That said, patience is not the same as coasting. The businesses that get this right still run tight quarterly reviews, checking pipeline health and holding partners to clear next steps, so that patience never tips into neglect.
4. Design incentives that reach the partner’s own sales reps
The commercial terms agreed between two businesses, a referral fee, a revenue share, matter less than most CEOs assume. What tends to decide whether a partnership actually gets sold is whether the person doing the selling, at the partner, can count that sale towards the target they are already being measured against internally. That target is set by the partner, but there is often opportunity to structure the relationship so a joint sale plausibly helps that person hit their own number.
Peoplesafe’s experience is a good illustration. Some of its early partnerships started as simple pass-through arrangements, useful to Peoplesafe, but not something the partner’s own sales team had much reason to get excited about. Once those partnerships were restructured so that selling the combined solution also counted towards the partner’s own sales targets, rather than simply earning Peoplesafe a referral fee, engagement from the partner’s sales force changed noticeably.
5. Sponsorship starts at the CEO
Genuine sponsorship means two things. The first is internal: buy-in from the leadership team that translates directly into sales, marketing and customer success. The second is external, and often overlooked: your most important partners should know your CEO too, not only your account management team. A relationship that exists at just one level of the organisation stays fragile.
In practice, this looks like joint business reviews, shared events, or a simple habit of senior leaders on both sides checking in periodically, not as a formality, but as a genuine signal that the relationship is worth continued investment. It costs little, and it is often what separates a partnership that quietly fades when priorities shift from one that holds.
The takeaway
None of these disciplines is complicated on its own. Together, they are what separates a partner channel that adds meaningful, low-cost growth from one that acts as afterthought. For CEOs and CROs weighing up whether their own channel could do more, that’s usually where we’d start the conversation.
