Why Partner Programs Fail?

 Throughout my career in partnerships, I have had the good fortune to witness some great partner programs, some real works of art! But for every well-executed plan, I have seen dozens of mediocre, poorly run programs, and many that have just outright failed. This bothers me. Running partnerships is hard work, but seriously, why is the profession I have chosen to be involved in so full of train wrecks?

The subject has caused me to sit back and think of why some programs succeed and why some fail. When I ask CEOs and CROs why their partner program failed, they point to many factors, both internally and externally. Common items that I hear: we don't have a partner culture, we had the wrong partners, sales never adopted the model, we tried it for six months and made no progress and on and on and on...

However, when I step back, partnership programs fail from one of two directions. They either have too little or too much experience leading it. Let me explain.  

A majority of partner programs fail because there is too little experience at the table at the early stages of development. Here's a typical scenario. A CRO or CEO decides that s/he needs to develop alternative revenue streams so s/he decides to spin up a partner program. It's an easy thing, right?!? The typical decision is to take a mid-level AE and turn them into a "partner person" or hire a young, enthusiastic individual to become the BD/partner manager. With little experience in building partnerships, these brave souls are sent into the world to "find something that sticks." Off with a bang...there' lots of running around, lots of meetings, lots of time spent at this conference or that, and lots of excitement about talking to XYZ company. I'm exhausted just thinking about the energy consumed in this period! Fast forward six to twelve months later, and they have lots of "everything"...except traction and sales. They have failed. Failed to build a strategy, failed to have a good supporting infrastructure, failed to identify the right partners, failed to onboard & support them, and failed to drive revenue. They have failed, and you, as the CRO/CEO, see partnerships as "not working," "not for us," "not for our space." 

On the other extreme, some organizations decide to hire a fully experienced partner leader, bringing someone in at the VP or higher level. Having strong talent is a good move on paper (believe me, I have been there). This partner professional understands the vision and strategy, the segments to pursue, the support needed, and what the ecosystem of partners should do. Perfect, right? Maybe, except the budget was blown on hiring this individual and now there is not enough money to build the proper team to help scale the efforts. Fast forward twelve months, and the program has failed. Your partner pro is left holding a great program blueprint but had no resources or investment to execute.  

What this all means is that there is a massive gaping hole. A gap between having the enthusiastic feet on the street to execute and the strategic talent to manage your partner program with the right leadership and strategy. This is where the failure occurs. It is understandable that at the start, investing in both a senior leader and resources to execute is hard to justify as a CEO/CRO. There are so many budget demands on a company and not enough money to fund it all.   

After identifying the problem, I started looking for possible solutions. The search led me down a path of looking at how other professions have solved the problem. Following trends that we see in other leadership roles, like the CMO or CFO space, the advent of Fractional CMOs and Fractional CFOs have become very popular. It is not uncommon to have a fractional leader at an early stage start-up, and we see VC's advocating their use and building a mentor pool to offer to their portfolio. So why not use the fractional leadership model to solve the endemic needs of the channel and partner area. Having a fractional leader that can step in to define and lead a strategy, but without breaking the bank may be the solution. This fractional leader can then hire, train, and mentor a team of partner managers to do the execution. It sounds like a formula for success. We are bought into the idea and plan to see if the market agrees with us. We'd love to hear your thoughts.