4 Reasons Your Business Needs Partnerships in the COVID Era

 


This is a guest post by Lisa Thoman Lawson.  She has been in SaaS technology channels for 15+ years, and consults for high growth, venture backed SaaS businesses on their partnership and channel strategies. Prior to consulting, Lisa was the Director of Partnerships at Optimizely and Thismoment and spent 4 years at Microsoft and more. Email her at lisa@ltlpartnerconsulting.com.

As we enter month 5 of living with the uncertainty of Coronavirus, little to nothing has felt like it’s getting back to business as usual.  For SaaS leaders, the impact on go-to-market plans is no exception. 


Leaders are going back to the drawing board to redo their strategy, tactics, and internal org charts to adapt. Companies are adjusting budgets and operating plans, and sales teams are learning new ways to sell. 


If your company, like many others, is looking to lower CAC, improve margins, diversify risk, and reach their target buyers in new ways right now, it may be time to double down on your partner strategy.


Here’s 4 reasons why: 

1. Lower CAC with Channel Partners

Even in normal times, CAC is everything. With remote working conditions, hiring, training and managing an inexperienced inside sales and sales development teams will likely lead to that pipeline weakening.  You can lower your CAC by selling through experienced, expert channels that do not require as much overhead and resources. Leveraging a referral or reseller partner network will help your company scale sales long term. 

2. Diversify Lead Flow with a Partner Network

Traditional lead channels are not as effective as they used to be, event leads are impossible, and your marketing budgets may be shrinking. Leads are more expensive than ever. Investing in apartner network can help you diversify your risk and lead flow. 

3. Adapt to How Buyers are Buying Right Now 

Buyers are evolving past the transitional SaaS sales process.  With so much digital content available, buyers are relying on and seeking out the opinions of influencers and trusted experts in the space more than ever, instead of relying on the sales person. Investing in partners allows you to rely on a network of trusted advisors and experts in the space who can authentically represent your business. By embracing your influencers, champions and the experts in your field as trusted partners, you can help sell to your target buyers.

4. Improve Margins with Partners

With covid-19, businesses, especially startups, need to be focused on their balance sheet. Depending on what type of partner network you invest in, solutions partners can help you lower your margins by offering less services in house, OEMs or resellers can help you lower administrative expenses or scale strategically, and channel partners can help you scale your sales and marketing.

As it’s been stated multiple times over, we are in uncharted waters. While there is no one size fits all strategy to best adjust to and thrive in the new world, investing in channel partnerships could help your company get through this time and scale long term. 

If you’d like to learn more about how PartnerReady can help you build or scale your partner strategy, click here.


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