2 Ways to Turn Your CRO into a Partner Champion

I recently saw this LinkedIn post from Emir, the CRO of HockeyStack where he talked about how he had overlooked partners as a channel and how it recently helped them land a $7B tech giant with only $5,642 in referral fees!  

Check it out below:

This post got me thinking:

How do partner leaders get their CROs to become true champions of partnerships...

To the point where they are evangelizing both across the company and publicly?  

Here are 2 ways to turn your CRO into a partner champion: 

Step 1: Win hearts and minds by telling win stories

Storytelling wins people over.  And they remember it. It's that simple. 

Did you remember all the data points shared by Emir above in the LinkedIn post? 

I'm guessing no.

Is data still valuable in driving decision making?  100%.

But to really win people over, you need stories.  

Will I remember the story about how Emir came to this realization about partners and drove a massive Enterprise customer deal from a small referral fee?

Much more likely. 

Here’s why:

-Stories evoke emotions, and when we feel something, we’re so much more likely to remember it. 

-Stories follow a logical sequence and our brains are generally wired for pattern recognition.

-Stories help us visualize the solution, which makes it more concrete in our mind and easier to recall too. 

-Stories engage us, and when we are engaged, it burns much more deeply in our minds 

Which leads to the next questions...

Who should tell the story? 

Everyone involved at the company.  Not just you.

I get it.

You want to share your partner wins. Trust me, I'm guilty of this too, especially when I get amped up about a partner win.

But it just doesn't register at the same level when it's the partnerships person sharing it.

It's our job after all.

But when it's a peer of someone's on a cross functional team? That gets their attention.

For example, get these folks to share the partner wins:

1. Account executives

2. Customer success managers

3. Support teams

4. Services teams

5. Sales Engineers

Show your CRO that it's a team, company wide effort to truly drive partnerships...and by doing that, the impact amplifies.  

By doing this, you also build a ton of credibility around the partner strategy.

You can leverage this template below to tell the joint win stories.

Step 2: Leverage data to supplement your stories

But wait, Nelson, didn't you just say storytelling is the key?

Absolutely, but you need to add in the data to present a complete story too.

This makes your story nearly irrefutable. 

It's the combination of the two that makes it so powerful. 

Focus on the data points that your CRO cares about.

And while there's variability as you go from company to company, generally speaking, these usually apply:

- ARR

- NRR

-Win rate %

-ACV

- ASP (Average selling price)

- Sales cycle length 

- Adoption metrics 

- ROI against partner commissions / fees

If you need help ideating on what data to track to make the case to the CRO, leverage this template below:

Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you on partnerships:

1. The Partner Strategy Deck Template:

I've easily spent 80+ hours building partner strategy decks for a single company.  I don't want you to have to go through that pain. This 80 slide template is critical to saving you a lot of time, helping you get clarity on your partner strategy, getting executive alignment for resource allocation and will help you improve time to revenue.  It's the same template I've been refining over the last 17 years and has been absolutely critical to helping me go from zero to $150m+ ARR.  There's a reason this is the #1 best selling template!  As a bonus, it now includes a video walk through too! 🚀 Get it here.

2. Reseller Strategy Deck - A framework to outline key objectives, identify target markets, GTM, program requirements and define the roles and responsibilities of resellers. This is the same strategy deck I've personally used to drive $250M+ in revenue.

3. $150M PartnerOS Program - Learn the exact system I used to go from zero to $150M+ with partnerships at B2B tech companies like Box, Miro, Airtable, Optimizely and Toptal through (5) 1:1 coaching sessions with me.  Learn more here.

If you need help with crafting a business case to be able to expense this, send me a note and I'll help!

4. The Partner Sales Training Template: 

Have a training coming up where you're showcasing a partner in front of the sales team?

This deck is perfect for that. Over the last 17 years I've run 1,826 partner trainings across companies like Box, Miro, Airtable, Optimizely, Toptal, VMware and Cisco that led to $150M+ in SaaS partner revenue.

Leverage my pre-built template of 35 slides and save yourself hours of prep work.  This deck will help you crush it with your sales teams and lead to co-selling opportunities when executed well.  Get it here.

5. Partner Recruitment Template:

Recruit strategic partners faster to drive revenue. Join 900+ users who have used this template to accelerate partnerships. Leverage this template that I've personally used to recruit 1,479 partners over the last 17 years at companies like Miro, Airtable, Box, Toptal, Optimizely, VMware and Cisco. This includes Global Consulting Firms, Regional SIs, ISVs, Resellers, Referral Partners, Affiliates, Agencies and Solution Partners. Get it here.

6. The Partner Program template: I've personally reviewed 65 partner programs including companies like Box, Zoom, Docusign, Microsoft, Dell, Klaviyo, Hubspot, Atlassian, Miro, Airtable, Optimizely, Toptal, VMware, Cisco and many more and have put together this template to save you hours of ideation and iteration on potential partner programs. Leverage my pre-built template and save yourself 20+ hours of work and build a best in class partner program. Get it here.

7. Sales Strategy Deck - Leverage this 150 slide deck to build a sales strategy from zero to one.  As a leader at 5 unicorns + decacorns, I've worked closely with CROs and other sales leaders on sales strategies to help drive $2B+ in revenue. This deck took 100+ hours to put together. Check it out here.

8. Partnerships Dream Job Course: This 1 hour, self paced online course is perfect if you're looking to land a new job in partnerships and need help standing out from the crowd of resumes. It covers how to write an effective resume, how to revamp your LinkedIn profile, cover letters, email templates, interview prep and salary negotiation. I've personally coached 350+ clients and have helped them land interviews or jobs at companies like Amazon, Cisco, Dropbox, Patreon, Amplitude, Google, Stripe, Salesforce, Apple and more. Get it here.