Building a SaaS Partner Program
Partner programs were a vital part of the development of Clear Business Dynamics and Accodex. My consulting practice centred on providing high quality implementation services for a range of cloud software. Over the past 6 years I have partnered with over 40 different software companies and have experienced the good and bad aspects of all of them.
Building a successful partner program is crucial in todays fast paced and ultra competitive SaaS market. As the rate of product development increases SaaS vendors need to focus their limited resources on creating a market leading product, leaving the tedious implementation process to Partners on the ground that can ensure your product is properly adopted by customers.
From my experience I have put together a list of must haves for any successful partner program.
Choose your partners wisely.
Your Partners will become the face of your brand, in fact I have been introduced as “Michael from XYZ software product” more times than I can remember. So it’s important that you are selective with the people and companies that implement and advocate for your product, to ensure your customers have a great implementation experience and your product delivers on it’s promises.
When engaging new partners keep the following in mind:
Learn about their implementation approach to make sure it aligns with your product.
Make sure they plan on implementing your product at a volume which makes it viable for you to support them as a partner.
Don’t over saturate a geographic location with partners, competition is good but you don’t want your partners at war over local deal flow, as this could damage your brand.
Get new partners to undertake training and onboarding to ensure they develop deep knowledge of your product's capabilities and limitations.
Try and find partners who focus on your industry of business function niche. Their ability to provide broader domain expertise will ensure that real improvements to the business can be made outside of the implementation of your product.
Provide a Partner Managers.
Software Vendor Partner Managers have been my life saver on many occasions, they are an invaluable resource to partners when developing a solution and supporting an implementation. I would often talk with my partner managers multiple times per week and would have a planned phone catch up's at least bi monthly.
Partner managers should have the resources and insights to assist partners with:
Pricing and contract negations.
Support ticket escalation.
Insights into the product roadmap.
Introductions to product managers and executives.
Lead generation from online signups.
Build resources for Partners.
Your product evolves constantly and it is critical that your partners are kept well informed of your progress to ensure they are representing your product and brand in the best way possible.
The easiest way to do this is to build a partner portal or online community, which contains these features.
Access to marketing materials such as logos, knowledge articles and purchasing guides.
The ability for partners to maintain their partner listing on your website.
The ability to assign and monitor leads given to parters.
A user generated knowledge base where partners can share their experience and help each other.
A portal giving partners single sign on access to their clients app instances (This makes a huge difference)
Find a fair revenue share model.
Revenue share has become a core principle of any Partner Program, however it isn’t the driving motivator for your Partners. For most Partners the value comes from using your software as a tool to solve problems for their clients, with the implementation being the main source of revenue for that Partner.
It’s important to contextualise the industry standard 20% revenue share for your particular subscription fee. For most Partners this only becomes a relevant income stream if they are implementing your product in high volumes or winning large multi licence deals.
Give consideration to other sources of value that can be provided to assist the partner, such as:
Financial support for co-marketing events.
Extended trial periods for their clients.
Discounted subscriptions for their clients.
Invitiations to conferences you’re involved in.
Opportunities to speak or advocate for your product.
These will have a far greater impact on the Partner's business, enabling them to close more implementation deals whilst adding value to their service over the client implementing the software themselves.
Build a partner directory.
Companies like Xero have grown off the back of a flourishing parter eco-system. One of the core reasons is that Xero has continued to make it easier to connect businesses to their eco-system of partners.
Partner directories are a great lead generation source for Partners, as they provide exposure to their brand in the place where the customer is searching for solutions.
Provide the ability for customers to find a partner based on location.
Provide a link to the Partners website.
Create a ranking system which enables your best performing partners to rise to the top of listings.
Link customer case studies back to the partners who implemented the solution.
Invite partners to contribute content which is linked to their profile.
Highlight Partners that have executed high value or complex implementations.
Leave the implementation to partners.
One of my pet hates was spending hours trying to develop a solution with a client only to have them decide to utilise the implementation service offered directly by the software vendor. Almost always this was because the software vendor offered a very low cost service, designed purely to get the customer signed up and using the product as soon as possible.
Whilst the initial sugar hit of the conversion boosts numbers, these vendor implementation services often fail to address broader business issues which affect the long term adoption of a software product. The initial cost savings for the client are almost always forfeited to change management issues and frustration caused by a poor implementation.
Check out these Partner Programs.
Here are some examples of Partner Programs that I have been involved with, each of these considered the points listed above and created great value to my business.