TekStack Partner Module: An integrated approach to managing partner deals

Often recognized as the fastest moving, highest win rate deals, partner referrals are an important source of demand for B2B software companies.  Ironically, most B2B software companies do not invest a proportionate amount of time or money developing this source of demand.

An Integrated approach to referral deals

TekStack is releasing a new module into its Revenue Operations platform.  The Partner Module will provide TekStack customers with the ability to manage a partner program by providing the following features:

Partner Portal:  Invite partners into a secure partner portal to gain access to digital assets like pricing, or marketing collateral.  Partners can access the latest information from marketing without the need for partner managers to email documents which may or may not be up to date.  Your partners can also register new deals and track deals that progress into opportunities.

Deal Registration:  Your partner manager can review new deals that come in from partners.  When deals are accepted they can be related to existing accounts in CRM, or create new accounts.  Contacts can be added, and deals are converted into Opportunities.

Opportunity Attribution:  Your opportunity source will be attributed as a partner deal, and tracked to that partner.  Gives you better attribution data when you analyze your funnel.

Partner Performance Tracking:  Partner managers can track partner information, deals, opportunities, and key conversion metrics so you can manage partner performance.  See which partners are killing it for your business.

Advantages of an integrated approach to partner deals

TekStack’s entire philosophy is to integrate all aspects of revenue operations into a single platform.  That needs to include how you manage partner deals.  So instead of managing the partner program with some third party app, it should be an integral part of the CRM system.

TekStack already has a robust inbound marketing and outbound prospecting capability (which you can read about in this blog post).  The benefits of having your third main source of demand, referral deals, in the same technology stack as inbound and outbound include:

Managing Channel Conflicts

How often does a referral partner bring forward a deal from a company that a seller is already working hard?  Its often difficult to see this information but with an integrated system, TekStack can show the partner and partner manager who the seller has been working with, and where the account is in the process.  The partner manager will have an informed opinion on whether to accept the deal registration or not.  With different systems it becomes so easy to miss key information that will just upset your seller, and potentially result in a poor experience for the buyer.

Wholistic Attribution

To properly gauge the effectiveness of deals, you need to measure a couple key metrics like sales efficiency, sales velocity, as well as bookings information.  Having everything in one database means that its one set of reports to show the performance characteristics from inbound vs outbound vs partner deals for your key metrics.  This allows you to make informed decisions like “should I sponsor this partner’s big customer event instead of spending more money on paid ads”.

Tool Cost

There are a ton of apps out there that will manage your referral or partner programs.  Most would likely offer more features than TekStack’s module, but, they would come with yet another subscription fee that piles onto a growing list of technology stack tools.  Many of these tools have fees that would exceed the entire cost of TekStack which covers everything from marketing, outbound, customer success, customer onboarding, subscription management, invoicing, help desk, and more.   There are no shortages of places to invest cash, our philosophy is that your company is much better off investing in additional CSMs, AEs, or marketing spend versus additional tools.

Conclusion

As B2B tech companies struggle to fill the funnel, now is the time to invest in more formalized referral channels.  Giving partners a portal to log and track deals, and access confidential information will empower them to succeed.  Tracking channel performance as part of your overall funnel will give you the information you need to make the right sales and marketing investments.

Not only does TekStack provide a prescribed approach to managing inbound marketing, outbound prospecting; it now provides a partner module so that you have a wholistic view of the business from a single source of information.  To learn more, contact us at hello @ tekstack.com.