How We Increased Partner Attached Revenue by 350%

As a partnership leader for a high-growth SaaS company, I was tasked with boosting our referral revenue potential. But it wasn't long before I realized that our referral program wasn't delivering the results we had hoped for. After two stagnant quarters, my team and I knew we needed to make some changes.

We Were Underperforming

We dug into the data and discovered that only 10% of our partners followed through to deliver introductions every quarter. After some trial and error, we discovered that the problem stemmed from an imbalance in reciprocity. We had overloaded our partners with requests without first proving our own value and building trust. It was a classic case of putting the cart before the horse.

What We Did: Enable Partners First

We provided partners with free access to our products, training, and support and services teams. We offered free sales and business coaching and provided co-branded sales collateral to them. By doing so, partners could easily learn our platform, better support our customers, identify customer alignment opportunities themselves and make referrals based on firsthand customer knowledge.

By doing so, partners could easily learn our platform, better support our customers, identify customer alignment opportunities themselves and make referrals based on firsthand customer knowledge.

What We Did: Be the First To Refer

Instead of just promising future reciprocation, we gave partners proof points upfront by being the first to share referrals and cross-sell opportunities we identified from our own book of business. These initial touchpoints built confidence and incentivized partners to match our effort and energy.

What We Did: Limit Total Partners

We segmented our partner portfolio to maintain the capacity for deeper, high-touch relationships in different product and service areas. This ensured adequate resources to train and equip each partner with referrals and client support.

The Results

These changes didn't happen overnight, but the results were well worth the effort. The following year, we saw a 350% increase in revenue from partner-attached deals, an increase in the average contract value, a shorter sales cycle, and the best win rate across all lead sources.

Let’s Connect

We started CollabUnity to help other scaling companies leapfrog over my early career mistakes. Let's connect and discuss how we can help take your partnerships to the next level.