Beyond Direct Sales - follow up story

Kickstarting Channel Partnerships to Grow Revenue

What happened after writing a recent Product Management IRL article? These insights are for premium subscribers to Product Management IRL.

This week’s backstory is about adding channel partners to your growth strategy:

Beyond Direct Sales

What Prompted This Article?

The day before writing this article, my boss asked me to take over channel partnerships for my product group. I had never considered what a product manager does for channel partnerships.

I thought channel partnerships were something sales and business development teams do.

After researching channel partnerships, I learned that product managers are key to establishing value in selling B2B products through channel partners. After researching this area, I enjoyed writing this article and sharing what I learned.

I summarized the steps:

It seems pretty straightforward … but there are pitfalls to avoid:

• onboarding partners before working out channel conflicts

• over-complicated contracts and sales enablement

• channel partner sales motion

I was worried about working through these pitfalls. And I needed to make progress soon.

What Happened After This Article?