Co-selling and co-marketing

Co-selling is a deal motion that brings sales teams from partner companies together to convert a prospective or existing customer.¹ Run it when both teams can improve the customer's path to a decision. Customer ownership and invoicing distinguish co-selling, sell-through and sell-to, and each motion needs different partnership work.² A referral or channel handoff alone does not make the motion co-selling. In co-selling, the vendor and partner sell together,³ sharing credit and usually revenue.⁴

Run the motion

Before contacting shared accounts, define the partner's role. Work through these gates in order, and continue only when each gate has an answer.

Pick the partner

Start with a salesperson or account manager who sells into the same ICP.⁵ Ask which accounts the partner can reach, which customer problem appears in both teams' conversations, and why the partner should join the deal. If there is no shared customer profile or clear reason to participate, stop and look elsewhere.

Find the overlap

Use account mapping to find an intersection that gives both teams a reason to act. Account-mapping intersections can support a joint motion when the teams are closing an integration gap or pitching a joint offering.⁶

Ask:

• Which account appears in both teams' working view?
• Is the overlap a prospect, an active opportunity, or both?
• What does each team know that the other does not?

Real-time account mapping can remove tedious data entry and spreadsheet analysis while making partner resources available for co-selling.⁷ Continue once you can name the account, its current situation and the reason to approach it together.

Give the partner a job

Write down the partner's contribution to the deal. A joint sales role can mean that the partner brings new information needed to help an existing opportunity close, or that an account executive brings the partner into an existing opportunity.⁸

A technical services partner can provide custom integration development and implementation, helping unlock enterprise deals and allowing both sides to cross-sell to each other's customers.⁹ Ask what the partner can do in the customer conversation that your team cannot do alone. The answer should describe a customer outcome or deal movement, not a general relationship.

Set ownership and lead

Set the commercial rules before the customer sees the joint motion. Agree who owns the customer, who invoices, how the opportunity is recorded and who leads the next customer interaction. A co-sell motion determines who leads the opportunity.¹⁰

Ask the partner to confirm the lead in writing, along with each team's responsibilities. This prevents two sellers from contacting the same account with different messages and gives the customer a clear path through the deal. Both teams should be able to explain the handoff without referring to an unwritten agreement.

Work the customer together

Bring the partner into the parts of the deal where its contribution can change the decision. Prepare the customer conversation around the shared problem, the partner's role and the next decision the customer needs to make.

Decide who opens the conversation, who answers the technical or delivery question, and who owns the follow-up. Listen for a customer response that connects the joint offer to a live priority. If the partner cannot add information, access or capability that changes the deal, return to the overlap and contribution gates.

Add co-marketing to the motion

Co-marketing gives the right audience a shared reason to enter the conversation. Keep it attached to a customer problem and a clear route into the sales motion.

A joint webinar can expand reach by tapping into the partner's audience.¹¹ Promotion can run through both companies' networks and marketing channels.¹² Discuss the audience, topic, owners and follow-up during planning and organization, because co-marketing should be coordinated at that stage.¹³

Choose the format that fits the motion. Available forms include a marketplace listing, joint solution sheet, webinar, case study or blog post.¹⁴ Ask which audience each partner can bring, what that audience should learn, and how a response becomes a sales conversation. Proceed when both teams have agreed on the audience, content owner, promotion route and follow-up owner.

Use a formal partner program when one exists

A program workspace gives the joint deal a visible operating path. Use it when the partner and sales team need a shared record of the opportunity and its participants.

In Partner Center, the path starts in the Referrals workspace by selecting the Co-sell opportunities tab.¹⁵ Register by selecting Register at the bottom of the screen.¹⁶ A sales representative can invite a partner from a customer account.¹⁷ A partner can also ask for more help from sales to close a deal.¹⁸

Treat the program route as part of deal execution, not a substitute for the joint customer plan. Record the account overlap, partner contribution, lead and next customer action in the same working record.

What not to do

Avoid errors that create confusion about who acts, who owns the customer or what the partner contributes.

• Do not use co-selling, sell-through and sell-to as interchangeable labels. The motions differ by customer ownership and invoicing, and each needs different partnership work.²
• Do not treat a lead handoff as co-selling when the program expects a sales representative to stay actively engaged with the partner and customer until close.¹⁹
• Do not start joint outreach without a named account intersection and a reason to close an integration gap or pitch a joint offering.⁶
• Do not add co-marketing after the campaign is already underway. Coordinate it during planning and organization.¹³