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Partnerships 101: What Is Co-Selling? - ELG Insider - Crossbeam
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“Co-selling is when two sales teams from two partner companies join forces and resources to convert prospective and/or existing customers.” Caption:
Your prospects overlap with your partner’s prospects “These account mapping intersections are opportunities for you and your partner to team up for a co-selling motion together, whether it’s closing an integration gap or pitching a joint offering.” Example: A sales rep at DigitalOcean, a cloud infrastructure provider, was selling cloud services and decided to loop in an implementation partner (to conduct analysis and show the benefits of the migration) and a tech partner (to satisfy a custom use case for the potential client). Bringing in the two partners gave the prospective client access to better service and better support — often called a “better together” story. The co-selling motion resulted in an increased deal size for DigitalOcean.
An increasing number of companies are leaning on co-selling strategies. Our 2021 State of the Partner Ecosystem Report found that twice as many companies are using co-selling tactics (71%) than are using PRMs (35%) — an increase from 62% in 2020. And co-selling increased by nine percentage points from 2020 to 2021. “Real-time account mapping has eliminated the need for tedious hours of data entry and spreadsheet analysis, and made it possible to tap into your partner’s resources and co-sell together.” Fill in product gaps
Account mapping involves taking a list of your customers or potential customers (“target accounts”) and cross-referencing (“mapping”) it against a partner’s list of existing or potential customers. When overlaps occur, each partner can choose how much data they want to share about each account, (ie., the sales manager or account rep in charge of the account). In other words, with second-party partner data augmenting your data, you’ve now got the golden ticket to accelerate an existing deal or find a brand new pipeline. “As part of account mapping, you and your partner must choose which lists (or as we call them, “populations”) they want to compare.” Customers – The people who are actively paying for your product
The first step of co-selling requires you and a partner to map accounts. “Account mapping involves taking a list of your customers or potential customers (“target accounts”) and cross-referencing (“mapping”) it against a partner’s list of existing or potential customers.” As part of account mapping, you and your partner must choose which lists (or as we call them, “populations”) they want to compare. Typical populations include:
The play: Take another look at the account mapping matrix and scope out any overlaps that result in a “co-selling” or “solution selling” motion: “Your opportunities overlap with your partner’s opportunities” Your opportunities overlap with your partner’s prospects
Your opportunities overlap with your partner’s opportunities “Your opportunities overlap with your partner’s prospects” Your prospects overlap with your partner’s opportunities
Your opportunities overlap with your partner’s prospects “Your prospects overlap with your partner’s opportunities” Your prospects overlap with your partner’s prospects
Your prospects overlap with your partner’s prospects “These account mapping intersections are opportunities for you and your partner to team up for a co-selling motion together, whether it’s closing an integration gap or pitching a joint offering.” Example: A sales rep at DigitalOcean, a cloud infrastructure provider, was selling cloud services and decided to loop in an implementation partner (to conduct analysis and show the benefits of the migration) and a tech partner (to satisfy a custom use case for the potential client). Bringing in the two partners gave the prospective client access to better service and better support — often called a “better together” story. The co-selling motion resulted in an increased deal size for DigitalOcean.
Tip 1: Find the right partner fit “While your account mapping exercise might have yielded a high number of partners for co-selling possibilities, early-stage vetting can make the difference between high-quality leads and wasted time for your sales team.” Tip 2: Get your sales team on board