“It is not difficult to recruit a partner. It can be really difficult to recruit the right partner.” — Caroline Egan, Inspiren 1. Start from day one. Think about partners when building your overall go-to-market strategy. Even if you don’t plan to partner now, don’t do anything that will negatively impact your ability to partner going forward. Your customer buying behavior, competition, and market dynamics may change. 2. Understand partner types. Don’t think of partners solely as resellers. They are much more varied—and potentially more valuable—than that. They could even be involved in your direct sales as advisers, influencers, or consultants. Ensure that your strate- gy reflects this. Consider how your target prospects are influenced by other organizations and how they purchase solutions today—this will help you to identify partners that can potentially give you easier access to market and support the whole journey of engaging new prospects to selling solutions, successful delivery, and customer success management. 3. Build an ideal partner profile. Draw up a checklist of what you are looking for in a partner in terms of skills, market positioning, and complementary products or services. Start with a small number of partners, learn, and then refine your strategy. This will help you to understand an ideal partner when you find one and reduce the num- ber of non-performing partner relationships. 39