Five standard objections

"Selling anything is the process of identifying and eliminating barriers to purchase: risks, unknowns, and concerns that prevent your prospects from buying what you offer."—Josh Kaufman

Partner pros "sell" a vision of a partnership.

And there are five standard objections that appear in sales of all kinds:

It costs too much.
It won't work.
It won't work for me.
It can wait.
It's too difficult.

Think about building these objections into your initial better-together pitch.

TACTICS

3 plays to run when you start account mapping

The fastest way to know where you should invest in a potential partnership is by account mapping.

Here are 3 super easy plays every partner pro needs to run early on.

Customers <> customers overlaps

Play: Vet an integration
If you are considering building an integration with a partner, a high customer <> customer overlap count is a major green flag. The overlap data will show just how many people are eligible to adopt the integration immediately.

Then, once you’ve built the integration, your customers <> customers overlap list becomes your target group of early adopters. Your marketing team can create co-marketing motions such as a webinar or joint blog posts explaining the new integration to potential adopters.
Prospects <> customers overlaps

Play: Get a warm intro
When you surface prospects <> customers overlaps, you’re identifying a group of accounts (and AEs) that can benefit from a warm intro. Warm intros help show that your partner trusts you and that your product aligns with theirs. This can reduce the time between initial outreach and the prospect booking their first sales call.
Open opportunities <> customers overlaps

Play: Accelerate a deal with insider information
When a deal stalls, an AE is ghosted, or they need more support pushing the deal across the finish line, a partner can help. Plus, they can educate the opportunity about the value of your product or integration during their sales conversations and onboarding with new customers.
For your opportunities <> customers overlaps, we recommend making sure your AE and your partner can backchannel and create a one-pager version of your sales pitch for your partner.

Zipf's law and marketing

Pete continued further down the post,

The marketing point is that in any given population of companies doing some specific marketing activity, there are going to be a few that crush it, then people who do half as well & then people who do half that—and so on until you get really close to zero.

So why does this matter for the Decade of the Ecosystem?

Because winners of this decade will identify their ICP, find their customers' watering holes, and win in those watering holes.

Winners will:

Choose quality > quantity
Live in market
Show up in these watering holes and do things that don't scale

Read Peter Caputa's full breakdown of Zipf's law.

UPCOMING EVENTS

LIVE from ELG Con London

Can't come to London? No sweat!

Join us LIVE from ELG Con London on July 9th at 4:00 pm BST/ 5:00 pm CET/ 11:00 am EST for a virtual fireside chat with Crossbeam CEO Bob Moore and Simon Bouchez, CEO of Reveal/new Co-founder and COO of Crossbeam.

For the first time, get the exclusive story on the deal of the decade!

Save your seat here!

Stuff you don't want to miss!

July 10th—The Partnership Death Cycle and How to Avoid it—Scott Pollack (CEO at Firneo) will share the biggest challenges keeping partnership professionals up at night. By the end of the webinar you will know exactly how to overcome your daily challenges and what steps you need to take to put your partner program and career on the fast track. Register here.