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How to Build a Partner Ecosystem That Sells for You | Brian Weinberger

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Video•GTMnow•Dec 3, 2025
GTMPartnershipSales

Core idea

Partner selling is not a shortcut. It is a system built quietly over time through delivery, enablement, and trust.

1. When does partner selling fit your GTM model?

Partner selling depends largely on the technicality of your product and your delivery model.

  • The delivery question
    • How is your product delivered?
    • If implementation is highly technical, you have two options:
      • Hire a large internal professional services team, or
      • Leverage implementation partners (system integrators) as subject matter experts.
  • PLG vs. complex solutions
    • PLG: goal is self-serve, minimal delivery → usually fits a direct motion.
    • Complex categories (for example data, heavy integration, architecture): a partner ecosystem is often necessary.

    • 2. Direct vs partner motion: Microsoft vs Salesforce

    Weinberger contrasts two classic models:

  • Microsoft: historically used a reselling distribution model.
  • Salesforce: historically used a direct selling model, later adding partners who sold on their own paper.

    • Modern hybrid: own the paper

    For most startups, a hybrid model works best:

  • The customer signs one contract (your paper) for both software and services.
  • You sell the license and the implementation.
  • You then subcontract the partner to deliver the work.
  • The customer experience stays unified while you still feed and grow the partner ecosystem.

    • 3. Enablement as the #1 green flag for partners

    Enablement measures how easy it is for an ordinary person to do extraordinary things with your product.

  • The expertise gap
    • If your product requires deep domain expertise (for example, selling financial planning software to a CFO with 20 years of experience), it is very hard to train a junior direct seller to be credible.
  • De-risking the sale
    • In these cases, enablement becomes the green flag for partnering.
    • Partners are often already consultants or subject matter experts.
    • They bridge the expertise gap immediately and de-risk the buying process.

    • 4. Partner marketing: making resellers self-sustaining

    A healthy ecosystem avoids partners who just wait for you to hand them leads.

  • “Get your own food”
    • You want partners who run their own events, demand gen, and email marketing.
    • Any leads you send should be gravy, not their main food source.
  • Generous margins
    • To make this work, you cannot be stingy on margins.
    • Giving partners 50–57% margins incentivized them to prioritize the product.
    • Those margins fund their own marketing and make the ecosystem self-sustaining.