Partner Network Expansion

What if your top-performing seller doesn’t even work for you?... Partner-led growth is one of the highest-leverage GTM plays (if you know when and how to use it). Brian Weinberger is the CRO at Sisense and has 30+ years of GTM leadership. He’s built partner motions across every model – from VARs to SIs to global cloud marketplaces. In this episode, he shares the playbook for building a partner ecosystem. Key takeaways:   1️⃣ Don’t start with distribution. Start with delivery. Most founders want partner-led pipeline. But first, ask: who delivers your product best? If it’s complex, lean on experts. Great delivery builds stickiness and drives long-term retention. 2️⃣ Enablement speed is the best predictor of partner success. Enablement is your early signal. How quickly can someone become fluent in your product and category? Invest in onboarding to compress time-to-value for every partner. 3️⃣ Partner ecosystems are not shortcuts, they’re systems. You won’t see ROI in 6 months. But by year 3, compounding kicks in. A mature ecosystem drives pipeline, retention, and expansion (often outperforming internal teams). 4️⃣ Use both direct and partner models Microsoft scaled through partners; Salesforce went direct. Today’s best SaaS companies use both: AEs for speed, partners for scale. Direct is your wedge and partners are your engine. 5️⃣ Sell on your own paper, even if you don’t do the work. Early on, own the contract. Let partners deliver, but keep buying simple for customers. This gives you control while subcontracting trusted experts behind the scenes. 6️⃣ Use partners to extend coverage where you can’t hire. New regions, verticals, or languages? Start with partners. The right one can be your seller, marketer, CSM, and architect - all in one. 7️⃣ The best partners hunt, not wait. Most partner programs wait for inbound or expect the reseller to “bring leads.” Flip the script. Feed your partners a pipeline, offer meaningful margins, and give them a reason to care. Partners who market and close independently are the ones who scale with you. 8️⃣ Use integrations to gain leverage with giants. Want attention from a cloud hyperscaler or dominant ecosystem? Don’t just build an integration, resell their product. Sisense white-labeled Snowflake, creating shared customers and shared incentives. Ecosystem selling builds political capital. 9️⃣ Want loyalty? Invest in in-person. Remote is efficient, but in-person builds bonds. Whether it’s team offsites, co-selling sessions, or just dinners, the cultural glue that holds your partner network together is forged face-to-face. The ROI shows up in loyalty, learning speed, and long-term deal flow. -- 🎧 Tune in and subscribe on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you like to listen by searching "The GTMnow Podcast." 💡 GTMnow by GTMfund: Build, scale and invest with the best minds in tech.

Why US Acquirers Need European Bins (And Vice Versa) Most acquirers think global expansion means applying for licenses in every target market. That's the old playbook, and it's already obsolete. The new strategy is to build networks through cross-border bin sponsorships. US acquirers partner with European acquirers for reciprocal BIN access. Both sides gain instant multi-regional capability without the time and capital sink of building local infrastructure. This isn't just faster. It's strategically superior. Vertical integration made sense when payments infrastructure was scarce and network effects were limited. You built everything yourself because partnering meant compromising control or capabilities. That logic is backwards now. The acquirers winning global market share aren't the ones with licenses everywhere. They're the ones assembling the strongest partnership networks fastest. Here's why this matters. An acquirer with European and US bin sponsorships can serve clients in both markets immediately. Add partnerships in Australia and Asia and they're competing globally while their competitors are still filling out license applications. The network effects compound. Each new partnership increases the value of existing ones. An acquirer with five regional partnerships becomes a more attractive partner for the sixth region because they already offer multi-regional capability. This is a land grab moment. The acquirers establishing these partnerships now are building moats through network effects. Those waiting for "clarity" or sticking to vertical integration will find themselves locked out of the most valuable partnerships. At Silverflow, we're watching acquirers race to build these networks. The smart ones aren't asking whether to participate. They're asking how fast they can sign partnerships before their competitors do. The strategic question isn't whether you should pursue cross-border bin sponsorships. It's whether you'll be early enough to capture the best partnerships or late enough that you're competing for scraps. Speed wins. Networks compound. Hesitation costs market position you won't recover.

When someone tells me they need more partner leads, my first question is usually: Where is revenue actually getting stuck? Because “we need partners to send us leads” is often only part of the problem. Sometimes pipeline is slow. Sometimes trials are not converting. Sometimes customers are not seeing value fast enough. Sometimes renewals are at risk. And each of those problems needs a different partner play. If pipeline is slow, the right partner can help create trust earlier. They can validate the problem. Shape the requirements. Give the buyer confidence before your sales team is even in the room. If trials are stalling, the right partner can help customers see value faster. They can support implementation. Bring the use case to life. Help close the gap between: “This looks interesting.” And: “This is working for us.” If renewals are at risk, the right partner can help drive adoption. They can support customer success. Extend the value of your core product. Help the customer justify staying and growing. That is why measuring partnerships purely by leads sent is too limited. Leads matter. But they are only one part of the revenue journey. This was one of the reasons Basem Emera’s point in our recent webinar stood out. The opportunity is often not in building a long list of referral partners. It is in going deeper with partners who sit closer to the customer journey. That is where the leverage is. Because the best partners do not just introduce you to customers. They help customers move forward. This is also where partner marketing needs to grow up. It should not only be about launching campaigns at the top of the funnel. It should help activate the right partners at the moments where revenue needs momentum. Pipeline. Trials. Renewals. Expansion. So the better question is not: “Which partners can send us leads?” It is: “Where are customers getting stuck, and which partners can help move them forward?” That is when partnerships stop being treated like a channel. And start becoming part of the growth system.

Interesting U.S. telco results in 1Q26. The performance of the "Big Three" wireless carriers signals a definitive shift from traditional subscriber acquisition toward a strategy of capital-efficient infrastructure expansion (AI-era build out) and margin optimization through automation. T-Mobile is currently in a high-intensity integration phase with 11% service revenue growth. The 15% dip in net income reflects the merger math of absorbing UScellular and Metronet. Their pivot toward a capital-light fiber model via joint ventures is a strategic attempt to match AT&T’s connectivity stack without the same level of balance-sheet drag. Verizon and AT&T are demonstrating that the legacy premium model is resilient if paired with fiber. Verizon’s return to positive postpaid phone additions indicates that their restructuring and cost-cutting measures (aimed at reducing churn and acquisition costs) are finally yielding results. The legacy "telco" category is being redefined as distributed infrastructure in the AI-era. For advisors and partners, the value proposition is moving away from the circuit and toward design and architecture. —> The Connectivity Convergence Play: The market has moved past the mobile-only or wireline-only sale. Customers are increasingly seeking a single-vendor fabric that combines 5G, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), and fiber. —> Infrastructure Management as a Service (IMaaS): As carriers consolidate (e.g., T-Mobile/UScellular and Verizon/Frontier), enterprise customers face significant migration and configuration complexity. There is a growing margin opportunity in Lifecycle Management. Partners should position themselves as the "translation layer" that manages the transition between legacy carrier contracts and new, software-defined network architectures. —> Network-as-a-Sensor & Edge Computing: The carriers are heavily investing in Network Native AI, moving compute power closer to the user to reduce latency (and increase sovereignty). Partners should begin identifying use cases in retail, logistics, and manufacturing where 5G slicing can support real-time data processing without the overhead of public cloud egress fees. —> Shift to Ecosystem “Surround” Services: The transactional commission model is under pressure as carriers automate their direct sales motions. Partners should focus on how these connectivity stacks integrate with the customer’s broader SaaS and security environment (SASE). The goal is to remain the primary architect of the customer’s digital ecosystem, rather than a fulfillment agent for the carrier. This marries the (global) $1.35 trillion telco services opportunity with the $4.72 trillion technology market for the AI-era ahead.

Curious if ecosystem gravity is coming up in your partner leadership meetings? It should be. This week, Anthropic expanded the Claude Partner Network with a dedicated services track. Most people will see this as a partner program announcement. I think it’s evidence of something much bigger. Over the past year, nearly every frontier AI company has made a significant ecosystem bet: • Anthropic committed $100M to ecosystem development, attracted 40,000+ partner applications, and certified 10,000+ consultants. • OpenAI grew from 2 million to 3 million paying business users in just four months. • Salesforce disclosed more than 8,000 customers signed up for Agentforce. • Microsoft partners deployed more than 300,000 Copilot licenses across Infosys, TCS, and Wipro alone. • Google committed $750M to accelerate AI development across its partner ecosystem. Sources: Anthropic, CRN, OpenAI, Salesforce, Microsoft, Google Cloud Different companies. Same pattern. But here’s the insight I keep coming back to: You can create a partner program. You can’t manufacture ecosystem gravity. You have to create enough customer demand that an ecosystem forms around it. The most interesting signal from Anthropic’s announcement wasn’t the services track. It wasn’t the certification program. It wasn’t the partner portal. It was the fact that more than 40,000 firms applied to participate. Those firms weren’t responding to a badge. They were responding to demand. They believe customers want Claude. And you can see the same pattern elsewhere. OpenAI didn’t add a million paying business users in four months because it had a partner program. Its ecosystem is growing because customer demand is growing. Salesforce didn’t attract thousands of partners to Agentforce because of a certification. Partners see demand. Microsoft’s AI ecosystem wasn’t created by incentives alone. It was created by customer demand large enough to support an entire economy of consultants, developers, integrators, and service providers. Once demand reaches critical mass, four things begin to accumulate: Intelligence because customers, partners, and developers learn together. Capability because partners invest in solutions, services, and expertise. Capacity because firms hire, train, and deploy resources against the opportunity. Influence because advisors, consultants, and builders begin shaping how customers evaluate and adopt technology. These forces compound. More intelligence attracts more capability. More capability attracts more capacity. More capacity attracts more influence. More influence attracts more intelligence. That’s ecosystem gravity. The easiest partners to recruit are the ones already chasing customer demand. The hardest partners to recruit are the ones you’re trying to convince demand will eventually exist. The best ecosystems understand the difference. Ecosystems are built. Gravity is earned.

We've been calling partnerships a channel. That word is costing us. Budget. Headcount. Credibility. It's not just the wrong word — it's the wrong mental model entirely. The funnel ends at closed-won. The customer journey doesn't. And the data makes that gap impossible to ignore: companies treating partner data as a first-class growth input are closing 3.6x more deals and retaining customers 58% longer. If your partnership model only measures what happens before the contract is signed, you're invisible to the majority of that impact. Partners show up before the sale, during it, after it, and at every moment a customer decides whether to stay. That's not a channel motion. That's a revenue lifecycle function — and it's what partnerships has always been, even when we didn't have the language for it. I've had this exact conversation twice. Leadership wants net new logos. Their instinct is to focus on the acquisition funnel. But that's never where the answer was. The moment we started working with partners across the full customer journey — not just the acquisition moments — everything opened up. The logos came. So did a lot more. The question isn't whether partners touch every step of the journey. They already do. The question is whether you're measuring it, mapping it, and making it count. Here's the framework that got us there: 1. Map your third parties across the entire customer journey — then get intentional about when and how they show up. Most partner maps stop at sourcing. The real work is identifying where a third party can accelerate, retain, or expand a customer relationship — and then building the motion that puts them there. 2. Connect partner touchpoints to real revenue movement — not just first touch. If your attribution starts and ends at pipeline sourced, you're measuring a fraction of your actual impact. Tie partner influence to milestone progression, retention rates, and expansion revenue. That's the number your CFO actually cares about. 3. Let your partner network tell you what your customers won't. Your partners sit inside your customers' organizations every day. They see what's working, what's breaking, and what's coming. That intelligence belongs in your product roadmap and GTM strategy — not just your QBRs. 4. Spend 60% of your time internally. This surprises people. But a revenue lifecycle function doesn't work if it only lives externally. Your job is to bring outside connections inside — to serve your company's initiatives, not just your partner program's metrics. 5. Hold your partners to the same standards you hold your own team. Same expectations. Same growth opportunities. Same service standards. When partners are treated as extensions of your business — not add-ons to it — your C-suite starts seeing them that way too. Some partnership leaders are already operating this way. Their C-suite doesn't just fund them — they can't imagine GTM without them. Are you one of them — or do you know one?

The best partner conversations don't happen on panels. They happen in hallways. I had one with Jay McBain last week at Ultimate Partner. I mentioned how many of my advisory frameworks, map directly to his research. The 28 moments stat is his. The average B2B buyer goes through 28 moments before vendor selection. Seven trusted partners shape those moments. On enterprise deals, 6.3 partners surround the customer. Most of those moments happen before the sale. The rest happen every 30 days after, across renewal, expansion, and retention. Now look at how most partner programs are actually scored. Deal registration. Sourced pipeline. Maybe co-sell credit if you're lucky. That's one moment. Maybe two. The other 26 are happening anyway. Partners are showing up at QBRs. They're the reason renewals don't collapse. They're teeing up expansions before the BDM sees the signal. The program measures none of it. This is what I tell clients. Most partner programs are half a system. When I advise partner leaders, I start with the data layer. Attribution is the foundation. You can't run a full-funnel motion if you can't see partners across the journey. Most orgs capture partner attribution at deal reg and nowhere else. Pipeline calls don't surface partner influence. Expansion conversations don't tag the partner. Renewal saves don't credit anyone. First fix. Capture partner influence at every stage, in the same CRM the rest of the revenue org uses. Then the motion gets focused by stage. TOFU is a breadth game. In every program I audit, the same pattern holds. 20 to 30% of active partners produce 70 to 80% of sourced ARR. Partner marketing and the partner manager own it. Recruit broad. A small producer cohort carries the number. MOFU is a depth game. Co-sell needs AE-to-partner-AE coordination, account overlap, and aligned ICP. The real constraint is AE capacity, not partner count. One AE plus partner manager can run 5 to 10 active co-sell deals at a time. Small orgs end up with a handful of strategic partners. Enterprise orgs end up with dozens across segments. Same principle, different math. Past that ceiling, partner managers become deal reg processors and win rate collapses to direct. BOFU is an account-overlay game. The question is what percentage of your base has a partner overlay that can drive adoption, expansion, or retention. A BDM in CSM mode runs two plays. Expansion hunts the base. Retention protects it. Three motions. Three archetypes. One attribution layer underneath. That's the operating answer to Jay's point-of-sale versus point-of-value critique. You can't pay at the point of value until you can see value at every stage. Jay diagnosed the gap. Operators have to close it. If you're a partner leader, audit what's already there. Where do partners show up in expansion today? Who talks to them when a customer goes quiet? The honest answer is usually "someone, kind of, sometimes." That's the gap. Closing it is the work.

Many B2B companies build partner networks backward. They focus on adding logos instead of making sure partnerships actually support their GTM strategy. Then they wonder why nothing moves the needle. So where should you start? ✅ 𝐃𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭. Are you selling through enterprise sales? Product-led growth? Channel partners? Partnerships should amplify what is already working, not pull you in different directions. ✅ 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐫𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫. If your partners do not win when you win, they will not stay engaged. Tie incentives directly to revenue impact, not just activity. ✅ 𝐅𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬. Not all partnerships are created equal. Who can actually help you grow? Resellers, tech integrations, co-marketing allies? Just like you define an ideal customer, you need an Ideal Partner Profile. ✅ 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. Partnerships should be part of the process, not an afterthought. Think co-selling, joint marketing, and making it as easy as possible for partners to add value. Bottom line? Collecting logos is not a strategy. A disconnected partner program will not drive results. Start with your GTM strategy and build from there. What has been your biggest challenge in making partnerships work?

Anthropic just committed $100 million to a partner network for enterprise Claude deployments. (Read that again. Not to the model. To the channel around it.) The Claude Partner Network isn't a distribution play. It's an acknowledgment that the enterprise AI sale has fundamentally changed. Here's what they're actually building: 1. The certification layer 2. The implementation layer 3. The ecosystem layer Let me break it down: 1. The certification layer A Claude Certified Architect credential is live today. More certifications for sellers and developers coming later this year. This is how you create a verified talent pool that enterprises can actually trust to deploy at scale. 2. The implementation layer Partner-facing engineers scaled fivefold. Dedicated technical architects on live customer deals. A Code Modernization starter kit for legacy migration. This is the infrastructure that takes a capable model from pilot to production inside a complex org. 3. The ecosystem layer A Services Partner Directory where enterprise buyers can find vetted implementers. $100 million committed in 2026 alone, with more expected over time. Claude is already the only frontier model available across AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft. This is the Salesforce playbook. Salesforce without its partner ecosystem is a dashboard. Claude without implementation partners is a capable model that most enterprises still can't deploy safely at scale. One network. One certification. One implementation layer. The model is no longer the moat. P.S. Is your org still evaluating AI vendors on model capability alone, or factoring in the ecosystem layer too?

🚀 Before You Build a Rs.50 Lakh to Rs.3 Crore Sales Team — Ask Yourself One Question Do you actually need a sales team? Or do you need a sales strategy first? Every growing company dreams of expanding fast through a strong sales and channel network. The instinct is almost always the same: Hire a VP Sales. Recruit Regional Managers. Build a channel team. Increase marketing spend. On paper, it looks like the fastest path to growth. In reality, it's often the most expensive mistake I've seen in 24 years of sales leadership. The question nobody asks before hiring Most mid-market companies commit Rs.50 lakh to Rs.3 crore a year to build a sales organization — before validating the basics: → Is the GTM strategy actually ready? → Is there genuine market demand, or assumed demand? → Is the partner program attractive enough to win good partners? → Is the pricing and commercial model competitive? → Can implementation and support scale with sales? → Is there a real sales playbook — or just a target? Skip these, and a company doesn't just spend money. It loses time, momentum, and market credibility — the three things that are hardest to win back. The cost is bigger than the salary like : Recruitment. Onboarding. Travel. CRM and tools. Attrition and replacement. Management bandwidth spent firefighting instead of leading. By the time real revenue starts flowing, many companies have already burned through crores chasing a strategy that was never validated. A smarter sequence Strategy → Validation → Partner Activation → Revenue → Scale → Team Expansion Not the reverse. Validate the GTM. Design the partner ecosystem. Test the value proposition with a few high-quality partners first. Measure what actually works. Then scale the team — based on evidence, not optimism. The real question for business leaders If you're about to commit Rs.1 to Rs.3 crore to a sales and channel buildout — wouldn't you want to know first that the model can actually deliver predictable revenue? Sometimes the smartest investment isn't hiring more people. It's making sure the business is ready to scale before you do. I work with companies on exactly this — validating GTM and channel strategy before the big hiring spend, as a part-time senior sales consultant. If you're sitting on this decision right now, happy to do a free 30-minute conversation — no pitch, just a second opinion before you commit the crore.