Split the number into partner sourced (they brought the deal) and partner influenced (they were present in a deal you would probably have had anyway). Sourced is the honest one, and influenced is useful for showing win rate and cycle time but is trivially inflated, so never report it on its own. Give a new partnership two full sales cycles rather than two quarters, and judge it on whether a real seller on their side has ever said your name unprompted. If there is no sourced pipeline and no named champion by then, wind it down politely and keep the integration alive. Most partner portfolios are mostly dead weight and almost nobody admits it.
4 hand-picked resources, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it The only guide we found with concrete hiring triggers (15 to 25 active partners, 5 to 10% of new ARR partner sourced) and a real comp split, plus an interview loop that filters for operators over relationship generalists.
From Forecastable by Alex Buckles 18 min read
Open forecastable.com →Why we picked it The best plain English glossary of the nine partner types plus 20 metrics to track, which is exactly what you need when you are new and everyone around you is using acronyms.
From HubSpot Blog by Aja Frost 15 min read
Open blog.hubspot.com →Why we picked it Survey data from 950 B2B SaaS companies on who actually runs channel and how much revenue it carries, which is the fastest way to sanity check whether your product profile suits resellers at all.
From SaaS Capital by Rob Belcher 9 min read
Open saas-capital.com →Why we picked it The clearest single explanation of the five partner types and what each is worth, including real margin bands (20 to 30% for VARs, 5 to 10% for referral) and how to compensate your own AEs on partner deals.
From Bessemer Venture Partners (Atlas) by MP Eisen 20 min read
Open bvp.com →How partnerships and alliances reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Scale, fund & exit, our D2C track.
