How a Two-Person Team Manages 250+ Partners

Problem

The inability to provide economic incentives to their partners proved to be a critical issue as they worked towards the company goal of 20% of pipeline being driven by partners. Nick noted, "we knew that being able to offer economic incentives in the form of revenue share and commissions to our partners was just table stakes." The lack of a system to manage these payouts was a significant hurdle, Nick emphasized "we really had no way to execute payouts. Finding a system to automate that for us was key to kickstart the whole program." Without the ability to execute these payouts effectively, Skio found itself at a disadvantage in fostering and maintaining fruitful partnerships. 

Secondly, Skio was unable to provide their partners with adequate educational content and materials, which are essential for making informed referrals. Nick detailed, “It's pretty clear that it's harder for our partners to make informed and persuasive referrals to us if they're not educated about everything that we do." The reliance on less effective communication channels such as social media, newsletters, or even direct Slack messages proved cumbersome.

Solution

Skio adopted PartnerPortal.io as the “administrative backbone” of their partner program, significantly reducing manual work and allowing for a streamlined process of partner payouts. Nick emphasized, “PartnerPortal.io is key to the infrastructure of our program… Executing payouts would be a whole job in itself if I was doing all this manually." By leveraging PartnerPortal.io, Skio was able to incentivize partners with automated revenue sharing, reducing the potential for errors and delays associated with manual processes, and increasing the amount of partner driven pipeline. 

The second major solution Skio achieved through PartnerPortal.io was ensuring that their partners were well-informed, educated, and taking the desired actions through an intuitive and user-friendly platform. "We're using PartnerPortal.io as our de facto resource center for all partners." The ability to upload and share resources with custom groups and tiers of partners within PartnerPortal.io addressed the knowledge gap and empowered partners to make more effective referrals and was described as, "essential to a smooth running program." Furthermore, the ease of use of the platform was a critical factor, as Nick pointed out: "having a tool that's really intuitive and easy to use is half the battle… If I have to do a deep dive training session on how to use a tool, partners are not going to engage” 

Results

As a result of implementing PartnerPortal.io, Skio realized a substantial reduction in workload, effectively saving the equivalent of about 1.5 full-time employees. Nick highlighted this efficiency gain, commenting, "not only would it require someone to be responsible for the admin work, compiling exports, and making sure partners are getting paid, but there would also be a time consuming back and forth between myself and that partner." What used to be a complex and labor-intensive process is now described as "maybe a 10 minute task” that Nick described as, "one click to pay out."

The second notable outcome for Skio, achieved through the use of PartnerPortal.io, was the impressive growth of their partner program. With just a two-person team, Skio managed to expand their program to over 250 partners. This was made possible by the capabilities of PartnerPortal.io: "PartnerPortal.io has enabled us to successfully manage 250 plus partners as a two-person team… Partners adopting PartnerPortal.io really took off all the admin work from my shoulders." Nick closed by commenting that "utilizing PartnerPortal.io was definitely the right decision for our team."

Schedule time to speak to a PartnerPortal.io representative by clicking here, or email sales@partnerportal.io for more information.