Partner enablement: The guide to building a scalable program

Ever been told you're not qualified for a job you really want – and then talked your way into it anyway?

Well, maybe not, but that's exactly how my 15-year journey in partner enablement began, and here I am – running partner enablement and technical sales enablement at 1Password, and yes, now presenting myself as an expert on the subject.

As it turns out, partner enablement was quite different from what I'd done before, but that leap into the unknown taught me everything I know about building partner enablement programs from the ground up.

So, here's what I want you to remember as we dive into this article: Don't let the scale of any program overwhelm you. I've run programs of various sizes at different tech companies, and the key is always to right-size everything to where you are in your journey.

Whether you're supporting 50 partners or 5,000, the strategic frameworks I'm about to share will help you create structure, gain stakeholder buy-in, and – most importantly – know when to say no. Because trust me, in partner enablement, you'll need to say no a lot.

Let’s get started.

The evolving partner ecosystem

When you think about sales enablement, you think about that multiplier effect, right?

You're a strategic partner, a change agent, doing great things in the go-to-market function. Partner enablement is essentially that same force multiplier, but we're overlaying what the sales enablement team does and pushing it out to an external audience. Really, partner enablement is just an extension of your internal teams.

The entire partner ecosystem has changed drastically over the last 15 years. Understanding these changes is critical to building effective partner enablement programs, so here are a few of the major changes I’ve noticed:

🤝 From transactional to value-driven

The biggest change? We've gone from very transactional relationships to value-driven ones. In the past, partners were entities that could conduct business for us, they could sell our stuff, and that was it.

Now, we talk about the value we bring to partners and the value they bring to us. It's a two-way street, and value-driven selling is top of mind when we talk with partners.

💻 Digital transformation impact

When I started in partner enablement 15 years ago, we did a four-day in-person boot camp. We'd fly all our partners from around the country to our corporate headquarters to introduce them to all our salespeople.

That doesn’t happen anymore. No way could you get somebody to foot the bill to come to your corporate headquarters for a four-day training. Digital transformation has been massive in the partner world, and honestly, we wouldn't be able to scale without enablement platforms.

📊 The expansion of partner types

When I started, we had distributors, resellers, and some VARs. That was it. It was so easy. I miss those days. Now we have managed service providers, agencies, and strategic alliances. The list just goes on and on. Now I have a VP of Channel, a Head of MSP, and a Director of Alliances.

They don't all sit under the same structure; they all run their businesses differently, and they all want to get on your enablement plans because their business is the most important business to our business.

They hear the word "partnership" and think partnerships are all the same across the board. They're not. Teaching those nuances is definitely a challenge.

🛠️ Data-driven enablement challenges

This is really hard in the partner world. I don't have as much control over the data, especially when dealing with distributors. They might not even come to our enablement platform.

Data-driven enablement with partners takes on a whole new layer of complexity.

🌱 Collaborative ecosystems

Value-added resellers and system integrators used to be very siloed. Not anymore.

When you talk to your alliances director at AWS, they say, "Oh, we want to work with this tech vendor you have a story with. And this SI really likes both your products. So how are you going to put AWS together with your product, with another product, with an SI, and sell that as one solution?"

And on top of that, all the teams – not just my team and my partners, but the tech vendors and their partners – all have to tell the same message to everyone.

Real strategies for building a scalable partner enablement program