Go-to-Market Strategy for Partners: How to Get More Commercial Impact from Your Ecosystem
- Mark Evert Zoet
- 3 days ago
- 11 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
A Go-to-Market (GTM) strategy for partners is essential for vendors who want to grow their ecosystem. This blog explains why many partners are technically strong but commercially passive, and how the lack of a clear GTM strategy is at the heart of this problem. Helping partners develop their own GTM approach, including target group selection and go-to-market, creates greater ownership and better commercial results. With the right structure and guidance, you can transform your ecosystem from reactive to proactive.
Table of contents
Many vendors are actively building their partner channel. They invest in enablement, campaigns, and programs. Partners are running implementations, providing support, asking for leads – and getting them. But when it comes to generating new customers or pipeline, things often remain quiet.
They deliver, but they don't sell. That leads to frustration. Because your ecosystem grows on paper, but adds little commercially. The reflex is logical: you look for more partners, offer extra training, renew the partner plan. But the result remains the same.
The core of the problem is deeper. Many partners simply do not have a clear Go-to-Market strategy. They do not know who to approach, what their message is, or how to structurally add value in the sales process. Without such a plan, growth will never really get off the ground.
In this blog you will read why partners fail commercially, which reflexes you as a vendor often choose (but don't work), and how you can make a difference by helping your partners build their own GTM approach. Not more partners. But better partners. With direction, ownership and focus - for you and for them.
Why do partners deliver but not sell?
On paper, you have it all figured out. You have a network of partners with knowledge of your product, access to customers and a clear role in implementation or support. There is enthusiasm, there are joint plans, and the collaboration is often excellent at the operational level.
And yet you see it every quarter: the commercial contribution from partners is lagging behind.
They take on projects as soon as they get them. They deliver quality. But bringing in new opportunities themselves, actively generating leads, or building pipeline? That lags behind.
That feels uncomfortable. Because the harder you build the ecosystem, the clearer the contrast between effort and impact becomes. You set goals, ask for forecasts, organize partner days – but in the end, many partners mainly provide reaction , not action .
The irony is: it is rarely their intention. Most partners do want to. They believe in your solution, want to be part of the success, and are open to collaboration. But when it comes to customer acquisition, they retreat to what they know: technical knowledge, existing customers, and reactive sales.
Not because they are unwilling, but because they have no structure to do it differently – or because the founder or CEO of the partner is more technically than commercially oriented.
Without a clear picture of who their ICP is, what their message should be, how to generate leads or what their customer needs, proactive sales remains a difficult story. And so they fall back on what feels safe: delivering to the customers you bring in. Not a bad intention – but a missed opportunity.
In this blog we look at what that means. For you as a vendor. For the ecosystem. And for the relationship you are trying to build.
What does it cost if your partner channel doesn't scale?
When partners underperform commercially, you usually see that reflected in the figures – missed targets, a pipeline that lags behind, stagnating growth. But what you don't immediately read from that is where exactly things are going wrong.
It may seem like your entire GTM approach is under pressure, when in reality it is your partner channel that is not reaching its potential.
Your own growth goals are coming under pressure
Partners are there to accelerate your growth. They should bring in new customers, initiate deals, open up markets. If they don’t, the burden remains entirely on your direct sales organization.
What was meant to be a flywheel turns into an extra weight. Instead of shared ownership, dependency arises. You push – and partners only join if you pull the cart.
That slows down your growth. Or it means that you have to organize extra capacity internally to compensate for the loss.
Your support and enablement become a cost item
Partners get access to content, training, campaigns and sometimes market development funds (MDF). And those resources are also used – with workshops, webinars, events and other initiatives.
But what is missing is structural focus. There is rarely a clear expectation up front, let alone that impact is measured. Many MDF initiatives operate on good faith – without insight into ROI, or feedback on what it has actually delivered.
The intention is good. But without clear results your investments will evaporate.
The relationship loses its balance
Partnerships are based on reciprocity. You provide support, they provide growth. If that gets out of balance – for example, because few to no new leads, customers or opportunities come back – the partnership starts to chafe.
You may continue to support for a while, but eventually the time comes when you stop passing leads. Your focus goes to the 1 or 2 partners who show initiative. The rest fade away.
And so you get a partnership landscape with two faces:
A small group that is moving
And a large group from which nothing comes, and nothing goes to
There is then hardly any question of a strategic ecosystem.
Not through unwillingness, but through the lack of mutual commercial responsibility.
What is your first reflex – and why doesn't it help?
If the partner channel is not delivering enough, you will usually feel it before you can prove it. You will notice that the pipeline is lagging behind, that business plans are not leading to tangible growth, and that the commitment to the collaboration is mainly from your side.
The natural reaction is to get moving. Because you want to solve this — and fast.
What we often see is that action translates into one of three reflexes:
1. You are looking for new partners
It is obvious: if your existing partners are not delivering, then you broaden the playing field. You look at new profiles, focus on other regions or open the program more broadly. The hope: new energy, new reach.
But without a different approach, little changes in practice. New partners get the same onboarding, the same templates, the same expectations — and often run into the same barriers.
In this, each partner requires attention, guidance and support. The more you add, the more you have to distribute. And that is often at the expense of the partners who did well .
2. You invest extra in enablement
You organize new sessions, update the sales kit, provide access to more material. Everything to make your partners more successful.
And at first glance it works: there is enthusiasm, activity, involvement.
But without a clear strategy or plan from the partner, they remain isolated actions. There is no direction in how they approach their market, no choices in target group or positioning. And so the madness of the day takes over again. What started well, quickly becomes a short-lived revival.
3. You put pressure on forecasting and reporting
When you feel like you have no grip, you want an overview. So you ask for updates, pipeline reviews and quarterly plans. Not illogical - if you make expectations clear, more ownership will follow, right?
You would think so. But if nothing changes in how your partner views and approaches the market — especially when it comes to finding new customers — it often remains reporting for the sake of reporting. The numbers may be right, but real movement is absent.
Actually, these are not good solutions. But they are understandable. We see them in almost every vendor: they are human, logical and seem safe. The problem is that they start from a wrong assumption:
Namely, that the partner already knows how to market your solution — and how to position itself and its associated services in relation to competitors or alternatives.
In the next section, we therefore look at what is structurally missing from many partnership plans — and why that is actually no surprise.
What's Missing in Most Partner Plans (and Why)?
Partner plans are often created with the best intentions. They include objectives, activities, campaign themes, and sometimes even quarterly goals. But despite that structure, there’s almost always something crucial missing:
A real Go-to-Market strategy – from the partner, for your product or service.
What we often see in practice is that partner plans are mainly focused on what is being done, not on why and for whom. They name actions ("we are organizing a webinar", "we are going to do something on LinkedIn") - but do not make sharp choices in target group, positioning or channel. And so the foundation is missing.
No clear target group
Many partners want to serve as many markets as possible. They are afraid of excluding something, and therefore focus on “everyone who needs it”. But if you want to be everything to everyone, you end up being really relevant to no one.
Without clear ICP – without segmentation, without choice – conversations become generic. And therefore not very convincing.
No buyer-oriented proposition
Most partner plans do mention the offer, but rarely the problem they solve. There is no customer-centric story. No connection to pain, urgency or impact. And so the relevance is missing.
The result: the message only appeals to the 3% of the market that is already far along in their purchasing process. With the large group of potential customers that are still orienting themselves, you are already out of the game.
No concrete approach for customer acquisition
Lead generation usually gets stuck at “we do something with marketing”. But what is the approach? Which tactics are chosen? Who takes ownership? What does the follow-up look like? How are marketing, (pre)sales and delivery aligned?
In the absence of a plan, acquisition becomes ad hoc. Things happen – an event here, a LinkedIn post there – but there is no overarching plan that connects these initiatives. No coherence, no metrics, no rhythm.
And therefore no predictability.
No ownership or rhythm
Finally, many plans lack the rhythm with which progress is monitored. There is no fixed moment for reflection, no structure for adjustment, and no shared responsibility. Everything seems to be in motion, but little results.
It is tempting to see this as unwillingness or incompetence on the partner's side. But in reality, it is often never discussed properly. Or the partner simply lacks the experience, the expertise - or the space to even consider this in the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
In the next section we show how it can be done differently – and how you can help partners to shape their GTM approach in line with your proposition and their own market.
How do you help partners become more commercially active and successful?
Most partners want to, but simply don't know how .
Not only how to sell your solution, but especially: how to shape their own positioning, make choices and come up with a convincing story.
That is where your leverage lies as a vendor: not more content or enablement, but helping to get the basics in order – and you can also use your MDF budget more meaningfully for that. For example, by working together on a sharp Go-to-Market strategy, with guidance from specialists such as LeapLogic.
Start with the right conversation
Instead of talking directly about activities, marketing campaigns or QBRs, start with the strategic foundation:
What problem do they solve (for whom)?
In which market segments is the pain greatest?
What is their ICP?
What is their solution – and does it match the problem that customers or prospects are experiencing?
Through which channels do they enter the market?
And which tactics suit their target group, capacity and market maturity?
This isn’t an Excel exercise, but a session with a whiteboard — or better yet, a session supported by software, such as FunnelCamp™. More on that later.
Let the plan be their own
A good GTM plan is not given , but developed . By placing ownership with the partner – and supporting it where necessary with structure, formats or guidance – you increase the chance of actual implementation many times over.
Partners don't have to do this alone. But they do have to believe in it themselves.
What happens when you take GTM seriously in your partner strategy?
As soon as partners develop a sharp Go-to-Market strategy themselves — in collaboration with you as a vendor — something fundamental changes. Not only in what they do, but especially in how they behave, where they take initiative and how the collaboration feels.
We see this happen time and time again, and the impact is greater than you might expect.
Ownership is created
When a partner makes choices about his target group, proposition, channel and approach, the mindset shifts. It is no longer your product that he is trying to “take with him”, but a story that he has chosen himself — and that fits his customers, his market, his commercial ambition and his expertise.
This involvement directly translates into more initiatives, more energy and more visibility.
The conversations become more strategic
Where partner conversations used to revolve around leads, enablement or reporting, there is now room for real commercial alignment. You talk about ICPs, conversion, buyer journeys and segment focus — instead of “how many campaigns can still run this quarter”.
It's a different level of partnership. More equal, more growth-oriented. It makes you as a vendor a strategic business partner.
The results follow (and feel different)
You see it in small things: a partner who presents a pipeline himself. Who tests buyer personas with you. Who invites you to sharpen a proposition together for a specific segment. And yes, also in the figures: more self-generated leads, an increase in partner pipeline, better conversion.
But perhaps most importantly:
It feels like working together again on a flywheel that is really starting to turn.
What can you do today to make your partners commercially stronger?
A commercially mature partner channel doesn’t just happen. It starts with a willingness to have a different conversation — and ask different questions.
If you feel that your ecosystem runs mainly on what you put into it, then now is the time to take back control.
Ask yourself (and your partners) these questions:
Does this partner have a clear picture of his ideal customer, within your domain?
Is there a clear, buyer-focused proposition — or does it remain product information?
Is there a plan to work the market? With concrete tactics, chosen channels and ownership?
Is progress monitored periodically, or is everything ad hoc?
If this were your own GTM plan, would you dare to build on it?
If you have doubts about one or more of these questions, you already know enough.
Not to immediately hold partners accountable — but to reopen the conversation.
With more depth. More direction. And more chance of structural improvement.
That is exactly where we can help you.
Ready to take your affiliate strategy to the next level?
Partners who deliver but don’t contribute to commercial growth: it’s frustrating — but also solvable.
The key is structure. A GTM approach that works for your partners and for you. And that’s where FunnelCamp™ starts — powered by LeapLogic. Based on the experience of over 500 ecosystem partners in 34 countries, FunnelCamp™ helps partners develop their own, concrete Go-to-Market strategy.
Not an abstract model, but a structured workshop series — supported by tools — that leads to real choices, clear ownership and executable plans.
👉 Want to know what this would mean for your partner ecosystem?
Schedule a no-obligation consultation – and we'll see together where you can start today.
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