Misconceptions: Growing Partnership Programs, Launching Internationally, and When to Start Spending

Thoughts on partnered channel lead growth for B2B SaaS: It works, but it’s not something you can control. I’m a big proponent of having a business where you’re the captain of the ship - so if you want to grow it, you can grow it. Build a channel that’s going to consistently bring in revenue that you can control - so that’s outbound or paid ads or sales processes. Partners work for more supplemental revenue, I’ve seen companies grow up to 100,000,000 in revenue with partner channels, and then they just burn out because they never actually solve that problem of acquiring customers consistently. It also depends on what your exit strategy is - if you want to sell, partners work, but if you want to build something long-term - I would figure out what that channel is internally. The biggest misconception companies have when they’re trying to launch internationally is they think because it’s a different region they probably buy differently. There are a few differences between Eastern world and Western world purchasing, but if you’re solving a problem and focused on one market - that’s all people really need to grow your company. As long as the language is the same, it’s easy to do with the same process. If the language is different, you just hire reps in that area. You can get independent contractors that are commission-based for sales reps. As long as you have a system in place that is closing, that works really well. At what point do you start spending money on social, google marketing vs limited, dedicated email calling? Get 3 sales with dedicated email calling, that’s a good proof of concept. Email, dedicated calling, your network, whatever it is that you need to do to get your first 3 sales - do that. Once you have that, you want to start investing money on channels that’ll work for you - that could be social, it could be Google marketing, it could be LinkedIn posts, it could be conferences - depending on what your product is specifically, but that’s when you want to start spending money.