5 Must-Do’s to Maximize Your Salesforce Partnership
Building a partnership with Salesforce can be transformative for your business. Whether you're a technology vendor, consulting firm, or independent software vendor (ISV), forming a strategic alliance opens up a world of opportunities to expand your market reach, enhance your product offerings, and drive revenue growth. However, developing a successful partnership requires a well-planned strategy that aligns with Salesforce's ecosystem and goals.
This article will explore how to craft a winning strategy for partnering with Salesforce, highlighting the key steps to ensure a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.
Why Partner with Salesforce?
Being a part of Salesforce’s global partner ecosystem brings a value to the tune of billions. With Salesforce revenue of roughly $21.25B, that brings $123B worth of opportunities to the partner ecosystem. If you haven’t capitalized on this opportunity, you’re already behind.
Building partnership can lead to new clients, bigger deals, and channel pipeline opportunities. For every $1 in licenses sold, there’s $6* in services revenue. Co-selling boosts your relationship with Account Executives, making you a go-to partner for implementing licenses, and increases credibility with clients. Partners also enjoy benefits like training discounts, exam vouchers, and access to resources.
To succeed, it’s important to choose the right partnership type. In North America, Salesforce offers three main forms of partnerships: Consulting partners (implementation services), ISV partners (3rd party apps that extend functionality independent from licenses), and OEM partners (apps that co-sell underlying licenses). This article focuses on Consulting partners.
1. Understanding Salesforce’s Ecosystem and Requirements
Every partnership has different tiers a partner can reach. Each tier requires meeting specific qualifications that showcase the level of partnership. For consulting partners, there are 5 categories where you can earn points to increase your partnership status: Customer Success, Innovation, Growth, and Lead. It’s important to familiarize yourself with what the categories entail and how you can grow in each arena as the level of support and credibility increases with each partnership tier.
Ensuring a strong partnership model also includes understanding Salesforce's priorities and aligning with them. Salesforce has 3 pillars when it comes to priorities: Customer Success, Innovation, and Trust. Creating best in breed technology that adapts to ever-evolving customer needs and that companies can rely on in the age of data is of the utmost importance, and partners that don’t prioritize innovation, security and quality implementations won’t benefit from the full potential of a partnership.
Outside of technical priorities, Salesforce has been a leader in creating positive and sustainable change both in the world and the workforce. As a partner, you’re encouraged to also take the net-zero and pledge and adopt the 1-1-1 model, which is defined as donating 1% of time, product, and revenue to charities.
2. Defining a Clear Value Proposition
Now that we have covered how Salesforce incentives its partners to continuously prioritize innovation, a culture of philanthropy, and customer obsession, let’s discuss what makes your organization unique. To stand out, your business needs a unique offering that complements the platform. Whether it’s a niche solution or a new integration, focus on delivering value that enhances the customer experience within the Salesforce environment. It’s better to be an expert than a generalist, and this clear value proposition will make you a more attractive partner both to Salesforce and your shared customers.
3. Establishing Strong Alignment with Salesforce Teams
Successful partnerships rely on strong, ongoing relationships with Salesforce teams, including Account Executives and Field Sales Leaders, Partner Sales, Partner Account Managers, and Industry Specialists. Regular communication and collaboration will help align your goals and open up joint go-to-market opportunities.
4. Investing in Salesforce Expertise and Innovation
In order to gain the attention and trust of the various personas, you need to not only establish close relationships centered around accounts and opportunities, but you need to show a strong understanding of the platform and your desired specialized area. Salesforce has a Certification and Accredited Professional program to account for this and ensure your team is fully trained and certified in Salesforce’s technologies. Staying updated on platform updates and innovations will allow you to continuously improve your solutions and maintain a competitive edge within the partner ecosystem.
5. Ensuring Long-Term Success and Growth
Continuously measuring and optimizing the partnership’s performance is essential to ensure ongoing success. By fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and shared success, both parties can work towards common goals while adapting to changing needs. As the partnership strengthens, there are opportunities to expand further within the partner ecosystem, unlocking new areas for growth and mutual benefit.
Conclusion: Building a Lasting Relationship with Salesforce
While lucrative, navigating the Salesforce partnership journey can be complex. Hiring a Salesforce go-to-market consultant can help you craft a successful partnership strategy, ensuring you make the most of the platform and maximize growth opportunities. Let an expert guide you through certifications, partner programs, and go-to-market strategies, so you can focus on delivering value.
If you’re ready to start your journey or scale your program, you can contact me at lela@koopalconsulting.co.
By following these steps—and with the help of an experienced consultant—you can create a thriving, long-lasting partnership with Salesforce.
*$6.19 by 2026
