Enzo’s Pontiac
There was a Director of Channel Partnerships I worked with — we'll call him Enzo, only because I'm halfway through the Acquired episode on Ferrari. The name is where the Ferrari ends. This Enzo was in a 1992 Pontiac LeMans that couldn't get out of second gear.
His channel program had four moves, and they were the four moves everyone makes. I've made. Pitch agencies that sold to the same customers he did. Get them onto a master services agreement to resell. Ship collateral, run a lunch-and-learn. Then wait for the phone to ring and wonder why things went quiet.
Here's why this car circles the lot without leaving:
No real demand. You projected it from a spreadsheet, they inferred it from a client or two who once asked. No one lived it.
Weak conviction. The partner never wanted it. Signing was defense — a way to keep a client from hiring an outside expert — not a bet on your product.
Limp incentives. The partner makes more on their own products, and nobody pushes a third-party product as hard as the thing standing between them and getting fired. PLG vs hand-sold? Same.
Superficial knowledge. The partner never learns it. People study what pays them.
The ending is familiar. There's a signed contract. The partner is pleasant. They take your calls. They'll drop your slide into their training and your line into their FAQ. They call when they need you — meaning a customer walked in with a request they couldn't deflect. Which you might have gotten anyway.
One partner was straight with Enzo and me: "We love what you do. But it's a big quarter and sales is slammed. Let's get you in next quarter." Had the incentives been aligned, we'd have been the answer to that quarter — not a threat to it.
Enzo had contracts. Enzo did not have a channel program.
Every partnership stalled. Enzo thought it was the lunch-and-learns that never got scheduled. Symptoms, not problems.
The problem: you can't expect a partner to sell a product no one proved anyone wants — one they don't believe in, don't profit from, and don't understand.
What works here is counterintuitive. Hear me out.
You go looking for channel partners to get scale; the math on the slide says so. If X% of their customers — X is always too big — also buy our product, at Y% acquisition cost — Y is always too small — we generate $Z in incremental profit.
It's a great story. Low cost, lower marginal cost, scalable, sticky. Brilliant. No wonder the CXO makes the hire — and treats it like an ignition: turn the key, wait for the wheels to peel out.
But it doesn't work that way. Scale is why you started — not how you start.
Here's what worked when Enzo's CEO asked me to lend a hand.
We found one mutual customer. One — a strong fit for both products, where the combination was obvious. We overinvested in that single pitch. We slowed down. Both teams went deeper into each other's products than the deal could justify. We co-wrote the presentation. We co-presented it.
It's not scale. It's not big money.
The goal wasn't a contract; it was a case study — and we wrote it before we'd earned it, Amazon-style, as a future press release. What outcome would make this worth doing?
That first collaboration worked. So we ran it again. A little faster. Then again, until there was a pattern. And only then a contract — terms, cadence, structure, buy-in.
Here are five questions I ask myself when approaching channel sales:
1. Do I have one proof point of 1 + 1 = 3 — deep enough that I could write the case study, whether or not I ever do?
2. Is there a real, mutual commitment to learn, sell, support, and service it? Can't yada-yada this one.
3. Am I putting up margin that represents real value — or crumbs I won't miss?
4. Is there an agreed joint cadence — planning, account reviews, product discussions? When there isn't, it's a tell: someone has other priorities.
5. Is there a champion at least 80% as excited as I am?
I spent a long while getting that wrong. It's slow, unglamorous work — most of it never makes it onto a slide. It's the only way I've ever seen 1 + 1 come out to 3.
