While it is relatively straightforward to identify the first set of key integrations, identifying the right set of partners is a challenge.
When it comes to prioritising partners, it is best to consider two perspectives- Integration & GTM or goals. List partners wrt integrations - Must to have, Good to have, Not a fit. Also, list the same partners wrt GTM / how much both of your goals match - Great fit, Medium fit, Not a fit. (It is important to factor the size of your partners as well)
You can read this article to understand why integrations are important and how to prioritise integration.
Integration Must to have - GTM Great fit
This is your best partner. This is perfect marriage and you can shout Eureka in joy as you add more partners to this category. With limited enablement you can get teams involved or in most cases, customers and internal teams themselves will understand the importance for these integrations. In fact, data from these integrations are the ones that will help you convince your internal teams to work with tech partners.
If both of you have pipeline goals, it is relatively easy to convince your sales teams to position the joint solution. Your customer success team will understand the importance of the integration and will even recommend the integrations to all of their customers.
If the goal is adding more leads/MQLs, webinars around the joint solutions will win a lot of interest.
If app adoption is your key metric, this integration will become popular and will be one of your top apps.
The only risk that you may run into is your product team picking this integration (or the entire partner’s solution) as a product feature. But this is very rare.
Integration Must to have - GTM Medium fit/ Not a fit
Must to have integrations are always important. You need to have all the right collaterals, customer case studies for those integrations. If GTM Medium fit, then try and help each other achieve your respective goals.
Integration Good to have - GTM Great fit
If integration Good to have, then these integrations may not be a key to close opportunities. Your customers will not show a sense of urgency for these integrations and so naturally even if these integrations are not there, it will be a little hard for you to get time from your product team to prioritise the integration.
However, if GTM Great fit, then you can build a business case on why you need the integration. In some cases, you can even work on a joint GTM without the integration, gain some interest from common customers and then use the data to help the product team with data so that they can prioritise the integration.
If GTM fit is not great, then just document the integration and be friends with those partners.
If Integrate Not a fit - GTM Great fit
If there is no scope for an integration, forcing an integration is not going to help. Rather it is a waste of time and resources. You can still work with partners in this category. You can get warm introductions, get details about an account that you are trying to target, etc. It is going to be very hard to convince your sales teams to work with such partners. If you have few sales folks who will help you, then great. If not, just be friends with such partners. Your next job could be in such partners’ companies.
For any other categories (Integration not a fit - GTM medium or not a fit) it is best to just be friends.
