"And while your product has to be great, your partnership skills may end up determining your success or failure."
— Steve Case, The Third Wave
We often obsess over the product—rightly so. It needs to be great. But when you're betting on partnerships as a growth lever, product alone isn't enough.
If you're building a partner motion, success doesn’t come just from recruiting the right partners or signing the dotted line. That’s the starting line, not the finish.
The only way to make your company successful through partnerships is by focusing on three key pillars:
Alignment. Onboarding/Enablement. Activation.
Let’s talk about the one that most teams undervalue: Onboarding and Enablement.
So, what is Onboarding & Enablement really?
Too often, it's treated like a checklist. Something like:
✅ Contractual agreement signed
✅ Integration built
✅ Sales team trained
✅ Joint marketing assets created
These are important steps—but they’re not the whole picture. Onboarding and enablement isn't about ticking boxes. It's about building the infrastructure for long-term partner success.
It’s the difference between "we gave them a deck" and "we gave them a plan."
Why it matters more than you think
Partnerships are risky by nature. You’re asking another company to bet on your product, your team, your brand. They’re out there representing you in rooms you’re not in.
Sometimes, they’re also representing your competitors.
And here’s the hard truth: 70–95% of partnerships fail. Not because they weren’t a good idea. But because they didn’t have a strong foundation to grow from.
You might spend 12–18 months recruiting, negotiating, building an integration—only to realize there was no real enablement strategy. No path to joint wins.
And when there's no path, it’s no surprise when there's no outcome.
Enablement is your plan to win—together
Done right, onboarding and enablement is the process of:
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Identifying mutual goals
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Aligning on joint customer value
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Clarifying roles and expectations
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Equipping your partner to sell, position, and support
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Iterating based on what actually works
This is how you de-risk partnerships. It’s how you create predictability in something that often feels like a black box.
And most importantly, it’s how you start spotting patterns—what works, what doesn’t—so you can scale with intention instead of just hope.
If you're not building a plan, don’t be surprised when it doesn't work out.
If you're serious about making partnerships a meaningful part of your business, onboarding and enablement isn’t optional. It’s your best chance at making the partnership not just survive, but thrive.
So, ask yourself: Do you have a real plan for your partners?
Because success isn't built at the kickoff call—it’s built in the weeks and months that follow.