Partner Sales Programs

#Understanding Electrical Power Transmission and Distribution Systems: Electricity generation, transmission, and distribution are the backbone of modern energy supply systems. #Stages of Power Transmission 1.The journey of electricity begins at power plants, where electricity is generated at low voltages — typically around 12 kilovolts (kV). While this voltage is sufficient for local distribution, it poses challenges for long-distance transmission due to energy losses that can occur. 2.Adjacent to the power plant are step-up transformers. They play a critical role in increasing the voltage from 12 kV to much higher levels, such as 400 kV. The reason for stepping up the voltage is simple: higher voltages improve the efficiency of long-distance electricity transmission, as they minimize the energy losses due to resistance in the wires. 3.Once transformed to higher voltages, electricity travels through high-voltage transmission lines, which are typically supported by tall towers. These robust lines can convey large amounts of electricity over great distances, connecting power plants to substations and major distribution nodes. 4.As electricity nears its destination, it reaches a substation equipped with step-down transformers. These transformers reduce the voltage from high levels, like 400 kV, down to 33 kV, making it safer and more practical for distribution within urban and suburban areas. 5.After undergoing further voltage reductions, electricity is distributed through smaller lines at voltages such as 240 V or 110 V. This final tier of the system serves homes, businesses, and other consumers, providing them with the electricity needed for daily operations. 6.Finally, the electricity reaches the end consumer, depicted in the diagram on the far right as a house utilizing electricity at the common residential voltage of 240 V. At this stage, electricity is ready for use in various applications, from lighting to powering appliances. ##TransmissionVoltagesandDistances A key factor in the efficiency of the electrical power transmission system lies in the voltage levels used for different transmission distances. The accompanying table below summarizes these voltage levels, illustrating their application based on distance.This table highlights how higher voltage levels are crucial for reducing energy losses over longer distances. Achieving efficient transmission is vital for maintaining the stability and reliability of the electrical grid. The systematic process of electricity generation, transformation, and distribution demonstrates the complexity and precision involved in supplying power to consumers. By elevating the voltage for long-distance transmission and subsequently lowering it for safe consumption, the electrical power transmission system ensures that energy travels efficiently from its source to our homes and businesses...

When I first started in Procurement, I used to segment suppliers by spend alone. You know the old Pareto rule we all use: The “strategic” ones were the top 20% of spend (sometimes less!) The “tail” was… well, the tail. And if you also work in Procurement, you already know the flaw in that logic. Spend doesn’t always equal value, especially when it comes to services. I learned this when we had three very different suppliers in the same category: 🔴 Supplier A: Huge spend. Solid, but they delivered exactly what the contract said. Nothing more. 🟠 Supplier B: Mid-spend. They’d call me before I even knew there was a problem. 🟡 Supplier C: Tiny spend. But one year, their niche expertise saved us from a regulatory mess that would’ve cost millions. Same category Same procurement process Completely different value profiles Around that time I decided to shift from a spend-based segmentation to a value-potential segmentation: 70% Core – The operational backbone. You keep them efficient and reliable. It’s about SLAs, contract compliance, and stability. 20% Adjacent – Capability builders. They bring in adjacent skills, fresh insight, and potential to expand into new areas. 10% Transformative – Innovation partners. High risk, high reward. They might change how the business operates in the next 3–5 years. Managing this mix isn’t just operational but also political because stakeholders will always push for more time with the “big” suppliers. It’s relational because you need trust to get a small supplier to share their best ideas. It is also strategic because you’re betting on who might matter most in the future. When you get it right, you stop treating small suppliers like an afterthought… …and you start finding value in places the spend report will never show you. -------------- If this got you thinking differently about supplier segmentation, you’ll love my newsletter The Procurement Blueprint, where I share the real strategies, tools, and mistakes from nearly 20 years in Procurement. Subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/eg5C2b5i

Before Klaviyo was a unicorn, before their $9.2B IPO, and before partnerships were driving over 30% of their revenue… their partner program was in terrible shape. Here’s how they turned it from struggling function to secret weapon: BACKSTORY: In 2017, I was the Head of Partnerships at Hawke Media. Hawke was Klaviyo’s #1 partner by revenue. But, Klaviyo was far from Hawke’s top partner. For over a year I challenged them to do better. Every check-in call was a reminder of how lopsided our partnership was. Then, in 2018, Mike Eng took over their partnership program. I shared my feedback with him about their gaps and areas for improvement. Instead of brushing it off, Mike relished the feedback and asked for more. He knew that at my previous company (Bronto) we had built partnerships into 65% of revenue and he wanted to do the same at Klaviyo. Over a series of calls, and trips out to LA, he grilled me. Here are the best pieces of advice I gave him (according to Mike): 1. Customer First Build a program that delivers value throughout the customer journey and everyone wins. 2. Drive Growth for Partners The success you drive FOR your partners is as important as the leads/referrals you get FROM them. Make supporting the growth of your partners a core KPI. 3. Treat Partner like Customers of your Partner Program Map out your partner journey and what a healthy partnership looks like. Break this lifecycle into stages and track funnel metrics throughout. Then create a strong feedback loop with partners to optimize it. 4. Simplify, Simplify, Simplify A program with a bunch of “benefit” checkboxes that can’t be fulfilled are broken promises that you’ll need to repair down the road. Build a clear program that makes it easy for partners to understand, onboard, engage, and realize value. 5. Alignment is Critical Make sure you have alignment with key stakeholders internally. From the Board, to C-suite, and Cross-functional leaders across Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Product. You’ll need all of them to build a truly powerful program. 6. Use Data to Scale Having the right metrics, and the infrastructure to track them, will allow you to create predictability and scale. You (and your partners) will always know where you stand, what’s working, and what’s not so you can make informed decisions. 7. Tier Your Program (when at critical mass) Identify all of the benefits you can reliably offer to partners, organize them by value, and align with a tiering system that incentivizes partners to increase engagement with you. TAKEAWAY: These are the basics that so many partner programs are missing. Klaviyo came into a crowded category, with entrenched incumbents, and out-paced them all through partnerships. If you're struggling with partnerships, take a page out of their playbook. Keep the focus on scalability and mutual value. That's the foundation of a $1B partnership program.

Ever been thrilled to kick off a new coaching or facilitation project, only to have things unravel before your eyes? You’ve got the green light, your client’s excited, you’re excited... and then: 😬 Deliverables turn into moving targets. 🫨 Tasks start sneaking into the scope. 🙄 Communication becomes reactive. 🙄 And somehow, you're doing more than you signed up for. Sound familiar? These issues can lead to frustrated clients, strained relationships, and results that don’t reflect your expertise. Worse, you’re left questioning your own abilities. The root cause? Poorly initiated projects. The fix? A rock-solid kickoff meeting. Here’s how I run mine to set the stage for smooth sailing: 1️⃣ Set the agenda and introduce the team. Share the agenda in advance so everyone’s prepared. A quick intro sets a collaborative tone. 2️⃣ Review the project overview. Revisit the high-level goals and objectives. Frame it as a partnership—you’re in this together. 3️⃣ Explore hopes and fears. Ask what success looks like for the client, but also what could go wrong. Addressing fears early helps build trust. 4️⃣ Create a risk and opportunity register. Most people track risks, but don’t stop there. Highlight opportunities to amplify success—maybe another internal initiative aligns with your work. 5️⃣ Revisit the timeline. Pull the timeline from your proposal and check if it still works. Revise as needed and confirm key milestones. 6️⃣ Discuss team culture and expectations. How do you want to work together? Align on communication styles and ways of working to avoid surprises later. 7️⃣ Define next steps. End with clarity: What happens next, and who’s responsible for what? 💡 Pro tip: Send pre-work in advance, like a draft risk/opportunity register. The meeting should refine, not start from scratch. The result? ✅ Clarity ✅ Alignment ✅ stronger relationships. A well-run kickoff leads to happy clients, repeat business, and—you guessed it—referrals. Start strong, finish stronger. ~~ ✍️ What’s one thing you always include in your project kickoff? Let me know in the comments! 👇

Summer used to be for slowdowns. Now? It’s for pop-ups, collabs, and brand crossovers that move fast and hit hard. This season, we’re watching a sharp acceleration of cross-category summer collaborations, not just to sell, but to signal. A few standouts: ☀️ Dôen x Gap The floaty, nostalgic luxury label partners with a mass American staple and the result? Sold out in a day. A second drop just launched, extending to menswear and baby for the first time. It’s not just cute, it’s smart: aspiration meets access. 🌿 Mytheresa x Flamingo Estate The high-end fashion platform teams up with a sensory wellness brand hosting lush summer pop-ups from The Hamptons to Ibiza. It’s experience-first, commerce-secondand it’s working. Meanwhile, we’re seeing strategic brand activations pop up in: — Saint Tropez — Mykonos — Ibiza — And a wave of niche concept stores coming to NYC and LA So why does this matter (especially to the leadership and hiring space)? Because these crossovers require a whole new type of operator: - Leaders who can blend culture with commerce - Marketers who think like curators, not just campaigners - General Managers who can partner across categories and markets - And storytellers who can stretch a brand without snapping it These aren’t traditional partnerships.They’re summer strategies for relevance, discovery, and emotional elasticity. And as consumer expectations shift toward experience + identity, these moves will only accelerate. As someone who spends her days helping global consumer brands find the right leaders to steward collaborations like these, I always ask: → Is your leadership team built to manage this kind of cultural + commercial fusion? → Do they speak both “heritage” and “hype”? → Can they stretch your brand without snapping it? If not, let’s talk. This isn’t the old school “co-branding” playbook. This is brand building for the experience economy. And it’s changing fast. #FMCG #SummerPopUps #ConsumerGoods #Marketing #BrandStrategy #DÔENxGAP #LeadershipTrends #GlobalRetail

𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘁, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Most organisations treat alliance best practice the way they treat their gym membership in January — as an ideal to aim at, not a standard to operate by. That's a costly mistake. After more than two decades of benchmarking several hundred alliance relationships, the research at Alliance Best Practice Ltd keeps arriving at the same three conclusions: 𝟭. 𝗕𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹. They are measurable, repeatable and consistent across industries. We call them Common Success Factors (CSFs) — the specific behaviours, processes and structures that appear again and again in high-performing alliances. 𝟮. 𝗔 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗖𝗦𝗙𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗹𝘆 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀. Not a correlation observed once or twice. Observed across every cohort we have benchmarked. CSF score is a leading indicator of alliance revenue. 𝟯. 𝗔𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀. They operate under a Sell With model, not Sell To or Sell Through. The moment an alliance executive starts behaving like a vendor, the partner starts behaving like a customer — and the relationship is finished. Here is what this means in practice. If your alliance portfolio scores 40% against a best-practice benchmark, you don't have an aspirational gap. You have a measurable, quantifiable shortfall in revenue that you could be capturing and aren't. The relationships with the highest growth potential are rarely the ones producing the biggest numbers today. They are the ones with the lowest best-practice scores — because that is where the gap between current performance and achievable performance is widest. That's why best practice is an asset. You can measure it. You can invest in it. And the return on that investment shows up in your pipeline. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 𝗔 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘁. To mark the release of this year's benchmark report, Alliance Best Practice Ltd is offering a free alliance best practice assessment against our 5 × 5 Common Success Factor framework. You'll get a clear view of where your strongest relationships sit, where the gaps are, and where the untapped sales potential lives in your portfolio. DM me, or email 𝗶𝗻𝗳𝗼@𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲.𝗰𝗼𝗺 to arrange yours. The full report is attached below. #StrategicAlliances #AlliancePartners #PartnerEcosystems #AllianceManagement #ChannelSales #B2BSales

Brand collabs are the new normal. Partner or die in the kids’ licensing game. Behind the scenes of Sanrio x Moonbug, you get the playbook for survival in the new IP economy. This isn’t just Hello Kitty meeting CoComelon for some cute YouTube shorts. It’s a strategic move to stay relevant, scale licensing, and future-proof both brands. 🤓 Let’s break it down: 🤓 Sanrio needs Hello Kitty to matter to Gen Alpha, not just millennial nostalgia collectors. 🤓 Moonbug needs to catch up to Bluey, who has quietly become preschool’s top dog. 🤓 Both know: transmedia is table stakes. Digital-first, merch, events, global reach—or you’re out. 💡 What happened? Sanrio and Moonbug (Candle Media) signed a multi-year deal to co-produce an animated Hello Kitty x CoComelon crossover, launching in early 2026. The rollout will include YouTube-first content, streaming platforms, co-branded merchandise, and experiential marketing like pop-ups and events. 💡 Why collaborate? We’re in an era where even the strongest IP owners form strategic alliances to grow. Other big examples: Mattel + Hasbro: Monopoly, Barbie, Transformers, Uno. LEGO + Nintendo: Super Mario sets added hundreds of millions since 2020. 🐱 Sanrio’s 50th Anniversary Boom (2025): 🐱 Stock peaked over ¥7,000 per share (highest since 1980s). 🐱 Record profits: ¥17.5 billion (~$115 million USD), up ~40% YoY. 🐱 Licensing revenue: ¥35 billion (~$230 million) — a modern-era high. But anniversaries are one-offs. Sanrio needed a sustainable strategy for 2026 and beyond. This partnership is their bet to stay strong with preschool and family audiences. 👶 Moonbug Licensing: From COVID Boom to Bluey Competition 👶 2020–21: CoComelon licensing sales >$1 billion globally. 👶 Top-10 preschool IP by 2021. 🐶 But in 2022... Bluey took over: 🐶 #1 preschool licensing brand per License Global. 🐶 $500–600 million in annual retail sales (2022–23). Moonbug needs new IP firepower to close that gap. 📱 Social media is table stakes. No social cloud, no consumer products business. Sanrio is doing good already, for a legacy brand. ~15M IG followers, ~5M YouTube subs. Moonbug, as a digital-first publisher, boasts 175 M+ YouTube subs. Curious — who’s the next “frenemy” collab you see coming? Which legacy brand needs a digital-first partner to re-ignite its IP? Let me know in the comments.

𝙃𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧/𝙁𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙁𝙞𝙩? 👇🏽 I spent the weekend reflecting on my own experience, first working with investors as a founder and now engaging with founders as an investor. Hopefully, these thoughts will help you do due diligence on your potential investors. Choosing investors is as important as choosing your co-founders. In the early stages, you’ll be spending a lot of time with them, so you need an ally. Founder–funder disputes are common, but divorce is painful in startups. Never prioritise money; always aim for partnership, conviction, and alignment. Here’s a framework I follow when we invest: 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙋𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙤𝙥𝙝𝙮 Understand how the investor defines success and where your company fits within their strategy. This shows whether they’re patient capital or chasing quick returns, and how much conviction they’ll have when things get tough. It’s about seeing if your long-term view aligns with theirs. 𝘿𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣-𝙈𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨 You need clarity on how decisions are made, by whom, and how fast. Some funds have deep investment committees, others move on instinct. Knowing this helps you plan your fundraising timeline and avoid surprises. 𝙋𝙤𝙨𝙩-𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙄𝙣𝙫𝙤𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 Money is easy; partnership isn’t. You need to know whether they’ll be active mentors, passive supporters, or micromanagers. Their level of involvement should match what you actually want, not what they assume you need. 𝙁𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙍𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙨 How investors behave during hard times matters more than when things go well. Ask questions that reveal how they handle conflict, underperformance, or pivots. It shows whether they treat founders as partners or portfolio assets. 𝘾𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙎𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙜 Follow-on strategy and signalling risk can make or break future rounds. Understand how much they can or will support you if things go sideways or skyrocket, and how they behave when they choose not to reinvest. 𝘼𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙑𝙞𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣 You’re not looking for validation; you’re checking whether they truly understand what you’re building and why it matters. Alignment ensures they’ll have conviction through market cycles and won’t push you towards short-term outcomes. 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙨𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝘾𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 Strong relationships rely on clear communication. Learn their preferred style, whether structured updates or informal check-ins, and how they react to bad news. Set expectations early for honesty on both sides. 𝙍𝙚𝙥𝙪𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙁𝙞𝙩 Every investor has a reputation among founders and other VCs. Do your backchannel checks. How they handle board tension, layoffs, or exits reveals their true character. You’re assessing fit as much as credibility. I hope this is helpful. If you have any questions or clarifications, comment below. #gew #investors #founders

As I meet more people, especially budding tech founders, a recurring question is about leveraging partnerships as a revenue channel. One key aspect that often stands out in these discussions is identifying the right partner. The right partnership can provide up to 80% leverage in your ROI by aligning perfectly with your goals and capabilities. Consider the example of a health tech startup partnering with a large hospital chain. By integrating their cutting-edge telemedicine platform with the hospital's extensive network, the startup was able to provide virtual health services to a vast number of patients. This partnership enabled the startup to scale rapidly and gain credibility in the healthcare market, while the hospital chain could offer innovative services to their patients without developing the technology in-house. To help identify the right partner, I recommend using a simple framework like the "PARTNER" scoring model: - 'P'urpose Alignment: Do your missions and goals align? - 'A'ccess to Market: Can they help you reach new or larger markets? - 'R'esource Complementarity: Do they offer resources you lack and vice versa? - 'T'rust and Reliability: Can you trust them to deliver consistently? - 'N'etwork Synergy: Do their connections and networks benefit you? - 'E'conomic Benefit: Is the partnership financially advantageous? - 'R'eputation: Does partnering with them enhance your brand image? By scoring potential partners on these criteria, you can identify the one that offers the best strategic fit and highest potential for ROI. #B2BPartnerships #TechFounders #BusinessGrowth #StrategicAlliances image - courtesy to Freepik

This is the most underrated problem I've seen when trying to build or expand partnership GTM: Leadership is initially fully behind a new partnership, excited about its potential, but that enthusiasm never makes its way down to the sales teams who are expected to execute. Without alignment, even the best partnership can stall before it has a chance to succeed. Why does this happen? Sales teams are often focused on their core products, and if a partnership doesn’t clearly benefit them or fit into their day-to-day operations, it becomes an afterthought. To turn things around, you need to make sure your partnership incentives, compensation, and training are in lockstep with the teams that will be selling your product. Here’s how to align incentives and drive results: 1. Ensure your incentives are compelling enough for frontline teams. It’s not enough to excite leadership—sales teams need a clear, tangible reason to sell your product. - Introduce a financial incentive or bonus structure that’s competitive with what reps earn on their core products. This could be a one-time bonus for the first sale, or an ongoing commission that rewards consistent effort. -Tie the incentive to their existing sales goals. If your product helps them hit their targets more easily, they’ll naturally prioritize it. 2. Structure partner compensation to motivate co-selling. If your partner compensation doesn’t align with their core goals, they won’t push your product. - Design a compensation plan that aligns with both the partner’s and your business objectives. For instance, if your partner’s core offering is hardware, incentivize bundling your software as part of the sale to create a win-win situation. - Offer performance-based incentives that reward partners for hitting key milestones—whether that’s a certain number of units sold, a specific revenue target, or even customer engagement metrics. Keep it simple and measurable. 3. Provide consistent training and engagement so your product isn’t just another checkbox. Sales teams won’t advocate for your product if they don’t fully understand its value or how to sell it. - Develop ongoing, bite-sized training sessions that fit into their schedules. Instead of overwhelming them with lengthy sessions, focus on 15-minute, high-impact trainings that teach them how to identify the right opportunities. -Pair training with real-time support. Join sales calls, offer one-pagers, and provide direct assistance during key customer engagements. When they feel supported, they’re more likely to feel confident pushing your product. This kind of alignment can make the difference between a stalled partnership and a thriving one. When sales teams are motivated, equipped, and incentivized to sell your product, the partnership stops being just another checkbox—it becomes a key driver of growth.