Partner Ecosystem Led Growth: Gong's Playbook

The journey to building a scalable partner ecosystem does not begin with casting the widest net possible. Rob Moyer explains that the foundational step is to be highly selective and strategic. Instead of immediately pursuing large distributors or broad marketplaces, the most effective initial strategy is identifying and engaging with boutique partners. These smaller, specialized firms often have deep expertise and trusted relationships within a specific niche that aligns perfectly with your ideal customer profile (ICP) and, just as importantly, your target persona. This focused approach allows a vendor to secure critical early wins, build momentum, and refine its value proposition with deeply invested and aligned partners. It is a process of starting small to build a strong, repeatable model.

Once a successful and repeatable motion is established with these boutique partners, the next phase of the flywheel involves scaling the program. This is where broader platforms like major technology marketplaces and traditional distribution channels become valuable. However, simply being present on these platforms is not a strategy. The early work done with boutique partners provides the proof points, case studies, and refined messaging needed to stand out among the thousands of other vendors on a line card. The success in the initial phase creates the credibility and gravitational pull necessary to attract larger partners and effectively leverage their scale. This methodical, phased approach ensures that growth is built on a solid, validated foundation rather than premature, ineffective bets.

This strategy requires a significant mindset shift for partner managers, who must act more like sales development representatives (SDRs) than traditional relationship managers. Finding the right boutique partners involves proactive, targeted outreach. It requires building an ideal partner profile (IPP) and using modern tools, like LinkedIn, to conduct cold outreach and sell them on the vision of a partnership. It is about creating opportunities, not waiting for them. This disciplined, outbound effort to recruit the right-fit partners is the engine that powers the initial turn of the partner ecosystem flywheel, setting the stage for long-term, scalable success.

After recruiting the right partners, establishing a transparent, actionable, and mutually accountable framework is critical for turning potential into performance. The process begins with account mapping, not just identifying customer overlap. The initial goal is to validate the partnership's potential by ensuring the partner's customer base aligns with your ideal customer profile and personas. Once the potential is confirmed, the relationship is formalized not through a static business plan but with a living, breathing collaboration document, often a simple Google Doc. This document is a central hub for the partnership, containing the 30-60-90 day plan, the joint value proposition, target account lists, and mutual goals. This tool ensures both sides are aligned and accountable.

This commitment to mutual accountability is tested within the first 90 days. A key indicator of a partner's investment is their active participation in managing and updating the collaboration document. If the vendor's team is the only one driving the plan, it is a sign that the partnership is one-sided and may not be worth a significant long-term investment. Modern communication tools are essential to facilitate this real-time collaboration. At Gong, every key partnership is supported by a Slack channel where teams can ask questions, share updates, and quickly bring in the right experts to solve problems, ensuring that deal momentum is never lost. This creates a fluid and responsive working relationship.

Underpinning this framework is a simple yet powerful performance benchmark: the three-deal test. While anyone can get lucky with a single deal, achieving three deals together demonstrates an actual, repeatable process and confirms that the partner is committed to building a practice around your solution. It is the gateway to a deeper investment from the vendor, including introductions to the internal sales teams and co-marketing resources. This practical, results-oriented approach moves beyond promises. It focuses on tangible outcomes, ensuring that partner managers invest their limited time and resources in the relationships that deliver measurable results and are built for the long term.

Not all partners are created equal in a mature partner ecosystem, nor should they be managed with a one-size-fits-all program. Rob Moyer advocates for a "lanes" approach, where different types of partners—such as GSIs, agencies, private equity firms, and tech partners—are managed with distinct strategies tailored to their unique business models. A GSI's needs and motions differ fundamentally from a marketplace's, and a generic points-based program fails to capture this nuance. Instead of a holistic performance system, the focus should be on identifying and rewarding the best-performing partners within each lane. This ensures that investments are directed toward what drives success for each partner type, rather than forcing them into a single, ill-fitting model.

This nuanced view extends to how partner contribution is measured. While partner-sourced and co-sell deals are standard metrics, the industry must evolve toward a higher standard of collaboration. Rob strongly advocates for "co-close," which represents a much deeper level of engagement than a typical co-sell motion. While a co-sell might involve introducing or speeding up a sales cycle, a co-close partner is actively involved from the beginning and helps you close the deal. This distinction is critical because it directly measures a partner's tangible impact on winning business. It is far more valuable than a light-touch "influence" metric, offering little insight into sales performance.

This focus on tangible outcomes also reshapes the approach to partner incentives. The most powerful incentive is not an unnatural referral fee or a temporary bonus, but the partner's ability to build a profitable business around your product. A healthy partnership exists because the partner can make significant money by providing services, selling complementary solutions, and driving transformation for their clients. For a product like Gong, a partner's profitability comes from modernizing a client's tech stack and enabling sales transformation, not from a small, one-time fee. If a partnership requires artificial incentives to survive, it is not a sustainable, long-term relationship. The real goal is to create an ecosystem where partners thrive because your success is fundamentally tied to theirs.