They say that two heads are better than one, and the same goes for brands. Done right, co-selling – including co-marketing and co-branding – leverages the combined clout and resources of two brands to significantly boost sales and revenue for both parties.

In fact, Wakefield Research found that the majority of senior executives at IT companies, value-added resellers, and cloud providers say that co-selling increases profits and is both easier and cheaper to execute:

  • 77% of companies who offer a co-seller model have seen a direct or indirect profit increase since they began using it.
  • Nearly 9 in 10 companies believe traditional reseller models require significantly more time and financial commitment than co-seller models.

The first step to effective co-selling is choosing the right partners to co-sell with.

Not every partner in your ecosystem necessarily represents a good opportunity for co-selling, and the most important step in building a co-selling campaign is choosing your partner carefully. Jairo Gomez recommends asking the following three questions when vetting potential co-selling candidates:

  • Do we sell to the same ideal buyer? Ensure that you’re both targeting the same customer segment or persona.
  • Are our core values similar? Shared brand values will make working together easier, as well as help present a coherent ideological front to customers.
  • Do our sales and marketing techniques align? The customer needs to understand the brand partnership, so having well-aligned messaging, channels, and strategies is important to effectively communicate your joint proposition or campaign.

Clearly communicate how the co-selling partnership adds value to customers.

Once you’ve identified your best co-selling partners, spend time crafting compelling joint messaging that deftly communicates the value your partnership offers customers. Your customers need to see your partnership as a natural fit and understand the added benefits they stand to gain from purchasing the combined offer. Make sure that you communicate your shared core values and ideologies and explain how your partner’s services complement your product. For example, if you’re co-selling a pre-bundled ‘tech + services’ offer, it’s important to clearly communicate how using your partner’s services will enable customers to use your tech to its fullest potential.

The Morphed Services Marketplace solution is designed to support co-selling best practices.

Getting the full benefit of your combined efforts requires following co-selling best practices and using systems and solutions that are built to facilitate co-selling. Morphed’s Services Marketplace solution is geared towards co-selling in the following ways:

1. Joint solution packages are easy to set up.

Morphed’s Services Marketplace uses a guided form to walk partners through the steps required to set up co-selling ‘solution packages’. These pre-packaged bundles present your tech plus your partner’s services to the customer in one joint package. The beauty of co-selling via marketplace solution packages is that it constitutes a ‘solution selling’ approach. Instead of simply trying to sell a product or service, you and your partner are selling a holistic solution to a shared customer. Here’s what setting up a solution package looks like with Morphed.

2. Digital RFPs allow co-selling partners to craft bespoke solutions.

If your pre-packaged ‘best seller’ co-branded bundles don’t hit the spot for a particular customer, Morphed’s solution builder allows partners to craft bespoke co-selling solution packages. Because these proposals are commerce-enabled and include the conversation and payment mechanisms, they remove friction from the traditional quotation process. Here’s what creating a digital RFP looks like with Morphed.

3. Partner Portals and Customer Portals encourage collaboration.

Co-selling best practices rely upon open, honest collaboration. Morphed’s Services Marketplace encourages and facilitates collaboration between co-selling partners by centralizing communications between vendors and service providers through the Partner Portal. Using this feature, partners can collaborate on everything from the creation of service solution packages, to deal modifications, to project delivery. The Partner Portal is also where partners can manage their profiles, upload and tweak solution package listings, communicate with customers, and trigger payments.

If your customer needs to modify an existing packaged solution or request a new proposal from scratch, they can likewise use the Customer Portal to communicate directly with providers to finalize deals and discuss projects in a real-time deal room (here’s how this looks for customers).

If you’re looking to reap the benefits of co-selling with a like-minded partner, you need a marketplace infrastructure that facilitates co-selling in its most effective form.

Co-selling best practices

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