Why SaaS Companies Get Channel Sales Wrong (and How to Avoid It)

It usually starts the same way. A SaaS company signs a handful of partners. There’s excitement................... The assumption is sales will follow.

But they don’t.

Partners don’t wake up thinking about how to sell your product. They wake up thinking about how to hit their own targets. Unless you give them a reason to care, you’ll be waiting a long time.

The myth of the shortcut

On paper, channel sales look like the easier path. Instead of building and managing a bigger sales team, you bring partners on board and imagine they’ll do the heavy lifting.

In reality, the early phase is slower. You’re not just selling your product, you’re selling the idea of selling your product and that takes work.

The myth is that a signed partner agreement equals revenue; the reality is that a signed partner agreement equals the start of the hard work.

Why it matters anyway

Despite the graft, channel sales are worth it. When done properly they can:

• Open markets and customers you’d never reach alone

• Lower customer acquisition costs

• Add credibility through association with trusted partners

• Build a compounding growth engine that scales past the limits of a direct team

  
  

Direct sales will get you started. A channel strategy will take you further.

The missing piece = visibility

There’s another point that too many companies typically overlook. Channel sales are not only about your partners pushing your product, they are also about their customers seeing that you belong in their world.

If your partner’s customers can find you, see you working together, and recognise that you are part of their ecosystem, the conversation is ten times easier. It feels credible, not forced.

That visibility.......joint marketing, case studies, co-branding......is just as important as the partner’s own sales push.

Common car crashes

I’ve watched companies sign twenty partners in a burst of enthusiasm, then wonder a year later why nothing’s moved. No proposition, no enablement, no visibility, no follow up. Just names on a list.

I’ve also seen the opposite. Companies banking on a single partner and putting all their hopes there. When that partner goes quiet, the strategy collapses.

A channel is an ecosystem. You need enough partners to create activity, but not so many that you can’t support them.

What it actually takes

Getting it right isn’t rocket science, but it does require discipline:

• A partner proposition that clearly answers: what’s in it for them?

• Collateral that actually helps them sell (simple, sharp, not generic fluff)

• Visibility so their customers know you exist and that you’re credible together

• Regular contact — not nagging, not silence, just consistent engagement

• A framework to measure and manage performance

  
  

Treat your partners the same way you’d treat your own sales team — with structure, support and accountability.

Final thought

Channel sales are not a magic fix. They are a multiplier.

If you put in the work with proposition, enablement, visibility and steady follow up you will open doors you could not reach on your own. If you do not, you will end up with a partner page that looks good to investors but delivers nothing.

For context, I work with businesses in building the framework for partnerships, getting internal teams aligned, and bringing in and enabling the first group of partners. Sometimes I hand things over at that stage. Other times I stay involved with direct management or a lighter touch depending on what is needed.

If you need support to build your partner model through reseller models such as ISV or VAR, or through alliances and affiliations, drop me a line - james.buckwell@nyero.co.uk