Building a partnerships team: first hires, structure and metrics

Building a partnerships team starts with choosing one partner motion that fits how your customers already buy, then hiring a commercially minded partner manager who can produce partner-sourced pipeline within two or three quarters. Structure, programmes and a Head of Partnerships come after you have proof that partners can create or close revenue, not before.

Partnerships are attractive because they promise pipeline at a lower acquisition cost and deals that close more often. They are also one of the easiest GTM functions to get wrong: companies sign dozens of partners, produce a logo page and see little revenue. This guide covers the main partner types, who to hire first and when, how to structure the team as it grows, the metrics that matter, how to pay partner managers and AEs so they work together, and how to assess candidates.

Why partnerships matter in B2B software

Much of the technology market already runs through partners. Canalys forecast in November 2024 that partner-delivered IT would account for 70% of global IT spending in 2025, out of a total it estimated at $5.44 trillion. Cloud marketplaces are growing quickly as a route to market: Canalys projected in August 2024 that sales through hyperscaler cloud marketplaces would reach $85bn by 2028, up from $16bn in 2023.

Buyers also rely on trusted third parties. Gartner reports that a typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to ten decision makers, each armed with four or five pieces of information gathered independently. A recommendation from the consultancy implementing their ERP, or an integration listed in a platform they already use, is one of those pieces of information.

The State of Partner-Led Growth report, published in 2023 by HubSpot with Partnership Leaders and Pavilion from a survey of 204 sales and marketing leaders, found that nearly 65% of sales leaders said partner leads are more likely to close than average. It also included a Boston Consulting Group analysis showing companies with substantial partner use (more than 35% of ARR) had a higher partner "magic number", a measure of sales efficiency, than those with little or middling use. Partnership Leaders' Ecosystem Compass work in 2025 found 73% of companies now align partnership goals with overall business strategy.

The same 2023 report also flagged a common gap: 60.9% of organisations offered no financial incentives or KPIs for sales reps to work with partners. That gap is where many partnership programmes stall, and we come back to it below.

Which type of partnership should you start with?

Pick one motion first. Each type of partner needs different skills, different processes and a different first hire.

A useful rule: start where your customers already are. If most of your best customers use the same CRM or data platform, an integration and co-sell partnership with that vendor is likely the fastest route. If your customers buy through consultancies, start with a small number of consultancy partners. If your buyers have large cloud commitments, a marketplace listing can remove procurement friction from deals your sales team is already working.

Who should be your first partnerships hire?

For most scale-ups, the first hire should be a hands-on partner manager or partnerships lead with a sales mindset, not a Head of Partnerships who expects to build a team immediately. The first person's job is to prove that one partner motion can produce revenue. That means picking a small number of partners, getting integrations or referral agreements live, enabling the partners' teams, and running joint deals with your AEs.

If you are hiring for a specific partner motion, our partnerships and alliances specialism page explains the profiles we see succeed in each.

How should a partnerships team be structured as it grows?

Two roles are often added too late. Partner operations (a RevOps specialism) owns deal registration, attribution rules, partner data in the CRM and payouts. Without it, disputes over who sourced which deal consume the team's time. Partner marketing runs co-marketing, partner content and enablement. Without it, partner managers end up writing content instead of building pipeline. Our revenue operations specialism covers partner ops hiring.

What metrics should a partnerships team track?

Agree definitions before you launch, and put them in the CRM. The most damaging partnerships arguments are about attribution, and they are avoidable.

Set targets for sourced pipeline first, and treat influenced revenue as a secondary measure until your attribution rules are trusted. A partnerships team measured only on influence can look very successful while producing no new revenue.

How should partner managers and AEs be paid?

Compensation is where partnerships succeed or fail. If AEs lose commission when a partner is involved, or receive nothing extra for working with partners, they will route around partners. The 2023 State of Partner-Led Growth report found that 60.9% of organisations offered no financial incentives or KPIs for reps to work with partners, 21.1% offered compensation or quota relief, and 7% actually penalised reps for partner involvement.

• Partner managers: Usually a base salary plus variable pay tied to partner-sourced bookings, with a smaller component for partner-influenced bookings or partner activation. Senior alliance roles may also have objectives tied to joint business plans.
• AEs on partner deals: Pay AEs their full commission on partner-sourced and partner-influenced deals, and consider a small accelerator or SPIF for partner-sourced bookings during the first year of a programme.
• Partner payments: Referral fees, reseller margin or marketplace fees should be accounted for at the company level, not deducted from the AE's commission.
• Avoid double-counting disputes: Write attribution rules into the comp plan, with RevOps as the arbiter.

For indicative pay across partnerships and sales roles, see our salary guide.

A 90-day plan for a new partnerships lead

Building the business case for a first partnerships hire

Boards and CFOs will ask what a partnerships hire will return, and when. A simple model makes the conversation easier. The example below is illustrative; replace the inputs with your own data.

If partners activate in the second quarter after hire, the partner manager produces no sourced pipeline in quarter one, perhaps four opportunities in quarter two as the first partners go live, and ten per quarter from quarter three. At a 25% win rate, ten opportunities a quarter is two or three deals, or roughly £75,000 of new bookings a quarter. If partner-sourced deals close at a higher rate than average, as many sales leaders in the 2023 State of Partner-Led Growth survey reported, the return improves further.

Set that against the fully loaded cost of the partner manager, partner fees and the product time for integrations, and you have a payback period that the board can test. More importantly, you have leading indicators to review at each quarter: partners signed, partners active, opportunities sourced and win rate. If those are not moving by the end of the second quarter, you have learned something about the motion cheaply, before building a team around it.

Include partner-influenced value separately. Integrations that are live in a customer's stack often improve retention and expansion, which matters as much as new logos. Track net and gross revenue retention for integrated customers against others, and add the difference to the case once you have enough data.

Common mistakes when building a partnerships team

• Signing too many partners: Fifty partners with no plan is weaker than five with joint targets. Focus on partners who share your customers.
• Hiring a programme builder before proving a motion: Tiering, portals and certifications are useful once partners are producing revenue, not before.
• No sales alignment: If AEs see partners as competition for commission, the programme stalls. Fix compensation first.
• Vague attribution: Without clear sourced and influenced definitions, the partnerships team and sales argue every quarter.
• Integration without go-to-market: A technical integration with no joint marketing or co-selling rarely produces pipeline on its own.
• Measuring activity: Meetings held and partners signed are not results. Measure pipeline, bookings and win rate.

How to assess partnerships candidates

Strong partnerships people combine sales discipline with the patience to build relationships over long cycles. In interviews, look for evidence of both.

• Revenue evidence: "How much partner-sourced revenue did you generate last year, from how many partners, and how was it attributed?"
• Partner selection: "How did you decide which partners to invest in and which to drop?"
• Internal influence: "Tell me about a time sales resisted working with a partner. What did you change?"
• Joint business planning: Ask them to outline a joint plan with a named type of partner in your ecosystem, including targets.
• Marketplace or channel mechanics: For marketplace roles, ask how private offers and co-sell programmes work in practice; for channel roles, ask about deal registration and margin structures.

A practical exercise works well: give the candidate a short brief on your product and ask them to pick three partners, explain why, and set out what they would do with each in the first quarter. If you are building a partnerships function, send us the brief. If you work in partnerships and want to hear about new roles, register your CV or browse current jobs.