Startups should use this co-sales technique to build successful partnerships with cloud hyperscalers

When it comes to To maintain the health of a new tech startup and/or services business, especially during uncertain times, there is no more powerful lifeline than qualified leads. In order to fill this pipeline, buyers need to be convinced that your solution, application or product is the best, most trustworthy option, and this is where things tend to fail. How do startups build the level of trust a new audience needs to commit when they are just starting out?

This is where Meylah’s “Better Together” joint sales GTM strategy comes into play.

By 2023, “joint sales” will dominate $13 trillion of B2B (business-to-business) spending, 17% of which will dominate the cloud market. With this seismic shift, doors have opened, revealing new customer segments and untapped revenue streams, setting the stage for enticing business opportunities. Before I introduce the “Better Together” GTM co-selling strategy in detail, I would like to lay the foundation for what “co-selling” means.

Joint sales are GTM collaborative partnerships between SaaS (Software as a Service) companies and large cloud hyperscale providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and others. This partnership involves working together to build, market and sell joint technology solutions and services to customers. At its core, co-selling is joining forces with a cloud hyperscaler to co-develop solutions, engage customers, and leverage the partner’s sales and/or customer success teams to create value for existing customers.

Since July 2023, co-selling with cloud marketplaces has become the new gold standard as they are intricately intertwined and critical to building a thriving partnership with cloud services, ultimately enriching your business, buyers and partners.

In the cloud joint sales model, transformation occurs at three levels simultaneously. The first level of growth is product-led, meaning the product is built on the cloud infrastructure of hyperscale enterprises. The second layer, the federated solution is usage-based monthly recurring revenue (MRR), which looks like billing revenue or cloud consumption revenue. Finally, at the third level, growth will occur when solution-based products are available in the cloud marketplace that help customers conduct transactions and join trust-based buying engines to meet their cloud needs and budget constraints.

The foundation of a co-selling GTM strategy is to gain a deep understanding of the problem and debunk the most common misconceptions about the partner experience. The issues most partners are currently experiencing are poor alignment, meeting annual recurring revenue (ARR) targets, improving GTM efficiency, opening new routes to market, improving sales efficiency, and a lack of understanding of complex investment planning and return on investment (ROI) understanding, which results in poor measurement and ineffective tracking.

Meylah played a key role in supporting Microsoft’s launch of #buildfor2030, working on what startups need to “co-sell” with the cloud market.

When developing a co-selling GTM strategy, follow these five guiding principles:

1. Alignment is key: A successful partnership requires not only the same goals, but also the same mindset and philosophy. Partnerships are more likely to thrive when both parties share a common vision and approach to business.
2. Expected return on investment of 5 times: To justify investments and partnerships, setting high expectations for return on investment is critical. A minimum return on investment of 5x ensures that resources are allocated effectively and that the partnership delivers real benefits.
3. Simplify your GTM plan: Funding should come from multiple sources, which means a streamlined and targeted GTM plan ensures efforts are focused on key objectives. Additionally, funding from multiple sources diversifies support and minimizes dependence on a single entity.
4. Can be traded through the market: In an increasingly digital world, the ability to trade through online markets is crucial. Accessing your joint customer products in this way enhances convenience and scalability.
5. Strategic investment: This can be the catalyst that grabs the attention of hyperscalers. These investments not only demonstrate commitment, but also demonstrate your company’s potential for growth and innovation.

After identifying a co-sales partner, each potential partner must prepare four basic documents when working with a hyperscale enterprise: co-sales GTM assessment, #BetterTogether company information assessment, co-sales solution quotation information segmentation, GTM gameplay and investment models. The following sections describe what each file means and why it is important.