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What Is Co-Selling? Manage Co-selling Effectively
Most businesses struggle to grow because they try to do it alone. But the fastest way to scale is together. Enter co-selling.
This blog explains everything you need to know about co-selling, why it works, and how to dominate it.
Co-selling occurs when two businesses collaborate to sell a product or service, combining their efforts to achieve larger goals faster.
It's not just about splitting revenue—it's about leveraging each other's strengths to win over a shared audience.
If you tire of working alone, it's time to think bigger. Find the right partner, structure the deal, and see what happens when you stop competing and start collaborating.
What is co-selling?
Co-selling is a b2b partnership with a sales-driven approach in which two or more companies work together to position and sell integrated or complementary solutions to a common customer base.
This method maximizes market reach, improves customer experience, and drives mutual business growth.
The partners or companies must create a co-selling agreement for this co-partner relationship to succeed.
Let's find out what a co-selling agreement is:
Co-selling agreement
It is a formal, legally binding contract to establish the framework for collaboration between companies engaged in co-selling.
The co-selling agreement outlines sales coordination strategies, lead management protocols, financial incentives, and customer engagement guidelines to optimize the joint marketing, promotion, and sale of their products and services to a shared customer base.
This agreement specifies the co-selling rights on who owns what, who does what, and how you both win.
Now, let's have a look at some examples to make the co-selling concept even more transparent:
What are co-selling examples?
Identifying complementary solutions
Co-selling is most effective when products complement each other naturally, creating a more compelling customer value proposition.
HubSpot and Introw collaborate in selling their products or services because their offerings complement each other, benefiting sales teams.
- HubSpot provides tools for lead management, helping sales teams track, organize, and nurture potential customers.
- Introw specializes in automated outreach, helping sales teams reach prospects efficiently through computerized emails, follow-ups, and engagement.
Since sales teams need both—effective lead management and automated outreach—these two companies co-sell their solutions together
Dropbox and HelloSign are bundled workflows—users can store, access, and sign documents in one place. By solving pain points with a bundled solution, co-selling partners make adoption simpler and customer retention more powerful.
Integrating the Products (Optional but Powerful)
A well-integrated product experience can turn a co-selling partnership into a must-have solution. For example, Zoom's Slack and Zoom integration allows users to start video calls directly from Slack, eliminating extra steps and reducing workflow disruptions. This seamless experience boosts adoption, increases user engagement, and strengthens the business case for both products. When aligning their tech stacks, co-selling partners improve usability and drive deeper customer loyalty.
Aligning Sales & Marketing Teams
An integrated product experience can make a co-selling relationship a requirement. Take Slack and Zoom—integration enables users to start video calls directly from Slack, without extra steps and workflow disruption. This simplicity drives more adoption, gets more users involved, and makes the business case for both products even more compelling. Co-selling partners enhance usability and create customer loyalty by harmonizing their tech stacks.
Leveraging Partner Ecosystems
Cloud marketplaces like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud provide SaaS vendors with an in-built audience and trust benefit. By co-selling within these marketplaces, partners gain instant credibility and enterprise customer access. For example, a security SaaS vendor co-selling on AWS guarantees its security solutions are AWS-hosted application-optimized, making them more straightforward.
These alliances eliminate sales frictions, reduce deal cycles, and grant access to larger contracts that would otherwise be harder to achieve.
The difference between co-selling and reselling
Although they might seem similar, the significant difference between co-selling and reselling is who owns the customer and manages the contract.
Co-selling occurs when companies collaborate, split the effort, and share the rewards. While the company still manages the contract and owns the customer, it receives help closing the deal faster and more effectively.
Reselling is when one company buys and resells your SaaS product to their customers. They make money off the margin, but they handle everything—the sale, the customer. You’re out of the loop, but they still pay you for your product.
This table will make it even more transparent and more distinguishable about co-selling and reselling processes and the role each party plays:
How to co-sell effectively using PRM software
Select the right PRM software:
Choose a PRM platform that aligns with your business needs and integrates seamlessly with your existing systems. Top-notch partner management software simplifies the complex dynamics of co-selling by fostering better communication, alignment, and operational efficiency, ultimately leading to more successful and profitable partnerships.
It offers the following features:
- Partner Onboarding: Simplifies the process of bringing new partners into your ecosystem.
- Deal Registration: Allow partners to register deals, ensuring transparency and preventing conflicts.
- Performance Tracking: Monitor partner activities and sales performance to identify top performers and areas for improvement.
- Communication Tools: Facilitate seamless communication between your team and partners.
- Resource Sharing: Provide partners access to marketing materials, product information, and training resources.
Define Clear Co-Selling Objectives:
Establish specific goals for your co-selling initiatives. Whether it’s capturing more market share, entering new regions, or launching fresh products, you need specific goals. No vagueness. You must answer, “Who am I selling to?” upfront.
Co-selling always begins with account mapping. It involves digging into your partners' and your customer base to uncover the easy wins. Map out your account early because this will dictate your entire sales strategy, shape how you’ll enable your partners, and define the joint value proposition.
When you develop your plan, you must make two critical decisions: what you will do and, just as importantly, what you will not do.
Identify and Onboard Suitable Partners:
The first step is identifying potential partners who align with your business values and objectives. The onboarding process should be streamlined to ensure partners are equipped.
It's also essential to identify overlapping customers. Crossbeam helps you and your co-selling partner identify customers shared by both of you. Integrating Crossbeam with Introw allows you to visualize and act on these overlaps.
Once shared customers are identified, you can segment them for joint marketing campaigns, offers, and sales outreach to increase the chances of success in the co-selling process.
Sync your CRM data (HubSpot, Salesforce) with a trusted PRM platform to share lead and account information with your co-selling partner. This allows both parties to view and track shared leads or prospects, ensuring no opportunities slip through the cracks.
Provide comprehensive Training and Resources:
Equip your partners with training materials, product information, and marketing materials through the PRM platform. This will ensure they have the knowledge and resources to sell your products or services effectively.
Collaborate on Deal Registration and Management:
Encourage partners to register deals within the PRM system. This practice promotes transparency, prevents conflicts, and allows both parties to track deal progress collaboratively.
Use Slack to streamline communication between your sales teams and co-selling partners. You can set up channels in Slack to discuss specific accounts or opportunities, ensuring that both teams are aligned in their sales efforts.
When a co-selling action needs attention (e.g., follow-up tasks, closing deadlines), the PRM platform can send notifications to Slack, ensuring both teams stay on top of their responsibilities.
A PRM like Introw connects with your CRM and allows you to collaborate with your partners on real-time deals.
Monitor Performance and Provide Feedback:
Utilize the PRM software's analytics tools to track partner performance. Regularly review sales volume, deal closure rates, and customer feedback. Provide constructive feedback and support to help partners improve and achieve mutual goals
Foster Open Communication:
Communicate regularly with partners through the PRM messaging and collaboration tools. An open dialogue helps address challenges promptly and strengthens the partnership.
Use workflow automation to trigger specific actions when certain events occur (e.g., when a lead from a partner is added to your CRM or when certain conditions are met). Automating co-selling tasks such as follow-ups, meeting scheduling, or document sharing helps reduce manual work and ensures consistency.
When you and your co-selling partner need to share a document (e.g., a contract, proposal, or pitch deck), you can automate the process through integrations with tools like Google Drive, PDFs, and Loom.
Implement Incentive Programs:
Design incentive structures within the PRM system to motivate partners. Incentives can include financial rewards, recognition, or access to exclusive resources, encouraging partners to prioritize your products or services.
Continuously Optimize the Co-selling Process:
Assess the effectiveness of your co-selling strategy regularly using insights from the PRM software. Be prepared to make adjustments to improve efficiency, address challenges, and capitalize on new opportunities.
Using Introw.io's integrations with CRMs and other tools, you can generate joint reports that provide insights into the success of co-selling efforts, track conversion rates, and analyze which types of joint outreach work best.
Set up shared dashboards for both teams to track co-selling progress and see real-time results. This will help keep both teams motivated and aligned with common goals.
Why is co-selling more critical now than ever?
Co-selling has become increasingly significant as businesses need innovative ways of scaling and growing revenue.
According to ZDNet, 84% of sales professionals say that partner selling impacts revenue more now than a year ago, and 89% of sales teams already engage in partner sales.
This strategy empowers businesses to push into new markets by sharing resources and networks, thus better-reaching non-consumers.
As defined by Microsoft, co-selling has further improved the sales efficiency ratio, especially for Independent Software Vendors, who have more opportunities to accelerate growth through trusted cloud partners. As the sales environment becomes more complex, co-selling now offers a strategic advantage for them to pool expertise and speed up deal cycles.
Frequently Asked Questions FAQS
What is the meaning of co-selling?
Co-selling means two or more companies working together to sell a product or service, sharing resources and efforts.
What is the meaning of co-seller?
A co-seller is a business or individual partnering with another company to sell a product or service jointly.
What is the meaning of selling?
Selling is persuading someone to buy a product or service in exchange for money.
Conclusion
Co-selling is one of the main strategies that help companies reach more customers, increase growth, and work on comparative strengths. By teaming up with the right partners, companies can open new markets, make their sales processes easy, simple, and efficient, and further develop customer value.
Co-selling can be very effective with strategic planning, clear communication, and choosing the appropriate technology stack, which includes implementing PRM software. However, effective co-selling ensures stronger partnerships, better sales performance, and improved revenue.
Contact us now to learn how our PRM software can streamline your co-selling process and help you succeed more!
Related blog articles
2025 Guide to Choosing Your Next PRM
What is a PRM?
Partner Relationship Management (PRM) is a software platform designed to help businesses streamline, optimize, and enhance their relationships with partners. These partners might include resellers, referral partners, strategic partners, integration partners, distributors, affiliates, or other entities in a company’s ecosystem. A PRM platform allows companies to centralize tools and processes to improve communication, collaboration, and performance within these partnerships.
Key functionalities often include deal registration, partner onboarding, content sharing, performance tracking, and communication tools. By integrating these capabilities, PRMs help organizations scale their partner programs efficiently, ensuring mutual growth and alignment.
Why Would You Need a PRM?
Businesses increasingly rely on partner ecosystems to scale their reach, reduce customer acquisition costs, and boost revenue. However, managing a network of partners using traditional tools like spreadsheets, emails, or disparate systems quickly becomes inefficient and error-prone. Apart from that Partner Deals Have a 32% bigger deal size and 2.8X higher win rate.
While some partner-related data may be housed in your CRM, inviting partners to access your CRM directly is not a viable option for reasons like security, data complexity, and usability. Instead, a PRM bridges this gap, providing partners with a user-friendly platform tailored to their needs while syncing seamlessly with your internal systems.
Here’s why investing in a PRM matters:
- Scalability: A PRM grows with your ecosystem, accommodating additional partners and ensuring smooth operations even as complexity increases.
- Transparency: Provides clear visibility into partner performance, deal status, and revenue contributions.
- Efficiency: Automates repetitive tasks like onboarding, reporting, and resource distribution, reducing administrative overhead.
- Partner Engagement: Enhances satisfaction and productivity by offering intuitive tools and resources that make it easier for partners to succeed.
- Data-Driven Insights: Empowers better decision-making with analytics that highlight high-performing partners and pinpoint areas for improvement.
For any organization aiming to maximize its partner strategy, a PRM is a crucial investment.
How to Start Looking for the Right PRM?
Choosing a PRM that aligns with your business goals and partner strategy requires careful planning. Here’s how to get started:
1. Define Must-Have Features
Look for essential features such as:
- Deal and/or Lead Registration: Transparency and management of partner-led sales and opportunities.
- Performance Tracking: Tools to monitor and analyze partner contributions and performance.
- Content Sharing: A central repository for marketing materials, pricing guides, and training documents.
- Communication Tools: Real-time collaboration and updates.
- Integrations: Ensure seamless integration with your CRM and other essential tools.
- Bonus: Look for PRMs like Introw that also integrate with partner-centric tools like Crossbeam, Slack, and Zapier.
2. Involve Stakeholders
- Collect input from sales, marketing, and partner management teams who will use or benefit from the PRM.
- Engage with current partners to understand their needs, challenges, and expectations.
3. Align on Timeline
- Some PRMs require significant implementation time, often taking 4–6 months or more. Align on your desired go-live date and evaluate vendors based on their ability to meet your timeline.
Key Differentiators to Look For in a PRM in 2025
Time to Value:
Traditional PRMs often require months for implementation, modern PRMs like Introw can be set up in minutes, minimizing delays and accelerating ROI.
- Opportunity Cost: Every day without a PRM is a lost chance to engage effectively with your partners.
- Development Costs: Long timelines often mean higher costs for IT resources.
- Business Changes: Extended implementations can result in outdated systems before they even go live.
- Usability: Complex implementations exclude partnership managers from co-creating the platform, making it less tailored to their needs.
CRM Integration at the Core:
There’s a clear shift happening. Modern companies have their partnership data in their CRM.
That’s why a PRM should use your CRM as the single source of truth.
- 2-Way Sync: Syncing data bidirectionally between your CRM and PRM. Mains use cases:
- Syncing partner data
- Syncing deal data
- Beyond Deals: Modern PRMs should support collaboration on leads, support tickets, and more.
- 1-Click CRM Integration: Avoid wasting development resources—choose a PRM with effortless, 1-click CRM integration.
- Bonus: CRM Copilot - look for PRM’s that support in-CRM functionalities.
Partner Engagement Beyond Portals
- Partners are not living in your PRM - they often have their own priorities. Make sure you can keep partners top of mind without needing to login to the PRM every single time.
- Updates via e-mail and/or Slack: Features like email or Slack notifications keep partners updated without requiring them to log into the portal.
- Off-Portal Collaboration: Look for PRMs that enable interaction from tools partners already use. For instance, Introw allows partners to reply to automated emails. These replies are captured in the Introw PRM & your CRM.
Free Trial Availability
- Don’t buy before your tr(u)y. Make sure you can properly test the solution before committing to it.
About Introw
Introw is revolutionizing Partner Relationship Management for the modern business landscape. Introw empowers companies to streamline and scale their partner ecosystems with cutting-edge tools that deliver immediate value.
What Sets Introw Apart?
- Short Time to Value: Go live in minutes, not months, minimizing delays and reducing opportunity costs.
- CRM Integration at the Core: Real-time, 2-way synchronization ensures that your CRM remains the single source of truth.
- Comprehensive PRM Features: From deal registration to content sharing, Introw offers all the essential tools to enhance partner engagement and productivity.
- Flexible Collaboration Options: Partners can engage with your program through email, Slack, or other tools they already use.
- Proven Success: Trusted by businesses worldwide, Introw helps organizations unlock the full potential of their partner ecosystems.
With Introw, managing partnerships is not just efficient—it’s transformative.
Conclusion
Selecting the right PRM in 2025 isn’t just about ticking feature boxes; it’s about finding a platform that aligns with your strategic goals and scales with your partner ecosystem. Modern PRMs like Introw, with their quick implementation, seamless CRM integration, and robust features, offer the agility needed to thrive in today’s dynamic business environment.
Investing in the right PRM is an investment in your partners—and your company’s growth.
Introw PRM and Crossbeam integration
Looking to integrate account mapping data into your PRM?
Introw leverages Crossbeam's overlap data to identify opportunities and share them with your partners instantly.
What is Crossbeam?
Crossbeam is a Partner Ecosystem Platform (PEP) that empowers SaaS companies to replace cumbersome spreadsheets with a streamlined system to identify overlapping customers and prospects in their partner networks. This approach is commonly known as "account mapping."
In simple: You connect your CRM, your partner connects their CRM. Crossbeam identifies overlapping data. Example: Your company has Acme Corp as a prospect, your integration partner has Acme Corp as a customer. Crossbeam will uncover this for you allowing you to ask for an introduction or intell about Acme Corp.
In 2024, Reveal and Crossbeam merged, creating a network that now connects over 30,000 companies, including Stripe, Intercom, HubSpot, and many others.
What is Introw?
Introw is an innovative Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform designed to make managing partnerships easy, efficient, and impactful. It allows businesses to create and manage a partner portal in just minutes, with features like:
- Automated Deal and Lead Registration: Streamline workflows for registering and tracking deals all integrated with your CRM.
- Tiering and Commission Management: Automate partner tiers and commission payouts to encourage better engagement.
- Partner Enablement: Keep partners up to date and top of mind by giving them access to the right sales material and sending them announcements on autopilot.
- CRM Integration: Introw integrates seamlessly with platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, keeping your CRM as the single source of truth.
- Real-Time Alerts and Nudges: Introw enables instant partner engagement via email and Slack, ensuring partners stay informed and motivated.
Unlike traditional PRMs, Introw starts from CRM data, and is set-up in literally minutes instead of months.
Why and How Does Introw Integrate with Crossbeam?
The integration between Introw and Crossbeam brings the best of both platforms together to enhance partnership collaboration and revenue potential. Here’s how it works:
- Seamless Connection: With just one click, Introw connects to Crossbeam, automatically matching your partners from both platforms.
- Streamlined Opportunity Sharing: Use Crossbeam's overlap data to identify opportunities and share them with your partners instantly through Introw.
- Automated Deal Attribution: Deals sourced through Crossbeam's overlap data are automatically attributed to the appropriate partner in your CRM.
- Real-Time Partner Engagement: Introw uses Slack and email to send timely updates on deal status or CRM changes, ensuring partners are always in the loop and engaged.
By combining Introw’s advanced partner management tools with Crossbeam’s powerful data-sharing capabilities, this integration creates a highly efficient system for driving partnership revenue and fostering collaboration.
Learn more and get started with the integration by creating an here.
Alternatively, schedule a 1:1 call to learn more through a personalized demo.
How Data is Transforming Partnerships
The world of partnerships is evolving—and for the better! Data has become the cornerstone of modern partnership management, transforming how partner managers make decisions, build relationships, and drive growth. Today’s partner managers don’t just maintain connections—they leverage data to uncover insights, optimise processes, and unlock new opportunities. When I started, I was navigating spreadsheets and tracking relationships through CRMs like Pipedrive and HubSpot. Today, the focus is on integrating those systems into a single source of truth, creating transparent, frictionless experiences for partners that foster long-term success.
This shift is a game-changer for managing and scaling partnerships. I’m Eva Fayemi, Co-Founder & CEO of Bond Agency, and I’m excited to share how data is reshaping partnership management.
1. Companies start with CRM Data
For most companies, CRM systems are the starting point for managing partnerships. These systems provide key data on sales interactions and performance, but integrating partner-sourced data can be a challenge. While it's better than nothing, simply tracking data isn't enough—it's crucial to define a partnership strategy first.
At Bond Agency, we help clients identify their partnership goals and align them with broader business objectives before optimising their CRM or introducing tools like Introw. A common challenge we see is companies not tracking which partnerships contribute most to the bottom line. We guide them in mapping partner journeys, attributing engagement, and tracking conversions in the CRM. This clarity leads to improved decision-making, better tracking, and growth.
Protip: Ensure your sales team is aligned on reporting partner-sourced leads. Create internal documentation and calls to keep everyone on the same page for seamless reporting across teams.
2. Increasing Revenue and Engagement
Growing revenue and boosting partner engagement are top priorities, but these goals can be time-consuming and difficult to track. Modern partner managers balance engagement and tracking more efficiently through technology, automating key processes and logging communication touchpoints with partners.
For example, one of our clients used to spend hours tracking partner engagement manually. After integrating their CRM with automation tools, they gained a dynamic, real-time view of partner contributions. Automated alerts and insights allowed their team to respond quickly, increasing partner engagement and revenue from key accounts.
Protip: Track whether partners open onboarding materials like sales brochures or marketing resources. This helps identify where additional support is needed for smoother, more effective onboarding.
3. More Transparency Through Data Means Better Collaboration
A common issue partners face is a lack of transparency. Without it, trust erodes, and partnerships can’t thrive. Tools like Introw are changing this dynamic by providing greater transparency. It connects CRM data with partnership management, offering a platform that tracks key metrics, aligns partners on pipeline progress, provides content, and monitors engagement.
This transparency empowers partner managers to track the entire partnership ecosystem while giving partners visibility into their performance. When everyone is aligned with clear data, collaboration becomes more efficient and impactful.
The future of partnership management is data-driven. With tools like Introw, partner managers can unlock new insights, improve collaboration, and drive faster, more efficient growth. Companies that embrace this will lead the next era of partnership management.
About Bond Agency: Since 2020, Bond Agency has been helping B2B tech and SaaS startups accelerate growth through strategic partnerships. We specialise in strategy development, execution, and providing fractional partner teams, focusing on scaling businesses in the EMEA and USA. With a diverse network of affiliates, tech integrations, and B2B influencers, we’ve delivered impactful results across industries including hospitality tech (e.g., Unicorn Mews), MarTech (e.g., Hotjar), and SaaS (e.g., Revenue Hero).
Join the conversation in our Slack community, The Nearbound Club, where tech founders and partnership leaders drive innovation in the partnerships space.
Visit: www.bond-agency.io
Boost Partnership Revenue & Engagement in minutes
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