On April 19th, Tai Rattigan, Global Head of Partnerships at Deel, hosted a webinar where he shared the secrets behind Deel’s Partner Program. In this article we will share the main conclusions from that event, including key metrics, partner organization, and their five “not-so-secrets” to success.
Deel’s Partner Business
With only 3 years of history, Deel already has an industry-leading partner business. Tai and his partner team aspire to join the category of industry legends like AWS, Salesforce and Microsoft in the next couple of years. Their partner business has over 5000 partners of different types.
The numbers:
- Over 5000 Partners of different types
- More than $10 million in referred revenue in Q1
- Nearly $100 million in ARR since the inception of the team.
- Over 200,000 visits to Deel’s Marketplace in Q1 and generating over $90 million in revenue for the Deel ecosystem.
- 20% of Deel’s revenue comes from Partner Referrals
- The team has around 30 people and is split between a geo-focus with EMEA and APAC teams, as well as North American and Latin American teams.
Their Partner Types:
- Business Solutions: this category includes partners that are currently deploying capital into companies and want to see them grow, like venture capital, private equity, banks, accelerators, and startup communities. Y Combinator is a great example of this type of partner, since they have a lot of startups that are looking to accelerate and grow internationally.
- Professional Services: this category includes partners that are involved in the global HR ecosystem and provide support with talent acquisition, HR services, legal services, finance, accounting and relocation services. These companies are a great fit from a service provider perspective and they make up the volume component of the Partner Program. Talent.io is a great example of this type of partner.
- Product Partners: this category includes product, integrations, API and perks partnerships. Brex is a great example of this type of partner.
Deel’s Partner Marketplace
Deel has created a partner marketplace that is in-app only and features over 450 partners. The marketplace allows Deel to generate additional revenue from partners and provide value back to those partners in the form of referrals and revenue sharing. The marketplace has seen significant success, with over 200,000 visits in Q1 and generating over $90 million in revenue for the Deel ecosystem. Thomas Dale, Product Partnerships at Deel, also mentioned the importance of keeping the marketplace private. He stated that it helps avoid giving competitors a “hunting license” for partners.
The 5 secrets to Deel’s Partner Program
1- Focus on what matters – not on pleasing everyone
As Tai states, Deel partnerships exist to generate additional revenue for Deel. Don’t be tempted by the voices that tell you to build shared KPI with product and marketing or have a joint initiative with Customer Success. Those are nice-to-haves, but you should never lose focus on the metric that they business cares for.
2- Keep ‘the how’ simple
If you have clarity in knowing why the partnership team exists, that should also transfer to how you achieve your results. In Deel’s case, they do it in two ways: Referred opportunities from partners and RevShare from referrals to partners.
3- Define how you win
In the same way as with secrets number 1 and 2, it is very important to define how you win in the simplest way possible. For Deel this means that they will be the best to work with, the best value creation for partners, and have the best product.
4- Prioritize your partners
Spend 90% of your time adding value to your partners and generating revenue with them; 10% on internal projects like education. A good question to ask yourserlf when considering an internal project is “If we complete this initiative, will our partners notice?”.
5- Don’t tell people you’re valuable, be valuable
It is easy to get distracted by internal enablement and stakeholder management. Go out and crush your numbers and watch how everything else becomes easy.
The webinar was filled with great questions and engagement from the audience. Members of Partnership Leaders have unlimited access to our event recordings, so if you want to check this one out, apply for a membership today.
In conclusion, Deel’s Partner Program has been highly successful, generating over $10 million in referred revenue in Q1 and a total of nearly $100 million in ARR since the inception of the team. Deel’s secrets for success include focusing on your success metric, keeping the how simple, defining how you win, prioritizing your partners, and focusing on actions that will drive value to your company.
Additional notes:
- You are welcome to connect with Tai on LinkedIn – mention Partnership Leaders in your connect invite
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