Lessons from starting and scaling partner implementations

At Propel25, a panel of seasoned services leaders dug into what it really takes to scale partner-led implementations. The session, featuring Stephanie Rahman (Vice President of Professional Services, Clari), Christopher Darius (COO and Co-Founder, nCloud Integrators), and Hannah McClure (Senior Manager of Implementation Services, LogicGate), unpacked the strategies behind onboarding partners, enabling them to deliver reliably, and maintaining quality as programs scale.

Here are the key takeaways from the session for professional services (PS) leaders looking to launch, refine, or expand their partner delivery motion.

Why partner-led delivery is more than just a scale play

Across companies like LogicGate, Clari, and others, the shift to a partner-led services model wasn’t driven by a single business goal. It was a practical response to several operational challenges—complex industries, limited internal capacity, geographic gaps, and the rising cost of service delivery. 

If you're still treating partners as backup support, you're missing the point. Partner-led delivery isn’t about filling gaps when you're short-staffed. It’s a deliberate, strategic choice that lets you scale faster, stay lean, and deliver better outcomes without bloating your internal team. Here’s how to make it work:

1. Stop expecting partners to generate pipeline

Most execs start with the wrong assumption: “Partners will bring us more leads.” They won’t. That’s not their job. Your GTM engine should own the pipeline. Instead, use partners where they have the most impact, i.e., on delivery, efficiency, and specialization.

2. Use partners to run leaner, not harder

Teams like Clari’s run 70–100 implementations with just 32 people. That’s only possible because they’ve handed off pieces of the work to partners. The playbook:

• Cover international time zones without building a global bench
• Tap into expertise (like change management or training) that your team doesn’t own
  Skip building one-off enablement for large, complex customers
  

3. Choose partners who are true operators

 You’re not looking for generalists. Find firms that: 

• Specialize in your domain
• Bring mature, tested delivery frameworks
• Can act as an extension of your team, not a replacement
  
  

Clari, for example, partners with firms that layer change management over their technical consultants to ensure good implementations translated into lasting outcomes. 

Key principles for driving internal buy-in for partner delivery

The decision to move to a partner-first model is the easy part. The hard part is getting your internal teams to accept it. People hear “partners” and think “outsourcing.” Sales doesn’t trust them. Services feel like their quota’s under threat. 

Here’s what it takes to shift that mindset and make a partner-led model work.

1. Make it a company decision, not a team compromise

You can’t scale with internal turf wars. So set the rule: if the business chooses a partner model, it has to be embraced company-wide. That means:

• Leadership alignment across Sales, Services, and Product
• Shared targets or recognition for partner-led deals
• A clear framework for when and why partners are engaged

2. Fix the incentives first

If sales teams think a partner will cost them commission, they’ll kill the deal. If services teams think that partners are taking their hours, they’ll block access. You have to bake partner collaboration into the way teams win. To do this, you need to:

• Protect commission for sales, even in partner-led deals
• Give services credit when partners help meet delivery KPIs
• Align compensation with outcomes, not ownership
  

3. Make enablement non-negotiable

You can’t expect teams to trust partners they’ve never worked with. Or worse, partners who aren't ready.  You need to enable both sides:

• Internally: Run onboarding sessions for AEs and CSMs explaining how to work with each partner, what they offer, and how they help close or expand deals.
• Externally: Train your partners on your implementation playbooks, your customer types, and your expectations—so they act like a real extension of your org.

Setting partners up for success: Getting the first 30 days right

The most effective partner onboarding starts with one thing: showing the vendor you’re invested. Not just in the contract, but in building real delivery muscle. Here’s what that looks like in practice:

1. Certify early, visibly, and at scale

Before anything else, make it clear you’re committing real resources. Certification programs are your proof of investment. Enroll as many team members as possible in the vendor’s education or certification programs. Get those certifications fast, ideally within the first 30 days.
Make it visible—internally and externally.

2. Make enablement part of your hiring and planning

Look at enablement like a new line of business. Make sure to:

• Assign clear ownership for ramping up delivery capabilities
• Hire or upskill with certification as a milestone for every new hire in the practice
• Tie vendor success to internal goals (e.g., project-ready consultants, revenue contribution targets)

3. Do what you’d want a partner to do if the roles were reversed

Ask yourself: if you were the vendor, what would inspire trust in a new partner? What would make you invest in the relationship?

Here are a few ways to inspire trust in your partners:

• Design a fast, smooth, and self-driven ramp-up
• Show a visible investment in the partnership
• Demonstrate credible public support

Tips for scaling a partner program without losing control

Launching a partner program is straightforward. Scaling it while maintaining implementation quality, consistency, and customer experience is where most teams falter. The stakes are high—when partners represent your brand, poor delivery reflects directly on you.

Here’s a practical framework for keeping your partner program aligned as you scale.

1. Standardize execution tools and workflows

Every partner should work inside the same platform and process environment as your internal teams. Without shared tooling, you lose visibility, alignment, and the ability to enforce standards at scale.

What this looks like:

• Mandate a shared project delivery platform
• Tie compliance to performance reviews or payments
• Audit usage and enforce accountability
  

2. Use apprenticeship-style enablement

No amount of documentation replaces hands-on ramp-up. Mature partner programs adopt an embedded training model, one that closely mirrors how internal hires are onboarded.

Structure it in three phases:

1. Observe: Partner shadows your team during real implementations
2. Co-lead: Partner executes under guidance
3. Own: Partner leads projects independently, but under your delivery model
   

3. Codify what “good” looks like—and act when it’s missing

Quality isn’t subjective. High-performing partners consistently display certain traits:

• Proactive communication
• Positive customer feedback
• Consistent use of required systems
• Clear alignment with your delivery culture
  
  

Partners who fall short shouldn’t linger. The longer you delay action, the more customer trust erodes.

Make this a standard operating practice:

• Monitor key partner performance metrics
• Set thresholds for feedback or satisfaction scores
• Don’t hesitate to swap out low-performing resources
  

4. Train with retention in mind

Partner enablement is a two-sided investment. You invest in training them; they invest in learning your platform. Both sides need that investment to pay off.

This means:

• Offering structured training with certification milestones
• Ensuring replacement resources are just as well-equipped
• Making quality the lever for continued access and opportunity
  

Evaluating partner performance: what to measure, when to act

You can’t scale a partner ecosystem without a rigorous, consistent approach to measuring performance—and acting decisively when it falls short. If partners are an extension of your brand, the experience they deliver is your product.

Here’s how to keep partner quality visible, measurable, and high.

1. Create a structured performance framework

A partner's performance should never be subjective. Build a multi-source performance model that tracks both process compliance and customer outcomes.

Here are a few key inputs to include

• Project milestone adherence – Missed checkpoints flag execution risk
• Customer surveys or CSAT scores – Direct insight into experience quality
• Internal feedback loops – Ask implementation leads what’s working, what’s not
• Tooling analytics – Use delivery platforms like Rocketlane to track engagement and process fidelity
  

2. Institutionalize feedback through QBRs

Treat partner performance like employee performance. Schedule regular strategic reviews—not just to highlight gaps, but to reinforce wins and build brand equity.

Structure your partner QBRs to cover:

• Execution metrics
• Customer sentiment trends
• Opportunities for process improvement
• Recognition for standout delivery moments
  

Celebrate excellence publicly. When customer feedback names a specific partner for exceptional work, amplify it across both organizations. 

3. Automate what partners need to get right

One of the highest-leverage moves is automating process guidance and resource access. If partners don’t have to chase information or ask basic questions, they deliver faster and cleaner.

Focus on:

• Automating standard communications to customers
• Embedding delivery guidance inside project tools
  Making key assets accessible without back-and-forth

4. Set up a process for offboarding underperforming partners 

When a partner repeatedly fails to meet expectations, don’t hesitate. Delaying action hurts customer outcomes and demoralizes internal teams who have to compensate for poor partner work.

Have a clear offboarding protocol tied to objective performance signals with triggers such as:

• Repeated milestone misses
• Low CSAT/NPS feedback
• Non-adherence to delivery standards
• Internal resource flagging
  
  

As part of the support and offboarding process, make sure to:

• Share documented feedback and context
• Offer a corrective window if applicable

3 things no one tells you about building a partner program

Every company wants partners to “bring pipeline.” Every founder wants services revenue to offset burn. But if you’re building a real partner program—not just scrambling for short-term capacity or lead gen—you need to approach it with long-term discipline, not opportunism.

Here’s what actually matters when building a durable, high-trust partner model:

1. Don’t build a program based on quarterly whims

If your leadership’s top ask is “more pipeline from partners,” pause. You’re building an extension of your company. Here are a few areas you need to align on before onboarding partners:

• Are you building a capacity solution, a GTM ecosystem, or both?
• Will you protect the partner margin and relationship in tough quarters?
• Are execs and the board ready to play a long game—18–24 months minimum?
  

2. Be proactive and transparent with customers about partner involvement

Don’t treat partners as a last-minute swap. Involve them early, introduce them often, and make the relationship visible without confusing the customer about ownership. Make sure to:

• Get customer approval before introducing a partner
• Align on shared tools and access upfront (e.g., project management platforms)
• Introduce the partner team during pre-sales or early onboarding
• Avoid vague “we brought someone in” language—name the partner, share their value
• Use branding cues like backgrounds, email domains, and attire to signal partnership without pretending they’re full-time employees
  

3. Design flexible commercial models

One overlooked element of partner success: contracts and commercials that match the customer’s comfort and the deal’s complexity. Some of the models to consider include:

• Direct contracting: Customer has a preferred partner and handles services procurement themselves
• White-label delivery: You subcontract the partner and own the customer relationship and paperwork
• Pre-purchased hours: You buy blocks of time from partners and deploy them where needed
  

3 key principles of effective partner enablement

Partner enablement often gets treated as a separate track—new tools, new content, new priorities. But the smartest orgs don't start from scratch. They build partner readiness into the muscle of everything they’re already doing.

Here’s how leading partner programs are keeping partners sharp, without overengineering it.

1. Use the resources you already have

You’re already enabling your internal teams. Sales enablement, customer onboarding, product training—it’s all content gold for partners, too.

• Repurpose, don’t recreate: Audit your internal content. You likely already have 80% of what partners need. It’s just buried in team folders or sales decks.
• Internal enablement assets are often just a few tweaks away from being partner-ready.
  
  
• Push from a single source of truth: Use your community platform or partner university to centralize content delivery. That way, updates, product changes, and new assets flow to everyone at once.
  

2. Feed partners real-world wins

Partners don’t just need training. They need proof. Show them what “great” looks like in your ecosystem.

• Promote case studies and survey feedback: Push real customer wins across your ecosystem to reinforce the standard.
• Normalize transparency: Share feedback—good and bad—so partners can calibrate against what customers actually care about.
  

3. Treat partner performance like your own

It’s not their job to stay sharp. It’s yours to make it easy.

• Build for scale: Systematize quality by embedding rigor into onboarding, shadowing, review loops, and retros
• Be strategic with bandwidth: Focus on high-leverage formats—short videos, async demos, just-in-time assets

Check out the rest of our Propel25 recaps here for more insights from the industry’s best.