May 28, 2025

How Sumo Logic Unlocked Partner-Led Growth with Timm Hoyt

49 minutes

In every company I’ve worked for, one of my key roles was to drive more partner-sourced revenue. This is the desire of every sale rep, manager and CRO. This episode highlights a huge success story in radically increasing business originated by partners. And you’re going to hear how they did it.

I’m speaking with Timm Hoyt, the SVP of Worldwide Partners and Alliances at Sumo Logic. Timm shares his extensive experience in sales, marketing, and partnership leadership, providing invaluable insights into Sumo Logic’s transformation into a partner-led organization. Throughout the episode, Timm discusses the challenges and opportunities he encountered, the key metrics for measuring partner success, and the internal structural changes required to promote a partner-centric culture.

Get ready for actionable strategies for fostering effective partnerships and driving significant business growth through a partner-first approach.

Key Takeaways

Here are ten steps you can take to unlock partner growth based on the lessons I learned from Timm:

Understand the Initial Situation: Accurately assess your company’s current state in terms of partner relationships to tailor the approach. Conduct a comprehensive audit of the current partner ecosystem and engagement levels.

Gain Internal Alignment: Clearly define and communicate these to align all departments. Develop a vision, mission, and metrics document with input from key stakeholders and distribute it internally.

Gain Internal Buy-In: Secure alignment from key internal stakeholders early in the process. Host cross-departmental meetings to ensure everyone understands and supports the partner-first strategy.

Practice Active Listening: Understand partners’ needs and goals through active listening to build trust and effective collaboration. Schedule regular check-ins with key partners to gather feedback and insights.

Track Key Metrics: Use clear KPIs to measure the success of partner engagements and make data-driven decisions. Implement a dashboard to monitor KPIs such as deal registrations, pipeline conversion, and sales cycle duration.

Evaluate Cultural Fit: Ensure that your team is on board with the partner-first approach; this might involve restructuring. Reevaluate team roles and hire new talent if necessary to build a team aligned with your vision.

Monitor Partner Attribution: Track both transactional and non-transactional partner contributions for a holistic view. Develop a system to capture and analyze partner influence throughout the sales cycle.

Innovate with AI: Leverage AI to enhance both internal efficiencies and partner engagements. Invest in AI tools that can assist in data analysis, decision-making, and strategy formulation.

Communicate: Maintain consistent communication with all stakeholders to keep everyone aligned and engaged. Create a communication plan that includes regular updates, newsletters, and meetings.

Celebrate Successes and Learn from Failures: Create a culture where both successes and failures are shared and used for continuous improvement. Implement a “lessons learned” segment in monthly meetings to discuss achievements and setbacks openly.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Connect with Timm on LinkedIn

Listen to Partnering Secrets for Exponential Growth with Theresa Caragol

Learn how to Unlock Radical Business Growth through MRR with Randy Schirman

The post How Sumo Logic Unlocked Partner-Led Growth with Timm Hoyt first appeared on Channel Journeys.

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