What happens to Salesforce Partner Connect now?
- Robin Seidner
- Mar 5
- 4 min read
With the recent layoffs largely impacting the global partnership organization at Salesforce, I thought I’d dig into some of the metrics provided by the Partner Connect team, since I assume that this application will be used by the field organization more now that there is little left of people with extensive partner knowledge.
BIG CAVEAT: It's unclear how many people on the Salesforce Partner Connect team were impacted by the riff. I know for certain that the architect of Partner Connect was laid off, in a classic corporate example of shortsightedness. Will Partner Connect be amplified to the field now?
What is Salesforce Partner Connect?
In case you’re not familiar with Partner Connect, Mitchell Brown, designed, obtained funding for, and led a team of contracted developers and change managers to implement the Slack-first search tool to revolutionize the way AEs identify, qualify and engage with partners who can help them co-sell. The goals of the application are to increase sales cycle velocity, customer success and close rates by aligning AEs with partners that match their prospect’s needs without having to rely on internal tribal knowledge. (This is a good idea when 40+% of your reps turn over every year, which they do at large tech vendors like Salesforce, Shopify, ServiceNow, etc.).
Is Salesforce Partner Connect really helping partners?
Partner Connect was initially rolled out in May 2024. Now that we’re nine months in, I was interested in understanding the stats—was this really helping partners? What were the search queries AE’s used to find a list of qualified partners? How can partners maximize success with Partner Connect?
The Partner Connect team released an update in Salesforce Q3, which I’ve summarized here. The question is, what will happen with Partner Connect now? Who is minding the store, so to speak? We’ll be watching and continue to update you on our findings. Share your thoughts in the comments.
Metrics and Insights on Salesforce Partner Connect
Key Engagement Metrics
What are AEs looking for when searching for partners to include in deals?
60% of deals involve Sales/Sales Cloud—yet only 80% of partners are certified.
Cross-cloud certifications appear in 23% of searches, but only 13% of partners have them.
Enterprise (ENT) deals now outnumber Mid-Market (MM) and General Business (GB) deals. The largest number of deals, by far, is in SB, followed by GRB.
Partners with niche expertise (e.g., QuickBooks, NetSuite) are more likely to be prioritized in searches.
Pricing Impact: Sellers often filter partners by budget, favoring lower SOWs or hourly rates.
Deciphering the data
Deal volume and pricing
Surprising from my perspective is that so much deal volume is in the main core products. While 80% of partners are certified there, it shows there are still deals to be had with core products. One question I have here is, how many of those deals were won and how many qualified out?
I am not surprised by budget considerations—if the largest number of deals available are at the low end of the market, SOWs will also need to be lower.
Niche expertise
A golden opportunity is with complementary or adjacent products, such as NetSuite and Quickbooks, but there are many other adjacent products.
TIP: Including expertise in adjacent products is a good place to differentiate your offering from the other 80% of partners who can handle Sales Cloud. This is particularly true if you have niche expertise in industry applications that need to be integrated or migrated.
Cross-cloud capability
It surprises me that only 13% of partners have cross-cloud expertise. It also surprises me that with so many deals in SB, that 23% of deals have cross-cloud requirements.
What surprised you?
For more details on the most recent updates from Partner Connect, visit the news section for the full details that I have briefly summarized here.
My advice for partners
These updates really affirm what I tell partners all the time—our go-to-market strategy needs to be well defined so you can present clear messaging, brand, wins and customer successes well within your swim lanes. By keeping an eye on these updates and adapting accordingly, you’ll be better positioned to leverage opportunities as the platform grows.
Partner Connect is just one piece of an effective go-to-market for Consulting Partners working with Salesforce. It values laser focus, a key component to an effective strategy for your technology services business. What else do you need? A Fractional Alliances or Executive Advisory engagement with me can help you figure that out and execute that strategy.
P.S.: This is a plug for the architect of Partner Connect, Mitchell Brown. The guy has a broad range of expertise, and he’s both business development-savvy and technical. He’s worked on business process optimization, the technology vendor side and for consulting partners, so he understands the drivers on both sides of the business. Plus, he’s a great person to work with, which to me is the best reason to talk to him about a role you have open.