William Ballance

Lavender

Lavender helps you write sales emails that convert, faster. (🏆 #1 on Product Hunt • 🔶 9.9/10 on G2)

Lavender has everything a seller needs to get more replies in less time: email assistance, sentence suggestions, prospect research + email verification, mobile optimization, data-driven team coaching and recommendations, and much more. 

Integrates with Gmail, Outlook 365, Outreach, and Salesloft.
Get started at www.lavender.ai

CEO & Co-Founder

Sorter

🏅Winner - Techstars Startup Weekend (Atlanta 2018)

A marketing platform that combines neuroscience, psychology, and data science to build better communication at scale for brands like Yamaha, Gravity Blankets, and KettleSpace.

Sorter’s internal AI, CATIE( Creative Algorithms for Text and Image Enhancement) blends behavioral sciences with cutting edge data science and natural language processing enabling you to easily apply an objective science to the art of communication. 

We help create better content faster.

Fueling the backend of our platforms for healthcare, marketing, sales, and HR, CATIE analyzes and determines what distinguishes top-performing campaigns from baseline and under-performing content within your audiences.

Sorter (sorter.com): 1:Many Communications
Lavender (trylavender.com): 1:1 Communications

Co-Founder & CEO

Dooly

Strategic Advisor

Alum

Born out of a campaign to help save Sweet Briar College, a historic women's college in Virginia, Alum was a mobile app for alumni social networking and mobile fundraising active at over 200 colleges and high schools.

Founder

My Fun Filter

My Fun Filter was the #1 supplier of custom Snapchat filters on Groupon and LivingSocial in the US and Canada. Acquired.

Springbot

Springbot is a Magento Gold and Shopify partner that delivers a marketing automation and predictive analytics software to eCommerce stores ranging from early stage startups to $100mm global companies.

Springbot's awards include TAG Top 10 Most Innovative Technology Company, TiE Silicon Valley - TiE50 Top Startups 2016, and Atlanta Business Chronicle's Best Places to Work.

SDR & AE - US/UK/Australia

Candle Spas

• Co-founded the first digital e-commerce platform for subscription spa services in Atlanta, New York, and San Francisco. 
• Built our spa network to over 200 locations across three cities in 2 months. 
• Developed relationships with local and national influencers to drive sales and customer acquisition. 
• Spearheaded partnerships and advertising opportunities with nationally known brands including Stylecaster, Mercedes-Benz, Lululemon, Rocksbox, HowAboutWe, and Graze.

Employee #1

Loclly

• First permanent sales hire at a startup regional local services and "daily deal" e-commerce store.
• Grew annual revenue over 6,000% in a year and a half, then launched a new brand (Candle).
• Utilized strategic user acquisition, e-mail marketing, and pricing models to capture an active audience of buyers across multiple brands and verticals.

SDR & AE - US/MX

Pinnacle Fête

Pinnacle Fête began as an event and artist promotion company in the college town of Blacksburg, Virginia, representing nationally known acts including Rhêtorik, Tim Gunter, and Super Dopplar.

Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce

Intern - Lead Hampton Roads

👋 Hey, I'm William. My team and I design technology that combines communication psychology with AI. Want to write better emails faster? We built software for that. 👇

1. Install for free to use our AI Email Assistant at https://install.lavender.ai (for Gmail, Outlook 365, Outreach, and Salesloft)

2. Are you a student or unemployed? We give you Lavender for free until you have a full time job.

3. Want to start a startup one day? I write a lot about our startup journey + happy to help if I can.

4. Want to generate passive pipeline on autopilot? We built Ora, Lavender's new intelligent AI sales agent to help with just that. www.ora.im


--

about me:

👨‍💻 I'm a sales rep turned startup founder. 

🇲🇽🗽🍑 I spent a year and a half remote working in Mexico. We built most of Lavender during this. I'm based in New York but we got our start in Atlanta. 

🎨 🏛 I've been designing software since I was a kid, but went to school to study Government and Economics. 

🌍 I'm passionate about entrepreneurship. I wrote my senior thesis on using micro-finance to encourage entrepreneurship and bottoms-up development of emerging economies.

🦊 I'm most proud of starting a series of campaigns to help save a historic women's college, Sweet Briar, from closing. 

👩‍🎓The school was saved by its alumnae, and this experience led me to leave my job and start my first startup: an alumni social chat and mobile fundraising app. 

🧠 Through that I was introduced to the cognitive sciences, met my co-founders, and pivoted. We built technology for marketers that leveraged personality and decision making science.

💜 COVID happened and we pivoted again, applying our communication psychology research to sales.

🙌 Now Lavender helps thousands of sales people around the world write better emails faster.

👉 Learn more about Lavender at www.lavender.ai and www.ora.im

William M. Ballance

AudienceLed

112 experts interviewed and counting. 1082 pieces of content created and counting. 10 brands helped and counting. Building networks of trust for our. clients. We help teams go-to-market WITH their market. No one wants another AI-slop SEO blog post written by non-experts. Buyers want to hear from the exact people they trust. That's the brands, people, and places they listen to, transact and engage with daily. 

Our offer? A done-for-you service to generate demand and build fast-converting pipeline. We execute multiple expert-led campaigns deployed into your existing marketing systems, with additional distribution with and through third-parties.

We also help scale community & user generated content and throw events with the ecosystem.

DM me to learn more. 

And watch me change the way the industry looks at go-to-market in a paradigm shift, all while doing it ourselves.

Co-Founder & Chief Partner Officer

BD Paths

I help companies orchestrate their ecosystems with better partner operations. But... not all partners are made the same.

"We are hitting target but don't know how to scale" is too common. Become profitable by aligning partner types to the core revenue metrics within your business.

I am only taking on one other client, so DM me to see if there is availability.

Partnership Leaders

Member

nearbound.com

Getting Nearbound into the dictionary and distributing through network effects like no tomorrow. Nearbound sales + marketing will revolutionize the way you do business.

This section was post-acquisition of www.partnerhacker.com by www.Reveal.co where we rebranded to www.nearbound.com.

Director of Strategic Partnerships

*First hire as Head of Partnerships

- Supported key relationships that resulted in an acquisition in record time for a media company.
- Executed on ~$1million in sponsorship programs including communications, debriefs, reporting, engaging key stakeholders, and relationship management.
- Lead all project management for sponsorship programs resulting in over 1,000,000 impressions and 10,829 leads for our partners.
- Created a category for technology through marketing strategies related to brand, media, social, networking, partnerships, nearbound, and guerrilla tactics.
- Coordinated multiple internal stakeholders with clear tasks of who does what and by when, following DARCI models.
- Evangelized the nearbound category, partnerships, brands, our partners and sponsors all through content creation including social, long-form, short-form, video, audio, and event related content.

nearbound.com is the #1 source of clarity & guidance, news & journalism, opinion, and connection during the paradigm shift in B2B.

I made this a reality alongside our partners and peers. They all deserve a BIG thank you in these efforts.

Subscribe to the Nearbound Daily to get your PhD in partnerships :)

It's time to PartnerUp.

Director of Partnerships

Reveal

At Reveal I manage ISV partner relationships, as well as using nearbound strategies to get what matters most done: delivering value to the clients to ultimately drive more revenue.

I work with other tech vendors, consultants, and influencers in order to deploy partnerships expertise and value to our clients. We run referral, co-sell, and influence campaigns focused on educating and enabling the ecosystem.

Reach me at wtaylor@reveal.co if you'd like to partner with Reveal or want to learn more about nearbound.

Head of Partnerships

RevGenius

Uvaro

*First guest instructor, helped build the process for effective external instructor contracting and communications.

I believe in life-long learning and empowering others to become their best self - I am proud to participate in, and present during, internal + external events for Uvaro students. These events include demo days, in-class speaking engagements, and instructional sessions.

Some background on Uvaro:

The technology sector needs 250,000 new sales professionals, and our colleges and universities aren’t training them on all practical pieces. Uvaro is building a different type of education system - one that is focused on the objective of preparing students for a career in the talent-hungry tech industry. Simply put, Uvaro has created a better way to grow sales careers in tech.

Guest Instructor

Mailshake

*First and only partnerships hire

At Mailshake, I built the partnership program from the ground up. Here's a list of all things accomplished during my time with the team:

Partnerships:
- Engaged elite brands to get Mailshake a "seat at the cool kids' table"
- Achieved 135% of partner sourced revenue quota for Q1 2022
- Started strategic partnerships that filled gaps in client needs
- Guided integration partners in a "big fish:small fish" dynamic
- Aligned upsell initiatives with partner efforts
- Spent $0 on sponsorships

Business enrichment:
- Built the process for webinars + events from the ground up
- Created a sales playbook for marketing <> sales webinar handoff 
- Trained sales team to adopt and utilize video
- Coached sales team on how to capitalize on prospects warmed by marketing efforts
- Developed first iteration of ICP that aided in direction setting

Became a marketer:
- Executed on various marketing functions with no prior experience:
-- Drip campaigns, webinars, landing page development, social branding, a large summit event, affiliate marketing, SEO + backlink fundamentals, & creative content ideas

Director of Partner Marketing

Vidyard

*First Partner Enablement hire

Milestones:
- Increased partner retention by 70%
- Doubled total agency program revenue over 6 months through enablement initiatives
--- Revenue from partner program flipped from 20% partner-sourced clients and 80% partners to 80% clients and 20% partners.
- Partners are ready to sell services in 60-120 days

Day-to-day:
- Managed 120+ partner accounts ranging from co-sell agencies, referral partners, and technical partners
- Created training resources & co-sell models for partners, partner managers, and internal team
- Established end-to-end partner launch for more successful onboarding + enablement
- Developed a new certification that fast-tracked partner adoption, go-to-market readiness, and aligned better with overall company growth goals
- Built a partner directory for continued refer-back opportunities
- Launched PRM software + integrated into existing systems

Partner Enablement Manager

Bonfire Interactive

- "Municipal Rep of the Year, 2019" - closed highest ARR on immediate team during my first year of ever being an Account Executive
- Closed largest major city (by population) in company history
- Managed the largest multi-year contract upsell in company history, resulting in 2x ARR and a 12x TCV
- Oversaw 20 States in my territory, responsible for fully-operating my own opportunity generation
- Engaged with multiple C-Level executive roles to build relationships and ensure a strong business case to close business

- Maintained relationships with influencers in industry, ranging from large accounts, presidents of associations, educational experts, and those with a loud voice in the market
- Partnered with a BDR and was responsible to set prospecting strategies and provide ongoing mentorship as we prospected this patch together
- Regularly met with marketing to collaborate on national programs, local programs, travel programs, conference programs, and provide feedback
- Coordinated new approaches in selling to different personas, fast-tracking and increasing the success rate of sales cycles
- Pioneered cross-selling initiatives with sister companies to not only leverage relationships, but create strategic plans on how to facilitate an even stronger business case

Account Executive

*First BDR hire

- Developed 102 new opportunities worth $1,836,000 USD in pipeline, leading the BDR team in pipe and opportunity generation 
- Overachieved on quota (115%) and was thus moved from supporting a single rep on the commercial team, to three on the public team 
- Engaged with multiple different C-Level executives (CFOs, CIOs, CPOs) in both the private and public sectors 
- Trained and managed ongoing performance of team members, helping to onboard, create training materials, and conducting interviews to qualify potential hires

Business Development Representative

I make partnerships profitable with RevOps, sales signals & tactical playbooks • Advisor • Buyer alignment, signal selling, and partnerships • Tech stack recommendations • Stop selling on hard mode

I help SaaS revenue teams integrate third party expertise (the people, brands, and places) that influence their buyer to surround them (instead of spam them)  👉 where buyers already transact and spend their dwindling attention credits 👇

Buyers don’t believe brands as much as they believe the people, brands, and places they already work with and listen to.

That’s why your sales and marketing team need a network of trusted people in your ecosystem.

When you activate that network, you get:
👉Warmer doors opening faster
👉Higher win rates
👉Deals that close sooner
👉Bigger deal sizes

Proof I’ve lived this:
✅Built enablement programs that boosted partner retention by 70%
✅Created a partner motion that matched sales revenue with 1/3 of the headcount
✅Outperformed a full SDR + AE team using ecosystem plays
✅Scaled a business to $1M in 12 months → acquired

(And yes — I’m in the room developing relationships with the influential people your buyers already listen to.)

Activate an ecosystem-oriented modern go-to-market system that focuses on QUALITY and CONVERSION by:
1) Following me here for weekly systems sharing
2) Or DM me if you want me to show you how to:
- Map who your buyers already trust
- Layer partners into your GTM to build pipeline with less spend (without building any new systems)

Oh, I'm also writing a book on rewiring your mindset, which incorporates psychological, sociological, and philosophical concepts. Go-to-market with your market at www.audienceled.com

Will Taylor 🤝

(5/30) Find who your buyers trust: A lost art in marketing 👉 a growing need in intelligent GTM. An in-depth tutorial. A no B.S. tactical content series:

Buyers trust people, not brands.

Here are 3 simplified spheres of influence:

1) Product-know-how
𝐖𝐡𝐨: Customers & agencies
𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: Peer groups, socials
𝐖𝐡𝐲: Literally the buyer or helping the buyer implement the tech and see results
𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: Very high
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡: Relatively low (usually)

2) Product-adjacent
𝐖𝐡𝐨: Technology partners, analysts, bloggers/list makers
𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: Socials, web, events, newsletters
𝐖𝐡𝐲: Hands-on technical knowledge (general), problem and market aware, generally solution aware
𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: Medium-to-high
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡: High

3) Product-aware
𝐖𝐡𝐨: Influencers, complementary tech, podcasts & media sponsorships
𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞: Socials, web, events, newsletters, podcasts, Slack communities
𝐖𝐡𝐲: Hands-on technical
𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: Low-to-medium
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡: Very high

Here are 3 ways we help clients find these 3 spheres of influence & where buyers spend time:

1) ICP attention analysis
- Are they tech-savvy & on LinkedIn? Or do they read legacy publications?
- Identified by actual volume of activity and/or traffic
- Use social analysis of actual engagement + volume of influencers
- Find the volume of in-person events
- Identify traffic sources (Google Analytics, ahrefs, Semrush, etc.)

Example: Cybersecurity is active on LinkedIn and X, but much more in-person events. Sales&marketing is VERY active on LinkedIn (not really X)

2) Market analysis
- Who are all the vendors in the space? How are they identified? Are there categories? Where does your company fall?
- A simple way to do this: Ask "What is the 'buying river' for our buyers? What do they buy before or after what we solve for?"
- There is a causal chain based on where you fit in the function you serve, so identify what "surrounds" your product... then you have a list of who your buyer likely already transacts with

Example: If you are Hubspot you're likely purchased first... then you need a document signing tool as you get more sales... etc.

💡 Hubspot got ahead here because of the help of Scott Brinker mapping the martech space!

3) Content topic analysis
- If you have a sense of generally where buyers are engaging, now go deeper and look at the content
- What are these influencers, other brands, etc. talking about? Who are they engaging with? Who do they partner with?
- Who talks about what we talk about? Are we using the same keywords?
- Summarize this into a high-level overview to determine if there is philosophical alignment and incentive to talk about the same things

Example: If the outbound pros are talking about effective cold emailing... then you could easily engage with them as an email tool, a signal tool, a data tool... as all of these topics would overlap and be relevant.

Ran out of space. More in the comments.

Please criticize this or ask me questions. I want to help.

Will Taylor

Helping marketers ⬆️ conversion rates w/ ⬆️ distribution & high-trust content • CPO @ AudienceLed • Run better demand gen with those your buyer already trusts: The people, brands, and places that have their attention.

📣Network! We need your support 📣. One of my closest friends woke up to difficult news about her mom. On October 26, Nelda called an ambulance due to severe stomach pain. A CT scan revealed a large tumour on her ovary, a smaller one on her pancreas, and a spread of cancer cells throughout her abdomen. After weeks of testing, praying, and waiting, she received the devastating diagnosis of Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer.

Nelda is a fighter at heart and she is facing this with strength and courage. Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease that often shows no symptoms in its early stages, and by the time it’s detected, it has usually spread rapidly. Regardless of the treatment plan, pancreatic cancer often comes with a challenging prognosis.

During treatment, Nelda will be unable to fully tend to and care for Madison, her daughter with Down Syndrome. The current support options for adults with Down Syndrome are limited, with independent living waitlists that span more than twenty years. This has created a need for immediate and ongoing support for Madison while her mom focuses on treatment.

Nelda’s family is doing everything they can and would never want to ask for much from anyone, but the circumstances and logistics are complex and overwhelming. Many people have asked how they can help, so this GoFundMe has been created to offer support during a time when it is truly needed.

All funds raised will support Nelda through treatment and help provide care, stability, and future planning for Madison. I am Nelda’s niece, Brianna, and my goal is to help lift some of the weight off their family as they navigate this painful and uncertain time. Thank you for sharing, praying, and supporting them in this difficult chapter.

https://lnkd.in/gWds3qq6

We are almost at the goal. Help us get over the line.

LinkedIn probably won't like the link in this post, but it's important. Please if you read this share, comment, like, or at least send the gofundme link to someone you believe can help.

My grandma on my dad's side has beat cancer once (and another time very soon)! It is possible with the right treatment, support, and attitude.

My grandpa on my mom's side passed due to cancer in 2001.

I don't know much about it, but when my friend shared it's stage 4 pancreatic cancer... my heart dropped.

If you have anything to give, your support means the world.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends ❤️ 

And thank YOU for anything you can do.

Helping SaaS build trusted content with third-party expertise • Co-Founder @ Audienced • GTM & Partnerships Operator • Your buyer trusts 👉 People, brands, and places they already transact with. Activate them.

Open article: Donate to Help Nelda Meinen fight Pancreatic Cancer & support Madison, organized by Brianna Kampman by gofund.me

Donate to Help Nelda Meinen fight Pancreatic Cancer & support Madison, organized by Brianna Kampman

(8/30) The entire process of working with external voices. Step-by-step to execute effective relationship management. A no B.S. tactical content series:

1) Sourcing
Find the right people, brands, & places to work with.

- Leverage custom GPT with ICP context & organizing the information into a table (to copy & paste into a sheet)
- Find complementary brands, their existing partners, who is mentioned online, scrape their websites, & return back the data
- Enrich with a lookalike to capture the entire TAM of the ecosystem
- Enrich further with the specific people at each entity (tech, agency, podcast host, media company, etc)
- Validate by message-fit. Do they talk about/serve the same people? Find out through customer stories, trends they talk about, listed logos, & generally where THEY are showing up (sponsorships, events, etc.)
- Reach out to them with a gift first (invite them into the content campaign)
- Messaging should be custom to each category, deployed multi-modal (LinkedIn + email to start)
- Ensure the list is regularly hit in a multi-step cadence. Rotate them into other mediums if unsuccessful.
- Record an interview for most robust content that you can guide/control to fit your narrative.

2) Production
Take the context from the recording & create everything you can.

- Set the initial strategy to direct towards a common goal, & one that empowers your company.
- Ensure there is a "story" being captured, but ask for the information in multiple ways.
- Frameworks. Methodologies. Step by steps. Workflows. Anecdotes. Stories about outcomes. What's the one-two-punch?
- Analyze & find the best moments. Turn those into snippets. Enrich the snippets with more research, back with your data + industry data. Create the content.
- Make this a content factory line. Each step leads to the next. A person owns each part of the process. Make it easy & efficient.

3) Delivery
Deploy the content that's created & amplify. Fully integrated approach.

- Get approvals first from the third party. Ask for necessary consents.
- Make it so easy they can copy & paste. Tell them what, when, & where to distribute. Leave little room for thinking. If they want to give you feedback they will.
- Ensure there is a content calendar internally. How is it distributed on web, social, ABM/nurture campaigns, etc. What about ad dollars? What about your sponsorships - can they promote it too?
- Re-integrate the content over & over: Once you have enough, create a round-up of the expertise. Dedicate a newsletter. Re-feature them on an event or podcast.
- - - - - - - - -
This is a series dedicated to helping marketing & partnerships teams execute with excellence. No gimmicks. No fancy hooks. 

I’m Will, passionate about making markets move together & producing results. I’m the Co-Founder of AudienceLed, a demand gen marketing agency producing pipeline with existing spheres of influence & third-party expertise.

Please criticize this content or ask me questions. I’m here to help.

I'm starting to think online advice from big "high influence" profiles does more harm than good. Most completely lose the plot... especially in business.

There's too much nuance.

"Riches in the niches" makes more and more sense in an AI slop world.

The larger someone gets, the more they become prone to:
- Alarmism or fear mongering
- Basic/high level advice
- Fake brand deals
- Politics

Professional influencers become detached from the reality of what actually works, in specificity.

It happens in B2B and B2C.

My previously favourite podcaster Tom Bilyeu went from health, wellness, mindset, and positivity to fear mongering around AI and a financial crash...

Sam Harris went from psychology and philosophy to politics.

Even my favourite comedians talk about politics all day.

My previously revered business influencers seem like shells of themselves and the support they once provided.

The people with real influence (that aren't on your SEO blasted top 10 list) are the practitioners:

Your customers.
Your buyers themselves.
The community.
Your peers.

Why wouldn't you want to put them on a pedestal... when they are the exact people you are aiming to serve?

(10/30) Our exact templates to motivate action. Partners act when the path to success is clear. Make it simple. A no B.S. tactical content series:

For outreach:
*We do outreach on LinkedIn (and soon email)

Connect request:
Hi NAME, we're working with a client to feature experts like you on a content series highlighting the best minds in INDUSTRY. You're someone we should highlight, can I share more info?

👉 Why it works:
- Approaches them with a gift: "be featured"
- Specifies them as an expert
- Simple yes/no ask

Follow-up to a very often "yes":
It's with CLIENT (our client) and the process is simple: one 30 minute recording session and that's it. After that, we produce a blog post, short + medium form video, social posts, and more that they will promote. We also enable you to promote.

Mind if I email you more details and the prompts for the series?

👉 Why it works:
- Answering questions upfront (high level, client, etc.)
- Positions time in vs outputs as compelling
- Time / ask is clear and not extensive

Email to send more info:
Subject: Featuring you in CLIENT's content series

Hey NAME - We’re excited to include you in the thought leadership series with CLIENT. Here’s more info:

This is NOT promotional for the tool
This IS focused on story, workflow, and narrative-driven content
The process is simple: a 30 minute recorded call that we prepare you for (that's it!)
Our team edits and ships you assets to approve, as well as enablement to make it easy for you to share to your audience
CLIENT will promote to their audience via newsletter, blog, ads, social, and more

Here are the prompts for the series: GDOCLINK

Would you like to be featured? If so, grab a time here to record: CALENDLYLINK

*We also send a follow-up on LinkedIn the email it came from and asking a question of: "Did you receive it?"

👉 Why it works:
- Prompts them to respond that they received it
- Gathers their email but also organizes the info better in that email
- Allows for cleaner linking, another place for follow-up, and can answer more questions ahead of time

For delivering content:
Subject: Your CLIENT content is ready! 

Hi NAME - Thanks again for recording content with us! Your content is ready for posting 🎉

Content 1: ASSETLINK
Post copy you can use/edit as you wish: LINKENABLEMENTDOC
👉 Date to post: DATE

Just a few yes/no questions for you:
Any necessary edits on the content?
Do either of the above dates work for you to post on your LinkedIn?
Is it okay for CLIENT to put thought leader ads to your post?

Let me know if there are any questions. Looking forward to getting this content out with you!

👉 Why it works:
- Clear linking to assets
- Recommending a date to share
- Giving them something they can copy and paste
- Because it's their words (literally in the recording) they are more comfortable sharing, we simply packaged and made them look good in the content!

*After they confirm (or request edits, which we fulfill!), we send an invite as a reminder.

(6/30) Why partnerships fail: A breakdown on misalignment and how to 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 get a seat at the table. A no B.S. tactical content series:

Taken from direct experience in-house, conversations across 1,000+ partner pros, deep interviews finding what works, & executing partnerships at scale as an agency.

1) You believe partners impact everything (or are told it's only pipe)

Not all partners are created equal. Your affiliate partner is not the same as your agency partner. 

You also can't just say that partners impact everything. 

Prove it.

If you cannot effectively manage up expectations, then the CMO or CRO will default to what they know and you will never have their teams care. YOU need to SHOW them where partners can impact & cannot.

Here's how:
- Map the buyer's journey.
- Identify what marketing touches (and how - with what activities and tech). The same for sales.
- Theorize where partners can (or have) impacted that buyer's journey. Example: Agency partners help post-purchase (mostly). Resellers pre-purchase. Media/affiliate partners on awareness and education.

Now you can more competently explain why & where we partner & with who. Also, you'll know what activities partners can plug into, as well as what tech affects each stage of the journey.

Layer in your TYPE of business (transactional solution? Or enterprise sale?) & you can even further manage expectations around the fact that partner may not be able to get you an immediate win in 30 days...

2) You blanket the same incentives across partners

Referral commissions only matter to some. SPIFFs are only as good as much as people care. 

What about:
- Quota relief for sellers? 
- Sending referrals to partner? 
- Increasing retention for partners? 

If you have an ideal partner profile, each one should have specific incentives. 

For agency partners, if you win them a client, that could change the course of their year (vs the 15% you offered them). 

The same goes internally. If you only throw money at a problem, people won't emotionally connect. But, if you relieve quota for your sales team, then that's another avenue of them achieving what they care about... versus some random new thing.

Here's how:
- Ask the person what they care about.
- Ideate how you can help them in multiple ways (& then ask again).
- Customize by partner category in your ideal partner profile. Then implement the plan.
- Optimize by identifying additional levers to pull. Does more commission % increase activity? Do the SPIFFs actually work? What about when you send more leads to partners? 
----
This is a series dedicated to helping marketing & partnerships teams execute with excellence. No gimmicks. No fancy hooks. 

I’m Will, passionate about making markets move together & producing results. I’m the Co-Founder of AudienceLed, a demand gen marketing agency producing pipeline with existing spheres of influence & third-party expertise.

Please criticize this content or ask me questions. I’m here to help.

(9/30) "How do you make them take action?" The most common question around working with influencers & partners. It's simple. A tactical content series:

Make it so easy they would be foolish not to take action.

Here's how we execute "Delivery" in our 3-part process.

1) Do the work for them

Seriously. Why would anyone act on behalf of you? Maybe if you pay them, but even then the output won't ever satisfy what you want to accomplish.

Pre-write the message. Write the copy of the content for them. Show up with GIFTS on a SILVER PLATTER.

Literally received an email today from a third-party we work with saying:
"I would just love to say we really appreciate how thoughtful and communicative you all are. We've worked with plenty of partners and it's just such a breath of fresh air to have everything be so streamlined for us!"

The bar is low. But treating people well and making it easy is table stakes. Period!

AND IT MOVES THE NEEDLE.

People WILL copy and paste what you write for them. If they don't they will make minor changes as needed. But if it's in their voice and uses their words... it's hard for them to say no to hit "send" or "post".

Here's how: 
- Capture their words (through existing content, or a recorded call)
- Align their words to their (and your) joint-narrative
- Find the best moments and turn that into content
- Make it multi-modal. Video clip + blog post + social post + email message + Slack message + etc.

Then you will overwhelm them with value.

2) Make it clear who does what & when.

You can't just throw things at people. It needs to be organized. It needs to be direct. This comes with proper project management.

Give a specific date and time. Tell them who is doing it. @ mention them, CC them in, address them directly on a call.

If you do this with #1... they know when they need to do the copy + paste. 

Clarity drives action.

Read that again! Clarity drives action!

And if that action is a < 2 minute task... it will inevitably be completed.

Also, this reflects on your ability to HELP them execute. If you are the one helping them achieve their goals, they will prioritize you.

Here's how:
- Give them one place to go (a doc, a Notion page, a tool/collaboration space)
- Give them a date and time of execution
- Tell them who should be doing the task (directly)
- Direct them to the one place to go
- Clarify the actions with a summarized CTA
- Send them a calendar invite for when they need to execute
- Reiterate what happens when they do it (the outcomes they care about)

Your professionalism will impress them.

------
This is a series dedicated to helping marketing & partnerships teams execute w/ excellence. No gimmicks. No fancy hooks. 

I’m Will, passionate about making markets move together & producing results. I’m the Co-Founder of AudienceLed, a demand gen marketing agency producing pipeline with existing spheres of influence & third-party expertise.

Please criticize this content or ask me questions. I’m here to help.

(7/30) The impact 3rd-party validation. Data, stories, & outcomes from working w/ people outside your company. A no B.S. tactical content series:

Last iteration I wrote about getting 5,000+ people to an event. Previously, we closed a $30,000 deal from content exposure from a third-party expert (attributed with organic mention).

These don't happen at the same scale, velocity, or conversion rate that direct provides. Here's why:

1) More distribution (less beholden to algorithms + limited owned channels)
- Open more channels to reach more of the TAM (attention-wise)
- You can even double-post back on your channel to re-use the content again

2) More trust (& less bias)
- Your marketer talking about what you do? Inherently biased. Likely not an industry expert.
- Another person outside of your company? Less biased. Likely more deep industry knowledge (including niche information)

3) Better brand (by association & the feel-good of making others famous)
- Everyone can promote their own thing. You can shout on the side of a street but not everyone will listen.
- If your brand becomes a platform for others to build off of... be it in their own revenue generation (or even just share of voice)... the more loyalty you'll build.

Who do you bring in? 
- In (5/30) I wrote about how to classify, research, organize, & incentivize third-party expertise.
- The people, brands, and places your buyer already trusts. That's your customers, the buyers themselves, complementary brands, formal partners, & more.

How you can think about this:
- Who do you trust more? The faceless brand? Or the influencer?
- When was the last time you purchased something just because a new product/brand was forced in front of you via an ad, search result, etc.
- Do you instead, go to your peers, influencers, reddit, etc. to make sense of a purchasing decision?
- Think... buying a car, choosing an accountant, etc. you need to FEEL trust. 

The outcomes (comment / DM for sources!):
- 2x higher conversion rates & faster deal cycles in partner-influenced deals
- In one example, Partner-influenced deals close 28 days faster than non-partnered deals.
- SDRs focusing on partner-led events find leads to be more responsive and higher-converting.
- Ecosystem-qualified leads from partnered content were ~100x more likely to close than cold ones in another example. 100x. That's 10,000% in percentage terms!

A co-branded ad campaign with 3+ partners drove:
- 971% more impressions
- 368% more engagement
- 1,806% more link clicks
- 314% audience growth

----
Today's inspired by Kyle Lacy!

This is a series dedicated to helping marketing & partnerships teams execute with excellence. No gimmicks. No fancy hooks. 

I’m Will, passionate about making markets move together & producing results. I’m the Co-Founder of AudienceLed, a demand gen marketing agency producing pipeline with existing spheres of influence & third-party expertise.

Please criticize this content or ask me questions. I’m here to help.

(11/30) Data points to help you rethink marketing. How marketing with others > marketing alone. Every time. A no B.S. tactical content series:

2x reach. 50% of the work (if you're efficient).

-Deals with partners attached see an 11.7% higher win rate.

-Influencer marketing returns up to $5.78 for every $1 spent.

-Partner-sourced deals come in 32% larger with a 2.8x higher win rate.

-Co-marketing campaigns can drive up to 40% higher ROI than going solo.

-63% of consumers trust influencer recommendations more than brand ads.

-In mid-market and enterprise SaaS, 35% of new pipeline is partner-influenced.

-As SaaS vendors scale, partner-led revenue often grows to 40–80% of total revenue.

-80% of brands reserve budget for influencer collaborations; 89% plan to increase it.

-Companies investing in ecosystem-led growth are 24% more likely to hit revenue targets.

-One-third of Gen Z has bought something because an influencer recommended it.

-Influencer-driven social helped make social media the world’s largest ad channel at $266.9B in 2025.

-AWS Marketplace sellers see 4–5x larger deal sizes and 133%+ growth in private offers with ~40% net-new business.

I've been sharing how you can see similar benefits, tactically, in previous iterations.

I can't quite seem to understand why anyone would do solo marketing ever again? I'm biased, so what are blockers/hesitations?

----------
This is a series dedicated to helping marketing & partnerships teams execute w/ excellence. No gimmicks. No fancy hooks. 

I’m Will, passionate about making markets move together & producing results. I’m the Co-Founder of AudienceLed, a demand gen marketing agency producing pipeline with existing spheres of influence & third-party expertise.

Please criticize this content or ask me questions. I’m here to help.

Which should you use? What about enrichment? Who do you need to engage to activate efficiently? These experts will help you navigate the hottest tech today.

🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://lnkd.in/gvmJwzWD

taplio

The Battle

William M. Ballance

Will Taylor 🤝

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreWill Taylor 🤝's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

William M. Ballance

Will Taylor 🤝

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Will Taylor 🤝's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreWill Taylor 🤝's LinkedIn Performance