I've spent 15 years watching partner programs launch with big promises and die quietly six months later. The pattern is always the same: great kickoff deck, excited partners, field sellers who nod politely—and then nothing happens.

The problem isn't the technology. It's not the partners. It's that most companies treat co-sell like a campaign instead of a system. They dump all the moving parts on the table—designations, offers, referrals, coverage models, enablement—like a box of Legos dropped on the floor, and expect everyone to figure out what to build.

At Microsoft, I built partner programs that drove $250M+ in influenced pipeline, added $1.46M/month in recurring revenue, and scaled from 50 to 500+ active partners. Not because I had a magic pitch deck, but because I understood orchestration. I spent years as an aspiring musician before tech, and I learned something critical: individual excellence means nothing if everyone's playing a different tempo. Co-sell is the same—you need every part moving together, same page, same rhythm, building equity that compounds over time.

Co-sell is a Lego build. Cloud providers and partners watch for the finished model—wins, attach rates, transactability—but that model only stands when the foundational blocks are in place. Solution designations and specializations (the baseplate), published Marketplace offers and solution plays (the outer shell), attached to every outbound referral (the studs that lock pieces together), and disciplined sales methodology hygiene (like MCEM) to convert attention into wins.

When those blocks connect, equity compounds—and you move from "we can" to "we did, repeatedly."

It's like composing music: every block, like every note, matters. Put them in the right sequence, and what might seem like noise becomes harmony. Skip a block, and the whole structure collapses.

Real co-sell execution comes down to five connected pieces. Each one builds equity that sellers and marketers can actually use. Miss one, and the orchestration falls apart.

Build the Offer. Most partners show up with "we do Azure" or "we do it all." That's not an offer—that's a capability statement. An offer answers: What customer problem does this solve? What's the deployment motion? How much of the cloud provider’s platform will be consumed? What does the field seller say in the pipeline review? I've built over 50 co-sell solutions for the Microsoft marketplace, and the ones that worked had specific use cases, clear ROI, and a path to transact. The ones that didn't? They stayed in PowerPoint. This is your baseplate—everything else builds on top of it.

Target with Data Insights. Field sellers have 200 accounts and competing priorities. If you ask them to "look for opportunities," they won't. But if you hand them a list of 15 accounts with high propensity to buy—accounts where the customer already uses related technology, has budget in motion, or is coming up for renewal—they'll pay attention. I built propensity models that surfaced churn risk and growth potential across partner portfolios. That's what moved the conversation from "let me know if you see something" to "here are three accounts we're working this quarter." Data is how you orchestrate focus—everyone looks at the same accounts, same tempo.

Co-Sell Equity Engine. This is the part nobody wants to talk about because it's boring: Partner Center hygiene, MCEM stages, deal registration workflows, solution & specialization designations, referral IDs. But this is what makes you selectable. This is your equity—the accumulated proof that you're not just capable, but ready. When a field seller opens CRM and sees your partner profile with the right specializations, attached referrals, and transactable offers with win rates, you're not competing on hopeful relationships anymore—you're competing on infrastructure. I've seen partners lose deals not because they weren't capable, but because their Partner Center setup was a mess and the seller didn’t want to trust a “ZERO” win rate percentage for their solution offer. All the Lego blocks exist, but they're not connected.

Activate the Field. You can have perfect offers and clean data, but if the field doesn't know you exist, nothing happens. In music, everyone needs time to work on their craft in isolation or small groups—but to be "known," you have to bring that development back into the larger ensemble so the right stakeholders hear your excellence. Co-sell is the same. Activation means coverage assignment (who owns this partner relationship?), seller enablement (what do I say to my customer?), and creating urgency (why now?). I've led and owned various accelerated learning series spanning 30-100+ partners per session, every week or month—because one-off enablement doesn't stick. You need repetition, real examples, and proof that other sellers are winning with you. Every co-sell play needs a named PDM, AE, geo assignment, and partner coverage model. That's orchestration—making sure every player knows their part and when to come in. Without named coverage and a repeatable enablement rhythm, even the best offers sit idle while sellers chase what they already know.

Convert & Expand. The last piece is execution discipline: joint pipeline reviews, deal registration that doesn't create conflict, tracking what converts and what dies, and building expansion plays off wins. I influenced $250M in pipeline by staying in the details—weekly deal reviews, clear next steps, and ruthless measurement of what was working. Most programs celebrate the kickoff and forget to inspect beyond the pipeline. The partners who win are the ones who show up every week with sourced-deal updates, pipeline additions, and closed business. This is where equity turns into currency—where all those connected Lego blocks become actual revenue.

Here's the operating rhythm I use for each part of the system:

Build means creating the asset—whether that's an offer, a target account list, a Partner Center profile, enablement content, or a pipeline dashboard. You're assembling the Lego blocks.

Run means putting it into production. Launch the offer with coverage assigned. Share the target list with sellers. Get the marketplace offer live. Deliver the proof of value. Start the pipeline reviews. You're conducting the orchestra.

Measure means tracking what's actually happening. How many referrals registered? How many field sellers engaged? What's converting? What's stuck? Where are we losing? You're listening – but is it music?

Ask means interrogating your own readiness: If a customer asks today, how fast can we respond? If a seller wants to route a deal, is the workflow simple? If a partner wants to transact, is everything in place? You're stress-testing the structure before you ask anyone else to trust it.

Most partner programs skip the "Ask" part and wonder why execution is slow. You have to know your system works before you hand it to the field.

Over the next week, I'll be breaking down each part of this system in detail—one piece per day, practical and tactical. I'm doing this because too much partner content is theory. There are plenty of blog posts about "alignment" and "joint value props." What's missing is the execution—the real work of building these systems and making them run.

I've lived this. I've seen what works, what wastes time, and where programs break down. I've built propensity models that found the right accounts, cleaned Partner Center profiles that unlocked deals, and run pipeline reviews that turned "maybe" into closed business. I've also made mistakes—launched offers that didn't land, built enablement nobody used, and watched good ideas die because the infrastructure wasn't there.

The game is also changing fast. AI is evolving how referrals happen, how we target accounts, and how sellers interact with partner ecosystems. What worked two years ago needs adjustment today. The fundamentals stay the same—build equity, orchestrate execution, measure relentlessly—but the tactics have to evolve.

So I'm sharing what I know. The information is free. The execution is difficult because that’s where the work happens—and that comes from having done it, adjusted it, and done it again. If you're building partner programs that need to actually work, follow along this week. I'll show you the blocks, how they connect, and what to ask yourself before you go live.

Co-sell used to be a nice-to-have. Now it's table stakes. Hyperscalers require it. Customers expect it. Sellers are measured on it. But most companies still treat it like a partnership team problem instead of a revenue operations problem.

The partners who win—and the vendors who scale through partners—are the ones who stop talking about "alignment" and start building systems. Systems where all the moving parts work together. Systems that create equity field sellers can use. Systems that turn individual excellence into orchestrated execution.

I've built and seen systems that work and waste time. And the difference always comes down to execution: Are you connecting the Lego blocks, or are you just admiring the pieces?