If They’re Not in Your CRM, Forecasts, or Calls—They’re Not Really Partners

Expanding into new markets often comes with pressure to move fast, lean, build brand, and start selling. That’s why so many companies turn to local partners. It sounds efficient: find someone who knows the landscape, has the right relationships, and can get things moving quickly.

But here’s the hard truth. Partnership models only work when those partners are treated like a true part of your sales team—not just a name on a slide or a line in your GTM plan.

Partnership ≠ Plug-and-Play

Too many scale-ups assume that once a channel partner or outsourced team is signed, results will follow. But when partnerships aren’t deeply embedded in the way you operate, they rarely deliver the impact you hoped for.

Ask yourself:

• Are your channel partners sitting in on weekly sales calls?

• Do they have access to your CRM—and are they updating it?

• Are their activities tracked against the same KPIs as your internal team?

If the answer is no, you don’t have a partnership—you have a vendor. And vendors don’t build pipeline with you. They don’t learn from customer feedback. They don’t refine messaging or help you tighten targeting. Most importantly, they’re not accountable in the same way.

Research shows that  60%-80% of strategic partnerships fail to meet expectations, and lack of integration is a major reason why. In expansion markets, the impact of that failure can be hard to recover from, especially when early traction is key to investor confidence, internal buy-in, and long-term resource planning.

What Integrated Partnerships Look Like 

Real integration means your partners work off the same processes, systems, and goals as your internal team. They’re in your forecast meetings, report on pipeline in the same format, and use your same sales collateral. They share feedback from the field, help refine your ICP, highlight gaps in the funnel, and work closely with marketing to support local activation.

At The Scale Factory, we’ve seen again and again that the best-performing markets are the ones where outsourced, or channel partners are treated as part of the commercial engine—not an external add-on. It’s the difference between a disconnected sales agent and a fully engaged growth partner.

McKinsey points out that most partnership failures stem from vague setups—unclear accountability, no aligned KPIs and no shared way of measuring success. When partners are excluded from core systems and routines, they lack the context and commitment to help you scale effectively.

When It’s Not Working 

It doesn’t fall apart all at once. You start with a few warm leads that go nowhere. Pipeline reports are light—or missing altogether. The partner’s sales narrative starts to drift from your value proposition. Meanwhile, your internal team doesn’t have the visibility to fix it, and leadership starts to lose confidence in the market. What felt like a shortcut becomes a slow, quiet drain on time, focus, and budget.

Channel partners and outsourced teams can help you scale—but only if you treat them like part of the team. Give them access, structure, shared goals, and a seat at the table. 

If they’re not in your calls, your CRM, your forecast meetings, or your strategy sessions, they’re not set up to succeed—and neither are you. Growth is a team sport. Make sure your partners are actually on the team.