Keep it simple with three tiers that provide choice without overwhelming prospects. Name tiers to reflect partnership depth (Bronze/Silver/Gold) and ensure each offers compelling incremental value beyond just discount percentages. Build in flexibility to customise within tiers for your largest partners while designing with your operational capacity in mind. Focus on creating clear incentives that encourage partners to increase their commitment over time.

Technology infrastructure can make or break your partner program since manual processes become nightmares at partner scale. Essential components include credit management systems, partner portals for self-service access, automated workflows, reporting dashboards, and integration capabilities. Purpose-built platforms matter because generic LMS systems lack crucial B2B features like development funds, partner pricing tiers, and multi-stakeholder reporting that create poor partner experiences.

Your sales materials must speak to strategic buyers and position you as a business partner rather than a course provider. Essential collateral includes dedicated landing pages, executive briefs, ROI calculators, partner success stories, program overview decks, sample agreements, and onboarding roadmaps. Lead with business metrics rather than learning statistics, use customer language instead of training jargon, and include real numbers with specific outcomes while keeping materials visual and scannable.

Starting with existing champions de-risks your launch and creates immediate success stories. Current clients already trust your expertise, you understand their business context, they're invested in your success, and their feedback helps refine your approach before broader launch. Select pilot partners who currently buy 10+ seats annually, have multiple departments engaged, strong executive sponsorship, growth orientation, and willingness to provide testimonials for future marketing efforts.

Your course portfolio serves as your product catalogue and needs to be comprehensive yet focused. Include a mix of foundational and advanced programs with logical learning pathways from entry to mastery. Add variety in format through short workshops, multi-day programs, and online options that serve both role-specific and universal skills needs. Consider exclusive partner-only programs to add value and plan for regular additions to keep the portfolio fresh and engaging.

Selling partner programs requires a fundamentally different approach than individual seat sales – you're selling transformation, not transactions. Move from reactive enquiries to proactive outreach and shift from feature presentations to strategic consultations. Focus on organisational capability gaps rather than course features, target economic buyers like L&D directors and HR VPs, and use data to demonstrate the cost of fragmented training approaches while positioning your program as strategic infrastructure.

Your team needs new skills to support a partner program model successfully. Sales teams require consultative selling techniques, financial acumen for business cases, account planning skills, negotiation training, and industry knowledge. Operations teams need partner portal administration capabilities, credit management processes, multi-stakeholder communication protocols, escalation procedures, and quarterly business review preparation. This investment in capability building pays immediate dividends in program success.