Ecosystem-Led Growth

A blueprint to new levels of company growth leveraging your firm’s Partner Ecosystem

In Ecosystem-Led Growth: A Blueprint For Sales and Marketing Success Using the Power of Partnerships, veteran entrepreneur and tech leader Bob Moore delivers an intuitive and insightful guide to using your company’s Partner Ecosystem to unlock countless leads, break sales records, scale your organization, and build a once-in-a-generation business. In the book, you’ll discover why partnerships are no longer the domain of “partner people” schmoozing at conferences. Instead, they can be used to unlock vast amounts of data, new relationships, and scalable growth plays.

You’ll learn about:

• Transformational technologies that bring partner data to your fingertips
• Savvy companies and executives who convert that data into untapped growth opportunities
• Real-world examples of go-to-market leaders at dozens of leading tech companies implementing a powerful new perspective on growth

An indispensable roadmap to an exciting new strategy for scaling your firm, Ecosystem-Led Growth will earn a place on the bookshelves of managers, executives, founders, entrepreneurs, salespeople, marketers, and anyone else interested in taking their company to new heights.

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction 1

Part 1 My $2.6 Billion Mistake 5

1 Muscle Memory and Scar Tissue 7

A Revolution in Business Intelligence 8

The Rollercoaster of Product- Market Fit 10

2 Disruption Is Cool Until It Happens to You 13

Amazon’s Big Move 13

The Modern Data Stack Is Born 17

The Ecosystem Effect 18

3 How Partner Ecosystems Saved My Career 21

Part 2 The Ecosystem Revolution 25

4 Decoding the Confusing Language of Partnerships 27

Tech Partnerships 32

Channel Partnerships 36

Strategic Partnerships 38

Marketplaces 40

Partner Relationship Management 42

5 Why Legacy Partnerships Were Set Up to Fail 47

6 The Ecosystem Data Layer Arrives 55

7 Why Now? The Disruption of Growth as We Know It 63

Inbound Marketing and the Great AI Reset 64

Outbound Sales: A Negative- Sum Game 70

A Targeted Attack on Targeted Ads 74

Sales Intelligence: The Bundling Era 76

Product- Led Growth: A Different Animal 81

Another Door Opens 85

Part 3 Beginning Your ELG Journey 87

8 Is ELG Right for Me? 89

Value Proposition 89

Company Scale 91

The ELG Readiness Matrix 91

9 Getting Buy- In for ELG 95

Setting the Right Goals 95

Attributing Success to ELG 97

Eliminating Partner Team Baggage 101

10 Overcoming Security and Privacy Objections 107

Can I Trust My ELG Platform? 108

Does ELG Itself Expose Me to Risk? 111

11 Powering Up Your Account Mapping Matrix 121

Part 4 The ELG Playbooks 125

12 The ELG Playbook Map 127

13 Ecosystem Development: Populate Your Partner Ecosystem with Winners 131

Prioritizing Partners 133

Curating Data Access 137

The Partner Prioritization Matrix 139

14 Ecosystem- Led Marketing: Fill Your Funnel with Ecosystem Qualified Leads 143

The Ecosystem Qualified Lead (EQL) 144

Generating EQLs with Second- Party Data 146

Marketing Automation and Account- Based Marketing 148

Outbound: Upgrade Your SDRs to PDRs 151

Reinventing Event Strategy 155

Turning Investors into Pipeline Generation Engines 159

15 Ecosystem- Led Sales: Close Bigger, Better Customers Faster 163

Strategy and Buy- In: The ELG Sales Tetrahedron 164

Meeting Sellers Where They Are 170

Co- Selling 177

Hyperscaler Cloud Marketplaces 185

Training, Enablement, and Accountability 187

16 Ecosystem- Led Customer Success: Eliminate Churn and Grow Accounts 193

Driving Customer Success with Tech Partners 195

Driving Customer Success with Channel Partners 198

Conclusion: The Future of ELG 203

Glossary 205

Bibliography 217

Author Bio 223

Index 225

BOB MOORE is Co-Founder and CEO of Crossbeam, an Ecosystem-Led Growth platform that generates leads, closes deals, and grows companies by leveraging partner ecosystems. He previously co-founded Stitch and RJMetrics, acquired by Talend and Adobe, respectively. Learn more at Crossbeam.com and contact Bob at RobertJMoore.com

This is a blueprint for new levels of growth powered by your company’s partner ecosystem.

Veteran entrepreneur and tech leader Bob Moore delivers an intuitive and insightful guide to cracking the growth code in today’s interconnected business marketplace. Using the power of partner ecosystems, readers will learn how to unlock countless leads, break sales records, scale their organizations, and build world-class companies. Moore breaks down the playbooks that transition partnerships away from schmoozing at conferences and into unlocking vast amounts of data, new relationships, and scalable growth plays.

Discover:

• Transformational technologies that bring partner data to your fingertips
• Savvy companies and executives who convert that data into untapped growth opportunities
• Real-world examples of go-to-market leaders at dozens of leading tech companies implementing a powerful new perspective on growth

An indispensable roadmap to an exciting new strategy for scaling your firm, Ecosystem-Led Growth will earn a place on the bookshelves of managers, executives, founders, entrepreneurs, salespeople, marketers, and anyone else interested in taking their company to new heights.

Praise for Ecosystem-Led Growth

“Bob Moore lays out timely, actionable strategies for turning partner ecosystems into growth engines. A vital read for driving concrete results in today’s interconnected market.”
— FREDERIC KERREST, Vice-Chairman and Co-Founder of Okta, bestselling author of Zero to IPO

“There’s a lot happening in the world of SaaS. The good news: the era of the customer is here to stay. Bob Moore and insightful industry leaders share practical insights in Ecosystem-Led Growth that are tangible for every leader aiming to grow their business. This book is not just a good read, but a game-changer for today’s modern business strategy.”
— NICK MEHTA, CEO of Gainsight, bestselling author of Customer Success

“A masterclass for revenue leaders on thriving in today’s market. Bob Moore adeptly connects the dots between modern partner ecosystems, the data they provide, and the path to success in this new era of growth.”
— SAM JACOBS, CEO of Pavilion, bestselling author of Kind Folks Finish First

“Bob Moore’s Ecosystem-Led Growth deftly aligns with today’s fast-paced business strategies. His approach to leveraging ecosystems for growth is both innovative and practical, essential for any entrepreneur who wants to build a massively valuable business.”
— CHRIS YEH, Managing Partner of Blitzscaling Ventures, bestselling co-author of Blitzscaling