co-selling-strategy

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: co-selling-strategy
description: Design the operating model for how direct sales and partner sellers collaborate on shared deals - deal registration policy (protection windows, approval SLA, rejection grounds), deal credit and attribution split (partner-sourced vs partner-influenced, comp neutrality), and channel rules of engagement between direct and partner sellers. Covers B2B co-sell motions at the policy level. Use whenever the user mentions co-selling, partner deal registration, deal credit splits, partner attribution policy, or reps and partners working the same account, even if they never say co-sell. Do NOT use for adjudicating a live contested deal - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@partner-channel-conflict instead.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.3.4"
---

# Co-Selling Strategy

Define how direct sales and partner sellers collaborate on shared deals: the policy layer, never the deal-by-deal execution. This skill designs three artifacts as one coherent operating charter, and validates it with the user section by section:

- **Deal registration policy** - how a partner formally claims an opportunity and what that claim grants.
- **Credit and attribution model** - who gets counted and paid when a deal has more than one parent.
- **Rules of engagement** - between direct and partner sellers.

Co-selling is a B2B discipline with no true B2C analogue. It presupposes named accounts, quota-carrying reps, a consultative sales cycle, and an opportunity record - none of which exist in a consumer transaction.

The consumer-side counterparts are trade marketing, co-op advertising funds, and shelf-placement/channel agreements: a different discipline with different mechanics, so never force-fit deal registration or comp neutrality onto retail partnerships. The one part that transfers to any context, B2B or B2C, is the governance discipline itself: unambiguous ownership rules, documented tiebreakers, published criteria.

## Interview

Ask before proposing anything. One question per message; offer multiple-choice options when possible. Skip anything the user already answered. If your harness has persistent memory, check it for a previously approved charter first and confirm what changed instead of re-interviewing.

- What does the direct sales org look like - segments covered (SMB / mid-market / enterprise), inside vs field, how quota is structured?
- Which partner types are in play or planned: referral, reseller/VAR, distributor, SI/consultancy, ISV/tech, marketplace/hyperscaler?
- What are ACV, average sales-cycle length, and direct win rate? (Cycle length sets the registration protection window.)
- When did an AE last close a co-sell deal and call it a good experience - and what made it good?
- Does the current comp plan create any friction against attaching a partner to a deal?
- How does an AE find out which partner to call for a specific account today, and how long does that take?
- If an AE decided to ignore the partner motion entirely, what would happen?
- What is the goal: partner-sourced pipeline, influenced revenue, marketplace transaction volume, reaching segments direct can't?
- Is there a working attribution record today - timestamped registrations, or credit claims made at close?

Ask these three last, always. Every ranked menu later in this skill is re-ordered against the answers, and by the time the reader reaches a menu they have already committed to a path.

- By what date must this motion show a result, and what has to be true by then? A date inside one quarter deletes the heavyweight JBP track and promotes the one-hour registration and lock-window fixes. A date beyond two quarters keeps comp-plan work in play.
- One-off unblock, or a compounding asset? One-off promotes registration policy and rules of engagement, which pay out on the next deal. Compounding promotes comp neutrality and attribution co-ownership, which pay back every quarter and almost nothing in the first