Sales Channel Partnership Strategy
Sell once, one-to-many — through someone else's channel.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 82%
Perell names great partnerships as one of two things every company needs to scale (the other being a great team). Her sales channel strategy means partnering with a company that has already built the sales infrastructure you'd otherwise have to buy, and pushing your product through it. Instead of selling one customer at a time, you sell once to a partner who then sells to many — a one-to-one-to-many model. You give up a cut, but that's far cheaper than building an expensive sales team, especially when bootstrapping. It also frees you to focus on building the best product rather than the machinery to sell it.
Origin
Having scaled companies to $100M and beyond and invested in 150 startups, Perell found she couldn't scale one customer at a time, so she leaned on partners with built-in sales channels — from Sephora to Costco, Target, and Sprouts — to carry her products to market.
Core principles
- 01You cannot scale one customer at a time; you need leverage.
- 02Partner with a company that already owns built-in sales infrastructure.
- 03Selling through a partner is one-to-one-to-many instead of one-by-one.
- 04Giving a partner a cut is cheaper than building your own sales team.
- 05The right partner is complementary and can carry your product to market.
How to run it
- 1
Find a complementary partner
Identify a company complementary to yours that already has the built-in sales infrastructure and reach to your target customers.
Pro tip Almost any business can find a complementary partner who can offer its products or services.
- 2
Sell through their channel
Put your product through the partner's existing channel so they sell it for you, turning a one-by-one grind into one-to-one-to-many leverage.
Pro tip You only have to sell once — to the partner — and they reach the many.
Watch out You will have to give the partner a cut of the revenue.
- 3
Refocus on the product
With distribution handled by the partner, redirect your energy to creating the best possible product instead of building sales teams and tech.
Pro tip This is especially vital when bootstrapping, since a sales team is enormously expensive.
In the wild
For her beauty company, rather than selling only direct-to-consumer, Perell partnered with Sephora — a retailer with doors across the country — using their infrastructure to sell her product for a cut.
→ The partnership brought the product to market at scale far more efficiently than doing it alone.
Common mistakes
Trying to sell one by one
Attempting to reach every customer directly doesn't scale to $10M, $100M, or a billion, and building the sales team to do it is prohibitively expensive when bootstrapping.
Is it for you?
Best for
Bootstrapped and early-stage founders needing to scale distribution without heavy sales overhead.
Not ideal for
Businesses whose margins can't absorb a partner cut or whose product needs full channel control.
From the transcript
“I love a sales channel strategy and that's just partnering with someone else who has already built in the sales infrastructure that you can put…”
“You have to sell once, but it's one to one to many.”
From the episode
Kim Perell: 5 Execution Traits That Transform Ideas Into a $100M Business
Kim Perell