A reseller owns the full sale, the margin, and usually delivery, acting as a second sales force you may never meet the end customer through. Your job shifts from selling to enabling: authorize them, protect their deal-reg investment, let them quote themselves, certify them to deliver, and account their margin accurately. This track sets up that enablement engine, in the order a reseller needs it.
Time to first value: an authorized reseller registering and quoting deals within a few days. Owned by: Partner Operations and Partner Marketing, with Finance for margin and the Partner Manager on tiering.
What a reseller actually needs
A reseller is a full sales organization: an alliance manager who owns tier status, AEs who close independently, and SEs who must stay certified to deliver. They want self-serve quoting with the right pricing for their tier, certification and content to sell and deliver well, deal registration that locks in their margin against your direct team and other partners, and clear visibility into what they earn. Affiliate links and referral-style fees do not apply; this is a margin business that runs on enablement.Set up the foundation
Connect your CRM
Why it matters. Reseller-owned deals, the margin on them, and the registration that protects them all live on the CRM record. Connecting first keeps the channel motion reconciled to the same source of truth as direct, so margin accounting is never in doubt.Connect HubSpot or Salesforce as the system of record.Time: 20 to 30 min · Who: CRM Administrator, Partner Operations
Connect your CRM
Two-way sync with Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive.
Choose how partners are stored
Decide how reseller records map into the CRM.
Import partners and their contacts
Why it matters. A reseller brings AEs and SEs who register, quote, and get certified. Importing the partner with their full team means you can assign tiers, enrollments, and deal access to the right people from the start.Detect resellers from the CRM and bring their teams in as contacts.Time: 30 to 60 min · Who: Partner Operations
Auto-sync new partners
Detect resellers from the CRM.
Manage partner contacts
Bring in the reseller’s AEs and SEs.
Attribute reseller-owned deals and let resellers work them
Why it matters. A reseller owns the deal, so they should be able to work it without a CRM seat: edit the fields you let them control, manage their own line items, and build quotes on the deal themselves. Setting up attribution plus those self-serve edit and quote rights writes their work straight to the CRM record, keeps margin and ownership unambiguous, and takes you out of the loop on every update. You choose exactly which fields are editable, so control stays with you.Map partner attribution, choose which deal fields and line items resellers can edit, and let them build quotes on their own deals. CPQ pricing and templates are configured in depth later in this track.Time: 30 to 60 min · Who: Partner Operations, Revenue Operations
Map partner attribution
Credit reseller-owned deals on the record.
Choose editable properties
Let them edit only the fields you choose.
Manage line items
Let them shape the products on their deal.
Self-serve quoting
Let resellers build quotes on the deals they own.
Authorize and protect the reseller
Set up tiers and segments
Why it matters. Resellers are not equal, and pricing, content, and access should reflect that. Tiers and segments are the control surface that grades a reseller and unlocks the right discounts, enablement, and deal-reg rules. Get this right and almost everything downstream scopes itself automatically.Create a tier program with requirements and benefits, segment resellers, and sync tiers to the CRM.Time: Half a day · Who: Partner Manager, Partner Operations
Create a tier program
Define your reseller tiers.
Define requirements and benefits
Set what each tier must do and gets.
Create a dynamic segment
Group resellers to scope pricing and access.
Sync tiers with your CRM
Keep tier status on the CRM record.
Set up deal registration that protects margin
Why it matters. Deal registration is what gives a reseller the confidence to invest in an opportunity: it locks in their margin against your direct team and other partners. Conflict detection plus an approval gate, with the AI agent screening the clear cases, makes that protection fast and consistent.Let resellers register deals, detect conflict, gate for approval, and protect the registered margin.Time: Half a day · Who: Partner Operations, with the Partner Manager and Sales on the rules
Protect a reseller's margin
Lock in the reseller’s claim and discount.
Detect channel conflict with AI
Flag overlap with direct or other partners.
Approve a registration
Review and approve registered deals.
Automate approvals with AI
Let the agent clear unambiguous registrations.
Enable the reseller to sell and deliver
Turn on self-serve CPQ
Why it matters. A reseller who can quote themselves, with pricing governed by their tier, sells without waiting on you. Self-serve CPQ removes you as the bottleneck on every deal while keeping pricing and discounts under your control.Enable quote creation on deals, set templates, govern tier and segment discounts.Time: Half a day · Who: Partner Operations, Finance
Enable quote creation on a deal
Let resellers build their own quotes.
Set a quote template and title
Standardize the quote they send.
Certify resellers and govern enablement content
Why it matters. Resellers sell and deliver on your behalf, so certification gates who is authorized and a governed content library keeps everyone on the current message. Auto-enrolling a segment and auto-issuing certificates on completion makes this run without manual chasing.Build courses, auto-enroll segments, auto-issue certificates, and publish a governed asset library.Time: 1 to 2 days · Who: Partner Marketing
Generate a course with AI
Stand up certification training fast.
Auto-enroll a segment
Enroll a reseller segment automatically.
Auto-issue on completion
Certify resellers the moment they finish.
Upload and organize assets
Publish a governed enablement library.
Stand up the reseller experience
Why it matters. Resellers need one place that brings together deal registration, quoting, enablement, and what is new. Start with a minimum viable reseller portal carrying those essentials; experience building can layer on much more once you are live.Publish a reseller experience with registration, quoting, and enablement, scoped by segment.Time: 2 to 4 hours · Who: Partner Operations, Partner Marketing
Build a portal experience
Assemble the reseller portal.
Restrict a tab to segments
Show each reseller tier the right tabs.
Go deeper once you are live
Add these once resellers are registering and quoting. Margin accounting is the highest-value next step.Account reseller margin and commissions
Why it matters. What a reseller earns has to be correct and reconciled to the CRM, or disputes erode the channel. Commission plans calculated from the source-of-truth deal keep margin accounting clean and auditable for Finance.Time: Half a day · Who: Finance, Partner Operations
Create a commission plan
Model reseller margin and incentives.
Choose a data source
Calculate from the CRM or billing truth.
Add a progressive onboarding journey
Why it matters. New resellers activate faster when the program reveals itself as they qualify. A progressive onboarding path tied to segments unlocks tabs, assets, and abilities step by step, so a reseller grows into the program instead of facing everything at once.Time: Half a day · Who: Partner Operations, Partner Marketing
Design a progressive onboarding path
Activate resellers step by step.
Unlock portal tabs as partners progress
Reveal capability as resellers qualify.
You are live
Resellers are tiered and authorized, their margin is protected by clean deal registration, they quote themselves with governed pricing, they are certified to sell and deliver, and what they earn is accounted to the CRM. You enable the channel instead of selling every deal in it.Run a different motion?
Pick another partner-type track.
Deal Registration
Go deeper on registration, editing, and multi-tier.