Ecosystem Led Growth: The Bible For Partnership Managers and Revenue Leaders
Crossbeam CEO Bob Moore's book is a must-read
READ TILL THE END FOR A SURPRISE.
The first time I learned about “Ecosystem Led Growth” (ELG) was from a LinkedIn post by my colleague, Chris Lavoie.
Chris was my counterpart at AfterShip, leading strategic partnerships, while I led and still lead Global Logistics Partnerships.
Previously Head of Tech Partners at ecom unicorn and Shopify ecosystem darling Gorgias, Chris is now the founder and CEO of Partnership Mastermind, a not-so-secret-society for partnership managers to geek out on their profession.
Everything I know about tech partnerships, I learned from watching and mimicking Chris. He is the thought leader who created the “Partnership Prioritization Matrix” which I use daily. So when Chris recommends a book on partnerships, I’m going to read it.
Ecosystem-Led Growth: A Blueprint for Sales and Marketing Success Using the Power of Partnerships
If you’re in tech partnerships, you have certainly by now heard of or are already using Crossbeam. Crossbeam is the most widely utilized lead and customer overlap sharing tool for partnership managers across the technology ecosystem, especially in the US.
At AfterShip we use it to connect to all of our partners.
Bob Moore is the co-founder and CEO of Crossbeam. If there’s anyone who has an interest in educating as many people as possible on how to build a great partnership function and develop a great ELG playbook, it is Bob.
Coming to Terms
Bob kicks off the book with an introduction to partnerships and terms in the industry, which I think are sorely missing in a significant number of partnership managers’ onboarding.
With partnerships in the logistics industry being so different from partnerships in the tech industry — a post for another day — it’s especially important that everyone is aligned on the same terms and meanings.
Bob’s Life Story
The journey and autobiography is always my favourite part of any business book, and Bob starts off by sharing his history and background which is fun and engaging.
While sharing his story, Bob drops some nuggets and insights that takes readers along his journey. He shares many of the problems experienced during his career which would lead to the mission and founding of Crossbeam.
I was slightly disappointed that Bob did not share even more about his start-up story. I would have loved to read about validating the POC, building the MVP, getting the first users, the obstacles encountered, and even funding and bootstrapping to make the money work.
The lowest point of a story is what makes the highest point rewarding.
The Problem Statement
In the second section of the book, Bob dives into the hard problems that partnership managers and companies run into. Namely, it’s growth.
Partnership managers exist to help the company grow through partnerships.
In this section, Bob totally nailed it. Any executive, GTM leader, or revenue leader will read the section and say “BAAM! Bob’s right!”
The Solution
The second half of the book is the most valuable part. This is where Bob starts to lay out exactly how to construct an ELG playbook.
He takes you through every function of what a partnership manager should be doing, and then he breaks it down into how you can do it.
His playbooks are chock full of examples from his own customers and experiences and backed by real stories
This is the section where the lights were going on in my head, and I constantly found myself wanting to interject and say “But Bob, my industry is slightly different!”
But I suppose that that’s the gap as well as the opportunity that Bob has left me. As someone who lives in the cross-section between tech partnerships and logistics partnerships it’s going to be up to me to bridge the best practices in tech that have grown multitrillion dollar companies within decades, and apply those concepts to the hundred year-old logistics companies that are already scaled, but are stuck in their old ways.
Your Biggest Takeaway
ELG is the first book that every new partnership manager should read. The first thing I did after reading the book was get copies for everyone on my team and make it part of the onboarding for new partnership managers. As a leader, I feel embarrassed that I didn’t do this before.
I want to give a special thanks to Bob Moore for writing this book. It may have taken him months to put this together, but it will save humanity collective decades in learning.
GIVEAWAY !!!
The team at crossbeam have generously offered to give away one FREE COPY of ELG to one of my readers by random draw.
If you would like to participate in the lucky draw please follow me on LinkedIn and comment “ELG” on the post when I announce the giveaway there tomorrow (dropping in 24 hours).
Names will be entered into a random drawing selection app which will be recorded for auditing purposes, and the winner will be notified by DM or on platform
For those who can’t wait, you can purchase the book on Amazon now.
