Collaboration Sessions are crucial for your network success on Crossbeam. On these calls, your CSM will lead a strategic session between your partner and your internal team managing that partnership.
In this article:
Preparing for the Meeting
Due to the nature of Crossbeam offering “Freemium” tiers for partnerships, it is important to complete the Partner Ecosystem Enablement Program provided by your CSM (reach out to your CSM to learn more). This ensures that your partner has completed the necessary onboarding requirements ahead of the Collaboration Session. This will lead to a more productive call towards strategic partnership conversations vs general Crossbeam functionality inquiries.
In preparation for the call, it is important to review the following information with your CSM ahead of the call. This will help to set your agenda for the call and lead the discussion.
Here is a list of suggested questions to answer prior to the call:
Who are your internal team members managing/interacting with this partner, and do they have the appropriate access to Crossbeam/are enabled on Crossbeam functionality?
What populations and data are you prepared to share with this partner?
What population and data are you expecting to receive from the partner?
What are the immediate use cases for this partnership?
What are the KPI’s for this partnership?
Are there any current roadblocks or issues preventing them from achieving their goals?
Are there any outstanding support issues impacting either your team internally or with the partner?
Scheduling a Collaboration Session
Given all teams operate with different scheduling preferences, the positioning of scheduling is entirely up to you! Some teams prefer to run point in introducing their Crossbeam CSM to the partner via email and the Crossbeam CSM follow up to schedule/provide meeting link. Some teams prefer the Crossbeam CSM run point out of the gate. It is suggested to have your anticipated team to be involved in the “Prep” session with your CSM ahead of reaching out to your partner for introductions.
It is important that each party attending the session understands the purpose of the call. To make the call meaningful, your team should come prepared to discuss the following agenda items:
Discuss goals and use cases of the partnership
Ensure all sharing rules are in place to properly share account details (and any possible limitations preventing sharing data)
Discuss reports that support the partnership strategy
Set KPIs for success for each partner
Assign any necessary action items to ensure success
This agenda will be shared in the meeting invite by your CSM when scheduling the Collaboration Session.
Collaboration Session Guidelines
Part One: Introductions
Discuss goals and use cases of the partnership
Ensure all sharing rules are in place to properly share account details (and any possible limitations preventing sharing data)
Discuss reports that support the partnership strategy
Set KPIs for success for each partner
Assign any necessary action items to ensure success
Part Two: Goals of the Partnership
In order to properly guide the session on how to set up your partnership on Crossbeam for success, we first need to understand what you are trying to accomplish with their partnership. Here are some suggested questions to ask to better understand your partner’s goals:
In your own words, what are the goals of each person’s partner program?
What specifically are you measured on?
Why specifically are you partnered together? What do you want to accomplish with this partnership?
Outside of Crossbeam, how are you collaborating today? What is working well and what is not working well?
Part Three: Executing Partnership Goals in Crossbeam
For this part of the call, both companies should log into their Crossbeam accounts. It may be helpful to have each one share at certain times to help explain the best way to configure their accounts. When screen sharing, it's recommended to have your team drive so that you maintain control of the conversation.
To support your partnership, review the following elements:
Populations - do both parties have the necessary populations built in Crossbeam to support their strategy?
Partner Invites - are both parties connected via Crossbeam?
Sharing Settings - are both parties able to share their account records within their populations? Ensure both teams understand how each party can request additional shared data in the future.
Partner Dashboard - walk them through how they can view each partner’s overlaps for easy analysis and execution
Threads - show them how they can collaborate on accounts within Crossbeam.
Reports - walk one or both company through how to build a report that would show the results of their overlaps and explain how they can use that data to support their partnership strategy
Integrations - are any of the companies using any of our integrations? Suggest using SF, Slack, Chrome Extension, or other partner cloud integrations to support their partnership strategy.
Meeting Takeaways and Next Steps
As you wrap up the Collaboration Session, make sure to take note of any outstanding action items. Recap all action items at the end of the call and ensure the recording is shared with both teams. Discuss with your CSM what your preferred workflow of post-call follow up will be.