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Finding Traction in Partnerships: A Field Guide for Executives
by Bart Dirksen
Published: 2026
Recommended by Books of the Channel
Categories: partnerships, go to market
Why should you read it?
This book is written for the CRO, CEO, and VP of Partnerships who owns the number partnerships is supposed to contribute to — and who knows the diagnosis is usually wrong. If you have sat in a QBR where sales comp didn't reward co-sell, product wasn't prioritizing partner integrations, and finance wouldn't credit influenced revenue, and everyone had a reasonable explanation, this book is for you. It names the actual problem: the team isn't failing. The system is missing.
What is the book about?
Finding Traction in Partnerships argues that partnerships is a commercial operating system, not a channel to bolt onto existing GTM motion. Dirksen builds the case through seven interdependent layers: strategy, program design, go-to-market, economics, operations, leadership, and change. Each layer depends on the others — a tight program without sales comp alignment produces partner frustration; a clean attribution model without executive ownership produces finance distrust. The book walks each layer in the order it needs to be built, names the failure modes, and closes with a Monday-morning diagnostic: seven questions, one per layer, designed to tell the CRO or VP of Partnerships exactly where the system is strongest, where it is weakest, and what to do next.
Best takeaway
You can have six of seven layers working and the system will still cap out. The missing layer is almost always the one no one formally owns. You can swap leaders, grow the partner base, or rebuild the tooling. The ceiling stays.
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