Project Manager / Alliance Manager playbook

For the person running adoption, 8 steps to make Marketplace a real sales motion.

0 of 8 done 10 weeks Part of your Co-Sell motion
Phase 1 · Week 1–2

Set Up the Program

Decide who owns it and lock the meeting cadence.

0/4complete

Marketplace adoption only works if a senior leader publicly owns it. The Sponsor's job is to declare the priority, sign the kickoff announcement, and clear blockers. Without that, the team treats Marketplace as optional and adoption stalls.

  1. Pick one senior leader, usually the CRO, CCO, or the CEO at smaller companies. They need authority to clear blockers and unlock budget when needed.
  2. Confirm they're committing to be the Sponsor, they own the outcome, attend the monthly Marketplace review for the next 90 days, and every escalation routes to them.
  3. Their name goes on the kickoff announcement (next practice) so the whole company knows who is behind it.
Done well: One named Sponsor, committed to attending the monthly Marketplace review for the next 90 days.

The Program Lead (or Champion) runs Marketplace day-to-day. This is usually your Sales lead if your motion is Co-Sell, or your Reseller / Partner lead if your motion is the reseller channel, their own day-to-day playbook lives in that role-specific page.

  1. Pick someone with all four criteria:
    • Authority, their decisions stick without needing escalation.
    • Credibility, Sales listens to them and respects their judgement.
    • Capacity, 30–40% of their week is actually free for this.
    • Access, they can reach the Sponsor any time.
  2. Write their responsibilities in one short document, saved somewhere shared, so anyone in the company can look up who owns Marketplace and what they're accountable for. The document should list: owns the training, reports the weekly numbers, escalates anything stuck for more than 48 hours.
  3. Announce who they are publicly, so no one has to ask "who do I go to about Marketplace?".
Done well: One Program Lead named, with their role written down and shared widely.

Everyone in the company should hear the same one-paragraph answer to "what is this and why are we doing it?". This one message is what the Program Lead can quote back forever. Open the draft on the right for a starting template.

  1. Sponsor writes one sentence on why Marketplace matters, tied to a business priority you already own (e.g., "shorten enterprise sales cycles" or "open a new buying channel for Microsoft customers").
  2. Add two or three concrete outcomes for the next 90 days. Specific numbers, "5 marketplace deals registered by Day 90", not vague things like "increase pipeline".
  3. Name the Program Lead in the message so everyone knows who's running it. The message goes out from the Sponsor, not the Program Lead.
Done well: Every team has read the message and can repeat the goal in one sentence.

Reviews drift unless the dates are already on the calendar. Four meetings are locked before any training session is scheduled.

  1. Kickoff, end of Week 2. Owned by the Sponsor and Program Lead. Attendees: the Sales team.
    • Sponsor opens with the announcement context, why this matters and the 90-day outcomes.
    • Program Lead walks one real deal through the four-step workflow live on screen.
    • Confirm the training schedule and take questions.
  2. 30-Day Review, Week 6. Owned by the Program Lead. Attendees: Sponsor, Program Lead, and the Sales team.
    • Is every Sales rep trained on the four-step workflow?
    • Are deals being tagged in CRM and registered through Marketplace?
    • What's stuck or slowing adoption?
  3. Monthly Marketplace Review, 15 min, ongoing. Owned by the Program Lead. Attendees: Sponsor and Program Lead.
    • The five numbers (trained, tagged, registered, Sponsor conversations, deals progressed).
    • One named win this month.
    • Anything stuck, escalate cleanly.
  4. 90-Day Retrospective, Week 13. Owned by the Sponsor. Attendees: Sponsor, Program Lead, and Sales leadership.
    • Walk through the full scorecard against the 90-day outcomes.
    • What worked and what didn't.
    • Decide: continue, expand to new segments, or change course.
Done well: All four dates on the calendar before the first training session is scheduled.
Phase 2 · Week 3–6

Get the Team Ready

Train Sales on the workflow and brief the supporting roles.

0/2complete

Marketplace adoption is mostly one small change to how Sales handles deals. Once reps know the four-step workflow, everything else follows. Use the WeTransact Marketplace Fundamentals training to get the Program Lead and any interested rep up to speed.

  1. Teach Sales reps the four-step workflow:
    • When a deal comes in, check whether the customer has a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC).
    • If they do, the deal can be transacted through Azure Marketplace and counts toward their MACC spend.
    • Qualify the deal as a Marketplace opportunity in your CRM.
    • Tag and register it so it counts for co-sell credit.
  2. Run the Sales session as 60 minutes, hands-on, every rep brings a live deal of their own and walks it through the four steps on screen, not on a slide.
  3. Make tagging and registering as light as possible, strip optional fields, keep it to two clicks. The smoother it is, the more reps will actually do it.
  4. Enrol the team in Marketplace Fundamentals Training, required for the Program Lead, recommended for any rep who wants the full course.
Done well: 100% of Sales know the four-step workflow. Every rep has tagged at least one deal during their own training session.

Finance and Marketing each touch the Marketplace flow in a small but specific way. Brief them once so they don't block deals later.

  1. Finance (30 min), walk through the Marketplace billing flow: how invoices come in, where they sit in the general ledger, and what's different from a direct sale. The finance team can read the full How Marketplace finance works tutorial for the complete breakdown.
  2. Marketing (30 min), show them how to flag accounts where the customer already has MACC budget to spend, so campaigns can prioritise those. The marketing team can also follow the full Marketing playbook for their own GTM motion.
Done well: Finance can answer billing questions from Sales without escalating. Marketing has a way to flag MACC-rich accounts in campaigns.
Phase 3 · Week 7–10

Measure & Sustain

Keep the program healthy after Week 6.

0/2complete

Five numbers tell you whether the program is working. The Program Lead can show all five on one slide, in under a minute, at any review.

  1. Reps trained, target 100% by Day 21.
  2. Opportunities tagged in CRM as Marketplace deals, target 5 or more by Day 30.
  3. Registration rate (tagged → registered through Marketplace), target above 80%.
  4. The Sponsor has at least one conversation a month with their Microsoft contact about Marketplace.
  5. Deals progressed or closed through Marketplace, target 1 or more by Day 90.
Done well: All five numbers on one slide, refreshed every week, ready before every monthly Marketplace review.

A blocker without a fixed format turns into a story. Three sentences, every time, so the Sponsor can decide in 60 seconds.

  1. What's stuck, one sentence. No history.
  2. Who decides, name the person.
  3. What happens if it isn't decided this week, one sentence, a real consequence.
  4. Send within 48 hours of the blocker appearing. Don't wait for the next scheduled review.
Done well: Blockers have a Sponsor decision within one week of being raised. No narratives, three sentences and a decision.