Sales & Co-Sell playbook

Change needs a human driver. One person who owns the motion, answers questions, and pushes adoption internally.

1. Identify a seller who is genuinely bought into the Marketplace opportunity and motivated to invest in it.
2. Give them formal ownership: they train first on WeTransact, test on their own deals, report results back to the team.
3. They become the escalation point for all Marketplace and co-sell questions.

Microsoft charges ~3% on Marketplace transactions. Without adjustment, sellers earn less on Marketplace deals than on direct deals, an invisible negative incentive that will silently kill adoption.

1. Calculate the exact delta per seller for a typical deal size (e.g. $50K deal → $1,500 gap).
2. Frame it to Finance as a revenue enablement cost, not a comp increase: "We lose more in missed Marketplace deals than we spend on the parity adjustment."
3. Update comp documentation to explicitly state marketplace parity. Communicate clearly to the team, no ambiguity.

Our sellers need to identify at each pipeline stage whether a deal involves a Microsoft Managed Customer. Without this built into the CRM, marketplace opportunities slip through.

1. Add a required field at deal creation: "Is this customer in a Microsoft / Marketplace environment?"
2. Create conditional properties for each stage (MACC eligibility, Azure renewal date) that appear when flagged.
3. Configure stage-gate validation, sellers can't advance without confirming eligibility.
4. Today: manual check via Partner Center or WeTransact. Future: automated via CRM integration.

Your team can't sell what they don't understand. Fundamentals covers MACC, private offers, deal registration, and the WeTransact platform. It's a 4-week program : 4 hours dedicated to co-sell + 4 hours dedicated to reseller.

1. Register your Sales Champion and key sellers for WeTransact Co-Sell Fundamentals, next cohorts June · September · October.WeTransact Training
2. Make it a prerequisite before handling any Marketplace deals.
3. Explore the Video Masterclasses available directly in the platform.

Generic docs aren't enough. Sellers need cards that map Marketplace actions to your pipeline stages. Here's a starter template to adapt:

A Private Offer is your Marketplace closing tool. For every negotiated deal, it lets you extend custom pricing to a specific customer, directly in their Azure portal. Their purchase decrements their MACC commitment.

IP Co-Sell is the co-sell multiplier. Once eligible, your solution is visible to Microsoft's internal sellers and Microsoft AEs are incentivised to co-sell it with you. Most importantly: every customer with an active MACC commitment can purchase your solution directly through the Marketplace, consuming their pre-committed Azure budget at no extra cost to them. But the path depends on where you are today.

Microsoft sellers can't help you close deals they don't know about. Deal registration gives them visibility.

1. Guide: How to register a deal
2. Include accurate info: customer name, estimated value, close date, Azure/MACC context.
3. Monitor inbound referrals, these are signals from Microsoft.
4. Start before IP Co-Sell eligibility, the first Partner Center step enables referral sharing.

When a marketplace deal is identified, sellers need to contact the Microsoft AE fast. Templates eliminate friction.

1. Create email templates for introducing yourself and your deal to the Microsoft AE.📍Portal→Go to Market→Outreach Campaigns
2. Create Teams message templates for quick, informal outreach.
3. Store in a shared location (CRM, wiki, enablement tool).
4. Include guidance: first outreach vs. follow-up vs. referral response.

Subject: Co-sell opportunity, [Customer Name] · [Your Company]

Hi [AE First Name],

I'm [Your Name] from [Your Company]. I see you manage [Customer Name] and I wanted to connect, we're in active discussions with them around [use case / solution category].

They have an active Azure commitment and are interested in transacting through the Marketplace. I've registered the deal in Partner Center ([deal ID if available]).

Would you be open to a quick 15-min call this week to align on the approach? Happy to share the full deal context.

Best,
[Your Name]

Deal registration and outreach templates are inputs. This is the output: a real conversation with a Microsoft AE on a shared deal. That's the signal the motion is working.

1. After registering your first deal, follow up proactively with the assigned Microsoft AE via Outreach Campaigns.
2. Share deal context: customer, MACC status, your solution fit, expected close date.
3. Ask for their input: "Are you working with this account? Can we align on the approach?"
4. Log the conversation in your CRM, this is now a co-sell opportunity.

An inbound Microsoft referral is one of the strongest Marketplace signals, the AE is pushing an opportunity to you because they think your product is the right fit. Unofficial SLA: 24–48h max. Beyond that, the AE moves on to a competitor.

1. Set up alerts in Partner Center (or WeTransact) to be notified immediately of every new inbound referral.📍Partner Center→Referrals
2. Qualify the referral quickly: check whether the account has an active MACC (strong buying signal via marketplace), assess urgency, and identify the customer champion.
3. Respond to the Microsoft AE within 24h, confirm pick-up and propose a clear next step (call, demo, or private offer).
4. Create a co-sell deal linked to the referral so it stays tracked in Partner Center and the AE can see you're moving forward.
5. If the account has a MACC, immediately position the purchase via marketplace as MACC-decrementable, this is the argument that accelerates the decision on the customer side.