AWS Marketplace

How AWS Marketplace sellers can use the COSS framework for a successful sales strategy

Selling in AWS Marketplace is a powerful way for independent software vendors (ISVs) to reach Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and meet their software needs. However, many ISVs struggle to determine how to design and execute a successful AWS Marketplace selling strategy. The characteristics of successful sellers (COSS) framework can help.

The COSS framework is comprised of six pillars that represent the best business and technical practices for a successful AWS Marketplace strategy. ISVs can use the COSS framework to improve how they prioritize and organize selling in AWS Marketplace. In this post, I define the six pillars of the COSS framework and explain how to use it. At the end of the post, you can use the provided assessment to determine how well your company aligns with the COSS framework today.

Prerequisites:

The follow are prerequisites to effectively using the COSS framework

How to use the COSS framework

The COSS framework was established by observing the actions, plans, and practices used by some of the fastest-growing and top-performing sellers in AWS Marketplace. The framework allows sellers to better inspect their business and identify opportunities that elevate their approach to AWS Marketplace.

Sellers can compare their current operation to the best practices defined in each pillar and identify opportunities for improving their motion. Each pillar includes a broad definition to identify the priorities most relevant to their go-to-market (GTM) motion. As sellers grow, they can use the COSS framework to evaluate how their AWS Marketplace strategy aligns with their expanded priorities.

The six pillars of the COSS framework

Pillar 1. AWS Partner Network (APN) programs

This pillar confirms that the seller uses the APN to engage with AWS customers, co-sells with AWS account teams, and uses partner marketing to provide a better-together message.

AWS Marketplace is part of the APN. Successful AWS Marketplace sellers use the APN to establish best practices for co-building, co-marketing, and co-selling so that they are fully enabled from a business and technical perspective to deliver quality solutions to AWS customers. You can use the APN to technically validate your solutions through mechanisms such as the AWS Foundational Technical Review, confirm that you can share and receive leads from AWS using AWS Customer Engagements (ACE), and provide incentives to the AWS field for successfully closing opportunities with the AWS ISV Accelerate program. The APN allows AWS Marketplace sellers to deliver differentiated value to customers and use curated programs and resources that deepen and diversify their offerings.

Pillar 2. AWS Marketplace product selection

Through product selection, a seller builds, lists, and goes to market with high-quality products that solve important use cases for the cloud buyer. They adopt key features to streamline the buyer’s experience.

Sellers strongly aligned with the selection pillar of the COSS framework list their most popular products in AWS Marketplace. Sellers also make sure that the products listed in AWS Marketplace are consistent with the offerings sold outside of AWS Marketplace. This is key to ensuring ISV field teams can easily expand their selling motions to AWS Marketplace. This also helps buyers find relevant solutions. As a result, sellers can use existing selling momentum so customers can buy products using AWS consolidated billing.

To help sellers streamline the buyer experience, AWS Marketplace develops features that solve specific pain points within the software buyer journey. You can use these features to simplify the buying process by incorporating them into your product strategy. For example, sellers can accelerate product evaluations and receive more qualified leads by implementing SaaS Free Trials, Request demo and Request private offer buttons in their AWS Marketplace listings.

Pillar 3. Operational excellence

This pillar confirms that the right systems, tools, and resources exist to manage, monitor, and report on the business at a global scale. It also allows sellers to organize and streamline processes.

Successful sellers prioritize investments that improve their operations and replace one-off processes with repeatable ones. First, sellers should inspect how they are organized to operate in AWS Marketplace to ensure responsibilities are not concentrated in one team or individual. They make sure that key teams across partnerships, sales operations, finance, and product have the correct access to AWS Marketplace and the relevant tools to streamline selling. Sellers who begin transacting at high volumes may use the AWS Marketplace Catalog API to automate the creation of private offers instead of relying on manual processes or switching between tools.

Sellers with excellent operations can report on the business at scale. They have trained critical finance and sales operations teams on how AWS Marketplace impacts their business and to autonomously access key insights. For example, sellers can access both agreements and renewals dashboards to visualize customer subscription data and monitor upcoming expirations. Then sellers can proactively streamline renewals with Future Dated Agreements.

To align with the operational excellence pillar, take advantage of published resources such as videos and documentation to troubleshoot and resolve operational issues. Combine these resources with your own documentation to answer commonly asked questions and define processes that eliminate operational ambiguity or errors.

Pillar 4. Partner commitment to AWS Marketplace revenue

This describes leadership’s commitment to transacting in AWS Marketplace and embracing all transaction types (channel, renewals, and net new). Partners commit to drive AWS Marketplace revenue as a meaningful percentage of cloud revenue. Partner executives can share strategies and goals to align with AWS.

Successful AWS Marketplace sellers establish and execute against AWS Marketplace revenue goals. They should align with the ISV’s overall financial goals and priorities for the year.

Successful sellers continuously identify how AWS Marketplace provides value to their business by analyzing how it impacts opportunities. They can develop the right key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure AWS Marketplace output and inform how they establish goals. A few ways sellers can analyze AWS Marketplace impact include comparing the average sales cycle, deal size, or the win rate of opportunities closed in AWS Marketplace compared with opportunities closed outside of AWS Marketplace.

It’s critical that the right ISV executives establish, report on, and inspect the goals. For example, when a seller’s chief revenue officer (CRO) aligns with AWS Marketplace goals and performance, the seller is better equipped to align and enable their sales teams to drive long term results.

Pillar 5. Sales alignment

This pillar describes the structural practices sellers implement to prioritize AWS Marketplace within their sales organization. Sellers use it ensure their sales teams have the right enablement and compensation to achieve AWS Marketplace goals. Sellers also use sales alignment to leverage channel programs to expand reach.

Sales alignment is critical for AWS Marketplace success. Successful sellers drive structural alignment between their field teams and AWS Marketplace by eliminating potential points of friction in their selling process. For example, sellers may implement a “comp neutral” approach that makes sure that their field representatives are compensated equally for all transactions, whether in AWS Marketplace or not. This eliminates blockers that might hinder a representative’s willingness to use AWS Marketplace. In some cases, sellers may also offer sales performance incentive funds (SPIFFs) or other incentives to help accelerate the adoption of AWS Marketplace from their field.

Successful AWS Marketplace sellers use Channel Partners to expand reach to customers. Chanel Partner Private Offers (CPPO) enables ISVs to authorize Channel Partners to resell professional services or software from AWS Marketplace. This provides customers the expertise and support of trusted Channel Partners combined with frictionless purchasing from AWS Marketplace. ISVs gain a greater ability to deliver solutions to customers.

If the channel drives a significant portion of your overall cloud revenue, you must prioritize the channel within your AWS Marketplace strategy. ISVs should identify which of their top existing Channel Partners are already authorized to resell software in AWS Marketplace. Then ISVs can authorize these Channel Partners to resell their products in AWS Marketplace and begin building the CPPO pipeline together.

Pillar 6. Enablement

Enabling teams through trainings accelerates your AWS Marketplace success and optimization.

Enablement is critical for making sure that all relevant teams within a seller’s organization are trained and optimized to use AWS Marketplace. Successful sellers practice ongoing enablement and integrate related resources into existing repositories of content. Some sellers provide training in AWS Marketplace to all new hires so that best practices are implemented on day one. Strong enablement should use a variety of mediums so that critical messages are relayed often and can be reviewed autonomously by teams at scale. Enablement is often needed to align finished work with the other pillars of the COSS framework. Enablement is an ongoing effort that needs continued attention and evolution.

Conclusion

In this post, I shared the six characteristics of successful AWS Marketplace sellers to help ISVs optimize their AWS Marketplace strategy. Now you can inspect your business using the COSS framework to improve how you use AWS Marketplace.

Evaluate your company’s alignment to the COSS Framework

Take the assessment provided to determine your company’s foundational alignment with the COSS framework. Answer the questions with “yes” or “no.” Award your company one point for every question you answered “yes.” Add up the points for each section to determine if your status is red, yellow, or green. Then use your results to help prioritize your next steps within your AWS Marketplace strategy.

Red Yellow Green
0-1 points 2-3 points 4+ points
Partner Programs
Are you an APN Partner ? Yes No
Do you have a completed and up to date Foundational Technical Review? Yes No
Are you ACE Eligible? Yes No
Are you enrolled in ISV Accelerate? Yes No
Do you have a defined partner plan that includes AWS Marketplace goals? Yes No
Total points (# of yes responses)
Status (red, yellow or green)
Selection
Are you listed in AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Is your top product listed in AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Do your products offered in AWS Marketplace match offerings sold outside of AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Does your listing leverage AWS Marketplace features to streamline the buyer experience like SaaS Free Trials, Vendor Insights or Request Demo/Request Private Offer? Yes No
Total points (# of yes responses)
Status (red, yellow or green)
Operational Excellence
Do you have defined and documented process for teams supporting AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Do key teams across finance, sales ops, product and partnerships all have defined access to AWS Marketplace through IAM? Yes No
Are you leveraging Agreements and Renewals Dashboards to visualize customer data and monitor upcoming subscriptions? Yes No
Have you implemented the ACE CRM Connector for a seamless integration across ACE and AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Does your AWS Marketplace model scale globally? Yes No
Total points (# of yes responses)
Status (red, yellow or green)
Partner commitment to AWS Marketplace revenue
Does your company have a revenue goal for AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Do you have a goal for % of cloud revenue you target to transact in AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Does your CRO carry or align to your AWS Marketplace goal? Yes No
Have you determined what KPIs measure AWS Marketplace success and verified how AWS Marketplace supports your business? Yes No
If you are focused on executing through Channel Partners, do you have a CPPO goal? Yes No
Total points (# of yes responses)
Status (red, yellow or green)
Sales Alignment
Are you practicing comp neutrality to ensure reps are paid equally for deals closed in AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Is sales leadership discussing AWS Marketplace on forecast calls? Yes No
Are all transactions available to be sold in AWS Marketplace including renewals, and channel? Yes No
Do your field teams have clear alignment between their sales framework and AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Have you scaled selling motions by pre-authorizing key channel partners to resell your software from AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Total points (# of yes responses)
Status (red, yellow or green)
Enablement
Have you hosted an enablement session on the value of AWS Marketplace for your field sales teams? Yes No
Do you have a defined enablement cadence for delivering AWS Marketplace training to key teams within your organization? Yes No
Have you built content to capture best practices and key relevant points for AWS Marketplace? Yes No
Do you have a defined strategy for compiling documentation related to AWS Marketplace for key teams? Yes No
Do you embed AWS Marketplace enablement into existing training and enablement programs? Yes No
Total points (# of yes responses)
Status (red, yellow or green)

About the author

Louise Strandoo is the head of the AMER AWS Marketplace Development team, a group of AWS Marketplace development managers. She has helped hundreds of ISVs develop list and sell in AWS Marketplace. In her spare time, Louise enjoys bike rides or walks with her husband and two dogs.