Do we need partners?

A channel partner is another company that helps you win or serve clients in exchange for a share of the money. It is never free: the partner takes a commission or a margin on every deal, its people need training and materials, someone on your side has to answer their questions, and its deals can collide with yours.

So the first question is not which partner but what problem a partner would solve. A partner earns its share only when it fills a specific gap in your own selling.

Klasna for Teams has a clear one. Marta's view: closing is not the problem; Veloria signed once Teams got into the room. The hard part is getting a first meeting with companies that have never heard of Klasna. That is a gap a partner can fill. "Three friendly companies at a conference" is not a gap, and "we could stop prospecting ourselves" is a wish: partners add to your own pipeline, they don't replace it.

A partner earns its share by bringing one of three things you lack.

• Reach: access to buyers you can't get to yourself. An HR software vendor used by hundreds of mid-size companies touches people Teams has never contacted.
• Trust: buyers already believe the partner, so its word lowers their risk before you say anything. Pavlo from Veloria put it plainly: Veloria bought its safety course because its logistics association recommended the provider, and nobody there reads cold emails from trainers. A recommendation from such a body works as proof, not just as a contact list.
• Delivery: the partner does part of the work you can't. A client may want a skills assessment run by an HR consultant before lessons start, or classes in a city where Klasna has no one.

Naming the gap tells you what kind of partner to look for and which model fits. A partner that brings none of the three is only a cost.

Partnerships differ in who sells, who signs the contract and whose client it is.

• Referral: the partner introduces a client; you sell, sign, deliver and pay the partner a commission. The client is yours. It is the lightest model to start with, because you keep the relationship and the price.
• Reseller: the partner buys your lessons and resells them under its own contract, at a price it sets itself. The client is the partner's; you may never meet the budget owner.
• Co-delivery: each side delivers part of one program, for example an HR consultancy runs the needs assessment and Klasna teaches. Each bills its part, or one bills both and pays the other.

To tell the models apart, ask two questions: who signs with the client, and who sets the price? If you sign and set it, it's a referral. If the partner does both, it's a reseller.

The models also leave different money. Start from Klasna's contribution on a direct sale: a lesson sells at 800 UAH, the tutor gets 430 and video and AI tools cost 31, so Klasna keeps 800 − 430 − 31 = 339 UAH.

• Referral at 10 %: the commission is a share of the price, not of the contribution: 10 % × 800 = 80. Klasna keeps 339 − 80 = 259 UAH.
• Reseller buying at 640: Klasna's revenue is 640, not 800, and its costs stay the same: 640 − 430 − 31 = 179 UAH. What the reseller charges its client doesn't change this.

Two slips to avoid. Taking 10 % of the 339 instead of the price gives 305, which understates the commission. And 720 or 640 are revenue figures, not what Klasna keeps. Always subtract the same delivery costs in every model.

A reseller leaves Klasna 179 UAH a lesson against 259 for a referral, so it looks like the worse deal. It isn't automatically. The 80 UAH gap pays for work Klasna doesn't do: the reseller finds the client, sells, signs the contract, bills, chases payment and carries the risk that the client pays late or not at all.

Whether that is worth it depends on volume and on what the work would cost you. A reseller that brings deals Teams would never reach can add more contribution in total than a referral partner that sends one introduction a year. A reseller that brings little leaves you a thin margin on almost nothing.

The trade-off has a second side: with a reseller you lose the direct relationship. You don't hear complaints first, and the renewal is the partner's conversation, not yours. Compare models on total contribution and on control, never on the per-lesson figure alone.

Partners multiply what already works; they don't fix what doesn't. Four situations say "not yet".

• You can't explain your best client. If you can't say who buys and why, a partner can't either. It will just bring you more of the wrong deals.
• The margin can't carry the share. If a deal after commission leaves less than it costs you to train and support the partner, every success loses money.
• The partner sells the same thing to the same buyers. An agency with its own English trainers selling to the same HR managers is, in Marta's words, a competitor with a contract.
• Nobody can support the partner. Someone has to train its people and answer questions. One partner you support beats five who forget you after the launch call.

The opposite case is a green light: an industry that buys only on its association's recommendation is exactly where a partner helps.

A partner decision goes in a fixed order, because each step depends on the one before.

1. Name the gap: reach, trust or delivery. It decides what kind of partner you need.
2. Check the margin: can a deal still pay for itself after the partner's share? At 259 UAH a lesson on a referral, Teams can; at a much lower figure it might not.
3. Pick the lightest model that fills the gap. If an introduction is enough, a referral beats a reseller: you keep the client and more of the money.
4. Agree how you'll judge it before the start: introductions, deals, contribution after commission and a review date.
5. Start with one partner, then decide whether to add more.

For Leo's three companies, this means not signing all of them this month, but answering one question first: which gap is Teams trying to fill?

A partner test needs measures agreed before it starts, or the review turns into an argument about impressions. Four measures cover it: introductions (did the partner open doors at all), deals (did those doors lead to signed contracts), contribution after commission (what Teams actually kept from those deals, after the partner's share) and a review date when you decide to continue, change terms or stop.

Contribution after commission is the one that settles it. Ten introductions that never sign cost Teams time and earn nothing; one signed client at 50 lessons a month on a 10 % referral leaves 50 × 259 = 12,950 UAH a month. Logos on a partner page or a friendly launch call measure activity, not results.

How it fits together: a partner is a paid answer to a named gap; the model and the money follow from that gap, and the measures tell you whether it worked. The next lesson takes five real candidates and scores them with weighted criteria.