"Partnerships increases your chances of success by over 60%": All About GTM Podcast, Episode 1: Yasmin Sharp (GoCardless)

As a go-to-market channel, partnerships are often the overlooked and misunderstood middle child compared to its siblings, sales and marketing.

As a former Partner Manager myself, I think effective partner management is the key to unlocking opportunities faster, and at scale. When you are seen as part of an ecosystem, your proposition is stickier and your chances of success increases to over 60% with one partner, and up to a whopping 80% when three complimentary businesses align their go-to-market, according to Yasmin Sharp, currently the VP of Business Development, Partnerships at GoCardless.

In the inaugural episode of the All About GTM Podcast, I invited Yasmin, a dear friend of mine, former colleague, and the undisputed guru when it comes to Partnerships. From her early days at Protex to her leadership roles at WorldPay, SAP and Dojo, Yasmin demonstrates how partnerships can amplify sales, strengthen customer loyalty, and drive innovation.

Watch our interview below:

You can also listen to this episode on Spotify here.

Resilience: Learning from the best

Yasmin’s story begins in Northwest London, shaped by a Persian mother who defied conventions to study art in Europe and an East End father who built a career as a self-made engineer. These influences instilled resilience and empathy, traits Yasmin exemplifies which are essential for success in partnerships.

“My father’s advice after a big night out when I was 17 - ‘If you can drink like a man, you can work like a man’ still guides me today,” Yasmin shared. This balance of grit and accountability forms the backbone of her leadership style.

Creativity: A secret weapon in Partnerships

With a degree in art history, Yasmin initially envisioned curating galleries. But a chance opportunity at Protex, which later became SagePay, revealed her knack for sales and partnerships. “A creative background helps you see standard partnership models differently, applying them uniquely to solve business challenges,” she explained.

Building a customer-centric partnership strategy

Her time at Protex taught her the value of understanding customer needs and building ecosystems to meet them. “Customer-centricity is the heart of my partnership strategy,” Yasmin said. Success in partnerships hinges on solving customer challenges. 

• Understand their needs and align partnership propositions to address them.

• Develop joint value propositions with partners to create a unified message.

• Prioritise metrics like churn, partner share of wallet, and shared revenue to measure success.

  
  

In competitive spaces like payments, differentiation is critical. Yasmin advises focusing on strong customer propositions. “Don’t just sell technology; sell solutions that solve real problems,” she noted. Her work at WorldPay involved mapping partner ecosystems and aligning them with customer needs to create compelling joint offerings.

Empathy: scaling partnerships at SAP

At SAP, Yasmin managed an ecosystem of over 300 partners globally. She pioneered a systematic approach, identifying product gaps and matching them with partner capabilities. “Building relationships is key in large organisations. I made it a point to introduce myself to 10 new people every day for six months,” she said.

As a former SAP Partner herself, she empathised with feeling like a “small cog in the big wheel that is SAP” and introduced a proactive approach to partnerships, where she was able to bring partners in to fill in gaps in the SAP proposition and initiate customer mapping exercises with her partners. 

Lessons for Startups

"If done well, startups can run entire businesses through partnerships," Yasmin boldly exclaims. She enumerates some tips for startups thinking of introducing a partner channel below:

1. Prioritise early: Start building a partner ecosystem from day one.

2. Be focused: Identify a few key verticals and players to target.

3. Invest in alignment: Ensure sales and partnerships collaborate, not compete. “Do not have competing sales and partnerships quotas!”

4. Leverage partnerships for growth: Use partnerships to unlock access to customers and build credibility.

   
   

“Partnerships take investment, but they’re a multiplier for growth,” Yasmin emphasised.

Partnerships success: It's all about people

Yasmin looks fondly at her time at Dojo, a business "built by exceptional people", particularly her team, who each exemplify the "holy grail" of partner managers: commercially-minded Partner Tech folks and equally, tech-literate commercial Partner Managers.

Now at GoCardless, Yasmin is set on building her team off the back of these principles, leveraging her 20+ years of experiences across sales, account management and partnerships to build new channels for the fintech giant, which is leading the charge in transforming bank payments for the digital age.

Thanks for your time and hope you enjoyed that interview! This is the first of a series of podcasts dedicated to everything GTM-related. I'll be featuring thought leaders from my network and will be covering diverse topics, from brand messaging to regulatory considerations for new market expansion, so please subscribe to the All About GTM podcast on Youtube and Spotify so you don't miss an episode.