When you ask for their time, you’re competing against hundreds of partners and thousands of accounts.

Ask yourself: If you had a $50–200M million quota, how much time would you spend on a pitch with an unclear benefit?

That’s not cynicism—it’s math. And it explains why most first co-sell calls go nowhere.

What actually works: the 5-Minute Intro

The formula: Customer outcome → Cloud outcome (specific services) → Your outcome.

What’s your one-liner use case?

Skip features and jargon. Focus on customers.

“We reduce <metric> by <X%> in <N> weeks for <buyer persona>.”

“In <industry/geo>, we delivered <ROI/time-to-value>. Two recent examples: <1> and <2>”

Why should a seller care?

Translate how this makes the cloud provider win and tie it to consumption.

Does it drive new workloads? New line of business? Expansion of specific services? Helps with their AI story? Be explicit about their benefit, not yours.

“Workloads run on <Service>. Deal drives < e.g. AWS Bedrock> usage and < > hours.”

Emphasize that you transact through the marketplace, which is tied to their comp, helps customers burn commits, etc.

Who is your sponsor at this customer?

Prove you’ve done the work - already have traction in the customer and aren’t fishing.

What have you already done?

Champion mapped. Security review complete. Buyer path aligned to marketplace workflows.

What’s your ONE ask?

Account intel? Customer’s spend commitment? Help with POC? Procurement intro?

One ask per touch. Many asks = no action

3 principles that make this stick

1. About-YOU, not about-me

   Swap features for customer and cloud benefits. Refine to 2–3 short sentences.

2. Narrow scope

   Start with one deal + one vertical + one region + one repeatable use case. Don’t boil the ocean.

3. Right pitch, right room

   AEs care about revenue and speed. Engineers care about fit and risk. Procurement cares about time and terms. Keep the outcome constant; adjust the angle.

What kills your credibility

• Generic pitches across clouds

  Say the wrong service name and you’ve signaled you’re not serious.

• Broad account-mapping sessions

  Unless you’ve already closed together, sellers won’t spend hours theorizing. Show up with a qualified opportunity.

• Assuming your sales team “gets it” instinctively

  Even seasoned enterprise reps need training on hyperscaler economics and marketplace mechanics, if they don’t have previous cloud experience.

Most successful alliance leaders personally join the first seller calls to frame and de-risk the conversation. Then they hand-hold the first five to ten wins.

This is part of what we teach in our Cloud GTM Leader course. Next cohort starts in November.