New on Forbes Business Development Council this week, the opening instalment in my Partnership Playbook series.
The worst channel partnership I ever signed looked perfect on paper. Strong regional presence. Experienced sales team. National footprint. Within six months, that partner had repositioned our product into a price bracket we’d spent two years building away from and confused two key accounts about what our company actually stood for.
Lost revenue was the least of it.
What cost more was time. Eighteen months of a key region sitting dormant because we’d granted exclusivity before we had the data. Months of correcting a positioning narrative that a misaligned partner had quietly reshaped across an entire network of architects and specifiers.
I wrote about five specific partnership mistakes I’ve made while building B2B distribution in the security industry. Not theory. Not frameworks. Actual errors, what each one cost, and what I’d do differently now.
The one lesson I keep coming back to: a partner who can’t explain your brand to your best customer without you in the room isn’t a partner. They’re a liability.
Read it here:https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcouncil/2026/04/21/5-channel-partnership-mistakes-that-cost-more-than-lost-revenue/
See post on LinkedIn:
Ali Aydan: 5 Channel Partnership Mistakes That Cost More Than Lost Revenue
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