Partner Account Manager

Overview

You manage relationships with 15-25 regional Value-Added Resellers (VARs) who sell KnowBe4's security awareness training and email security products alongside other cybersecurity tools. You're not selling directly to end customers—you're working through partners who have existing relationships with IT decision-makers. Your job is making sure KnowBe4 gets prioritized when partners are building security stacks for their clients.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Mature/Public-stage company (2,387 employees)

Size: Large, established cybersecurity vendor

Growth: Stable growth phase - focusing on channel expansion vs explosive hiring

Market Position: Market leader in security awareness training, competing in a crowded but growing space

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 70-80% Partner-led - VARs bring opportunities from their existing customer base
• 15-20% Deal registrations - Partners register deals they're working, you assist
• 5-10% Co-selling - You identify opportunities in partner accounts and push them to the partner

Partner Ecosystem: Mature channel program with established VARs, MSPs, and regional integrators. These partners already have relationships with IT buyers and sell multiple security products.

Internal Support: You work with partner marketing for co-branded campaigns, deal desk for special pricing, and field AEs when partners need technical help closing.

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Proofpoint, Mimecast, Cofense (email security), and various security awareness platforms. Partners often sell competing products.

How They Differentiate: KnowBe4 is known for comprehensive training content and phishing simulation. They're a recognized leader but compete on features and price like everyone else.

Common Objections: "We already have awareness training in our stack," "Customer wants a unified platform," "Your competitor offered better margins."

Win Themes: Breadth of training library, ease of deployment, brand recognition with end customers, partner margins and incentives.

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Partner Relationship Management (35%) | Deal Support (30%) | Demand Gen Planning (20%) | Internal Coordination (15%)

Key Activities

• Quarterly Business Reviews with partners: You review their pipeline, closed deals, and plan joint initiatives for next quarter. These are 1-2 hour calls where you're negotiating priorities—partners sell 10+ vendors, you need to be top 3.

• Deal registration review and support: Partners submit deal registrations to get protected margins. You review 5-15 per week, approve/reject, then help them strategize on positioning, pricing, and competitive displacement.

• Joint demand gen planning: You work with KnowBe4's partner marketing team to run co-branded webinars, lunch-and-learns, or email campaigns to the partner's database. Most of these underperform expectations.

• Partner enablement and training: You're constantly training partner sales reps on new products, competitive positioning, and how to demo. Partner rep turnover is high, so you're re-training the same organizations every 6-12 months.

• Salesforce hygiene and forecasting: You track partner pipeline, update deal stages, and forecast partner-sourced revenue. Your director wants weekly updates on what's moving and what's slipping.

• Travel to partner locations: 25%+ travel—you're visiting partner offices for training sessions, joint customer meetings, or strategic planning. Expect 1-2 trips per month, often to secondary markets.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You don't control the sale: Partners prioritize vendors who pay the best commissions or have the easiest sales motion. If a competitor offers better spiffs that quarter, your deals dry up. You're constantly selling internally to partners, not just to end customers.

• Partner rep churn kills momentum: You spend 3 months building a relationship with a partner rep, getting them trained and ramped, then they leave. Their replacement has different vendor relationships and you start over.

• Conflict with direct sales: Sometimes KnowBe4's direct AEs are working the same account as your partner. You have to navigate internal politics about who gets credit and whether to let the partner lead or have direct take over.

• Attribution battles: Partners claim credit for deals that were already in the direct team's pipeline. You spend time in Salesforce figuring out who actually sourced what and negotiating splits with field sales managers.

• Most partners underperform: You'll have 3-5 partners who drive 70% of your results. The rest talk a big game in QBRs but don't execute. You can't fire them (they're partners), so you just shift focus.

What Success Looks Like

• You hit $3M+ in partner-sourced pipeline per year with 20-30% converting to closed-won revenue
• 3-5 of your partners are actively selling KnowBe4 every month and hitting their joint targets
• You grow partner-sourced revenue 15-25% year-over-year in your territory
• Partners renew and expand their KnowBe4 commitments because you're delivering value (training, deal support, co-marketing ROI)

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers (Partner-side):

• Partner sales reps and account managers (you're convincing them to sell KnowBe4 vs other options)
• Partner sales leadership (VP Sales, Sales Director - you're negotiating joint business plans)

End Customer Buyers (partner manages, you assist):

• IT Directors, CISOs, Security Managers
• Compliance officers in regulated industries

What Partners Care About:

• Margins and commissions - they're selling what pays best
• Ease of sale - simple demos, fast deal cycles, high win rates
• Your responsiveness - if they need pricing or support and you're slow, they move to another vendor
• MDF and co-marketing funds - they want you to fund their demand gen

Requirements

• 3+ years in channel sales or partner management, ideally in cybersecurity or B2B SaaS
• Track record of managing regional VAR/MSP relationships and driving partner-sourced pipeline
• Experience working cross-functionally with marketing, channel programs, and field sales teams
• Salesforce proficiency for tracking partner pipeline and deal registrations
• Willingness to travel 25%+ to partner offices and joint customer meetings
• Comfortable with the ambiguity of indirect sales—you influence but don't control the customer relationship