There’s something different happening in business.
People are sharing.
Not just a basic tit for tat, quid pro quo. Companies are beginning to open up. They’re beginning to default to a sharing mindset, not just skeptically sharing when pushed. They are baking it into their processes and strategies.
What began as a few salespeople from different companies asking each other for info has become a bi-directional substrate for business. So much so that a new type of SaaS platform has been born to facilitate it.
Companies like Reveal are quietly building the infrastructure for a world of collaborative distribution.
Systems that exchange, change
When exchange occurs, systems evolve and adapt, and new systems emerge.
Cultural exchange through trade and migration results in new forms of commerce, cuisine, music, art, and language. Biological exchange through the migration or introduction of new species creates new ecosystems. Information exchange online creates new ideas and movements.
The exchange of data between businesses has the same transformational effect. Once it begins, business as usual is off the table. Something new will inevitably evolve.
The sacred data silo
Software companies seek and protect data like a trove of treasure. The race to collect and connect it to ever more efficient automation got companies looking inward, dragon-like over their hoard.
When customers started to get stingier about sharing their data, platforms and regulators started to get stingier too. Increased legal and PR risk made companies even more protective.
Meanwhile, those on the front lines marketing, selling, and supporting the software needed more data. But not just data. They needed context. They needed understanding. They needed the ability to collaborate with those outside of their company to better see and address problems and pains faced by buyers and users.
They needed information from partners.
The era of ecosystems
As sales and marketing have begun to transform into a more complex and collaborative process, the data demands have changed.
The thing is, the communities and ecosystems in which customers live have all the data needed.
The problem is, that data doesn’t live in any one place. Every company and community has access to a few slices, but nobody has enough on their own to really understand and solve customer problems fully.
How to bridge the disparate parties involved so that they can share and collaborate to learn and solve problems together in the era of ecosystems?
You go first
Early efforts to swap data on customers and prospects were valuable, but limited. Individual sales reps, for example, might ask a partner company for information, but the partner company might worry that they’d give too much or get nothing in return.
A stand-off might occur. Neither party wanted to volunteer their info without some kind of guardrails, and trust that they could also gain insight from the other party. Managing this by trading spreadsheets had too many gaps, security issues, and complications.
Both parties still wanted to find the useful overlap between accounts, but neither knew how to do it.
Revealing the gold
Reveal was founded in 2020 with the goal of unlocking the power of data sharing. The founders wanted to break down walls between companies. They wanted to make the world more collaborative.
By allowing partnering companies to connect their respective CRMs to Reveal, they can see shared data, identifying common accounts and opportunities for collaboration quickly and securely.
Not only can companies share with their partners, Reveal opens up a much wider set of possibilities. They can expand their ecosystem by exploring new potential partners and new opportunities for sharing.
Outsourcing anxiety
As partnerships have gained traction as a Go-To-Market strategy, the primary roadblock to this kind of collaboration has shifted from competitive fear to regulatory fear. No one wants to run afoul of laws around data use and access.
The ability to offload that fear to Reveal and let them ensure compliance has led to the blossoming of data sharing across companies. The sharing economy is just revving up.
Win, win, win
Companies that can share data and find overlaps win. That’s not hard to see. But customers and prospects win too.
The sheer volume of noise in the information age is staggering. Nobody wants more ads or emails. People want solutions, and they want nodes of trust to help them discover those.
Shared data is the first step towards partnered sales, marketing, and support. For customers, that means less generic info blasted in their face about every individual software solution. It means more thoughtful, personalized, collaborative outreach about their specific tech stack. It means they can access more and better joint solutions through fewer distribution channels.
And maybe find just a bit more peace and quiet.
1 + 1 = 3
The beauty of partnerships is they are additive. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
If you’ve ever watched a great sports team - not just a roster with lots of individual stars, but a team with chemistry - you’ve seen this in action. Each player elevates the other to a level they couldn’t be on their own. The mutual interdependence has a beauty to it.
Partnering companies have the ability to create new value - value unavailable to either of them individually. Rather than fighting over who gets what pieces of the pie, partnering allows all parties to put their specialties to work and co-create a larger pie.
This only works when you’re not afraid to share ingredients and recipes.
But boy does it work.
Reveal says that, on average, their clients have a 43% win-rate increase, 41% deal size increase, and a 2x increase in revenue.
Get me some of that pie.
From the boardroom to the world
The shared-data revolution is reshaping business.
As it works its way into systems and strategies, it will bleed into company culture, mission, and vision. It will alter the dominant framework employees bring to their work.
And it will spread beyond the walls of the company.
Seeing individuals and organizations around you first and foremost as potential collaborators, rather than threats, has a subtle yet profound effect on more than company revenue. It represents a shift in the way humans operate.
Reveal is relentlessly focused on helping companies collaborate. Along the way, don’t be surprised if collaboration takes on a new importance in the broader world.
Be fab, collab!
We’re proud to partner with Reveal and offer PartnerHacker members three months of Reveal for free, via our marketplace.
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