Building Partner Marketing Inside a Transformation
Mercedes Villanueva didn't inherit a partner marketing function at Quest Software — she was hired to build one. She arrived in the middle of a full company rebrand, with a new partner program in the works and a mandate to close gaps fast. In this playbook, she shares how she approached the first 90 days: running fast discovery instead of long listening tours, prioritizing partner storytelling over program infrastructure, and designing for flexibility as a conscious operating principle — not a backup plan. She also breaks down Quest's bold move away from traditional partner tiers toward an outcome-based, AI-driven program built around the customer lifecycle. And she makes the case for something most partner marketers overlook: company-wide product literacy as a force multiplier for everything partner marketing does. Five plays, one theme — build things that actually drive partner behavior.
Build the Function, Then Build the Future
Most partner marketing leaders inherit something. Mercedes Villanueva came to Quest Software during a full company rebrand — no playbook, no existing function, just a suitcase full of ideas and a bias for action. Here's what she learned building partner marketing from the ground up inside a transformation.
Based on insights from Mercedes Villanueva Head of Global Partner Marketing, Quest Software Listen to Episode →
The Playbook:
Most partner marketers don't get to start from scratch. They inherit programs with legacy assumptions baked in — tiered structures that reward the wrong behaviors, partner content that pushes products instead of outcomes, enablement built around what's convenient for the vendor, not what the partner actually needs.
Mercedes Villanueva walked into something different: a company mid-rebrand, a partner program being rebuilt from the ground up, and a mandate to build a partner marketing function that didn't yet exist. No runway. Just the work.
What she's doing at Quest — and the way she's doing it — offers a blueprint for any partner marketer stepping into transformation. The lesson isn't just tactical. It's about how to think, how to prioritize, and how to build things that actually last.
Here are the plays.
Play #1: Resist the Urge to Move Fast Before You Know Where You Are
"As tempting as it may seem to immediately start jumping in and doing really fancy and complex things, I think that evaluating and assessing where you are and where you can drive the most value is imperative."
The takeaway: A quick, honest diagnostic — not a long-winded discovery process — is the right first move when you're building or rebuilding a partner function.
When everything around you is in motion, the instinct is to act. But acting before you understand the landscape means solving the wrong problems fast. Mercedes made a deliberate choice to do fast discovery — not slow discovery, not endless stakeholder interviews — before jumping into execution. The goal wasn't to understand everything; it was to identify the biggest gaps and the moves that would create the most leverage.
That distinction matters. In a transformation, you're not analyzing a stable system. You're analyzing something that's actively changing, which means the window to observe and orient is shorter. You don't need six months of listening tours. You need a clear-eyed scan: what's foundational, what's broken, and what will matter most to partners right now.
Why it matters for partner marketers: Jumping straight to programs without a diagnostic almost always produces misaligned content and misdirected spend. Knowing what partners actually need — before you build — is what separates programs that drive engagement from ones that sit unused.
Play #2: Partner Enablement Starts With the Story, Not the Spec Sheet
"Are we telling them the right stories and arming them with the right content? Partners don't think in terms of products and renewals. They think in terms of outcomes."
The takeaway: Before you build a partner program, make sure your partners can actually tell your story — and that the story leads with outcomes for their customers, not features in your portfolio.
This is one of the most consistently skipped steps in partner marketing. Companies invest in MDF programs, co-marketing infrastructure, and tiered incentives before they've answered the most basic question: can a partner stand in front of a customer and explain why your solution matters to them?
At Quest, the rebrand forced this question to the surface. Mercedes prioritized storytelling as foundational work — not just brand refreshing, but reorienting every partner-facing narrative around customer outcomes. If a partner can't clearly articulate the value of the solutions they're selling, no amount of incentive structure will drive consistent results. The story has to come first.
Why it matters for partner marketers: Content that leads with product specs creates sales friction. Content built around outcomes — what the partner's customer actually gets — accelerates deals and reduces the support overhead on your side.
Play #3: Flexibility Isn't a Soft Skill — It's a Program Design Principle
"Staying flexible is paramount. You don't own the customer, you don't own the partner, you don't own the product. You're in the midst of circumstances that you can influence, but you don't own."
The takeaway: In partner marketing, you're managing outcomes you can influence but not control — which means rigidity is the enemy of progress.
Mercedes reframes flexibility not as a personality trait but as a conscious operating principle. You don't own the customer relationship. You don't own the partner's pipeline. You don't even own the product roadmap. What you do own is how quickly you recognize when something isn't working and how fast you pivot. Getting too attached to a program, a campaign, or a framework — even one that took months to build — is a liability.
This applies directly to the over-orchestration trap. Partner marketers often build elaborate, multi-step programs when a simpler version would ship faster, test better, and deliver results sooner. The discipline is knowing when to simplify, not when to add complexity.
Why it matters for partner marketers: Partner programs that can't adapt to partner feedback, market shifts, or internal reorgs get abandoned — by partners and by internal stakeholders. Designing for flexibility from the start is what keeps programs alive long enough to prove value.
Play #4: Tier-Based Programs Reward Seniority. Outcome-Based Programs Drive Behavior.
"We're making a bold move to move away completely from tiers... We want to reward repeatable execution, reducing the cost to serve and really make it very simple."
The takeaway: Traditional tiered partner programs incentivize partner status, not partner performance. Quest is flipping the model to reward the behaviors that actually create customer value.
Gold/Silver/Platinum. Registered/Certified/Elite. Most partner programs are built around levels partners achieve over time — and once achieved, those tiers become entitlements more than motivators. The behavior you want from partners — active selling, customer lifecycle engagement, outcome delivery — isn't what tier-based systems are designed to drive.
Mercedes describes Quest's new program as built around BLAER motions: Build, Land, Adopt, Expand, Renew. Partners earn rewards by completing behaviors tied to customer success, not by accumulating certifications or hitting revenue thresholds in isolation. It's AI-driven, mobile-accessible, and designed for self-serve — removing friction at every step while putting investment behind the actions that move the needle.
Why it matters for partner marketers: If your MDF and partner rewards aren't tied to customer lifecycle behaviors, you're funding activity, not outcomes. Restructuring incentives around BLAER-style motions creates alignment between what partners get rewarded for and what actually retains customers.
Play #5: Company-Wide Product Literacy Is a Partner Marketing Advantage
"When you have an entire company that understands what you sell... you can be the biggest advocate and the biggest ambassador, no matter what you do."
The takeaway: When everyone in the company can tell your product story, it multiplies what partner marketing can accomplish — and Quest's CEO made it a guiding principle.
This one often gets overlooked because it sits outside the formal scope of partner marketing. But Mercedes calls it out specifically because it directly affects what partner marketers can achieve. When the CEO mandates that every employee understands what the company sells — and why it matters — the partner marketing function gains internal advocates who reinforce the message across every touchpoint. Social posts, customer conversations, sales calls, partner briefings: all of them land better when the whole company is aligned on the story.
The alternative — siloed functions where marketers say "I just do my piece" — creates fragmentation that partners feel. They get mixed messages. They don't trust the narrative. And they disengage.
Why it matters for partner marketers: Partner marketing can't carry the whole narrative alone. Building internal alignment on the company's story — and getting leadership to mandate it — is one of the highest-leverage moves a partner marketing leader can make.