In this episode, Vladan talks with Sandra Mittica — Partnerships Manager at Deel. Sandra started her career in the creative industry (she was a producer on Angry Birds), founded her own company, and has worked in partnerships for the past decade. She moved to the Netherlands in 2021 and joined Deel in 2024 as Partnership Manager for Benelux, where she attained 258% of her quota and earned the French region, the Nordics and strategic alliances in her portfolio. Topics: what a partnership manager actually does, the different types of partnerships, targets and KPIs, her secrets for overperforming, and why Deel’s partnership team — 1% of headcount — drives 25% of global revenue.
Vladan: Welcome everyone. In our podcast today we have Sandra Mittica. Sandra started her career in the creative industry and then founded her own company. For the past decade she has worked in partnerships, and in 2021 she moved to the Netherlands. In 2024 she joined a company called Deel as the Partnership Manager for the Benelux region. She attained 258% of her quota, and because of that she got the French region, the Nordic region and strategic alliances added to her portfolio. Welcome, Sandra.
Sandra: Thank you, thanks for having me. Good morning.
Vladan: Good morning. Also — Sandra is fluent in French, Finnish, English, Spanish and German. So I think if the EU was a person, this is what she would look like, basically.
Sandra: Yeah, I’m quite multicultural. Thanks for having me this morning.
Vladan: And for the people who are not sure what a partnership manager does at all — can you help us understand?
Sandra: So, I’ve done a bunch of jobs. I think I’m a jack of all trades, and this is why being a partnership manager really suits me. Partnerships is sales-related, but you can decide how you do partnerships. For me, today, Nobel is a partner — I have partners who refer business to my company. Let’s say we do lead generation together: partners introduce their clients to me, we have a similar ICP, and then I introduce the clients to our sales team. So it’s like indirect sales. You have a big network that you tap into to be able to sell.
Vladan: Nice. So summarized: it’s not direct sales, it’s selling through other companies that have similar customers.
Sandra: Correct. And why I said I’m a jack of all trades: I’ve done different professions, and in partnerships it’s really good if you have a little bit of knowledge of everything. How to do events, how to do marketing, how to do sales, how to do upsells — also a little bit of customer support, I want to say. I think that helps me today in my job.
The partnership landscape explained
Vladan: It sounds a bit like recruitment, actually. So in partnerships you have all these different roles — we’ve recruited a lot of partner sales professionals as well. You have alliances, channel, strategic partners, integration partners, reselling partners, affiliates. Can you help us quickly understand the landscape — what’s the difference between all these things?
Sandra: Yeah. So, affiliates are the annoying Instagram ads you click on — basically the influencer who says she loves the green smoothie but is getting paid for it. Then resellers are obviously people who resell your solution. Think of a company like Microsoft, who gets — I want to say — 95% of their revenue from their partner ecosystem reselling their solution.
Vladan: Oh wow, that’s massive.
Sandra: Then you have white label partners — our friends Coco Roco, for instance, in the Netherlands, who work with us both: they sell my company’s solution, but they’ve put their own logo on it. And channel partners are partners who send business to us through referrals, which is very, very common — I think it’s the most common type of partnership.
Then we have brand partners. That’s something I don’t really do, but it’s when two big brands work together, promote each other and push each other up.
Vladan: More on the marketing side, maybe.
Sandra: More on the marketing side, yeah. KLM, for instance, has great branding partnerships — when you see ads with brand X, Y, Z, those are partnerships between different brands. And then VC partners as well, in my field. As we know, there are a lot of early-stage companies raising funds, and they work with VCs who help them grow — giving them advice, introducing them to their network. We have that a lot at Deel: VCs contact us because their portfolio companies need to grow abroad, and that’s what we do.
Vladan: Interesting. And what about integration partnerships — is that where software companies integrate?
Sandra: It’s a big one — I forgot! It’s basically tech companies who work together. For instance, in your job as a recruiter, you need an applicant tracking system, right? Let’s say Deel has its own system, but we work with other companies, like Teamtailor, the Swedish applicant tracking system — where when you send a CV, it gets all your details into the HR system, and the hiring manager is able to filter candidates. Or when you integrate with a spend management company, like Pleo, and it connects the expense data with the HR data of an employee.
A day in the life
Vladan: Thanks for explaining that. And what about your role — what does it look like from a day-to-day perspective? Take me through a day in the life of Sandra.
Sandra: Like I said earlier: how you do your job in partnerships — obviously depending on your employer — is up to you. If I take my current job: I have P&L responsibility for the Benelux and the Nordics and some top strategic accounts. How I get there is up to me, and that’s something I really like, because everybody in my company is a highly achieving professional. What I excel in — and I think that’s something you know really well — is networking. I’m a social butterfly, doing events. So that is my strategy.
Vladan: Can confirm.
Sandra: My day-to-day — I love it. It’s multitasking, it’s very busy, I have a million different little tasks. I start my day looking at data, which is very important. To be successful, you need to know at all times: how am I tracking towards my KPIs? How are my partners performing? How can I help them grow if they’re not performing as I forecasted? Then I’ll do a bunch of calls — I’m still a salesperson at the end of the day — where I talk to my partners about how I can help them and their network, and vice versa. And then I plan events: every quarter I have roughly ten events, almost per region. That’s a lot of events.
I’m also a producer by background — did you know I used to work on Angry Birds? I was a producer for that company. I worked with the audio team, and with the whole animation team — Angry Birds made a movie, there was a TV show — and I worked through the production pipeline as a producer. I think that’s helped me a lot in my job. It’s really project management.
Vladan: Yeah, 100%.
Sandra: Most of my day is project management, I would say.
Targets and KPIs in partnerships
Vladan: So you start your day with data, you do a lot of networking and calling — basically a traditional sales role in that regard as well. And what are your targets — how are you held accountable?
Sandra: I want to say something that’s changed for me. When we first met, 15 months ago, I was a partnership manager that prospected, like in sales. I prospected to find my own partners, I onboarded them, then I activated them — I taught them about our product, I trained their sales team, I enabled them. And then I made sure they sent us the first referrals, and we grew into a strategic partnership. My targets then were: how many new partners do I get on board in my regions? Then there’s always an annual revenue or ARR target every quarter — annual recurring revenue — and how many sales qualified opportunities I’m bringing forward. Meaning: the partner sent me a lead who needs my product, I’ve referred them to my sales team, the sales team has booked a demo, and there’s a purchasing need within 12 months.
As our program has grown — when I started we were 15 partnership managers; we’re like 40 now, in 15 months — I’ve become more strategic. We now have somebody who onboards the new partners, somebody who activates them, and I get partners who already know about us, so I can run initiatives that drive more revenue. Today my targets are still annual revenue and sales qualified opportunities. But what I find really good: there’s also a revenue component for how much business I send back to my partners. It’s called support ARR. I think that’s important, because partnerships is a collaboration. Often people say, “oh, can we have a partnership?” And I’m like — you mean you’re trying to sell me something? You want my money, but you’re not giving back? That’s not partnerships.
Vladan: Interesting. I love how pragmatic those targets are — around SQLs, around ARR, around new partners. Super performance-driven.
Sandra: Tangible. You can’t cheat the numbers.
Vladan: And what is your target in terms of ARR, ballpark?
Sandra: Per quarter it is mid six figures. So I would say, depending on the company, I’m like a mid-market AE. But the thing is, the revenue is out of my control — I can activate my partners, they can send me referrals, but then I hand it over to my sales team. Luckily, our sales teams are rock stars.
Vladan: They need to be — otherwise you won’t reach your targets. And how are you performing against those targets currently?
Sandra: Really well — knock on wood — like literally every quarter. As a salesperson, maybe some people are more relaxed, but you know me: I’m a very high-wired, not very relaxed person. Even though I’m chill and cool, I’m always high energy, so I’m always like: how am I going to make it? Last year, like you said, I was at something ridiculous like 278% attainment. I didn’t see it coming — I guess I always have a component of self-doubt, which is healthy to a certain extent. This last quarter I was at 170%. And this quarter I’m again thinking I’m never going to make it — right now I’m at 20% to target.
Vladan: But that usually changes a lot in the last month.
Sandra: Exactly. Every quarter at this time — we’re six weeks in, it’s the summer holidays — I’m like, I’m never going to make it. And then it always works out, and my boss laughs: why are you still stressing?
Vladan: I think that’s actually a quality of a high performer — that you stress about it, that you have a little bit of self-doubt. I think it’s inherently baked into the personality of a top performer.
“You want my money, but you’re not giving back? That’s not partnerships.”
The secrets behind overperforming
Vladan: And what are your secrets — what are you doing to achieve those targets, or to overperform on them?
Sandra: I never walk into things thinking it’s going to be easy. The self-doubt we talked about is a thing. My operations person, Ali — I’ll send him the recording, he’ll have a laugh — he said, “Congratulations, you just ended the quarter at 170.” And I was like, “Yeah… I really wanted to be at 180 minimum.” He was like, “Jesus, Sandra.” And then he said, “That’s what makes you a star performer.” So I’m demanding — I always want to do more. That’s one of the things.
Being creative is super important. I don’t do things by the book, as you know — I try to think a little bit outside the box. I’ll give you an example. As soon as we have a meeting with a partner, we use Gong, which records sales calls. I’ve put in search words — the word “Pleo,” for example, our spend management partner. Every time somebody at Deel mentions it, I now get a notification on Slack. And then I write to that AE — that I’ve probably never met, because we’re 7,500 people in the company — and say: “Hey, I noticed you mentioned our partner. Do you need a reference from an AE at Pleo to close your deal faster?” I message Pleo, they message the prospect — boom, and this counts as support for my partners. So it’s thinking of tricks. Our targets change, things change, but there’s always thinking outside the box.
And then — positivity is super important. If you’re not a winner every time you wake up to tackle your day, you might as well do another job. Optimism. What I like is that since we’re all P&L responsible, we all contribute to the common goal of the company — and I think that’s important when you’re trying to motivate people: feeling like you contribute is super important.
And then I try to find out: who are you as a partner? What is important for your targets? How can I help you reach your goal, how can you get recognition in your company? And then we come up with solutions to get it done. I like to do fun stuff — I loved that we had this boat cruise. With one of our partners we went to a ball pit, a play arena. I just tried to get one of my partners to go to Silverstone — F1 racing. Nobody’s done it at Deel yet. I got the okay from the sales team to go last month, but then the partner couldn’t deliver the enterprise clients in time. I’m still going to try next year to go to F1 and take my partner. So: do stuff that’s out of the ordinary.
Vladan: Exactly. And if I can add to that — because we’ve worked together a lot, so I’ve experienced it first-hand, and it might be an obvious one — you’re really hardworking. You put in the hours, you put in the effort, you’re always on. That’s of course also super important to be successful. And additionally, you can chase very elegantly. When you want something from a partner, you need to chase them — they have busy lives, their own agendas and priorities. But you do it in a way that’s elegant, not annoying, and still effective. That’s a skill that’s important for every salesperson.
Sandra: You’re right — I think it’s being diligent. It’s again project management: you can’t just wait for people to remember you. And it’s important if you need to get stuff done.
“If you’re not a winner every time you wake up to tackle your day, you might as well do another job.”
Finding partners and building relationships
Vladan: Then a few practical questions. How do you find and close new partners — what’s your process?
Sandra: We have a very clear ICP of what a great partner is for the business. At Deel, some of our top partners are professional services — legal, tax, accounting — or recruitment partners such as yourself; you’re my recruitment partner in several regions. Then we have tech. And I’m very old school — I’m not the most tech-savvy partnership manager. People would say “go into LinkedIn Sales Navigator” or whatever; I basically just Google it or look on LinkedIn. Very old school.
Vladan: Love that. And what’s your approach to maintaining relationships with partners — how do you get the most out of partnerships?
Sandra: As you know, I’m not traditional in a lot of things, and maybe other people are more strategic — nowadays I have to be, because I have the biggest book of business in EMEA and APAC in our company. But for me it’s based on human relations. I’m a people person. I love other people, I thrive on connecting with people — I get energy from it. So for me it’s: how do I get along with you? What do we have in common outside work? Do we have the same way of thinking? Are we motivated to do things together? I filter my partners, to start with, on their willingness to be successful and to collaborate — because even if you’re a great brand, if you’re not motivated to do anything, then we’re not going to go anywhere.
Nowadays it’s a bit different, because I have so many partners and still the same amount of time — I’m just one person. So I ask my partners: what is their strategy? How can we help them differentiate from their competitors — can we bring them a competitive advantage? Can we help them sell our products in a bundle? Do we incentivize their sales team as well, so they’re not the only ones getting the rev share? And coming up with outside-the-box ideas. Right now I’m working with a partner on having them sell a suite of products at a discounted price. I first go to their office, I teach their sales team how we can work together — what our product is, what our top clients and top prospects are, who we want to onboard — and then we work through it together. I’m almost in their team, and then we make sure we can co-sell and co-market together.
Vladan: Nice — that must be the ultimate partnership goal, to almost feel like you’re working in the same team. And I can also imagine: if you focus on the right partners — same as a great sales rep who knows how to focus on the right opportunities likely to close, instead of running after every little opportunity.
Sandra: Yeah. And I think the difficulty in my current position: our company sells to SMBs, mid-market and enterprises, and I had the highest revenue target in EMEA and APAC. So I thought: instead of selling our smallest-priced product, I will sell global payroll — which is obviously a product where the sales cycle is a lot longer, but the revenue is bigger. So right now I’m thinking about how I can focus on selling global payroll, and how I can do it in a way that’s constructive.
Vladan: Fair enough.
Sandra: One of my colleagues in the UK did an event: “learn about global payroll and drink wine.”
Vladan: Perfect. Invite people to drink wine — it always works. And forget all the learnings afterwards.
Sandra: Exactly. Global payroll is a very complex topic anyway — as long as you get the basics.
Why Deel’s partnership strategy works
Vladan: Then a question around the partnership strategy of Deel. You mentioned once to me that the partnership team is 1% of the global headcount, but they produce 25% of the global revenue. That sounds super efficient. Why is the strategy working for Deel, do you think?
Sandra: There are several components. When you’re an SMB, a startup, thinking about raising money, you’re like: why should I start partnerships now? You’re raising money, thinking about product-market fit, your USP. But that’s already when you should start thinking about partnerships — and that’s something Deel has done. Deel is six years old, and they’ve had partnerships for four years. They integrated partners right away. They grew through their partner ecosystem — not just product-led growth, but ecosystem growth. For instance: you’re a startup thinking, “now I need an accountant, now I need a lawyer, I need this and that.” Do you need that overhead cost, or can you do that through your partners? Maybe you grow with your partners, through your partners.
Something that was very important for us — we talked about tech partners earlier — is making sure we have connectivity between our data systems. We made sure — and I’m not a tech person — that our data can be shared with other companies from the get-go. We didn’t build our product closed; we built it to connect with other systems.
Vladan: So it’s built with that in mind, basically.
Sandra: Exactly — and we can grow faster. And like you said: 1% of our headcount is partnerships, and last year that was 25% of the revenue. Now the goal is 30% — it’s very ambitious. I think we have a really good strategy because we have seven different types of partnerships, so we’ve diversified. And we have very high targets — I’m not going to lie. Very high targets means we’re really performing. We have to perform; we’re a high-performance company. And I think that’s it.
Vladan: Nice. Well, thanks a lot, Sandra, for being here.
Sandra: A pleasure. Thank you.
Vladan: If you want to follow Sandra, make sure to add her on LinkedIn or give her a follow there. If you like this podcast and this content, then make sure to subscribe — on Spotify as well. And stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you.
Sandra: Thank you. Bye.
