Why our partner application comes in two parts
The first part is eight fields and two minutes. The second asks for turnover, headcount and a year-one commitment — and nobody should have to hand those to a vendor they have not yet decided about.
· 3 min read
Partner application forms have a habit. Before you have decided whether you even like the vendor, they want your annual turnover, your headcount, three references and a revenue commitment for next year. A serious business either abandons the form or fills it in with numbers it has not thought about — and neither is a good start to a relationship.
So the Rutba partner application is deliberately two parts, with a conversation in between the things that need trust and the things that do not.
The four steps
- Register your interest. Eight fields, about two minutes. We reply by email with a link to the application proper.
- Apply. Your market, your team and your finances — about fifteen minutes. It saves as you go, so you can leave it and come back.
- Talk it through. Thirty minutes, in both directions: what you sell today, what we have already sold in your region, and whether the fit is real.
- Agreement, then your first deal. Track, territory, lines, margin, targets and support — in writing, agreed before you start. We stay on your first pitches until one closes.
Nobody should have to hand their turnover to a vendor they have not yet decided about.
A link that expires, and a draft that does not
The link we email is a way back into your application, and like any such link it expires. What expiring does not do is lose your work. The draft is kept against your application, not against the link — so if yours has run out, you ask for a new one, it arrives straight away, and everything you had filled in is still there.
That sounds like a detail. It is the difference between a form somebody finishes over two evenings and one they abandon the first time their link lapses.
A Rutba account helps, and is never required
If you already have a Rutba account, the form offers to use it: your name and confirmed email arrive filled in, so there is one less thing to type and one less address to confirm. If you do not, nothing changes — the application works exactly the same without one.
We could have required sign-in to apply. It would have tidied our data and cost us every consultancy that would rather not create an account with a vendor it is only evaluating. One account across every Rutba site is there to make things easier for people who want it, not to gate the ones who do not.
What happens to the financial details
They are held by the partner team and nobody else, and they are used for two decisions: which track fits, and what credit terms make sense. We ask for statements only on the tracks where you hold the customer contract — reseller, implementation and distributor — and under NDA if you prefer.
