Sales - Partnership Manager

About Project:
It is a mobile accounting app for sole traders, freelancers and self-employed workers — income, expenses and tax handled from a phone in minutes rather than evenings.
We sell to individuals, but the fastest way to reach them isn't one at a time. The UK's self-employed are already gathered — inside accountancy practices, trade bodies, gig platforms, umbrella companies, business banks and membership organisations. One agreement with the right partner can be worth more than a quarter of paid advertising, at a fraction of the cost per user.

The job in one line
You build the partner channel: find the organisations that already have our users, agree commercial terms with them, and turn those agreements into paying subscribers.

What you'll do

• Build the pipeline. Identify, approach and qualify partners: accountancy practices and bookkeepers, trade and professional bodies, gig and freelance platforms, umbrella and payroll companies, business banking and e-money providers, insurance brokers, franchise networks and training providers.
• Own the deal end to end. First contact, discovery, pitch, demo, commercial negotiation, close. Structure the terms that fit each partner: referral fee, revenue share, member discount, bundled offer or co-marketing.
• Make the accountant case properly. Practices are the biggest channel and the most sceptical — some will see a self-serve app as competition. Your job is the opposite argument: clients who arrive with clean, categorised records cost the practice less time and fewer chasing emails. If you can't make that case convincingly, this channel stays closed.
• Get partners live, not just signed. A signature is not a result. You own launch: co-marketing assets with Marketing, unique tracking codes and links, briefing the partner's own team, and the first 90 days of activity until the channel produces users.
• Be accountable for the right number. Partner-sourced paying subscribers, cost per acquisition through the channel versus paid, activation and retention rates of partner cohorts, and the count of partners actually producing above 30 sign-ups a month. Signed logos that deliver nothing are reported as such.
• Handle the paperwork properly. Referral and partnership agreements, data-sharing terms and DPAs, and marketing to partner member lists that complies with UK GDPR and PECR. Work with our legal adviser rather than around them.
• Keep the CRM honest. Every conversation, stage, next step and forecast in HubSpot / Pipedrive. Your forecast should be trusted, which means it can't be optimistic.
• Feed the business. Report what partners ask for that we don't have — features, reporting, white-label, integrations — with the revenue attached to each request.
• Represent us in person. Trade shows, accountancy and industry events, partner offices. This is a channel built on relationships, and it will require travel.

What we're looking for

• 3+ years in B2B sales, partnerships, channel or business development with a closing record you can talk through in detail — deals, values, cycles, what you did.
• Experience selling to or partnering with SMEs, professional services or membership organisations. Accountancy or fintech channel experience is a strong advantage.
• You've negotiated commercial terms yourself, not just passed leads to someone senior.
• Genuinely self-directed outbound: you're comfortable building a target list from nothing and making the first approach.
• Numerate — you can talk about revenue share, cost per acquisition and partner economics without hand-waving.
• Credible with both a sole practitioner accountant and a partnerships lead at a large platform.

Nice to have

• Sold into UK accountancy practices, bookkeepers or trade bodies specifically.
• SaaS or app channel/reseller experience, including revenue-share models.
• Understanding of [Self Assessment, VAT, MTD] and how practices actually work.
• Experience launching partnerships, not only signing them.
• Have been self-employed or run your own business.

Rapidum is an equal opportunities employer. We assess every application against the requirements above and nothing else.