What Marketing and Co-Selling Support Should You Expect From a Master Agency?

Why Do Most Advisors Get Collateral Instead of Pipeline?

It says the effort is widely considered important and widely considered ineffective at the same time. The Channel Company's survey of 151 solution providers found that 71% consider marketing critical to their company's future, while 60% describe the strategic impact of their own marketing as only somewhat effective or totally ineffective (The Channel Company, October 2025).

Co-selling is the piece with a clearer track record. Omdia research reported in June 2026 found that 37% of channel partners now co-sell with a vendor almost always, up from 10% in 2022. Among the 36% of partners identified as active co-sellers, more than two-thirds said co-selling increased both deal size and close rates (Omdia, via Channel Dive, June 2026).

That is the most useful number in this whole conversation. Co-selling has measurable effect on deal size and close rate among the partners actually doing it. Content libraries do not have a comparable body of evidence behind them. When you're deciding what to ask a distributor for, ask for the thing with the data.

What Should Real Marketing Support From a Distributor Include?

Six things, and a distributor should be able to name a specific person accountable for each:

1. Co-selling presence. Someone from the distributor joins your customer calls to carry the technical and supplier-side conversation, so you stay in the relationship seat.
2. MDF access without a producer threshold. Funding available to partners at your volume, with an application process a person without a marketing department can complete.
3. Named opportunities. Demand generation that hands you a specific company, a specific contact, and a specific reason they're in market.
4. Supplier introductions with context. A warm introduction to a supplier's channel team, with your positioning explained, rather than a contact address.
5. Content you can put your name on. Material that works under your brand for your audience, and that you have permission to modify.
6. Event and campaign execution support. Someone who runs the mechanics when you don't have a person to run them.

Items one, two, and three are the ones that produce pipeline. Items four through six are useful and easier for a distributor to deliver, which is why they are usually what gets offered first.

How Do You Test a Distributor's Marketing Support Before You Commit?

Ask five questions and listen for specificity rather than enthusiasm:

1. What is the minimum production level to qualify for MDF, and what percentage of your partner base actually clears it?
2. In the last quarter, how many co-sell calls did your team join with partners at my volume?
3. When you say you generate leads, what exactly do I receive, a list, a named contact, or a meeting?
4. Who specifically would I work with on marketing, and what else are they responsible for?
5. Can I talk to a partner roughly my size about what they've actually received?

That last one is the whole test. A distributor with real support at your tier can produce a peer to vouch for it. HonestStok's position is that MDF works as a growth resource for partner education, demand generation, and lead creation rather than a reward reserved for the largest producers, and the comparison question worth asking any distributor is what their threshold is and how many partners clear it.

Why Does Co-Selling Matter More for an Independent Advisor Than Content Does?

Because your constraint is usually conversations rather than materials. Most independent advisors can articulate their value well once they are in a room. Getting into the room, and having enough technical firepower alongside them once there, is where the shortfall shows up.

Co-selling addresses both. It puts a second, credentialed voice on the call, and it lets you take on a more complex opportunity than you could staff alone. That maps to the Omdia finding on deal size directly: partners co-selling report larger deals because they can credibly pursue larger deals.

HonestStok's model is built around staying in the deal from sourcing through implementation rather than handing off after an introduction, and the co-sell motion is the front end of that. Advisors evaluating what that looks like in practice can review HonestStok's partner overview or the FAQ, which covers how MDF is treated.



What Should You Ask For at Your Current Size?

Ask for the thing your size actually blocks you from doing yourself, which changes as your book grows.

A newer advisor with a small book has time and no audience. The highest-value ask is co-selling presence and supplier introductions with context, because both convert effort you already have into conversations you don't. MDF is worth applying for, and it is rarely the constraint at this stage.

An established advisor with a steady book has an audience and no time. The highest-value ask shifts to execution support: someone who runs the campaign, staffs the event, and follows up on the list, plus funding that covers the outside help you'd otherwise pay for yourself. This is the stage where the qualification thresholds in most MDF programs start to matter, and where being told you don't clear them costs the most.

An advisor building a team has both and needs repeatability. The ask becomes joint account planning, a named marketing contact on the distributor side, and demand generation targeted at a defined segment rather than general awareness.

Distributors that treat all three the same way are running one program and describing it three ways. Ask which of these three you look like to them, and what specifically changes in what you receive.

What's the Bottom Line?

Marketing support is worth evaluating on three things: whether you can qualify for the funding, whether someone joins your customer conversations, and whether what you receive is a named opportunity. Co-selling has the strongest evidence behind it, with more than two-thirds of active co-sellers reporting bigger deals and better close rates, so it belongs at the top of what you ask for. Ask any distributor for their MDF threshold, their co-sell volume at your tier, and a reference partner your size. Advisors who want to test HonestStok against those three can start a conversation or read related posts on the HonestStok blog.