Qualified AWS pipeline starts before the first meeting.

For AWS partners, the harder problem isn't closing deals. It's getting the conditions right before pipeline work begins.

Forj is a Nordic practice that opens with the commercial readiness work, then builds the pipeline that proves it landed.

Senior, human work. The kind that doesn't automate.

Discuss an engagement

What pipeline reveals

Most pipeline issues are readiness issues in disguise.

When pipeline doesn't convert, the cause usually sits upstream of the sales team. The readiness work surfaces it before outreach amplifies it.

01
Outreach reaches the wrong level.
The conversation is friendly, but the person on the other end can't sponsor a project or approve a budget. The target audience hasn't been defined sharply enough.
02
The problem is real, but the offering isn't shaped to it.
The customer has a challenge worth solving. Without a defined scope, a clear price, and a structured way to start, the conversation drifts. A packaging gap, not a sales gap.
03
The value isn't articulated for the buyer.
When the offering is described in technical terms, the buyer has to translate it into business value. Most don't bother. The ROI story hasn't been written in the buyer's language yet.
04
The opportunity exists, but isn't shaped for AWS.
A real deal sits in the CRM with nothing in it that AWS can engage around. Without that shape, co-sell stays one-sided, and the partner ends up closing alone. Or not at all.

From commercial readiness to qualified pipeline.

After the readiness work, the pipeline work begins. Opportunities arrive with context already built. The first meeting can be about the customer, not catching up.

01 / Targeting

Accounts selected for what's actually moving

Your team enters accounts that weren't already in the pipeline.

02 / Outreach

Direct, personal, specific to each account

Your team meets people with the problem, the authority, and a reason to act.

03 / Handover

Opportunities ready for your team to progress

Your sales team starts each conversation with context, not from cold.

The AWS reality

Co-sell is not a tool.
It's a human motion.

Co-sell was designed as structured collaboration, not as lead flow. AWS engages when an opportunity is already commercially clear, technically credible, and easy to justify internally. That's the bar the programme was built around. Most opportunities never reach it.

PDM Your bridge into AWS. But only if the opportunity is worth their political capital.
AM Measured on AWS consumption. Acts when the deal maps to ARR and fits their quarter.
SA Validates your solution technically. Briefed early, becomes your credibility signal with the customer.
ACE Surfaces the account team and signals intent. Acceptance is the starting point, not the goal.

Each opportunity is shaped so the people in this chain have a reason to engage. None of this is the work of outbound automation. It runs through judgement, and through the relationships the AWS partner programme is built around.

AWS partner funding spans three phases: Market, Sell, Grow. Most partners only access one. Used well, and shaped from the right opportunities, these phases compound across the partner lifecycle.

This is how the AWS partner ecosystem was designed to work. Partners shape opportunities AWS can stand behind. Account teams hit their numbers. Customers get the outcomes the programmes were built for.

About

A Nordic practice with deep AWS partner experience.

Forj is built on ten years of enterprise technology sales and AWS partner GTM across the Nordics: sharpening partner offerings and building co-sell pipeline across the region.

That experience is what the readiness work draws on: knowing what a viable AWS partner offering looks like, where Nordic buyers are active, and what AWS can stand behind.

A small number of partner engagements at a time, so the work is carried by the same people from start to finish.

Five qualified opportunities a month, that you're satisfied with.

That's the standard the pipeline work holds itself to, once the readiness work is done.

What qualified means Commercially: a named decision-maker with budget authority, a confirmed need, and an agreed first meeting. For AWS: a problem scope tied to a specific AWS service or motion, with enough structure for the opportunity to enter ACE cleanly, support the AM's quarter, and give your PDM something to build on.

If after three months the work hasn't reached that standard, the engagement continues until it has.

Same scope. Same terms. No additional cost.

The investment

One closed deal covers it.

The engagement runs $30,000 over three months and covers both phases: the commercial readiness work and the pipeline that proves it. AWS Market Development Funds were built to fund exactly this kind of work, and are structured to cover up to 50%, bringing the net cost to around $15,000.

For that, fifteen qualified opportunities, each with a named decision-maker, defined scope, confirmed first meeting, and full documentation.

At typical AWS partner deal sizes, a single closed opportunity covers the entire engagement.

15 Qualified opportunities
over 3 months

$15k Net cost after
AWS MDF (50%)

1 Closed deal
covers the work

$1,000 per qualified opportunity,
fully created and documented

MDF: Market Development Funds

MDF sits in the Market phase of AWS partner funding (Market / Sell / Grow). It funds partner go-to-market work, including the kind of pipeline creation this engagement is built around. Opportunities the work surfaces often unlock Sell-phase MAP funding downstream.

Start with a conversation.

A short call is where it starts. Talking through where things stand, and where new opportunities should come from next.