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The Partner Channel Podcast

In each episode of the Partner Channel Podcast we will focus on a channel leader’s experience, wins, and challenges. We'll also dive into their vision on the future of the channel ecosystem.
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Now displaying: February, 2017
Feb 27, 2017

Jeanne Hopkins, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Ipswitch, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss respecting partners’ time, the downfalls of un-aligned sales and marketing teams and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

 

It sounds like there's a lot of co-selling or collaboration that's happening between your internal teams and partners. Is that the way it's always been at Ipswitch, or has that evolved over the years?

It's not new. I think that we had some hiccups last year, where there were product introductions that were back to back to back to back - and you just don't do that with partners, right? We have updates to three very important products of ours coming up. I was looking at the timelines and one was early June, mid-June, and then end of June. I thought, "You know what, we can't do that to our partners. It's got to be a bundle." If it's going to be 2017 plus and it's going to be all these software upgrades, then we need to release it and be able to tell our partners all at once; because a channel partner has a lot of other customers.

We're important and valuable to our partners, but then on the other hand we might only account for $20,000, maybe $50,000, maybe $100,000 worth of revenue. They have big partners that they're working with and we can be an afterthought in many respects. We need to respect their time, we need to respect their need for communication in a very concise way and not keep them from being able to be successful with all the other businesses that they're dealing with.


I'm seeing this line blur between what's considered marketing and what's considered sales enablement. A lot of times I'm seeing people refer to sales enablement tools or resources and I'm thinking, "That's marketing." But it's a revenue focused, lead generation focused, demand driven focused marketing.

For a marketing team, you're creating all kinds of content, you're trying to get your direct team, your internal teams to engage and use them. That could be really magnified when you're talking about a channel. What are some of the challenges that you face at Ipswitch with getting partners to actually engage with those tools and resources that you're providing? You're doing a lot for them, are they using it all? Are they only using part of it?

Within our sales team we have a team of sales enablement people, who create videos and demo.

When I joined this company I noticed there were a remarkable amount of marketing projects or programs being done by the sales team. The very first thing that I saw when I joined was a 61 page catalog of 40 products - it was quite a big project. It was presented to the marketing department; they were told to print it. Our marketing team was looking at it saying, "What is this?"

 

Additionally, sales has their own e-mail program that they use. So they were sending this direct mail piece, sending e-mails to customers ... a whole host of things. It was this whole shadow marketing organization.

You have to ask yourself, "Why were they doing that?" It wasn't malicious. This shadow marketing was happening simply because sales was feeling that marketing was not helping them to achieve their objective. I've heard that there was a lot of “we can't”, and now we have a lot more “we can”, in terms of helping sales. I'm trying to grab hold of marketing and own it as a team.


I think back to this particular catalog that was printed in the middle of November. On the cover it said 2016. I said to the salesperson, "It's the middle of November. Why wouldn't you put 2017 on this?" They were trying to get something done, but they didn't have the marketing experience. It wasn't a bad thing, they didn't do anything wrong. However, if they had given us some visibility into the project ahead of time, we might have been able to help. Because after you print 5,000 of these things and suddenly it’s 2017, what are you going to do? Put a sticker on all of them?

Think about all the things that you try to do as an organization, in terms of helping. What I've noticed is that we have North America field marketing, we have rest of world field marketing and then e-mail field marketing. They're not necessarily aligned with each other, so we're not necessarily getting the scaling capabilities.

Channel partners are channel partners and they all need the same thing. They want margin, right? They want co-op dollars or some sort of MDF to be able to help them run their programs. They want leads. So, it's not necessarily content, Jen, it really is a financial relationship. But the inverse of that is what are your quotas? What are you delivering?

Sometimes the channel partner is used to being successful on their own and not necessarily tying it to the goals and objectives of their partner. One of the things I'm trying to help partners understand is that we are all in the business of sales. How are we going to help them be successful going forward?


What advice do you have for fellow marketing officers whose companies have partner programs and really want to increase their channel partners' contribution?

Get involved. What I've observed is most chief marketing officers don't get involved. As a CMO, I've offered to be in meetings, and even if I can only dial in having the credibility of having a C-level person at the table gives the channel manager or the director of channel management so much more power in the relationship.

Often you’re working with a lower level person and the channel partner is holding all the cards, beating the bejeebers out of that poor manager of yours. But if you're able to be on these calls with these billion dollar partners or distributors and say, "We're investing in this program and this is what we're going to do", you can help. I was able to help the director of channel management for North America in a conversation with a partner, where we were making an investment.

We received a spreadsheet with options “two of these, and one of those, and three of these...” and so we're going through it and saying, "That has no value, that has no value, that has no value. Can we trade two of these for one of those which is definitely going to have value?" It was something Joan, our channel partner manager, wouldn't have thought because she didn't think she had enough power. But for me to be able to say, " I want to help you Joan and I want to help us be successful with this relationship."

Whenever you make these investments in programs whether it's with MDF, co-op dollars, whatever, you want to make sure that they're used. So many times marketing people have no problem spending money, but don't figure out how to use money that is being handed to them on a platter. If you can make use of those dollars and make them more valuable, if that makes the channel partner happy, that is important as well.

I'm going to go back to the two words, get involved, be present, show support. Those are six words, but just trying to make a statement here. As the chief marketing officer, the channel is important to you. To actually be a part of it, is what's going to make a difference for the organization.  

Feb 20, 2017

Greg Goldstein, Senior Director of Global Channel Sales and Development for ON24, joins Jen Spencer to discuss mid-market and enterprise consulting partners, business planning for channel managers, partner exit interviews, and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

Jen: I'm excited to have you with us, and I wanna share a little bit about ON24 before we dig into channel questions. You guys are the global leader in webinar marketing solutions that drive demand generation and customer engagement, which sounds exciting. I know you've recently joined the ON24 team, but you've spent the last 12 plus years developing channel programs for software companies. Can you tell us a little bit about ON24, about your value proposition, and what brought you to this new team?

Greg: Absolutely, for sure. ON24, as you mentioned, is a leader in webcasting technologies. Our overarching goal is to help marketers generate more leads and pipeline, as well as keeping existing customers up to speed on an organization's current deliverables, services and other offerings. Our platform is really about interactivity. It helps companies drive better engagement through that interactivity, and although interactivity and relationships are crucial, it's really how the platform can gather the data from those events, whether they're live events, on-demand events, or even semi-live events. And it's really crucial that as organizations spend time and effort to create these webcasts, that that data is pulled back into their organization and shared with their CRM and marketing automation platforms to really help the sales team just get more actionable activities and information about prospects and customers that they're engaged with.

Jen: Well, being a revenue-driven marketer myself, I can definitely see the value there. So let's talk about channel. When you look at those overarching goals that the ON24 team has for the year, that you have, that the executive team has, what role do you think your channel is going to play in helping achieve those goals, both in the next 12 months, but then, looking ahead to even the next five years?

Greg: That's a great question. As a channel person who's been in channel for 12 plus years, what's really crucial is, when an organization gets to that inflection point where they realize that channel is really that lever that's gonna help them extend their revenue stream, that they look at where they currently are with their channel. I think that like ON24, they realize that the channel is going to play that pivotal role. So how do you develop a channel in an organization that maybe not necessarily had a consulting partner channel but are looking to do that? And so, ON24 has several different channels, but specifically to this question, the consulting partner channel that I was brought in to develop is something that's going to help open up the market in the short-term and long-term.

In the short term, it's building out a channel program that will provide our new partners with a webcasting solution that they can include into their marketing stack. And that's something that we'll talk about a little bit later. But there's this new stack, there's a CRM component, there's a marketing automation component, and then there's the webcasting component that really all tie together to create a unified vision of people, customers and prospects that are engaging these organizations. So my goal in coming to ON24 was to create a channel and create channel partners' success programs that will help these partners develop the tools that they need to be successful. I think in the short-term, the ON24 new partner program, which we've titled SuccessOne, will give these new partners the tools to be successful by also providing ON24 the leverage of having a new and unique devoted channel that will help expand the brand that ON24 brings to the webcasting space. So for short-term, we're gonna be very focused on the partners, but in the long-term, the goal for the SuccessOne program is to really provide ON24 as an organization a larger route to the consumer market than they ever could before with the direct model.

Jen: So right now, I'm going to assume that you've got revenue goals that are associated with your partner program. Is that an accurate assumption?

Greg: Yeah, of course. All channels will have revenue goals. With the new SuccessOne partner program, this is really a buildout of a brand-new type of partner that ON24 really hasn't engaged in the past. These are mid-market enterprise consulting partners, and of course there are revenue targets. But when you're building a brand-new channel from scratch and you're coming in with a unique new line of business, the most important thing for a channel is that you have the enablement training and go-to market strategies encapsulated into a concept that partners can digest and execute, which is something that overrides the short-term revenue goals. It's really the enabling goals which are playing a more pivotal role.

Jen: Got it. So these new consulting partners, how do they differ from, or do they differ from a more traditional value-added reseller? Do you still have those VAR type of partners at ON24 or are you pivoting a traditional VAR program into more of a consultancy type of partner program?

Greg: That's another great question. So ON24 has a series of different types of channels, as do a lot of publishers. There's ISVs, OEMs, VARs. In the software world more, I like to call them consulting partners since not a lot of consulting firms like to be called value added resellers. They're truly consulting partners. And so, we do have ISVs, we do some OEM, we do have SIs, and those programs have been with ON24 for quite a while. Those programs will remain as they are. I'm working with the teams that are supporting those partners to look at their strategies, their go-to market strategies, their enablement strategies, their onboarding strategies. And there will be some enhancements to those programs.

My goal is to come in and bring in those mid-market, like I mentioned, mid-market and enterprise consulting partners. These are the partners that their predominate core practices revolve around CRM, marketing automation, and ERP. This is a new type of partner, consulting partner that ON24 hasn't truly engaged in the past. But in my history and in my experiences working with either publishers from GoldMine to Sage to SugarCRM to Act-On, these mid-market and enterprise consulting partners are truly the trusted advisors of the target audience that ON24 is going after.

Jen: So I wanted to ask you about that, about, some of your past experience. Some of those past experiences that you've mentioned, I mean, you've helped build some pretty phenomenal channel programs over the years, like you mentioned Sage, Sugar, Act-On. So when you first join a software company with that goal of either creating or further developing a channel program, where do you start?

Greg: Well, there's a lot of ways to approach this, and I think everybody who's been in channel will look at it from a different perspective. I think, most importantly, if you're channel person, you're looking at an opportunity based on how a partner would approach it. I think there's probably five pillars or five major buckets that you wanna look at. First is, what's the market for that opportunity? What's the market for that platform? Is it a market that is on a growth curve, is it in a maintenance curve, or is it kind of on a downswing? Now, that's a really crucial point when you look at, can a channel be built successfully around the product or services that the publisher is going to market with? That's number one.

Number two, fit for the partners. Is it a technology or a solution that the partners in your ecosystem aren't easily adaptable to? The market that I specifically fit into are more those partners that fit around the business applications, the CRM, the ERPs, marketing automation, those consulting firms that are out there to solve the problem for their consumers. So that's the second thing. Is there a fit for a partner channel for that service?

Third is what's the current ecosystem of that channel? So if you're talking about webcasting or marketing automation or CRM, what's the channel like? Is there a robust channel? Is it a product that's in demand, that partners realize that they wanna go out and they wanna exploit those needs in the marketplace? So is there a fit in the ecosystem for that product?

Fourth is partner profitability. Does that product or service provide the partner with a revenue stream with not only product sales but also in consultative services? These are businesses like all other organizations that have to profit, and they have to be able to utilize their staff to be profitable. So some products have a very low cost point but a high services rate. Other products have a really high price point but very little services. So you have to kind of weigh where you're at with margins and consultative services to really determine, is this a good fit for a partner?

And fifth, which to me is one of the most important ones, is partner commitment and organizational commitment. Does the publisher, or is the publisher committed to the success of a channel? If you have an organization, and ON24 has absolutely opened its arms to this new concept of building out a new partner channel, are they committed to doing this? Building a channel is not a one-quarter or two-quarter event, it's a marathon. And a marathon has many steps, right, as you know. It's enablement, it's recruitment, it's onboarding, it's building a strategy that helps partners be effective. But also, are partners committed to this? Do the partners realize or understand or need to be educated that their consumers need that product or service? Do they need it, do they want it? If they don't need it, do they need to be educated as to why they need it? There are a lot of partners, Jen, that look at products and go, "You know what, that's too far ahead of the adoption curve from my install in customer base." That's another component that you also have to consider. Where in the adoption curve is that product or service? So those are pretty much the big five.

Jen: These are all great questions to ask before you start digging and building out a program. I mean, you started a company, how do you go about getting answers to all of those questions? Do you have any tips for folks who might be in a similar situation?

Greg: I'd been doing this for a long time and that question has come up before. How do you find these questions out? How do you find out if it's an opportunity for a channel lead or a channel sales vendor? My best response is, go talk to partners that you have a great relationship with, find out what their customer base, the spectrum of applications that their customers are using, find out what they're asking their prospects. A lot of the times, partners don't do the due diligence in their own business development. One of the things that I've done in the past, and this is how I gather a lot of this information as to, "Is this a viable product," is when I coach partners or when I build channels, when I work with channels, I require partners to do exit interviews with companies that they've won deals and lost deals.

I don't think enough partners in this industry do exit surveys. Why did we not win this deal? Was it based on price? It should never be based on price why you lose a deal. I think exit surveys should ask do you feel that our organization provided you with the information to make an educated response to whether this application fitted your needs? When you start having partners that are at that level of competency of their own organization, go ask them, "Does webcasting fit your profile of applications that your prospects or your customers are asking for?" You really got to out and ask the questions to determine if it's the right fit or not.

Jen: That's a really great point, and some of those activities that you're bringing up are good activities, I think, for even direct sales teams to be doing as well. I think, having that open communication with your partners, and when you're saying talking to them, I'm assuming you mean actually either face-to-face or on the phone and not just sending out a survey. Am I correct in that assumption?

Greg: Absolutely. As much as I love technology, I am all about that personal touch. In the 15 years that I've been in this business, I have a Rolodex of, gosh, 300 to 500 partners that I know personally. It's been a long time in this industry, and I have another 500 that I can communicate with via electronic means. Communication is key. You really need to be able to understand what makes a partner tick. For all of us that do channels, channel partners are unique individuals, just like they're unique organizations. They all have specific needs that they need to satisfy, whether it's an application that they need to provide to their customers, or how they go to business and how they go to market, how do they engage their customers and prospects. Knowing your partners is not just sending out a survey or assuming that you know what they want, it's asking those questions. I'm a big, big fan of beta testing, and I've been doing that since I started in channels. I will come up with a channel strategy and I will bring in two or three of my closest channel allies, channel partner allies, and ask them, "What do you think of this strategy and can we pilot it with your firm?" Whether it's a marketing strategy, a sales strategy, whatever it may be, being in channel is a great opportunity, because you can test things, you can do A/B split testing on channel strategies. Never assume you know the answer, never assume, always ask the question and get a better response.

Jen: I think that's great. I think even from a consumer perspective, when I think about some of the technologies that I use, whenever I'm asked to try something, to be a beta to provide feedback, honestly, I feel special. I feel like, "Wow, my opinion really matters." I feel like I'm truly a trusted partner in that relationship. So it's a win-win, I think, for both parties.

Greg: Absolutely. I can tell you, there's dozens of partners that I've worked with that have followed me from even my days at GoldMine to Sage to SugarCRM to Act-On and now to ON24, that have followed me from publisher to publisher because I've made them money. When you make a partner money and make them successful, they trust you. In this industry, being in channel, being a channel leader, trust, integrity, there is nothing more important than that. If you go down that straight path with a channel partner and you tell them the good, the bad, and the ugly, then you're gonna be successful.

Remember, these partners that are selling applications, especially when they go from the old-school on-prem perpetual licensing model to a new cloud deployment with software as a service pricing model, their models have changed. That paradigm shift for them, a lot of them had a little trouble with that shift. And now that they've adopted to the new model and the new modern channel partners that are more assertive and aggressive with building out their practices, looking for those new platforms that fill their customers' and prospects' gaps in their solution stack, those are the ones that will be the most forthright with the channel leader to tell you, "You guys need to think about going to market this way, because my customers and prospects are looking at it from a different perspective than maybe the publisher's looking at it." And that's where that relationship and that conversation, Jen, is crucial in building out a successful channel.

Jen: So Greg, I have one more question for you, but it's actually two questions in one, I'm totally cheating. So, okay, so the first part of the question is, what do you think is the biggest challenge for sales professionals overseeing a channel program? And then my second, tying it to this question, question is, what do you see is the greatest opportunity for those same leaders? Sometimes those challenges and opportunities can be one and the same.

Greg: Yeah. The challenges and opportunities are the same, it's the same coin, opposite sides, where with partners, I always do, I try to do personal business development with my top partners and those partners that raise their hands. And I'm a big fan of old-school SWOT: strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat. And I really think not enough channel sales people, channel managers, channel leadership really understand where the partners are in their specific lifespan of their consulting firm. So when you say challenges, I'd probably say understanding what the partners are actually looking to achieve from their own perspective.

As a channel leader, I know what my company's looking to do. I know exactly what I am trying to do, build an effective selling machine that is self-sufficient and competent. Okay, so challenges, there's a lot of lackadaisical attitude in channel today and I don't personally understand it. I've been around for a long time and I've seen the most effective channels flutter when the day-to-day business development requirements are taken away from channel sales people. The channel needs to be understood, listened to, and when they have an issue or there's a gap in their go-to-market strategy, they need to be addressed. So I would say, the education from a channel sales perspective as to what each individual partner needs to be successful is probably, in my opinion from a business development standpoint, Jen, a big challenge today, a very big challenge.

Jen: Why do you think there's inertia in the channel? You know, because you touched on it, and I see it too. There's a lot of, I don't know if it's inertia, apathy, or if it's just this thing that exists in a company that folks maybe don't seem to wanna dig into. Do you have any thoughts on why that is?

Greg: Well, I'll use a phrase I use when I'm bringing on partners, and I mentioned a thing called channel self-sufficiency, which is something that I strive for, for partners to be self-sufficient. I really think there's this phrase, and I use it in a lot of my marketing and a lot of my recruitment, is competency breeds confidence. And I think today there's been a move from, in some areas, from publishers to not bring in people that have strong business backgrounds to manage partners. I think that is where the latency in success is happening, is you have channel sales people that don't take their role seriously. They don't understand the fact that they need to know business, they need to know business development, they need to know marketing, but on top of it all, they need to know the product that they sell. That, right, I can tell you numerous experiences where I've been at publishers where the channel person did not know their platform. I'm sorry, you can be a business development person, you can be a channel marketing person, you can have the best business strategy concepts in the world. But if you can't sit there and have at least an advanced sales rep's skillset around the platform you're selling, you're gonna show weakness to the channel partner.

Jen: Or because you...

Greg: You need to...go ahead.

Jen: No, sorry. I'm stepping...I'm trying to finish your sentence. I just let you finish your sentence. You're making, you're a business adviser in a way, you have to be able to communicate the value of your product or platform and show that channel partner what value that's gonna add to his or her own business. I mean, I agree 100%, you have to know how these systems work and you have to have that business acumen. I haven't had anybody kind of put their finger on that before. So I'm just kind of like bouncing in my chair a little bit. Like, this is it. Yes, Greg. Like, I agree 100%.

Greg: A couple of years ago, I did a dramatic change in direction on how I did business development and business planning with partners. And again, lots of publishers, lots of experiences. Business planning with partners is something that is overlooked. And I did an absolute 180 in my strategies. I actually tore up all the 20-page business plans that I had used in the past and I moved to something that I call the a la carte strategy where I actually have between 20 and 25 topics that a partner can actually choose from for their coaching. Of course, there are some mandatory things that I require, and I do a triage level of 1 to 4, right, 1 means we're working on it now, 2 means we're working on it in 60 to 90 days, 3 and 4, putting them in the parking lot.

But for partners that get my business planner with my team, they look at us and go, "My gosh, you guys really wanna understand what we are as an organization and where are the gaps." When you bring that type of channel leadership and channel management to the partner ecosystem, they're gonna pay attention to you. They're gonna give you that mindshare, Jen, that you need to be successful. Remember, and this is where channel managers and channel leaders kind of drift off. The top consulting partners, partners at the top 1%, Microsoft partners, Salesforce consulting partners, NetSuite partners, Sage partners, you name the publisher, their top partners, aside from those core applications that they sell, are selling another 20 to 50 other applications. How do you make yourself front-of-mind and get mindshare so that they represent your product before they think about another application that ties into Great Plains or Dynamics or Salesforce?

It is showing them that you're absolutely professional and that you're there to help them make money. You're there to help them be successful. You show that with your documentation, with your tools that you provide, your business planning tools, you're gonna get their mindshare. You're gonna get 25% of their marketing time. You're gonna get 25% of their sales time. You're gonna get 25% of their operational and organizational mindshare. You get those components, you get that type of mindshare, you're gonna have a successful channel. But you need to be hiring channel managers that are more business related than they are trying to sell software or sell services. I know that's kind of a shift in thinking, but in my experience, the best channel managers that I've ever had on teams of mine were those that were able to sit down and do business planning and understand what it takes for a partner to be successful.

Jen: I think it's really great advice, and I'm excited to see, the growth of the ON24 partner program, this whole ecosystem, as you dig in further. But before I let you go, I know I kind of riddled you with channel questions, I do have a couple of more personal questions for our listeners to get to know you a little bit better. Are you open to answering a couple of easy questions?

Greg: Absolutely, absolutely.

Jen: Alright, okay. So first question, what is your favorite city?

Greg: Favorite city, well, I'm a little biased. I'm gonna say the city that I live in, which is Newport Beach, California.

Jen: Well, you just happen to live in paradise. We can't all be so lucky. Question number two, are you an animal lover?

Greg: I am. I'm a huge animal lover. I have two crazy dogs that, love to sit in my home office and love to voice their opinions when they don't like what I hear. I also love horses. My little daughter is all about ponies right now. So we spend a lot of time up at a local ranch and she can pretend that she's a cowgirl and really enjoy that.

Jen: Lovely. Question number three, Mac or PC?

Greg: Oh, that's the big question. I am currently six years on Mac, spent my first 10 years in the industry on PC, and I can go either way.

Jen: Really, there's not like one thing you just love more than the other? I mean, if I stuck you on a plane for five hours and I had one in one hand and one in the other, which one would you take?

Greg: I'm going Mac. You got me on that one.

Jen: Awesome. And last question, let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip, where would it be to?

Greg: Wow, all-expenses-paid trip. Gosh, that is a great question. I would probably have to say, given that I have a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, a Disney cruise.

Jen: I hear those are really great.

Greg: If it was just my wife and I, I'd probably say Montreal. One of my favorite towns is Montreal.

Jen: Nice, nice. Well, I hear Disney cruises are pretty great for adults too, and they've got some daycare too. So that might not be such a bad trip.

Greg: Exactly.

Jen: Well, Greg, thank you so much for sharing your time, your insights with us today. If listeners would like to reach out to you directly, what's the best way for them to do so?

Greg: I recommend that you connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find me on LinkedIn, Greg Goldstein, and I respond quickly to messages. And if you have questions about channel, questions about anything, in the industry, I'm always open to giving advice, having dialogue, conversation, love chatting. So if you wanna reach out, LinkedIn.

Jen: Perfect. And we'll go ahead and include some social media links to that when we publish this podcast as well. Again, Greg, thank you so much for your time. It's been a pleasure. And we look forward to delivering another episode of the Allbound podcast next week. Have a great day, everyone.

Thanks for tuning to the Allbound podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbound.com. And remember, never sell alone.

Feb 13, 2017

Joe Durfey, Director Strategic Partnerships at Grow, joins me to discuss how to create and maintain successful referral partner relationships, the importance of content in the partner channel, and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

Jen: Well, I'm glad to have you. You know, Grow's a really cool rapidly growing business intelligence company that's in Provo, Utah. I know you guys focus on small and medium-sized businesses, and you help them track metrics, and connect to various data sources, and then visualize that data, so some pretty cool stuff. When I say rapidly growing, Joe, when I was doing a little bit of digging, I found that Grow has grown, no pun intended, grown its sales team by 500% in the last year. That's insane. What's going on over there? And tell us a little bit about what you do.

 

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Jen. So, yeah, 2016 was just tremendous for us. I think we performed in 2016 beyond any of our wildest expectations. We set some pretty aggressive goals at the beginning of the year, and blew even our stretch goals out of the water. You know, I think the product's really, really good. I think that from where it was when we started to where it is now, it's just amazing what our developers have been able to do. But the market that we're targeting and the way we're targeting is really different. We do target, as you mentioned, Jen, the SMB and the mid-market companies. Our mission is to bring affordable, functional, customizable, feature-rich BI to the mid-market space.

 

When we looked at the space, we saw a lot of really great enterprise providers, like Domo, Tableau, and Sisense, and their products are awesome. You can slice and dice the data a million different ways, lots of great integrations, etc. But for a mid-market company, it's often very cost prohibitive. And on the other end, you have kind of pre-canned dashboard software that's very, very affordable, it's just really stripped down in terms of the features, and the integrations, and the customization that you can do. So we kind of look at this middle space and just viewed a huge opportunity to really give mid-market companies and SMBs a BI solution that helps them become more data-driven and helps them create a business command center for the company and to do it in a way that we really didn't see anybody doing it for mid-market companies. So that's kind of our mission, and, you know, we're still a young company, but if we can just kind of keep the momentum that we started building in 2016 into 2017 and beyond, we'll be in a pretty good place.

 

Anyway, Jen, I don't even know what the question was. I kind of just went off there. My role is strategic partnerships, we're pretty early to the partnership and channel game here at Grow. It seems like most organizations don't start down this path until they're probably a few years further along than we are. We just flip data, and because of the product that we have, and all of the native integrations that we've already built out, there's just a huge opportunity for us to grow through partnerships and through channel. I've been with the company for about six months, and it's been a huge learning experience, but it has been awesome at the same time every step of the way. So we're learning a lot as we go, and maybe I've learned a few things that will be helpful to some of the listeners of this podcast.

 

Jen: Well, I think so. I think there are a lot of companies in the SaaS space that are young companies, maybe as young as Grow, maybe not, but perhaps in the same revenue size kind of place, and are looking to begin this journey with partners. So let's dig into that a little bit. Your partner program is comprised of referral partners, integration partners, and then you have a value-added reseller type of partner. When you look across your current partner base, are those roles evenly distributed? Do you lean towards onboarding one kind of partner over another? Do you have any initiatives for targeting a certain kind of partner? Share with us a little bit about what that partner makeup looks like.

 

Joe: Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. I need to go update our website, it really should be referral partners, technology integration partners, and value-added referral partners. We're young in building this out. One of the things that is important to us in this stage, and I think as we advance this will change, but right now we really want to be able to control a lot of the sales process and then all the way through the onboarding, and the implementation, and the support. We love to have our partners ride shotgun with us through that process, and that's really the best way that we’ve found at our stage to train our partners. So we're not doing a lot of true reseller partnerships right now. More of what we are focused on are value-added referral partners or partners that provide a complimentary service. For example, a company that goes in and helps prep data or helps organize data and get it in a good place, so that they can then plug it into a tool like Grow, those are great partners for us. Consultancy organizations, business coaches, you know, people that are really focused on the metrics, and the KPIs, and helping companies to become more data-driven, those are great partners for us. So that's one channel that's a priority right now.

 

The other big channel that's priority is technology integrations, and we do that two different ways. Sometimes we find companies, SaaS companies, that have great products, but they have a product gap in terms of the way that their product allows their users to interact with their data from a reporting standpoint and from a visualization standpoint. So we go in and help fill that gap, whether if it's through a somewhat embedded or OEM model, or by simply having a link to Grow and sending customers to set up their own accounts with Grow, where they can go and connect to that data source and then build the reports that they want. Both of those paths are really good paths for us. Then we also do a lot of what I would call, co-marketing partnerships with companies that we've built integrations with. So that's really been our focus and is our focus right now. I suspect over time that will remain the focus, but we'll probably add some new ones in there, some more layers to what we're doing right now.

 

Jen: That's great. I want to just commend you for recognizing the need to focus on the referral partners and doing those sort of ride-alongs during the sales process and then holding onto that customer through implementation, especially being a young company. I'm sure you're still making adjustments to a lot of your sales process, to your implementation process. I know that there are probably a lot of partners out there who would love to truly resell Grow's solution, and sometimes it's hard to say no and "Let's hold off. We're not quite there yet." You'll get there when and if you decide to get there. So that's great.

 

Joe: Yeah, it is. It's always a quandary, especially for the guy that's responsible for partnerships to have to say no, that's a hard thing. I think it's really important for companies to take inventory of where they're at in their company's history, where the product is, and if it's really ready to turn over and let somebody else go sell it and take opportunities from A to Zs, set the clause and kind of give that up. I know it works for a lot of companies, and Grow might be one of those companies someday, but we just feel like it's premature for us right now. And so it is sometimes hard to say no, but I think it's the right thing.

 

Jen: Oh, absolutely. So when you have a partner, a referral partner, or maybe it’s a technology partner, which is also going to in a way refer a new business, what are some of the tactics you've employed to help train those partners so they can be successful in sharing Grow's value proposition with prospects? You very clearly outlined, "Jen, this is what sets us apart from some of the other business intelligence tools that are out there." How do you transfer that knowledge to your partners?

 

Joe: Yeah, that's a great question, and it's a challenge that we talk about all the time. I think that the two most effective things that we found are, one, doing the ride-alongs and the co-selling together with our partners. One of the struggles that we've seen some partners have is feeling like they have to be experts on the platform to just tee up a conversation for us to get involved and help them close the deal. We talk to partners a lot about, "Hey, we're here for you, and nobody knows Grow better than we know Grow, and nobody can sell it better than we can sell it." So, we give them just a few talking points that we really like to focus on that we've found have been successful at teeing up conversations. We really like to have our partners learn and train as we go through the process with real clients. So, content is important and having things like the internal-facing battle cards for sales reps and CS reps, and public-facing battle cards for their customers and different content that they can use, that's all really important. What I’ve seen is we're all so busy with our primary job and our primary responsibility that even when we share these things with partners, some of them get in and really use it, others say "Hey, I just don't have a lot of time to really train and use all this content. I'd really just like to bring you guys in and let you guys do what you do best."

 

So the best thing that we found is the co-selling and just having our partners learn as we sell with them and as we onboard and implement with them. Then the second thing is we treat partners a lot like we do customers. Every one of our customers gets a dedicated CS rep. Every one of our partners gets a dedicated CS rep. Our CS reps are really experts on the platform, they're data analysts, and they're also very nice, friendly, and helpful. So every one of our partners gets one of these analysts that whenever there's a question on, "Hey, can the product do this, or can it do that?" they have a direct line to that rep. So a lot of what we've found to be successful in terms of the way we do our customer success, we've taken that and done the same thing with our partners. Those are the two things that I would probably say have been the biggest help to me in terms of getting our partners trained and knowledgeable on our platform.

 

Jen: That's great. What about those partners that you onboard and then they don't quite activate. What are some of the challenges you face actually engaging partners after they've signed on the dotted line? You've agreed this is a good partnership, you get their customer success or CS manager, do you ever have people that just kind of go dark?

 

Joe: Sure. Yeah. That's truthfully an area, Jen, where I think we can make a lot of strides in terms of doing better. We're new at this, we're truthfully casting a pretty wide net right now, and if somebody wants to partner with us and they want to refer leads and work with us, we pretty much accept all comers that fit into that referral partner box right now. And, yeah, we have a number of partners that have been really excited when I'm talking to them pre-signing a partner agreement, and then just sort of fizzle out. I knew that would be the case and expected it. We're building right now, we're doing a lot of trial and error and a lot of exploration. I know one of the things that we'll have to do in the future is kind of go back and clean up who we're partnered with so that we don't have just a lot of dead weight that's really a partner and name only. So, it's not a great answer to the question. I know we can do a lot better in terms of competing for mindshare with our partners and doing that through a content-driven strategy, and trying to make it easier for our partners to share information about Grow.

 

So, that's part of the building process that we're going through right now. I would say that right now we do fall into the 80-20, where already 6 months in, we have a number of partners that just aren't producing, and some of that is things that we can do better to support our partners, and some of it is just I don't think they'll ever produce. At some point, we'll have to go back and kind of filter out those that aren't ever really going to be effective partners.

 

Jen: Well, Joe, you don't like saying no to partners, just wait until you have to break up with them. So that conversation, will have to happen. On the podcast, Lisa Box from WP Engine, she talked about having that tough conversation with a partner where it just doesn't make sense anymore. But let's talk about the 80-20 rule. It's a problem that plagues many established channel partner programs, where 80% of revenue is coming from 20% of those partners. So you're aware of, "Okay, this is us. This is what's gonna happen, and we're gonna be stuck here." So what are you trying to put in place now, or what are you working on so that you can avoid this moving forward as you expand the program in the future?

 

Joe: Yeah. That's another really good question, Jen. I don't know that we've really settled that. We've talked about gamification and having minimum thresholds that partners need to meet and different levels and tiers where they get more resources, and support, and content as they produce and as they show that they're committed to the partnership. So right now those are things that we're thinking about, but, frankly, if your listeners and other people have great ideas on that, I'm all ears, because that's one that I haven't totally figured out yet.

 

Jen: Well, and it's that engagement factor, right? So I think part of it is just from listening to people who have come on this podcast or folks that we've interacted with here at Allbound, I know a lot of it starts with recruitment, right? It starts with who do you bring in, and who do you invest in, and what do you give them access to. It's a great topic of conversation, and I hope that our listeners will reach out to you and start a good conversation about that. You previously led enterprise sales teams, and before that, you were an individual contributor also in enterprise tech space. So this is a recent change to your career doing channel, right? What have you enjoyed about working with this partner program, working with channel partners?

 

Joe: Well, I would say just the biggest thing for me is the overall level of professionalism. I think as much as any group that I've ever been associated with, channel partners really embody a mentality of, "Let's find the mutual value. Let's work together to come up with solutions, and let's work together to drive revenue." I think channel people generally understand better than most groups that if there's not real value for both parties, it's just not going to work. So what I've really enjoyed is just the interactions and the type of people that I find that are in channel roles within their companies and they really do look for win-wins. And they really do work hard to try to drive value not only to their own company but to their partner's company. That's a lot different than sales or enterprise sales where you're just trying to do whatever you can to get a deal and to get the buyer to sign on the dotted line and then turn it over to CS and let them do their thing. There's a lot more that goes into it from a strategic standpoint and trying to solve problems. I just think overall the people that I've interacted with that are in a role similar to mine are just top grade, and really, really smart, and really thoughtful, and that's what I've enjoyed most going from enterprise sales and leading enterprise sales teams to doing channel.

 

Jen: Is there anything that you feel that you've brought with you from being in either a sales leadership role or an individual contributor role that you think has been really beneficial for you now in growing this partner program?

 

Joe: Yeah. In my last company, I had channel people calling me all the time, wanting to give my sales guys to promote their products. So I have this benefit of understanding. When I was running the sales team, and I would have another company calling on me and my reps saying, "Hey, we want you to sell our stuff and promote our stuff." and I was still concerned about my guys hitting our own numbers and the last thing I really want them to think about or be distracted with is learning somebody else's product so that they know when is the right time and opportunity to send along a referral or whatever else. So I approach that in this role, really delicately, because I relate to the pressures that go along with leading sales teams and with sales guys just trying to get their own quotas. I think it's made me think about it more creatively in terms of how do you make it frictionless, and how do you drive revenue and drive leads through partners without being a distraction to their sales teams and their CS teams? What are the co-marketing strategies and the conversion events that we can do together to drive those outcomes without having to go and convince an enterprise sales director that his sales guy should learn my product and then send me referrals? From what I've seen, that's a really hard thing to do, and I relate to that, because I was in that role. So I think it's helped me in this role to be creative about, "Okay, how do we do this to make it frictionless for our partners?"

 

Jen: That's great. I hear you so loud and clear, because, like you said, you understand what it's like to be carrying that quota or overseeing those salespeople who are trying to hit those numbers. In partnerships, you've got to look for those win-wins so that you're not interfering with the work that everyone else is doing. So that makes perfect sense. It's a great asset that you bring to the role.

 

Now, I have one more question for you before I get into some of my more fun personal questions. So, your first day on the job of building this partner program, what would you would have liked to tell yourself? What would you like to tell someone who is back six months in your shoes?

 

Joe: I would tell myself probably two things. One is, I thought coming in that I would need to be selective. I would go back and say that I need to be more selective and do even more work on partner profiling and partner personas to target the right partners. I mentioned earlier that we're casting a pretty wide net right now, and we're kind of doing that knowing that we're going to probably onboard partners that don't produce initially. But because we're building it, and we kind of want to make sure that we don't miss out on a partner persona that we didn't think about or we thought might be good, that's just sort of something that we've looked at and a risk that we're willing to take. But six months in now, I'm starting to see the types of partners that I think are going to be really, really good long-term partners for us are fewer and far between than I thought they probably were. I would tell myself to really be selective and really put in the time to identify the right kinds of partners before you really go too crazy just bringing on whoever wants to partner with us. So that's one.

 

The other one is, as a young company, and every company, I guess it doesn't matter whether you're young or not young, you have bottlenecks and you have resource constraints. One of the things that I didn't really think too much about was how important content is to the partner and channel relationships. A little plug here for the CO:LLABORATE conference that Allbound puts on that I went to earlier this year, and one of the things that I heard there that just really resonated after a few months in the job was content isn't the key, it's the kingdom. I can't remember who said it or what presentation it was, but that is something that I've just found to be so true with our partners. We have partners that are more than willing to help promote Grow, and what we do, and how it works well with their products, but they have the same bottlenecks and resource constraints that I do. So if I'm waiting for them to create a webinar outline, or write a blog post, or come up with some content or some messaging for targeted e-mails, it just doesn't happen, because they're so focused on their own businesses.

 

So, I think one of the things for anybody that's new coming into it is to think about that it’s really is more than a channel manager, it's an organization-wide commitment. I've got to work with my product team, and my dev team, and my marketing team to really give our partners the tools and the resources that they need to be successful. That's something that I don't think I fully grasped coming into this role.

 

Jen: Well, those are some really great, great insights and I think extremely valuable for folks who are in this place of maybe just thinking about getting started. So thank you. I appreciate you sharing that with us. Before I let you go, at the end of all of my podcasts, I like to put people through a little speed round, where I pepper you with a few questions. They're really more about you. Are you open to this?

 

Joe: Yeah, sure, as long as I have the veto authority to say “I'm gonna plead the Fifth.” No, let's do it. It'll be fun.

 

Jen: Alright. They're pretty easy. They're kindergarten level. You'll be okay. So question number one. What's your favorite city?

 

Joe: My favorite city to visit I would say is...oh, that's a good one. I really like San Francisco. I think San Francisco is a really, really cool city. So let's go with San Francisco.

 

Jen: I like that answer. That's my favorite city, too. Question number two. Are you an animal lover, yes or no?

 

Joe: I am an animal lover. I have a silver Lab for a pet. I also have four children, and sometimes I wonder why in the world we thought a dog would be a good idea on top of four young kids.

 

Jen: I thought you were calling your kids the animals.

 

Joe: No. Sometimes they are animals. I'm saying it's added responsibility on top of the four kids. So sometimes I wonder why we did it, but, we love our dog, and I am an animal lover. So, yeah, I would say for sure on that one.

 

Jen: I don't think I know what a silver Lab is. Is it like a silver-haired lab? Like a gray coat?

 

Joe: Yeah, it's got like a silver-grayish tint. They're not very common. They're really beautiful dogs, and yeah, it's a Lab, but it's silver.

 

Jen: Awesome, very cool. Okay, question number three, Mac or PC?

 

Joe: Mac all the way.

 

Jen: Perfect. Question number four, Uber or Lyft?

 

Joe: Well, I've actually never ridden Lyft. So let's say Uber, because I've used Uber many times.

 

Jen: Okay. And last question. Let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip. Where would it be to?

 

Joe: I'm really an outdoorsman. I'm an avid fisherman and I love hiking and all that stuff. So I would say somewhere like Alaska, or maybe like Peru to go do like Machu Picchu. My parents did that last year, and the pictures were unbelievable. So I don't know. I think something like that would be really cool.

 

Jen: Alright, sounds good. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for taking some time out of your day to share your insights of growing Grow's partner program. It was such a pleasure. If our listeners would like to reach out to you personally, maybe to connect with you about some of the questions that we were discussing or to ask anything else, what's the best way for them to reach you?

 

Joe: My e-mail address is really easy, it's Joe, J-O-E, @grow.com, joe@grow.com. Or can I give my phone number?

 

Jen: You can do whatever you want.

 

Joe: My phone number where you can reach me is 801-615-0633. Those are the two best ways to get a hold of me. And call, or text, or e-mail, whatever you want.

 

Jen: Wonderful. Yeah, joe@grow.com, that's got a nice ring to it. I'll probably never forget that e-mail address.

 

Joe: I lucked out with that one.

 

Jen: You certainly did. You certainly did. Well, thanks again so much for joining us, Joe.

 

Joe: Well, thank you, Jen, for the invitation. It's an honor to join you and talk a little bit about what we all love to do. So thank you so much, and I would love to come back sometime, maybe down the road when I've learned a little bit more.

 

Jen: Sounds like a plan. Thanks so much. And thanks, everyone else, for tuning in. Join us next week for an all-new episode of The Allbound Podcast.

 

Male voice: Thanks for tuning in to The Allbound Podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resource center at allbounds.com. And remember, never sell alone.

Feb 6, 2017

Dee Dee de Kenessey, Agency Partner Program Manager at Wistia, joins Jen Spencer on The Allbound Podcast to discuss the why behind creating a partner agency program, owning the customer relationship, and divvying up valuable time between partners.

I'm so happy to have you. For anyone who's not familiar with Wistia, Wistia provides professional video hosting for businesses, they help businesses add their videos to the web, track performance, and really find new ways to build and engage with their audiences using online video. Dee Dee, is there anything I missed there? Anything you want to add about Wistia? And then tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sure. I think you hit the nail on Wistia. That's sort of it in a nutshell. I've been at Wistia for the past year, and I run our agency program over here. We work with a lot of agencies who are doing video for clients in all capacities; some of them are production shops, some of them are marketing agencies, some of them are large ad agencies, but we've got actually a lot of our customers do exactly that. So it's been really fun to come to Wistia in the last year and to launch and be running this program.

So you joined Wistia and the Partner Program a year ago. How long has the program itself been in place? Did it start when you arrived or was it something that you sort of adopted when you joined the company?

It started when I arrived. So Wistia brought me on to develop and run this. I came to Wistia just a year ago, January 2016, and we launched the program three weeks after I started.

Unbelievable.

It was pretty unbelievable. It was one of those things where I said, "I think the best way to do it is just to dive right in and build it as I go." And really what that allowed me to do was to really listen to our first round of agencies that signed up. So instead of building anything in a vacuum and crossing my fingers and hoping that it worked, it was great to be able to listen to that first cohort, ask them questions, and build what they needed. So it was a hectic beginning, but I'm glad we dove right in.

Why did it make sense for Wistia to begin an agency-based program? What was your executive team hoping to achieve by developing this kind of program and hiring you to come build this?

Well, most businesses, when they set out to make a video, hire someone to do that video for them. It's not unusual that you'll find businesses that have internal video teams, but most of the time it's an external hire to actually contract out or to get an agency or production shop to do that. So, again, that can be anyone from an independent videographer or a video-production studio, or a marketing agency that just offers video services. So, really, agencies are a natural fit for Wistia. In fact, many of Wistia's customers are, and have historically been, agencies. It really made sense for Wistia to dig deep into that cohort of its customers and to figure out if we could find a way to really partner with them and help them be more successful.

And what I've found and what I saw coming in is that there were sort of two huge opportunities within video for both the production shops and the broader marketing agencies. So, regardless of what type of an agency you are, agencies that are doing video have an opportunity to upsell their clients or just increase the size of the deals they're closing by adding video services to their existing portfolio. So either agencies are adding video on for the first time, maybe they offer services and now have an opportunity to increase that by adding video on top of the SEO or the social work or the e-mail marketing they might be doing, or, for those that already offer video, adding additional video services.

The real success comes when agencies go from just doing video production to running full video marketing campaigns. So instead of just making the video, the agency can own the strategy, and the planning, they can do the marketing around that video, and if they're using a platform like Wistia, they can measure and prove the success of that video. What we've found - what agencies found, partnering with us and starting to do this - is that their clients are willing to pay more for those services because they ensure the success of the video.

So part of our goal with starting this agency partner program is to educate the agencies that were already using Wistia about how to run these types of campaigns, and how do you you use Wistia to prove out the success of their videos, and then how to upsell, or sell larger deals.

The other opportunity lies in going from doing sort of one off video projects, to having a retainer model of work. Most people just sort of say, "Hey, we want one video for our home page, and that's it." That's sort of the equivalent of asking an agency to just write one blog post, and hope that it goes viral, or one tweet and hope it goes viral. And video can do so much more than just go on YouTube, or go on a home page. Video boosts results across the board for both marketing and sales initiatives, if it's lead nurturing, or closing deals, or whatever it is.

So, again, we saw another opportunity to help educate agencies about what the opportunities are that come with using video in different parts of the marketing and sales process for clients. Videos are also getting cheaper and cheaper. Wistia has a ton of great resources for our agencies about how to record on an iPhone, or make a lighting kit for under a hundred bucks. We wanted to help agencies also do more and better video, and then help them make the case to move to that retainer model, which is just a more sustainable source of income for them.

So really, our goal in creating a partner program is to help agencies do those two things. And of course it's a win-win, right? If video becomes an agency's core strength, if they're closing larger deals, if they're getting onto a retainer model and doing more and more video, then the more clients they'll introduce to Wistia and the longer those clients stick around. Being able to help agencies be successful in two ways was really the main driver.

Well I can definitely see how using a platform like Wistia can help an agency add value to that client for sure. From a very nitty-gritty partner program detail sort of perspective, who owns the customer? Are the agencies reselling Wistia, or are the agencies referring the business to Wistia? So who owns that customer relationship?

So the agencies are reselling Wistia. We decided to go the route of having an agency partner reseller program, as opposed to sort of having an affiliate program where people just get credit for links in to Wistia or referring leads because we wanted to own the end relationship with the client.

I actually came from HubSpot before Wistia and a lot of our inspiration for a successful model of a great agency program comes from Hotspot's agency program. I think they do great things with their agencies. One thing that is core of their model, which we've taken up and has been really valuable, is owning that end relationship with the client. Because at the end of the day, agencies and their clients, it's a temporary relationship. They might work together for a couple years, or a couple months, but at the end of the day, they usually part ways. You want to make sure that your company owns that end relationship so that when an agency disappears, they don't also take all their clients with them.

Right. So let's say - well, here I'm Allbound, right? So I'm Allbound and let's say I hire an agency to create all of my marketing content, which includes videos, and my agency then recommends that I host those videos in Wistia. Is that all wrapped into that one contract I sign with my agency? How do you handle it from a document perspective? So you stay in connection with that customer but the agency also still plays a supportive role in that customer relationship?

Absolutely. That's a great question. So the way that we have it structured is we ask our agencies to separate out the cost of Wistia from sort of the general charge, or to at least make it very clear within the contract that they're signing with their clients, that Wistia is a separate account, a separate charge. We ask that every agency signs their clients up with unique Wistia accounts, and we want the end client to own that account, basically to be the account holder, and own the billing. It's as simple as that. Every agency is made a manager on any client account, so that's how they have full access to the account, they can do all the work in the account, they have access to basically everything but billing. And that's also our way of tracking which agency is associated with which accounts, is whether or not they're manager on there.

We ask that either that the agency sign their clients up for Wistia, or just tell the client to sign up for Wistia, and as long as the agency makes themselves a manager in that account, then all that credit for that account, for the sign up, the resale, and sort of the future work goes to the agency.

Well, I mean, it's great to also hear that this is built into your product, right? It sounds to me like the Wistia platform was built with the intention, the plan, of going to market at least partially through partners. To be able to support that kind of a relationship which is great. I mean, it would be much more challenging for you to determine your success and to track that kind of engagement without that feature within the product.

Absolutely. I think it wasn't actually the initial intent. I don't think this was the plan all along. I'm not sure Wistia knew exactly what it was going to do, but they certainly knew that they had agencies in their ecosystems and that they wanted to have a specific type of user in the account that was a manager and that was different from just a normal user, was different from the account owner, and just had different sort of privileges and permissions mandated. That feature has really made the difference.

That makes a ton of sense. Now you brought these partners on, you just get started, you bring on that initial cohort like you said. I'm sure you've expanded since the initial recruitment that you've done. How do you determine which of your partners are going to earn that lion's share of your attention? Is it based on revenue that they generate? Is it based on their own potential for growth? A combination? How do you decide where you're going to spend your very valuable time?

That's actually the question that occupied me the most and probably still occupies me the most today, but especially when I was starting out the program. Wistia, the company is about 80 people right now, it was about 60 when I joined a year ago. Our agency team is fairly small. So, as I was building, not only was I thinking how can I make this a sustainable, scalable program within this business, but I was also thinking how can I build something that doesn't require a giant team to run it right off the bat? That could still scale up if it's just me or just a couple of us working on it.

So the way that we broke it down and sort of framed it out is every agency that signs up in our program has access to a really nice robust source of resources and training. I made sure that every single one of those things were built scalably and were fairly self sustaining. By scalable I mean that we have a resource center that we continually add new resources too. We stay top-of-mind not by having a weekly call with every agency, but by sending out a weekly newsletter. We've got a self-sustaining community in Slack that's attended to by the most active agencies in there. We use marketing automation to take care of our on-boarding process, the things like that.

Frankly, and most importantly, we eat our own dog food - we use a ton of video. So instead of having webinars or calls or just emails, video has actually been an incredible way, a really engaging way, to stay in touch with agencies and to have them get familiar with us, put a face to the name, and be able to communicate with them in a way that doesn't just feel like yet another email.

And then on top of that, we determine which agencies in particular we pay most attention to from our tiered program, which basically just rewards the top agencies by looking at a combo of the revenue they're bringing in every month and the account activity. We wanted to sort of reward them and pay attention not just to the ones that were reselling the most Wistia accounts, but that were actually actively getting in there and doing good work for their clients. And those agencies get sort of additional benefits, and part of that is some more one-on-one attention.

So they get a sales manager to help look at their client portfolios and help them close deals, and they get a customer success manager to help them use Wistia. When agencies reach a certain level, that's when we can justify and scalably and sustainably pay more attention to them.

So when you launched the program initially, did you launch with a tiered program, or was that something that came later?

That came later, maybe about six months in. I didn't want to build it initially, though it was in the plan all along, because I wanted to make sure that we were setting the tiers in a place that was reasonable, but also aspirational, right? So, I didn't want to set the tiers to some number of accounts or MRR or activity that no one would be able to get to, or that everyone would be able to get to, and then have to course correct from there. I wanted to see sort of who are our strongest agencies, and what are they doing on their own, before we set it up.

Makes sense. Engagement is going to be really important. You touched on so many different ways that you're transferring knowledge to your partners; leveraging video, obviously using marketing automation, creating this sort of cadence of communications. What's the biggest challenge that you have actually engaging your partners after they come onboard?

When I was doing my research as we were launching and as I was talking to people at other agency programs and doing some homework there, I kept hearing two things over and over again. The two biggest challenges for any - not only a new agency program but just for agencies that are in partner programs in general, the two biggest challenges are staying top-of-mind and helping those agencies make that first sale.

And I have found that is absolutely right. It is hard to stay top-of-mind because agencies do so much, right? Not only are they running every part of a business for themselves, but they're taking care of their clients or really it's switched. Oftentimes they take care of their clients first and have a tough time making time to run their business and do their own marketing and they're partnering with different people, they might also be a Marketo partner, might also be a Salesforce partner so staying top-of-mind is a tough one.

And also making that first sale. I have definitely seen that if they figure out how to sell Wistia once, then they got it. They understand, not only do they sort of understand what it takes to make that first sale and they got their spiel down, their pitch deck, whatever it is, but they also are then seeing actual dollar-value coming in for it and are incentivised to make that second sale, if see it helping them. So those two things are really tough and we try a bunch of different things to get at both of these things, and I think we do a fairly good job. Those are the two tough things and they're always tough.

Yeah. I think it's consistent. When we talk to other partner program leaders who are building agency-based programs. It is hard because, like you said, they are very focused on their customers as an agency. We say it's like the Cobbler's kids have no shoes, right?

That's right.

They put everything that they have all into their customers and then they kind of think about themselves last, so you're always going to be challenged with that. I also find that there are a lot of SaaS companies today that are vying for the attention of agencies and looking to agencies as a way to expand that customer reach. So if you've got one agency that you're partnering with they're probably partnering with other companies as well.

I'm just curious, have you noticed any sort of complementary technologies or complementary organizations where you have a lot of crossover? Maybe one of your agency partners is doing a lot of business with you and maybe another entity, or maybe a bridge that you hadn't previously identified.

Yeah. Absolutely. That's actually really been helpful for us because one of the easiest ways to stay top-of-mind with agencies is for them to really see value in the partnership with you. That sounds obvious, but say you've got a group of agencies and they are only Salesforce partners, then when that program grows, to a certain extent, it's hard to differentiate themselves. So they're then looking for that next opportunity so that they can be both a Salesforce and Wistia partner and then they can say to their clients, "Hey, I don't just offer Salesforce help, I also do this other thing. I'm different." It's a way for them to stand out. So if they can find the value in that, that really helps.

 

The partners, the other SaaS companies that we've found to be really great partners for us in that respect and we just share a lot of agencies, are the marketing automation ones. HubSpot, Marketo, and Pardot are sort of in the big three partners for us and love working with all three of them. There's no competition there. The things that we offer are mutually beneficial and in fact partner really well on top of each other. We use other marketing automation platforms as well, it's not just those three. There are a lot of ones that just offer email, right? So sort of your MailChimps, etc., and that's also great for an agency to be able to say, "Hey, not only are we a MailChimp agency and can offer email services but we also offer video services - we're a Wistia agency." So again, for us it's all about sort of complimentary marketing services.

That makes perfect sense. Wistia is a very scalable product, so I can see how you have the opportunity to partner with organizations both on kind of the lower SMB part of the market and then go all the way up, up enterprise. So that makes perfect sense to me. It gives you a lot of opportunity, from a partnership perspective, to find organizations out there where you can nicely complement each other.

So, as you said, when we kind of first kicked this off, you've literally just wrapped up your first year building and overseeing Wistia's agency partner program. So if you could go back in time one year what advice would you give yourself?

What a great question this is. I love this one. In the last year we went from zero partners to over 500, and it's been a pretty incredible year. We set some pretty aggressive goals for sign up and revenue and hit them all, which was incredible. This past year, I couldn't help but worry or want to move faster. It's tough when you build something new and you're not sure exactly how it's going to go.

If I could give myself advice, it would have been to have a little bit more patience and to trust my intuitions. I knew, I really knew, that it was going to be successful from the homework I had done before coming to Wistia, to the sort of intuition I had about how things were going, and then the initial results the first few months in. It's hard to relax when you're building something new at a company, when you're still proving it out, both internally and externally. So my advice is to relax a little bit, which, of course, hindsight is 20/20. It's tough when something is your baby and you really want it to work, but at the end of the day, hard work goes a long way and pushing things forward goes a long way. I do believe that if something is the right fit, it's going to work. I knew from the get-go that this was the right fit, that this kind of a program was going to work for Wistia, it was going to work for the people at the agencies using Wistia. So I wish I had trusted myself just a little bit more.

That's great. That's really great advice to calm that self doubt.

Oh, it's so hard.

I know. Luckily, there are organizations like you mentioned HubSpot, and they built an amazing agency-based partner program where it's generating, I think, 40% of their revenue now. So it's been done. You had the building blocks. You got the head on your shoulders. You've got a great product. But patience, man. It all just takes time.

So before I let you go, I like to ask people just a couple of more personal questions - I have five - in a quick little speed round. Are you ready for this?

Sure.

Okay. Just so we can get to know you a little better. All right. So first question is what is your favorite city?

New York City. That is where I was born and raised. It's the best.

Question number two, are you an animal lover? Yes or no.

Oh, yes. I have two cats and I think they're great. I also love dogs, I don't discriminate. Dogs and cats, hopefully someday I'll have lots of both.

Good stuff. Question number three, Mac or PC?

Mac all the way. I wish it weren't true. I feel a little bad about it, but they're so sleek.

Okay wait. Why do you feel bad about it?

I don't know. I know that I am really, at the end of day, paying more just because it's prettier. That makes me a little sad, but they're so beautifully designed. Now that I'm on a Mac, I can't imagine ever not being on a Mac.

I know. I'm right there with you. Okay, question number four, Uber or Lyft?

Uber, but I--

You sound pained.

I do feel a little bad because I've used Lyft and Lyft is just as, I don't know - there's really no distinguishing difference. I think it's probably because the Uber app comes first in my phone before the Lyft app, even though they're side by side, but I guess it's Uber.

Alright. Last question, let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses paid trip, where would it be to?

Oh, it would be to Morocco. Hopefully someday I'll be able to go to, that's where I would love to go.

Wonderful. Well, I would love to be able to send you.

That'd be great.

Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your insights, Dee Dee. It was such a pleasure. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally and ask some additional questions, get to know you a little bit better, what's the best way for them to do so?

Easy way to do it is on LinkedIn. I'm on there, Dee Dee de Kenessey. Also, Twitter is easy, it's just @deedeedkc. If people want to get in touch with me in a sort of more direct way - although I do look at both of those, they can also email agency@wistia.com. I'm usually on the other end of that, certainly it would get to me if someone went through that way.

I’m absolutely welcome to people reaching out regardless of whether or not you're starting a new program, or are an agency, or are just running an agency partner program, want to do a little commiserating or brainstorming. I love that. Some of the most inspiring moments I've had this past year have been talking to other people who run other agency partner programs or who are starting out, and being able to brainstorm together has been great.

Wonderful. That's so great to hear. Again, thank you for your time. Thanks everyone else for tuning in and join us next week for a brand new episode of The Allbound Podcast.


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