Gary Sheedy, Director of Commercial Partner Programming at DAQRI, joins host Jen Spencer on The Allbound Podcast to discuss how to find the right partners and build a solid partner program.

You operate in a highly technical, specialized industry, how do partnerships come about?

With DAQRI, it’s not a problem trying to get people interested in the technology. It's about bringing them out of the blue skies and showing them what's actually possible. We bring in partners and train them up on the use of technology and expertise, or in this case DAQRI's expertise, and deliver that to the market. This gives them a jump ahead from their competition in their market space by showing thought leadership and the use of augmented reality in their space, and also they are able to show significant return on investment to their customers and increased efficiency.

What checks does your team have in place to ensure it’s the right partnership for DAQRI?

We have a two pronged approach. One is working with large key accounts and understanding who they currently work with. Then we work with targeting specific expertise in the particular marketplace we would acquire. Finally we work with partners to get trained up with our partner program and with DAQRI’s strategies and goals.

If you've identified someone is not a fit, how do you politely turn them away?

It’s a continually evolving artform. We provide a scorecard which mixes technical and commercial expertise and line it up with our strategic goals and the various market segments we’re targeting. This allows us to compare the relative values of various partners. If they have a certain score then obviously we will engage directly, and get them up and going. What we typically do with those who don’t meet the initial criteria is work with them on marketing to make sure that they can get informed.

DAQRI doesn’t have a traditional reseller model. Why did you go the route of affiliate partners?

We have a seller model where we sell and warrant the software ourselves and then work with our partners to develop and support their business models. That way they can make good commercial results out of using the DAQRI platform and the applications they have developed on selling their customers. This would obviously migrate into a resellers model once we have some proven data in the market. We expect that will start happening sometime in the middle of the next year.

What tips do have for building a partner program?

Building a partner program is essentially creating another appendage of your company. For me, a successful partner program means operating and representing exactly how DAQRI wants to be represented in the market. When I started, the process has been about figuring out what that looks like and how to put a plan in place from a program and delivery perspective. Then it’s about developing the artifacts, the processes, the control manner and the mechanisms.  

Speed Round Questions:

What's your favorite city? Munich.

Are you an animal lover? Yes, dogs.

Mac or PC? Mac.

Uber or Lyft? Uber.

All expenses paid trip to where? Bern, Switzerland.

Sloan McCauley, Director of Channel Sales at Localytics, and Jen Spencer discuss educating clients, establishing trust and how nothing beats face-to-face time with partners on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

What do you do in your role?

I came into this role about two years ago. The first year was about figuring out our strategy. From there it has really been a year of what we consider a full partnership production. At this point we are influencing a part of our overall pipeline here at Localytics. Ultimately my goal in running this business would be to have it be a 50 / 50 split between channel and direct sales.  And hopefully it will continue to grow from there.

What major initiatives are you implementing to develop those relationships?

We’re aiming to provide as much education and support as possible, and that comes in many different forms. With a product like Localytics, because we are focused on the total lifecycle of users as it relates to the mobile application, we present an opportunity to have partners push their customer to think beyond the download, beyond standard media metrics, and have them  think about retention. How do we turn these users into a lifetime customer and ultimately these producers of our brand? Fortunately we have a platform that allows and equips agencies to push customers to think that way.  

How do you support knowledge transfer between Localytics and your partners?

These are incredibly busy folks, so it’s about delivering consistency –– being in front of your partners and being on call for them when they need information. It can be phone calls or in the form of weekly or biweekly newsletters. But I don't think anything replaces being front and center in person with partners.

What is the biggest challenge with actually engaging your partners?

Trying to build up our numbers. This was trial and error because Localytics didn’t have a defined partnership strategy yet. We tried to see who we could get in front of and tried to understand a wide array of partners. Quite honestly we onboarded a considerable amount of those folks this way. Definitely, coming out of the gate, start small and make sure that you establish an ongoing communication strategy with those folks.

Do you have any tips for establishing trust with partners?

You never want to enter into a business relationship with someone when you don’t understand what their endgame is. The same goes for partners. It is really important to understand what the core of their business is so that you can use that information to turn it into a mutually beneficial relationship. It ultimately builds trust that we are taking the time to look at your client's business.

Speed Round Questions:

Favorite city? San Francisco.

Are you an animal lover? Yes, a big time animal lover.

Mac or PC? Mac.

Uber or Lyft? Uber. Ride or die Uber.

All expenses paid trip to? Croatia.

Jack Kosakowski, global head of B2B sales execution at Creation Agency, joins Jen Spencer to discuss social selling, relationship development and the power of content in this episode of The Allbound Podcast. 

How do you define social selling?

Social selling is leveraging the communication channels where your buyers are living versus just communicating with them via phone and email. You're providing value and communicating on multiple channels to influence the sale along the way from online conversation to offline revenue close.

Should social sellers separate business from their personal life?

We live in the most digital age ever. If you're scared of someone seeing your lifestyle through your social channels, you should be careful how you share or how you live your life. You should inspire and motivate people on a personal and professional level, because hiding isn't going to get you anywhere in sales.

How can today's B2B account exec or business development rep use social networking to strengthen their phone and email strategies?

If you really want to get to that next level, you've got to understand who the individuals are in the accounts you want to sell. Everyone thinks it's all about business value, but really you've got to have some personal value, too. Nobody wants to be sold, but everybody wants to have a conversation, especially if they have something to talk about with somebody. But how do you know that if you're not leveraging the information you're given?

What challenges have you identified while working on digital strategies?

One challenge is that marketing is not tied to the revenue numbers, from a dollar amount. I think that marketers should get a base salary, but they should live and die on what kind of business comes in like salespeople do. Most marketers aren't in the weeds sitting with the customers –– they're sitting back and creating content based off articles the industry says they should be writing about. A lot of their content may be great but isn't going to help move the needle. When you're disconnected from the buyer, you are disconnected from sales.

What is an example of a tactic you used on a recent social selling success?

I’d been having some very preliminary conversations with a customer that I really, really wanted. I knew through one of our conversations that we could fix a major pain point for him. So I wrote a blog post on LinkedIn on the whole process of how this could be fixed then sent the link to him and said, “Hey, I wrote a blog post and I was thinking about you and our conversation, and how this might help.” He came back and said, “Jack, we need to take this conversation more seriously. That was brilliant. How can you do this for us?”

Most sales leaders don't understand the power of content, but here I leveraged my insight, created the content, and I sent it to the customer in a way that made it look like I wasn't selling. I was adding value to my audience, and content was the way that I got into that conversation. It’s called leading with value.

Speed Round Questions:

Favorite city? London.

Animal lover? Yes.

Mac or PC? PC all day.

Uber or Lyft? Uber.

All expenses paid trip to? Thailand.