Kyle Burnett, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Allbound, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss the birth and growth of the partner portal, navigating channel tech, integrations, SaaS partner programs and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

Jen: Hi everybody. Welcome to The Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer, Vice President of Sales and Marketing here at Allbound. And if you're a regular listener of the podcast, you know I don't typically sound quite this froggy. I'm getting over a cold, I actually sound way worse than I feel. And I'm actually in a pretty great mood, and one of the reasons why is today's guest is none other than Allbound's own Chief Technology Officer and co-founder, Kyle Burnett. Welcome, Kyle.

Kyle: Hi Jen. I think your voice sounds awesome and after this, we're going to karaoke because I think you've probably got a pretty good voice for it right now.

Jen: Oh my gosh, I think if I do that I'll have no voice at all in the coming weeks. After this podcast, I think I'm going to go on a vocal rest. Is that what artists call it? Vocal rest? So this is going to be super fun. Typically on the podcast, we have folks in sales or marketing and always with a channeled focus, of course. But I want to add your voice to the mix because there's a pretty big role that technology plays in the channel. And, also I think you're pretty awesome.

Kyle: Well, thank you. Yeah, I think it's gonna be a fun topic, too, because technology in every sector of business is kind of at the forefront. It's hard to turn on news and not see stories about technology, technology companies, what they're doing, what's trending. And what I do love about your podcast is you're a great resource and support for sales and marketing people because it's not the headlines that you see every day. Technology winds up being the focus. So it'd be kind of fun to swing this back around a little bit and see if we can really focus on the cross section of those two.

Jen: Absolutely. So let's just dive right in. I want to start with a Channel Partner word that I honestly kind of have a love/hate relationship with. It's the word "portal" or "partner portal," and I can explain a little bit later on why I have this love/hate relationship with it. But Kyle, can you put on your professor hat for us here and kinda walk us through the birth and the growth of the partner portal? Because every person who I have on the podcast, almost all of them...they either have or want to have or talk begrudgingly about their partner portal.

Kyle: I'm sure. Yeah, I'm kind of like the wiki on that, and I think that sometimes the word's so loaded and we can take pieces of it and maybe think about it positively or negatively. But I think if you just back up the story and where the portal came from, it's really no different than every other portal that exists on the internet.

You know, pre-internet, how did you communicate with partners, with business partners? You printed and mailed things to them, newsletters, for example. And you had to print and mail other collateral and information that you needed them to have - data sheets, board papers, case studies - whatever you needed your partners to have, and that was print and mail.

Pretty soon that turned into digital files that are online, so instead of sending a newsletter you can email a newsletter. Instead of sending files, you can email files or links to files. And pretty soon you start aggregating that into one location online into, well, a portal.

And now you can actually switch and have that be more of an on-demand scenario where partners can come and get it when they need it. And it pretty much just follows the history of the internet in general, having information that you wanted to share and how do you just get it all congregated, aggregated to one location so that it's there on-demand, and that's kind of where the portal came from and actually where it just ends to where it exists today.

And I think to hone in on the love/hate piece of this, what we don't like about where portals exist today is that still implies that it was the portal that came in 1997 when the internet started to really take off. It feels like it got left in time, vs. software, which is ever evolving, changing, and growing. And I think that's kind of where Allbound sits is right there, and where a lot of companies, you know, what they're looking to in the channels to try to figure out how to actually use technology and how to actually use software and they still call it a portal. And so we look at that and we want to address that and say, "Wait, are you thinking the portal? Or are you actually just thinking software?" But that's where it came from and it's, to some degree, better or worse, where it still largely sits today.

Jen: So, when I think about why I have this weird feeling about partner portals is, I love the idea that organizations are investing in making a resource, allocating a resource for their partners, and providing their partners with the location to go to to be able to access information, I love that. What I hate is that I feel like portals are this place where marketing collateral kind of goes to die.

And the other thing is I don't think I've ever talked to anybody who says, "Oh my gosh. We have the best partner portal ever. It's amazing. I love it." It's like, not to follow this house or room theme too much, but it's like this room. And there's all this furniture in this room and artwork, and none of it really goes together, but it's all there. Is it better to just to have the room? Would it be better not to have it at all? And so, that's where my conflict, I think, comes into play.

Kyle: Well, maybe there's a bunch of gothy millennials who have moved into the channel now and they really like this idea, and they like the idea that there's this really dark portal that's like a cemetery of marketing content and so they just want to hang out there and smoke some cloves. Maybe we're onto something. Maybe we should keep going with the portal because it'll become trendy and cool again.

But you're right, it is that feeling that it is a wasteland. And to some degree, it's kind of true. It's like you put content up there, you make it accessible to somebody. And that's great. The first time they go get it, they pull it up, they're like, "Awesome, great. This served this need that I have right now." But it does become very transactional. And it kind of lives and dies by the need of the transaction. And it doesn't really take on any other life form of its own. It just sits there, it just waits. And that serves its purpose, but that is, in scale and in scope, a very limited purpose and that's painful for the business-minded marketers, such as yourself, that actually want to invest your precious resources in something that's got a bigger, longer, more valuable life span than just transactions.

Jen: And there's this other piece about it that kind of leads me into the next question I want to ask you about, and it has to do with technology. And I want to ask you about integration. But before I do that... So, the other way that portals are used, besides just to hold content, right, it's almost like a place to go to then access other systems.

So maybe I go into the portal and then I can access a lead or deal registration system, or then I can access a marketing campaign type of system. And I start thinking about from the user experience perspective, like how do you make sure that you're able to maintain a consistent user experience? Or are you leading someone through this portal and they're, like, literally going through this magical kind of realm and then they end up in this other system? And how can they cleanly get back to where they started? And I think that's one of the other challenges that I've seen come into play besides just the content piece.

Kyle: Yeah, it's like they need a treasure chest map, a crayon to help work their way through it. But when we invest in technology, especially in the channel largely for two reasons. I think the other challenge is that the channel leaders are looking to bring systems together and perhaps portal is kind of this place where they start to think, "Well, I've got a portal. Can I also add this there? Can I also add that there?"

But if you simplify it, back up to, like, two commonalities there, one is, they are looking to simplify process. And they're also looking to speed up and simplify their own lives and that of the lives of their partners. And so, once they move beyond, "I've got content," and things to share with them, they do start to say, "Well, I also have this process. I've got this."

So it starts to balloon out from there and it's tricky. I mean, as a person who likes to build systems and tie systems together, I know that it's very easy to engage in that scope creep and engage in that idea creep to go, "Well, just one more thing, just one more thing, just one more thing," but that is how most people's portals and systems were built, was just one more thing over a couple of years, over a couple of different regimes, over a couple of different technologies. And pretty soon you do have, as you've alluded to, that house of horrors and rooms and things tied together and no one even remembers why they got added on and why that was put there. It just becomes very weird when the guest shows up and is not quite sure how to navigate it. So it can definitely become legacy very quickly. And those challenges exist, but that was born out of great intentions, and that was born out of great promise and it was born out of great opportunity, but it does need to be revisited. It can have a very limited lifespan if you're not careful.

Jen: So, when you're working with a customer and you'll come into the conversation because there are systems that need to communicate with each other, at their core, what are some of those challenges? You mentioned aligning different processes. Let's lay it out there. Like, what are those processes that the majority of channel teams are looking to overcome by integrating their systems?

Kyle: That's a good question. So, what I think is consultants...what you always like to do is focus on the business objectives. You really try to back the story up and say, "All right. So how is your business? What's the state of your business? What's the size of your business? What are your objectives to help grow that business? What are your metrics where you gauge?" You are trying to back that up to the investment they're looking to make and the resources that they need to accomplish their job and then what would they use to measure success, what constitutes success.

Well, the ROI of business technology using channel is pretty much about simplification of process and maximizing of their limited resources. So that's definitely a commonality. And the problems that kind of prevent you really trying to help focus on simplifying that is that they have lots of systems, they're disconnected, there's too many features. In the channel it's really easy to say, "I also need this, I also need this, I also need this." So if your feature list gets really long, that's a challenge that channel chiefs face.

Then, because there's the waft of technology kind of takes together those repetitive feature sets or competitive feature sets, then you get different technical stakeholders of each of those systems, and you've got all of this that you're trying to maximize and make the most out of with budget constraints. And that's quite a challenge. And it's a lot of a challenge for somebody to face who, inside of their own channel, has kind of their own core values in what they do and what they bring to the channel. And it's probably not navigating all of those problems to achieve this technical outcome when really they're like, "I'm here to lead people and lead teams towards business objectives, not figure how to get this system to talk to that system and get past the people who own those things."

So that's quite a challenge. And that's actually a fun one. What I really enjoy and what my team really enjoys as technical consultants is working with smart marketers and smart business people to analyze what they've got, and just sit down and draw it out, and draw up the process, and draw up the flow, and keep focusing on kind of their core business objectives and their metrics for success, and really focusing in on the ROI that they need off of their investment. And that ROI more often than not, is simplified down in terms of that it takes less resources to accomplish the processes that they need to show that what they're spending then works.

Jen: I know when you're integrating systems, you're typically integrating with an organization's CRM. What is the typical use case that you're looking at? What type of data are organizations needing to move from one place to the other? So, what's kind of standard? And then maybe can you share something really cool that either you've seen someone do or that you're anxious to see someone do? That would be kind of neat to hear.

Kyle: Sure. I think that really what the channel's trying to accomplish is the same thing that direct sales is trying to accomplish. And sometimes we lose track of that. We lose focus of that because of the disconnect, because instead of my sales people being right across the aisle, and instead of us all being in the same break room, we're in different locations. Well, big organizations have lots of sales teams working across cities, across countries even. So it's actually not all that widely different, except that technology hasn't really kept up with that style of relationship. So CRMs haven't kept up with that.

The cost of growing through your channel, doesn't align with the way that you can scale a CRM with your business. They figured out the CRM price point based off businesses scaling, and the market teams to be okay with that. That doesn't carry over to the channel. And so I think what winds up happening is the channel is kind of stuck there needing, essentially, a lot of the same CRMish functionality, specifically since they're sharing leads and registering deals back and forth and co-selling with partners. Whether that happens on one side or the other, leads being referred in for the supplier to be working through to a successful sale, and then just kind of reporting back to the partner where it is, or asking them out, letting the partner work and report it back in. Either way, they just need this collaborative effort going and sharing of information along the way of "Where is this? How is it going? How can I help?" CRMs haven't really helped with that when you're having people outside of your organization performing those activities with you.

So largely, what channel teams that we work with need is, they need the ability to collaborate with their partners on prospects from gathering them, to educating them, getting them up to speed, moving them along through the process, converting them to customers and then supporting them after they become customers, and keeping that relationship alive with all three of those parties involved. And that's what they're trying to solve for with a handful of different systems, and not necessarily the resources in house, not necessarily the descriptions that they needed the technology to help with that, and possibly not with the technical resources they need.

So that's what we see. And when we get to come in and help with that, it is to help them understand what it is that they've got now with tools they could be using now and how they could augment that tool set and fill in some of those gaps and really leverage a handful of different technologies to accomplish what they've got, some of those technologies they already have, and maybe some of them they have and don't even need. It's a fun discovery process. But you process-flow that out with them and it really helps them wrap their head around this data that's moving between systems and between organizations that is largely invisible otherwise.

Jen: And I threw two questions at once, which is annoying, so kind of the second part of that was just if you have any kind of anecdote, like anything really nifty, like a really cool example of something that you're seeing folks do with integration or what you'd like to see someone do?

Kyle: Oh yeah. So I guess there's kind of a positive and negative I'd throw at that, which is that technology, where it sits today and where integration sits today, gives all of us this idea that it can all be done. I think we were visiting a client here recently and they were talking about their technology being "not Hollywood-ready." So they have opted to focus on selling into businesses because businesses understand what the reality is of technology right now, vs. the rest of us who go watch a film and just think that Iron Man could build his suit very quickly over the weekend to be ready for the aliens coming in.

So we have this expectation that everything is horribly complex and really terrible and really important and all of these, like, superlatives, all of these really strong words, but then can also be really accomplished very simply and just, "I'll get this system and talk to that system and do that," so there's a lot of magic inside of there that should just happen. So I think the work implies that the best thing is when they have this realistic understanding that anything is possible, but also understanding what you really need to be doing and focusing on that.

The things that I really love is when we see simplicity, something as simple as tying together your marketing automation system - and I won't use the word portal - and tying in your channel software that you may not even need to necessarily have APIs talking to APIs and moving a ton of data back and forth, because there just may be simple stuff that you can do with existing tracking technology that your marketing automation system already does. Like, if you can track all of your leads and see that they're visiting a page of your website, why can't you track your partners and your partner's leads using the same existing technology? This is already there. It's been proven out. It works really well when you have really smart, skilled marketers using that technology. That can permeate through your partner software and through your partner relationships and actually give you all of those great data points that you use in direct sales, you can use it in your partnerships and your indirect sales as well.

And so I get super geeked by working with teams to tie some of this stuff together and find these really elegant, simple solutions that accomplish what you need with what you already have. It doesn't mean you have to reinvent the wheel. It doesn't mean you have to invest in new R and D. It doesn't mean to buy more software. Sometimes there's just really, really simple answers, and you feel really good about it when you stumble upon those working with your customers.

Jen: It's such a good message about simplicity, and technology's so funny because most of us have these pretty powerful tools at our disposal, and yet, because they are powerful and they're complex in their nature, we can very easily overcomplicate them.

And, I'm just kind of laughing in my head because one of my team members was working on a project, and it was taking her like a lot longer than I anticipated it was going to take her. But then when I checked in with her on it, I looked at what she had been doing and she had overcomplicated it for herself like times five, there was a much simpler path from A to B than she had taken, because the technology was so great, because the technology was awesome. But she missed it, and I saw how very, very easy it is for even sophisticated sales and marketing and channel professionals to follow down that path and start overcomplicating a system that's already kind of there and alive and working for them.

Kyle: Yeah, we talked a lot about giving people too much rope. I think that's probably an analogy you use when raising kids. You're like, "Give them too much freedom and what's gonna happen?" So it's kind of the same thing, that just because you can add more features and just because you can do more stuff doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

I think the flip side is a really interesting scenario is watching what Apple's doing. And I'm not a fanboy, so when I say this, this is with a ton of objective respect. I love that they're hitting delete on things. I love that they're removing items, that they're removing stuff. That simplicity is hard. I mean, can you imagine that have to happen within that organization to convince everybody that it's a good idea to keep deleting ports on the machine and keep throwing stuff away? And yet, they keep selling, they're selling strong, new things keep going, innovation keeps happening and people keep going with it, and come to find out, you didn't necessarily need it after all. You could get away with less. That's hard. I mean, they're in a fortunate place to be a market leader and be able to drive that, and that's hard for a lot of people kind of in their daily lives to be able to sell that, I think because aren't we kinda bred to be with the idea that more is better?

Jen: Right.

Kyle: Everything about us is about "consumption of more," you know? And I'm not trying to get down that little societal rabbit hole, but we think that way. We think, "Oh, well, like, let me go look at a chart and line up this software and look at features. Well, they have more check boxes on the left, so it must be better." But really? I mean, can you make use of all of that?

I think that's one of the challenges that the channel faces is the idea that they've been told for so long that they need more. You can't even make use of more. You can't make use of most of those things that are fullest. It’s the same reason why Apple can delete all these extra ports, because most people weren't using them or didn't need them anyways. And it kinda goes the same with feature sets on software, feature sets on need. I've got this little joke around here that my ideal keyboard would have half of your keyboard with a big delete button and then there's just a couple of letters on the other side. I don't even need uppercase letters. I don't even want the shift key. It's known around here. It's like, if someone says, "I deleted something." I just like cheer and hand them some stock. "Here you go."

Jen: Oh, I think we'll have a Kyle keyboard in your future. I can see it.

Kyle: Yeah, and I'm not some minimalist. Don't get me wrong. I'm not some minimalist, right? You know me, Jen. I've got too many cars and projects and objectives and things I'm trying to do in life. I keep on top of working. I have no business doing all of that. So I'm definitely guilty as the rest of them of acquisition of things and the features and ideas. I throw out ideas, I use our prospect pages in Allbound and I'm like, "Dang it, I really need this other feature," and I go into our Slack group to talk about it and the thing jumps on me right away, it's a bit quiet.

So, I'm as guilty as the rest of them. It's most definitely a decided practice that you engage in over time to question what do you really need to really focus and really accomplish what you want? And the focus to grow applies from top-down, and it applies to every aspect of business, and less is a really, really beautiful thing.

And so it totally geeks me when I get to work with clients and we get to focus in on some of that, of removing extra needs and removing things that may have seemed like a good idea but actually, in the end, wind up just being something else to own, extra baggage, extra weight, extra responsibility that doesn't really generate value.

Jen: I was about to say, "I have one more question for you," and I'm looking at my question that I wrote down for myself and there's multiple question marks in that question, so I guess it's more than one question. But one more area I want to cover, it's specifically about SaaS companies, because there are a lot of SaaS comp

Annette Iafrate, VP of Alliances and Partners for Vidyard, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss channel alignment, building trust, defining rules of engagement and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.
 

Jen: Oh, it's so great to have you on. And for those of you listening who haven't experienced Vidyard yet, Vidyard is a video platform and they provide video hosting, enablement and some pretty awesome analytics. I know you joined the Vidyard team only about six months ago, but you've been negotiating partnerships at Constant Contact, you were helping drive partner revenue at SharpSpring. I mean, you've been connected to this concept of the partner channel for the last six years. And I really wanted to dive into a lot of that channel experience but before we do that, tell us a little bit about Vidyard, about Vidyard's value proposition so we get a sense of why you joined this team.

Annette: Sure, great. Appreciate it. I think the short answer is Vidyard helps companies drive more revenue through the strategic use of video. So, what does that mean? At the moment, the video economy is driving new expectations. Expectations around immediacy, transparency, authenticity, both in the workplace and the marketplace. So, video is now expected content and the statistics are actually staggering. Facebook gets 8 billion views per day for video, 8 billion. Isn't that amazing? But I think what's even more impressive is in B2B technology, 72% of B2B purchasers today are viewing video somewhere in their customer journey, and 50% of them are looking at at least 30 minutes of video. So, for those companies and leaders that want to keep up with the market, if they're not already doing video, they really need to embrace this new communication paradigm, and quickly. And for specific reasons, because it works. What we're seeing is, by having a video appear in your search results, you get 41% higher click-through rates. I think even more impressive is, if you have a video on your landing page or your website and your driving people there, you get an 80% increase in conversion and all of this with a 20% lower cost for leads. So, it's an opportunity that people should be leveraging right now, whether it's from the C-suite, through management, down to the front lines. Video is a very powerful tool, whether it's for communicating with customers, building brand awareness, encouraging employee advocacy or just in general, engaging with the market. And what Vidyard does is we help companies harness this power of video and use it to drive business growth, which is why I'm so excited about joining the team.

Jen: Wonderful. It sounds like you're pretty passionate about the use of video and I love it. I mean, when you're passionate about what you do and about what your organization does, it doesn't feel like work and it's exciting.

Annette: Absolutely, and it's just so powerful. You can see the impact on everyone's business, your own business, the channel business, as well as the end user business, so it's fun having that impact.

Jen: So, when you're looking at, really, the big picture of goals that Vidyard has, just looking at the next year, maybe even the next five years, what role will Vidyard's Alliances and Partner program actually play in helping achieve those goals? Because, Vidyard's a really rapidly growing organization. You guys are taking the the martech world by storm here. Where's channel going to come in this picture?

Annette: Right. Significant. Because the market's growing so quickly and because the company is growing quickly, you really need to prepare to start to leverage channels in order to scale the business. The market is growing, the market's massive. And at some point, you can only scale the direct model so quickly. The other reason is, in some cases, channels are really the best way to get to specific markets. So, there's a significant opportunity and I give the company a lot of credit in investing in channels early. Some companies I think wait a bit too long, because it does take some investment and some time to really ramp up a channel, as you've seen. You know, the recruitment, the alignment, the ramping. And so, in addition to that, the channels themselves just help accelerate the growth of the company. They extend the reach, give us access to more customers and prospects, whether it's through strategic alliances and their base, or market coverage, whether it's coverage of additional use cases, market segments and even geos. So there's a significant opportunity in the explosion of the market itself, and we've started primarily in the marketing and sales segments in use cases, but video goes across. It goes across industries, across market segments, their use cases including things like internal communications and support. So, trying to build a business that can attack all of those at once without leveraging channels is difficult. And as I mentioned, in some markets, particularly geo markets, the preferred mechanism for purchasing is actually through partners. If you're looking at iXAPACK or even LATAM and, to some extent, EMEA, customers prefer working with a trusted advisor that tends to be a partner. So, there's a significant role for the channels to play and, again, there's a variety of roles to be leveraged.

Jen: Hi, everybody. Welcome to "The Allbound Podcast." I'm Jen Spencer, Vice President of Sales and Marketing here at Allbound. And today, I am joined by Tim Harmon, Managing Director at Nuvello. Welcome, Tim.

Tim: Well, thank you, Jen. How are you?

Jen: I'm doing great. I'm loving living in Arizona in February. It is gorgeous. So my apologies to any listener who is knee-deep in snow right now. Come on out to Phoenix. It's beautiful. You know, Tim, so glad to have you here on this podcast. You know, most people in the channel space know you as being a Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. But then, earlier this year, you announced this new endeavor, that you've launched a new analyst consulting firm called Nuvello. So this is really exciting for us in the channel technology space. Tell us more. What's this all about?

Tim: Well, it is. I did leave Forrester in January and I am building Nuvello, which is essentially a new type of analyst consulting community and a new type of analyst consulting network really focused very much on channels. When I say network, the reason I use that term is because I don't profess to do everything that's knowingly in the Nuvello vision or plan all by my lonesome. And there are a plethora of very, very good and sharp independent channel consultants, I think, across the globe, and the intention is to bring them into the Nuvello network and to, in essence, create a more, you know, concerted analyst and consulting capability for, you know, both the chan-tech vendors that are attempting to support the primary target in our channel professionals.

Now, I use, also, the term, community. So the reason I did that is because the tech vendors themselves are going to have, hopefully, a lot of involvement in Nuvello. I'll just give you one example. I have believed for a long time myself that some tech vendors, a lot of tech vendors create a wealth of very good content, educational, you know, content. And I saw what you guys published in the last couple of weeks in terms of your own study and benchmark. I think that's a great example. So we want to source tech vendors' content to nuvello.com. You know, you could consider, for example, Jen, yourself, as another [inaudible 00:03:35] channel for your content, where, you know, Nuvello will ultimately, hopefully, become the ultimate go-to resource or channel professionals and practitioners, you know, for knowledge, tools, and benchmarks.

Jen: I think that's great. I mean, I know...I was speaking with one of the product marketing managers over at Salesforce a couple of months ago, and he was asking me, you know, "Where do people go to learn about, you know, channels sales and marketing? Where do they go to [inaudible 00:04:07] best practices and hear, you know, from each other?" You know, and I looked at him, I said, "Well, we're trying to create that ourselves, right?" So there hasn't been, really, a really strong kind of third-party resource for a channel professional to consume, you know, current content. So I think it's awesome. I think it's a really great resource that this community truly needs.

Tim: Well, thanks. You know, so combined with, you know, the knowledge content that Nuvello produces and the Nuvello network produces along with that the tech vendors produce, a lot of it is...well, in fact, all of it, for 2017, is going to be, you know, free. And, you know, ultimately, if we get to the point maybe next year where, you know, some of the Nuvello research, you know, might be, out [inaudible 00:05:17] associate with it, it's still gonna be, you know, very, very inexpensive. We're targeting companies really \$50 million and above in revenue. So, again, one of the goals of Nuvello is to reach what we call the mass mid-market, which is different than other approaches, you know, taken in the industry.

Jen: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. You know, I have you here. I wanna pick your brain about a couple of topics related to channel and related to, you know, sales and marketing technology. The first is that, you know, you've been, over the years, very passionate about the fact that far too many channel organizations underutilize technology and enablement and growth of their channel partners. So, you know, I wanna dig in a little bit. What have you seen or what have you experienced that's particularly concerning about this?

Tim: So I had the opportunity...just giving you an example, Jen. I had the opportunity, a couple weeks ago, to moderate a panel at a channels conference. And one of the things that I did, I ran it kinda like a jeopardy game, at least [inaudible 00:06:33] beginnning. I asked, you know, digital transformation, you know, and so that was the answer. You know, what is the question? And you could well imagine that, you know, the three panelists came up with three, you know, quite different definitions for digital transformation, which tends, you know, to be the watch word of 2017, right, 2016, not [inaudible 00:06:55].

When I drilled down with folks that I'm working with and this particular topic comes up, it usually winds up being in the area of how we are going to, you know, change some of our process, just automate those process who's using modern technology for our customers. Almost always the case. It never comes up that we want to apply some of this digital transformation-thinking to our channel partners.

Now, what's ironic, though, is that if you...I mean, the same sort of benefits could be realized, right? So why do you want to affect digital transformation capability for your customers? To have more loyal customers, right, to have them do more business with you, to have them spread the word as advocates. You know, the same exact benefits and results can occur if you apply those sorts of principals and techniques and technologies to your channel ecosystem as well, more loyalty, more loyal channel partners, more invested channel partners, bigger advocates of what you do. And the very few examples I've seen of tech vendors and manufacturers and other B2B companies that have made this sort of chan-tech investment have reaped big benefits in doing so in terms of, you know, loyalty, productivity, and/or advocacy.

Jen: I think it's a really great...actually a great bridge to...I wanted to ask you next about customer success. And you've sort of hinted about, you know, building advocates and evangelists some under your channel partner group in SaaS in particular. When you think about like those \$50-million, you know, fast growing mid-market organizations looking at channel, a lot of those players are gonna be software as a service organization. There's a lot of talk in the SaaS industry about customer's success, you know, evolving beyond just like client services or support. So can you share a little bit about where do you think channel sales and customer success either have been or need to intersect, you know, like today and then moving forward into the future?

Tim: And it's a great question. One of the things that I would kind of warn against is there is...and I've heard there's starting to be a slight little backlash, for example, the managed services provider segment of the channel industry. The very reason is that customers are saying, "You know, we had a three-year contract with you and we never saw you," right? "You know, you may have done a good job but, you know, there's someone else that's come along with greater economies at scale who can do the same, apply the same service at a lower price." And you drive yourself into a commodity type of a business environment, which is where I think most SaaS vendors and most channel partners don't want to be.

So, you know, I think channel partners have a vital role in, you know, kind of what their original purpose was. And one of the original purposes was that they had reached into segments of the market. And I'm talking about physical live face-to-face reach in the segments of the market that a tech vendor perhaps did not. And, you know, automation is great. You know, digital transformation is great. But I think, you know, channel partners have to maintain that personal relationship and that full life cycle enablement of technology solutions from, you know, building the business case to, you know, driving adoption that is ultimately what's going to make the difference between customer success or not.

Jen: That's a really great point. I think, you know, the key that I see there is continual collaboration, you know, between the vendor nor the supplier and those partners. As those partners have that face time with those customers, ensuring that that knowledge is transferred from the partner back up to the supplier. You know, typically, when we talk about knowledge transfer challenges, we tend to be a little short-sighted and think about it only from the perspective of how do I get all of this information about my product to my partners versus also looking at how do I get feedback and how do I get, you know, consumption information from customers via partners back up to, you know, the supplier who's creating the product. So...

Tim: Yeah, I think that's a key point, Jen. Most solutions, I think, today going forward are going to be ecosystem-delivered and supported solutions, right? So it's not that, you know, a tech vendor...I mean, you know, you turn back the calendar five years and there was this great fear that cloud software as a service was going to disintermediate the intermediaries, right? Who needs the channel partner? But that's turned out not to be the case. And, you know, the solutions are so involved and, you know, have so many tentacles even beyond the software aspect itself that you need to have all of your ecosystem forces aligned so that it appears to be an ecosystem of one entity even though it's really not. And that's, I think, where technology can really benefit. And it's absolutely required to provide one aligned phase to the customer where multiple ecosystem parties actually maybe involved in delivering value to the customer.

Jen: You know, one of the questions I get asked by a lot of CEOs at SaaS startups, you know...people are listening to this podcast or they're consuming content and they're talking to their colleagues about, you know, building these ecosystems, and a lot of them say, you know, "When do I start to build a channel partner program? Like, is there a certain revenue size I need to be at? Is there a certain gross stage I should be at?" You know, I'm curious. Like, you know, what do you think? You know, for a company who's just thinking about going to market via a channel partner program, is there a better or a best time for them to actually execute? Any words or wisdom that you have? I know a lot of our listeners are more emerging companies. Maybe they're not at that like \$50-million a year stage yet. You know, what advice can you give them?

Tim: Well, and so that \$50-million number is kind of, you know, the magic mark, right? I think that's when most companies do start to consider channels. And I think the reality is that most companies wait too late to start building their channels strategy and their channel programs. And they only do that when they see, you know, this revenue curves begin to flatten out a little bit. They wanna keep it going in a true northerly direction. I actually think that companies should probably start, well, I would say at the \$20-million market peak mark. But, you know, if it was me, if I was the CEO of a SaaS startup, I'd start from day one. I'd have channel be part of my strategy. I don't know if you ever, you know, watch "Shark Tank" on [inaudible 00:15:12] or if any of the audience, but one of the common questions, you know, that Robert or Kevin or Mark will ask is, "What is your distribution strategy?" You know, and these are pretty small companies on "Shark Tank." So I think there's a lesson to be learned from that.

Jen: Yeah, you know, and I like to take a page out of [inaudible 00:15:37], you know, she asks, "How does your customer want to buy?" And I think, you know, that's something that I'll always kind of go back to those CEOs and say, you know, "How are people buying your product now? How are you supporting them right now? You know, what's working for you in this direct environment? And make the channel an extension, a natural extension of what you're already currently doing." And, you know, we're starting to see a lot of the companies, you know, building channel programs or thinking about building channel programs, you know, quite a bit earlier. You know, that's faster a few weeks ago. And it was a big topic of conversation which, for someone who geeks out on channel partners, that's awesome for me to hear. So I think we're gonna see that number, that kind of typical revenue number for starting. I think we're gonna see that drop especially with these companies that are just growing really fast and wanna maintain that momentum.

Tim: I think that would be good for all parties involved, tech vendors, channels partners, and particularly customers, if they did that. You know, the one thing that I would kinda leave on this note is think about some of the largest companies in the world, you know, consumer-oriented companies. Just take, you know, Coca-Cola. You know, one of the things about Coca-Cola is you can buy Coca-Cola products almost everywhere in the world through various different types of channels. And, you know, take a lesson away from that in that, and you said it, different customers want to buy in different ways from different entities in different geographies, and try to serve them all or as many as you can, you know, with the resources that you have at your [inaudible 00:17:30].

Jen: Perfect. That's a great example. So, Tim, you know, you're just introducing this firm, Nuvello. I know you've already got a few roadshow symposiums that are on the docket for this year. You've got one just kicking it off in San Francisco. You got it going to Boston, Atlanta, going over to London and Singapore. It's super exciting. So who's the right kind of person to attend one of these symposiums? And then, you know, if I am that kind of a person, you know, what can I anticipate by attending?

Tim: Well, yeah. So, again, we're hoping to help, you know, channel professionals and go-to market professionals in terms of, you know, their strategies, their models, their recruitment, their onboarding, their technology, utilization. That's gonna be a key, key factor. You know, those people that are involved in those sorts of decisions and the execution of those decisions. So, you know, we hope for a pretty broad audience. Different symposiums will have slightly different audience flavor.

I'll give you an example. You know, we'll address this later in the year. We are going to try to actually bring in a couple of ex-CEOs, retired CEOs that were at the helm when their companies became quite successful via their channels. You know, that might indicate a different type of audience, you know, slightly. But, you know, for the most part, particularly for these few roadshow symposiums, we're looking for those people that are, you know, really involved, I think, in, you know, the fairly early stages of their channel-taking and their channel-development.

Jen: Wonderful. And so if people are interested in, you know, taking a look at those symposiums, they just go to nuvello.com? Is that correct?

Tim: Yes. Yeah, that's right.

Jen: Perfect. Perfect. Well, so, before I let you go, Tim, you know, we talked channel, but I like to ask some more personal questions of all our podcasts guests here, just to learn a little bit more about you. Are you opened to that?

Tim: You should go for it.  

Jen: All right. Okay, so my first question for you is what is your favorite city?

Tim: My favorite city?

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Tim: I'm just going to...my favorite city...it's not Phoenix. I'm sorry, Jen.

Jen: That's okay. That's not mine either.

Tim: [Inaudible 00:20:26]. One of my favorite cities is Ottawa, Ontario.

Jen: Oh, nice. I have to dig. Okay, what do you love about Ottawa?

Tim: You know, I think it's like the [inaudible 00:20:43]. So it's not too big, it's not too small. You know, there's lots to do. The people are great. It's safe. It's a four-weather climate, obviously, which I like. And it's got, you know, a lot of culture in it and a lot of sports activities, so professional sports, participant sports. So it just had a lot of things, you know, going for that I like.

Jen: Awesome. I love it. Second question for you, are you an animal-lover?

Tim: Well, yes, in general. Yes. Yeah.

Jen: Okay. But you're not gonna be inviting any into your home anytime soon? Is that what I'm hearing?

Tim: I have a couple of animals, actually.

Jen: Oh, you do. Okay, question number three. Mac or PC?

Tim: I'm neutral on that. I have one of both and I actually use them both about 50% of the time. So I'm an agnostic when it comes to that.

Jen: Oh, nice. My last question for you is, let's say I was able to offer you an all-expenses-paid trip, where would it be to?

Tim: Probably African Safari.

Jen: Sounds very nice. Well, thanks, Tim. And thanks for answering some of those more fun questions. Thanks for diving into some of those deeper questions about channel. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally after hearing this, what's the best way for them to do so?

Tim: You know, there's a contact us at nuvello.com which, you know, if they wanna email me, the phone numbers are there. And, you know, you can also book my calendar at nuvello.com as well. So if you wanna, you know, actually schedule a time to talk with me, I'm open to that as well.

Jen: Wonderful. That's a really good resource, and we'll go ahead to link to nuvello.com from this podcast. Again, thank you for your time. I greatly appreciate it, Tim. It's been great catching up with you. And thanks, everyone else, for tuning in. And check us out next week for an all-new episode of "The Allbound Podcast."

Wendell Black, Vice President of Channels for Five9, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss creating the optimal team to compete and win with the partner, prioritizing your partner needs, and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

Five9 is a leading global provider of cloud-based contact center software for sales, marketing, and support, and they facilitate over three billion customer interactions annually.

Welcome, Wendell.

Wendell: Well, thanks, Jen. Glad to be here.

Jen: We're really happy to have you here today, particularly because Five9 has a really robust partner ecosystem, and I want to dig right into that. I mean, you guys have referral partners, system integrators, consultants, resellers, master agents. Is there a primary area of focus for growing that partner ecosystem this year or are you just going after everything all at once?

Wendell: Well, as much as I'd like to say we're just gonna go do it all, Jen, I've been told that you can't have more than three priorities or you don't have really any. So that said, Five9 is very focused in growing the book of business that we have in the master agent, sub-agent community, and growing our reseller partnerships is our two big focus areas. These two areas generated a lot of growth capacity last year, and we're looking to substantially grow our reach this year by continuing to focus on both of these channels to market. We've been very encouraged by the relationships that we've developed, and we look to further invest both time and finances in these communities in 2017.

Jen: Do all of these elements of your partner ecosystem fall under your purview? I know you're focused on growing a couple of these areas, but are you specifically focused on any of these areas individually? I guess what I'm getting to is what is the team makeup really look like over there?

Wendell: Sure. So my team is divided up really into the communities. So the systems integrators is one group, master agents and sub-agents, that line of business is another group, and then resellers is a third team, and all of those roll up to me. And our focus for that is on a global basis. So I have staff not only domestically here in the U.S., but also in Latin America, in Europe, and Asia as we grow in that direction as well.

Jen: Awesome. Now, a lot of times when I'm speaking with channel leaders, they’re very focused on, of course, growing revenue through that partner base. But the more that we've become a very recurring revenue-focused type of world, right, this marketplace, the way the markets change, now the conversation is really starting to transition into what value do all experiences, whether they're from direct sales teams or partner teams, play in that full life cycle customer experience? So, if I'm one of your Five9 customers, can you tell me how would one of your partners actually add value to my experience with your product beyond simply that, "I bought it from that partner"?

Wendell: Sure. So I think, as you know, Five9 has been delivering contact center solutions for 15 years now. But our partnerships, many of these resellers in particular that we're working with have been working in the contact center for twice that long. It's that breadth and depth of experience that the partners bring that is where the real value add is to what the Five9 product does and delivers to its customers. They provide that added value and insight to be able to help a customer really maximize that value. So a customer of a Five9 partner is not only getting the innovative omni channel solution that Five9 offers, but it's getting the years of been there, done that experience that the partner has to offer in this space. That's where the customer really wins.

Jen: Right. And, you talked about your resellers and you mentioned you have master agents, can you sort of talk us through how a master agent program differs from your reseller program? And keep in mind that some of our listeners, are just very new to the concept of Channel, they're just really starting to build out their partner programs, and this might be good for them to think about as they're kind of crafting that blueprint for what's to come in the future for themselves.

Wendell: Sure. So let me, first of all, tell you how they are similar. Both programs work with Five9 sales and sales engineering staff to ensure that we've provided the optimal team to compete and win in the market with the partner. The teaming of the Five9 experts with our partner experts makes for an unbeatable team. The programs are different, though, based on the scope of services that each type is really ready to deliver to a client. So in the agent or master agent kind of a program, they're really focused most of the time on the pre-sale side of a customer's selection of the solution and solving the need, bringing technology and different kind of solutions to bear on that customer problem.

The resale program not only does that, and works in that pre-sale process, but they also want to manage and deliver the solution, they want to train the customer, they want to own the operational consulting and ongoing support with the customer. I mean, the reseller really wants to have a day-to-day operational engagement with clients to continue to grow the success with a joint solution that they're bringing the services and the day-to-day engagement experience along with the Five9 product.

So, when you look at the two ways, one of them is the beginning to end relationship where the other one is really focused on the pre-sale engagement side, and that's why it's a great avenue for people to perhaps start as a referral relationship and be able to grow into the resale kind of soup to nuts delivery of the relationship over time. That makes it an easier way for all of us to get started.

Jen: So if I'm a customer and I come to purchase your product via that reseller program, do I ever have any interaction with anyone on the Five9 team, or is my only interaction with your product with that individual reseller?

Wendell: No, I mean, that's one of the things that, I think, is differentiated value for Five9 in that we team our sales and sales engineering, and frankly all the resources that those people can bring to bear with the partner to be able to put the best foot forward across both organizations. We want to get all the right resources available to ensure that when we're out there in the competitive market space, Five9 and the partner gets to win their unfair share of business.

Jen: I love that, unfair share, perfect. I don't think I have ever heard anyone say that. I think I might have to steal that from you, Wendell.

Wendell: That's okay.

Jen: So, one of the biggest challenges that we hear over here at Allbound when we're talking to organizations who have partner programs is they have a lack of engagement with their current partners. Can you share a little bit about some of the biggest challenges that you've had engaging with partners and maybe what steps you've taken to try to overcome those challenges?

Wendell: Sure. So, as you undoubtedly know, there's a lot of transition going on in the contact center infrastructure market these days. That is both the biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity from where Five9 views what's going on. There's a lot of concern and questions in the minds of the reseller community that've had longstanding relationships with providers in the past but they're changing now. I mean, this is mainly because new ownership is making changes in programs and personnel that they've grown accustomed to and perfectly well understood previously.

So Five9 is the only company in the Gartner contact center as a service leader quadrant that's not currently being assimilated by another company. I believe this makes us a more stable and predictable partner for our resellers to engage with and to help them plan a path forward they can count on. So in helping our partner community be more successful, we're diligently working with them on all aspects of training for a better understanding of how to deliver value to their customers with Five9, and this starts with sales and marketing, it transitions into demand generation, and it continues all the way through implementation and customer service.

We're taking a holistic view of helping our reseller partners make the move to the cloud, and that's what I think really changes our engagement strategy and approach with partners today, because we believe we have to interact with them on every one of those functional areas and put the right people in place to help them in those roles.

Jen: That leads me really nicely on to the next question I have for you. When we look at what makes a successful partner ecosystem, a lot of making the channel part of a strategic part of the business, making sure that there's a culture of partnership within the organization, and really making sure that the partner teams are properly resourced. So can you share with me, what are some of the internal resources or team structures, anything that you've put in place that are there to support Five9's entire partner ecosystem to ensure that you can be successful in engaging with these partners and making this a strategic part of your business as a company?

Wendell: So one of the great things at Five9 is we're on a tremendous growth path over the last five years. I mean, we've been growing roughly 40% a year each of the last years, and that growth means we can hire people and put them in the right position to manage all aspects of our business growth. So we've been giving people that come into the company a partner tattoo as we bring them into our sales and sales engineering teams, also into sales operations, because there's always transactions that are going back and forth between us and our partners.

We've also brought partner resources into our marketing team, because frankly, we're pretty good at the marketing of cloud contact center, and many of our partners, this is a new set of stories to tell. So we can help them in telling a cloud monthly recurring kind of a story versus a premise perpetual licence kind of a story. So there's a lot of learning and experience that we can transition that way. It goes right into our professional services. I mean, we've had to align people in our PS organization to be the point of contact for partners, because as they take on those responsibilities, they need a go-to resource to be able to help them overcome challenges or obstacles.

Our guys have seen a lot of implementations of Five9 and other cloud technologies, and they can help share that insight with our partners. And then finally support. I mean, everything happens through the support organization after the sale, and we want to do a mind meld with our partners so they can deliver those kinds of services the same way we do, which got us the recognition in the Gartner Magic Quadrant as being one of the best at execution in this sector.

Jen: That knowledge transfer piece, I mean, everything you're talking about has to do with that knowledge transfer. How do you get information from one entity to another, especially when they don't work for you, they're not in your building, they're not on your payroll necessarily, and transferring your knowledge down to the partner but then getting the partner's expertise and their customer knowledge back up to you is so critical. So that's great that you were able to create an infrastructure to support that effective knowledge transfer.

Wendell: Yes.

Jen: Oh, go ahead.

Wendell: I was going to say you're right on target with it because it's all about collaboration and we can't ever leave a partner stranded. We've got to be there to provide the safety net for them and for the customer to ensure that we have a continuing great experience with our clients in the base, whether they've come to us directly or through a partner channel.

Jen: One more question for you, and it's kind of a big one, but we mostly are talking to software companies. What do you think is the software industry's greatest opportunity when it comes to Channel? Channel's traditionally been a very traditional sort of like hardware-focused type of industry. So what can software take advantage of with Channel?

Wendell: I've been in the contact center business for over 30 years and I've been in the cloud space for 17 years now. I think we're finally at a place that we've hoped for as evangelists for cloud services back 15 years ago. I mean, we knew we were trailblazing and we knew that we were fighting an uphill battle against the established norm, but the market is right, customers are ready, and the partner ecosystem is also ready to take on cloud services and deliver them to their customers.

The time is now to be able to take the transitional move from perpetual premise licensing to the cloud model and software as a service. So I personally think after my time in the space, it's finally time to write the tsunami of the cloud contact center into the new omni channel paradigm of 2017, and that's why partners are getting excited today, because they see that opportunity too with their customers and now where you had to sell...or in the past when you had to sell people to think about the cloud, now they're asking about the cloud first and having that as being their first choice.

Jen: Right, absolutely, absolutely. I think that's a great way for us to wrap this up, although I don't let anyone go kind of without bugging them with a couple of more personal questions. So, totally unrelated to what you do at Five9 or Channel or software, are you open to answering a couple of questions?

Wendell: Sure, I'm fine with that.

Jen: Okay. I promise they're not too hard. My first question for you is, what's your favorite city?

Wendell: Gosh, it's hard not to be Dallas-biased, and been my home for 30 years and I can't imagine living anywhere else, but I do very much like to visit San Francisco and London and Paris. So I'm kind of a world traveler and I have a lot of favorites for different reasons. So can I cop out on that question kind of like that?

Jen: Sure, sure. The whole point of this is to get to know a little bit more about you, so we did just that. The second question I have for you is, are you an animal lover? Yes or no?

Wendell: I am.

Jen: And do you happen to have any pets?

Wendell: Yes, a white lab that I love and adore. So she is a great friend and a member of the family in every way.

Jen: Awesome. What's her name?

Wendell: Millie.

Jen: Millie, it's a nice name. Okay, question number three, Mac or PC?

Wendell: Both, actually. I have a MacBook Air on one side of my desk and a Microsoft Surface on the other.

Jen: Really? Very interesting. Most people I talk to either like one or the other, right? Like their brain has now been trained to use one kind of device, so that's great. The last question I have for you, let's say I was able to offer you an all expenses paid trip, where would it be to?

Wendell: You know, I would...I think I like to go do Asian coast tour, and so I have a mind that...the Tibet, Vietnam, Cambodia area is one that I haven't spent much time in and would like to go get to know better. So I think that's what I would target today. But a year from now, it could be some place totally different.

Jen: Well, and who knows where the business will take you? You might find new and exciting places that you never even knew really existed. I think that's one of the beauties of Channel, Channel is so geographically dispersed, you get to experience so many different countries, cultures, experiences, so it gives you a lot of opportunity.

Wendell: Couldn't agree more.

Jen: Well, thank you so much for taking some time sharing your insights with us today, it was a pleasure. If any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally to follow up, ask you any questions, what's the best way for them to reach you?

Wendell: So my email is pretty easy, it's wblack@five9.com, and I would be delighted to engage with the partner community that way. I'm also on LinkedIn, Wendell Black, and would be happy to engage with people out there in the social world as well. Five9.com would be my third recommendation. You can find me in the partner section of our website and would be happy to get connected via that as well. So Jen, it's been a pleasure speaking with you today, and thank you so much for the opportunity.

Jen: Oh, you're very welcome. Thanks for joining us and thanks, everyone, for tuning into The Allbound Podcast.

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