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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: August, 2017
Aug 23, 2017

Narrator: Effective selling takes an ecosystem. Join host Nicki Kamau as she explores how to supercharge your sales and master the art of never selling alone. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast, the fundamentals of accelerating growth with partners.

Nicki: Welcome to the Allbound Podcast. I'm Nicki Kamau, and today I'm joined by Diane Krakora, principal at PartnerPath. For those of you listening who don't know, Diane has been awarded one of the 50 most influential women in the channel, and has worked in the channel for what seems to be her entire career. Welcome Diane.

Diane: Thanks Nicki. Thanks for having me today.

Nicki: Yeah, we're so glad to have you here. You know, you're bringing a really unique perspective to our podcast today. Our typical guest manages the channel and partner relationships, and we've also had a few guests presenting us with the viewpoint of the partner or reseller. But you're one of the few guests that we've had that runs a company that provides services and acts as a consultant specifically for the channel. So I'm really excited to dig in with you.

Diane: Yeah. We've been doing it for 18 years, so we've got a lot of history there.

Nicki: That's awesome.

Diane: And we're working with technology companies.

Nicki: That's great. And you know, because of the nature of your business I think it would be beneficial for our listeners to hear what PartnerPath does, and how your services benefit channel managers. So go ahead and take it away.

Diane: Great, thanks Nicki. We focus on helping mostly high-tech companies grow their partner sales, both channels and alliances. So, some of our research we do helps these channel professionals with a great benchmark on how you're doing against to the rest of the vendors. You're all fighting for partner mindshare, be the ISB relationships or the solution providers. You're all fighting for mindshare, so we're trying to give you some benchmark data to see how you're doing.

We also help you stay on top of trends with some of the research we do, some of the consulting. Really, the goal here is to ensure your partner programs are future-proofed. What's coming down the pipes to you guys in channels, and what's changing, what's gonna happen in 2020 and beyond, so that you can make sure that your channel partners and your programs are ready for these changes.

And then lastly, our consulting services ensure that the channel professionals are effective, really, at engaging and empowering partners. We all don't have as much budgets as we'd like to be able to go out and create programs. So we really need to look at that kind of efficiencies and effectiveness, and how you increase sales. Do more with less, really.

Nicki: That's great. That's really great. There was a blog post that you wrote, and it was titled "A New Age of Channel Partner Recruitment," where you talk about the differences in selling to potential partners now versus in the past. And in it, you know, you talk to your audience, and you tell them to seduce the next generation of solution providers like you sell your customers, nurture them and provide value to them. And you know, I couldn't agree more. It sounds like you're suggesting inbound marketing for partner recruitment, which, you know, we are all about inbound here. Could you talk to us and our listeners about that and the future of the channel?

Diane: Yeah, we're all about inbound as well, and we, you know, we do call it inbound. The goal here, the focus, is to think about buying journey, right? We all talk about the buyer's journey has changed. Really from selling to the consumer and/or individual buying it, right? So the funnel that we see is mostly marketing, right? You educate, you inform, and you allow, you know, you allow people to gather information and then choose to buy, right?

We just bought a new car about six months ago. My husband has done all the research on what kind of car he wants. He did all, you know, what colors were available, what extras were on, and he had it all tapped out. He knew exactly kind of the car, the color, the make, the model, all these things that he'd care about. And what…basically, he went to the dealer and said, "This is the car I want, and oh, by the way, it's five miles away in this town. Go get it for me." It's true.

So since we all know, we all agree that it's changing for end customers, but as technology tells people, we still think we can sell solutions providers into buying our stuff, right? There's still…a lot of the recruitment efforts are like, "Go, go find me 400 partners," right? And it's just like, that doesn't...if the buyer's journey has changed, why do we think the solution providers and them making their decisions hasn't changed with those times as well? So that's why we really think about it as inbound. You're always recruiting, just like you're always pulling to your customers, right?  

How do you create an education that process, but not only the partners that are in your program, but that is across the partner ecosystem, right, into podcasts, or articles, and trade shows, that you're educating. So when these partners do have a need for your product or a new technology, that you're already talking with them.

Nicki: Yeah. You can't see it, but I'm sitting here nodding along with you because it's, you know, I completely agree. You just being able to educate all of those potential, you know, potential partners. Educate all of your potential customers. That's really that inbound methodology of bringing everybody in, and allowing them to make the decision, and have you be the solution provider. So I really love your thoughts on that.

Diane: Yeah, and one of the things that kind of lead to that is a statement that I talk about a lot, which is the partners have the power in the channel, right? And this sends everybody in a tizzy every time I say it, right? The channel, the solution providers owns the customer relationship. They are putting together the solution, the hardware, software, and services to meet a customer's need. So they're that last mile, right? It doesn't matter if you've got the greatest widget or the best software product on the planet as a vendor, the solution provider owns the customer. So how do you help educate those solution providers on your product and your offering so that as they're trying to put together that solution for that end customer that they're coming to you? And that's why we really think of it as a constant inbound education awareness-driven event, not a, "Hey, go find me 400 partners in the next two weeks, because I need to get my numbers up."

Nicki: Yeah, yeah. With your career history, as we're continuing here, you have a really unique view of partner programs. You're helping young channel programs. You're helping broken channels, or maybe even channels that have growing pains as they rapidly expand, and organize, and optimize their programs. In short, you see the good, you see the bad, and you see the ugly. I'd love to hear some stories about, you know, these experiences that you've had. Can we start with a success story?

Diane: Sure. It's been 18 years, and we've worked with over 300 technology companies. From guys like Apple and Palm...do you remember Palm? Remember them way back then? Like Cisco, Verizon, PayPal. We also work with a lot of small companies. As you said, we've seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. Guys like FireEye, Sophos, Box [SP], Century [SP]. It's often, you know, good, bad, but there's, oh, so much ugly out there in the last 18 years. Now, I can give you some examples, but I can't share any names.

Nicki: That's fine.

Diane: Because, you know, I have to protect the not so innocent, right? No one wants their company name flashed across the podcast. So one of the things that we see...and we worked with a company that is a security company based in Boston. And we worked with them for over, about a year and a half, of various projects, right? The most of our stuff is kind of short-term, a couple of months long. But there's three things that we did. One is help create a benchmark to understand where they were against their competitors. Not only the technology competitors, but also those mindshare. So when you're trying to sell through solution providers or resellers, or VARs, or whatever you wanna call them, not only are you selling against your technology, but everything else that guy sells. So looking for that as a benchmark. Where are you as a vendor, good, bad, and ugly? Where are you hurting the partner's overall experience with you so that they're not engaged? So the first thing's usually kind of a benchmark. And we do a lot of reports that you could kind of like benchmark yourself.

And then the second thing we did is refresh their partner program. Really kind of bring it in to the next generation. Looking at, you know, instead of tiers and types, then there's three levels and six types of partners, how can we streamline this to make it easy for the partners? And then, kind of the third thing is always around the people. You'd be surprised...I know that sounds surprising. But really helping to educate or train, or help the people within the organization to understand the value of partners, and to understand what helps drive a partner's relationship, and what hinders that. So the guy we worked for there, over this year and a half, he was promoted twice in that year and a half that we worked for him, just because the programs were working so awesome. And now he's a big mucky-muck and a big shot at another security company.

Nicki: That's great. So there's, you know, there's so much that we can learn from that. Do you have a company that you've worked with that you could maybe call the most improved for their channel program? Maybe a program that was considered a problem child, or is riddled with problems and lack of processes? We'd love to hear, you know, what their pains were, how you went about sending them on the right path, and just kind of improving their overall channel program.

Diane: Yeah. There's…again, protecting the not so innocent. These people are still our customers, and many of them are my friends, so I don't want to out them as having ugly stepchildren. But we usually work in the background, really helping the channel professionals in these organizations to look good, right? That's our goal, right? How do we help you as a channel professional and a company to look good, right? We don't want to take credit. We're mercenaries. We just want to get the job done and then help them kind of raise these mistakes.

So some of these...one company that we worked with recently, in their base in San Francisco, and they are a SaaS company, which a lot of the SaaS companies we work with have the same challenge, right? They're fast-growing. They don't really...and they have a strong value proposition for why a channel partner should work with them, right? Because it's a fast product. They're getting a couple of dollars on licenses a year, right? The services may not be that robust. So one of the things that we did with them to help accelerate their partner ecosystem was starting to look at kind of the variety of types of partners. So we stopped talking about labels. Are you an ISB, or a reseller, a VAR, or a systems integrator? And we talk about...so we go from noun, from verb to noun. I mean, from noun to verb. So we're looking at what are they doing. What are the partners doing? Are they reselling? Are they referring? Are they bundling? Are they integrating? So we're able to structure kind of a new way of working with different types of partners based upon what those partners are doing.

So these guys in the city, we were in San Francisco. We were helping them understand the different types, and how each partner makes money. And to create a very specific value proposition, i.e. if you're a partner and you do these things in this time frame, you will get X returns. And really to create that ROI for the partners. And that has grown their partner ecosystem fourfold in six months, just because they've got that really strong story to tell.

Nicki: That's great. That's a really big change there, and I'm sure that that was something that they were...you know, they're continuing to work at, and...but wow, four times, that's really great. So...

Diane: Yeah, and it's easy to do with SaaS companies, right? Because there's not an extra product you have to go buy or build, right? So that's…definitely growth is accessible to you guys as you're…as SaaS companies, they're just starting to leverage channels.

Nicki: Yeah, that's so true. Like, I mean, there's no extra cost for all that hardware...yeah, yep. All that software, hardware. So yeah, that's great. And I know that, you know, in your job, it's kind of like every day is research for you, because you guys have so many different clients that you can provide services to. And so you're really learning every day from all of those experiences. But I know that you do a lot of primary research. And you have a study, and I was hoping that you could tell us about your recent study, "The Six Pillars of Partner Experience."

Diane: Yeah, thanks. We do three studies a year. We do...we produce three research reports a year. And they're free, they're on our website. They're, again, we're inbound, right? We're part of the education reform who, you know...we believe this is part of kind of the growth of the ecosystem. And the last one we did is, as you mentioned, "The Six Pillars of Partner Experience," which we look at from two aspects. We look at it from the partner's aspects. We had 200 solution providers respond to this. And the question was what affects their experience with a vendor most, right? What contributes to a good or a bad experience with a vendor? Because our perspective on this is that the better the experience that the solution provider has with the vendor, the more engaged they'll be. And the more engaged they are, the more they sell. And that's why we're all here, right? We're trying to grow those channel sales. But as we're experience economy these days, right? We all vote with our feet in terms of what experience we want, had an experience value trade-off. You know, we select our movie theaters that way. We select our cars that way, right? Or restaurants, right, in terms of the experience that they give you. So we're really looking at how does the experience...how is that affected by decisions that the vendors make around people, and programs, and their channel model, and how they measure partner performance, and the systems, right?

You'd be surprised. We were surprised that systems, like partner portals and the stuff that you guys do, was ranked number third in terms of...out of the six pillars that really affects experience. And just really seeing that 90% of solution providers said they prefer to work through the portals and the systems if they're good systems. If they can get what they need online, that's the preferred method of engagement. As they should be able to go on and search, as we did when we bought a new car, in terms of finding information and data, and the tools that they need to be able to go sell and deploy the product. So that was the one that we did at the end of the beginning of this year. So we called it the, it's the 2017 data partnering study. This is the 11th year we've done this data partnering study. Again, solution providers as well as vendors. So we have vendors also answer the questions to see what they're doing, and how it lines up to the solution providers' expectations.

Nicki: That's great. That's really great. And like you said, I mean, it's such valuable information. It's things that you don't even think about every day, you know, if you want to find something. If you wanna find a restaurant, you go onto Yelp and you type it in, and you search for it, and it's all...everything is so self-service these days, you know? You expect to have things at your fingertips when you want it. And you want to be able to access it easily. And so it just makes so much sense, what you're saying, that that is the preferred way to access that information. Because it doesn't require, you know, an email to be sent, and four hours later to receive an email back that says, "We're looking for this for you, but we don't have it yet." Or, you know, it just slows down that process so much.

Diane: Or God forbid a phone call, right? No one wants to talk on the phone these days, right?

Nicki: God forbid a phone call. Yes.

Diane: God forbid a phone call, right? Oh, don't make me call. Oh, we just had the treadmill replaced...fixed in the house, and I'm like, "I have to call the guy to get the treadmill guy out here?"

Nicki: Isn't that funny?

Diane: Can't I go online and...right? I'm like, I spend all day on the phone. And I'm like, "I'm not gonna call the treadmill guy."

Nicki: Things have just changed. The way that everybody accesses information, and it's, you know, like you said. It's all part of the experience. If you can experience something...yeah, you know? But if you can experience something without having to wait on hold for 15 minutes, you probably would, so it makes sense.

Diane: Right, right. So I know we wanted to talk about the three pillars, but there's also three other research reports that I mentioned just in case you pique any itch. As I mentioned earlier on, we do a lot of trends. So last year we did ten trends for 2020 Channel Vision, which is really great to help people and channel managers and channel marketing people keep ahead of the curve, right? How are the channels changing? And this is all data-driven, from solution providers and vendors. And then, the one before that was on driving cloud transitions. So if you're trying to move your channel from kind of the on-prem world onto a SaaS or on-demand world, we looked at the solution providers are doing, and how they're adopting cloud. And how do you drive that cloud transition for the partners.

And then fourth one out there that might be interesting is my favorite, which is called partner profitability. The what and how of partner profitability. Because it is all about the partner's profit. Not necessarily just revenue, but how are they being profitable with you? The more profitable they are with you, the more likely they are to pull your stuff. So those are the kind of four research reports that we did, and we're starting to talk about next year. So you'll see a bunch of posts from me coming up around topics for next year's research report. So give me some ideas, people.

Nicki: Great. Yeah, we'll have everybody, you know, in the reviews, go ahead and leave some notes. Or in the blog, go ahead and leave some comments about what you'd like Diane's reports to be on. Because I'm sure, you know, those...everything that you've mentioned that you guys have already produced, all of those studies, they all sound valuable. I mean, it just reaffirms everything that we state here on the podcast, and that our guests talk about. Everything, you know, from 1 plus 1 equals three when it comes to partners, and mutual beneficial relationships. I mean, it just sounds like all of that would be just reinforcing all of that information for all of us, so that's really great. And let's see here, we've got one last question before we go into our speed round, so...

Diane: Uh oh.

Nicki: So I would love to know if you have a sound bite or, you know, a concise piece of advice that you can offer to leaders in partner marketing, so that our listeners can really just get that one sound bite from you.

Diane: Yeah, this is the...this is what I call the...the guy sitting next to me on the airplane goes, "Oh, you do a channels? What should my channels do?" And I'm like, "All right, here's the answer. I know nothing about you, but here's the answer." There are three things that partners care about. One is that the product does what is advertised. So, as a partner marketing person, be honest with your partners, right? If it doesn't spin blue sideways, don't tell them it spins blue sideways, right? Let's be very specific about what the product does and what it doesn't do. Don't try to sugarcoat it too much because your solution providers are counting on that to make themselves look good in their customers. So they want a product that does what is advertised.

Nicki: Right.

Diane: Number two, the partners need to have a way to make money with your stuff. Even if it's their own services, and I know with partner marketing that's always kind of a hard thing. It's like, well, we don't set the price with the partner can buy, or how they make money. But you can position it. You can create that value proposition and say, "Here's where else you make money." Even if they only make a couple of dollars on a license as a staff solution as a mock, right? That's not gonna be interesting to them. But you can also say, "Here's the services that wrap around our product, and here's the consulting you might need to do as a solution provider," or, "Here's the analytics that you can do in terms of driving and providing data back to your customers." So always looking for how does a customer...how does your partner make money on your products because even if it's the coolest thing since sliced bread, if they can't make money on it, they're not gonna sell it, right? They're not gonna waste their time, because you know, they need a return on that.

Nicki: Right.

Diane: And the third thing that partners care about is…and what we call ease of doing business. Or getting the product, or getting contact, or saying, you know, "How do I get the product? How do I get services for it? How do I order it, provision it?" And that really comes down to that experience, right? How can you streamline the processes and the kerfuffle that a partner has to go through to be able to place an order, or get our customer up and running on your product. Because again, if it does what is advertised and they can make money on it, but they can't get it, then they're still not gonna go work on that, right? They're not gonna be able to come work with you guys and sell your product. So those are kind of the three things that when you're looking at how do you make your partner program better, or how you accelerate your partner sales, were usually tied into one of those, or all three of those, to say, "Is the message clear? Are they making money on it? And how do we remove kind of those costs of doing business with you?"

Nicki: That's great. I'm sure that that's a perfect little sound bite with the three points there, and like you said, it's just...there you go. Airplane information, right? Airplane advice.

Diane: Right. The guy sitting next to me on the airplane, "So you do channels?" Well, like, okay.

Nicki: Awesome.

Diane: I sit on a lot of planes.

Nicki: Oh, I feel you. So that's great. This has all been some amazing information. I'd love to finish up with this speed round with you. It's a little bit less channel, and a little bit more fun and getting to know you personally. You up for it?

Diane: Sure, bring it on.

Nicki: Okay. Okay, so question one. What's your favorite city?

Diane: San Francisco.

Nicki: All right. How come?

Diane: The city by the bay. I grew up here, I grew up in the Bay Area. I just...I love the water, and I just...it's small enough that it's a walking city. You can walk through it, but it's big enough to have all the culture, and the theater, and great restaurants.

Nicki: Yes.

Diane: And I just love all the water, and just, you know, being able to kinda hang out by the…by and on the water.

Nicki: Love it, that's great. I like San Francisco too. It's a great city. All right, question two. Animal lover or do you love the animals, or could you deal without them?

Diane: I love all the animals.

Nicki: Do you have any pets of your own?

Diane: I have a cat. My cat after 16 years just passed away. Big, fat, fluffy. Her name was Zoe. So 16 years of having this big, fat, huge cat that, you know, was more like a dog. She would greet me at the door when I came home, and curled up...she curls up on my lap all the time. So yeah, she just passed away.

Nicki: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Diane: No, she lived a great life.

Nicki: I was gonna say, it sounds a long, like a long happy life, so, she's greeting...

Diane: Long, happy life.

Nicki: Yeah. Greeting you at the door, that had to have been a good life.

Diane: Yeah.

Nicki: All right. And the next question here, do you prefer Mac or PC?

Diane: Oh, God. I am a PC girl. I am trying to be Mac. Everybody else in my family, everybody else in the company is Mac, except for me. I am a PC girl, and that's because I am addicted to Outlook. I just need my Outlook. And the email systems on Mac just aren't the same. I am addicted to my calendar and my email structures and Outlook.

Nicki: Yeah.

Diane: And I…the entire rest of the company, everyone is on a PC other than me.

Nicki: We seem to have a pretty much split 50-50 here on all of our guests. It's, you know, Mac or PC 50-50. So there's not really a trend in the channel that we're seeing so far. But all right, we got the last question here. If we could provide you with an all expenses trip paid trip, where would you go?

Diane: Italy.

Nicki: Italy. What part of Italy? Or all of Italy?

Diane: Well, I'm like, if it's all expenses paid, I'm gonna go to the whole side of Italy. I'm a wino, so I would end up in probably one of two regions. You know, either the west side of Italy or kind of the northern lake area, just because I would...I tend to stay out of big cities, so I'm not gonna go be Rome. But I love the kind of the countryside, the Tuscany...super Tuscan wine. I might kind of jump down the coast of Portofino and spend a few days kind of looking out at the water, but Italy is kind of on my top of my bucket list right now.

Nicki: Yeah, that sounds great. And sounds like it would be a wonderful time.

Diane: Well, I'm spoiled. I do get to travel most of the time for free. So my husband's a pilot, so...

Nicki: Oh, there you go. Then you guys can go right over to Italy.

Diane: Right?

Nicki: Yeah.

Diane: I went to Paris for four days earlier this month.

Nicki: Oh, perfect. That sounds wonderful. Well, you know, it's been really great talking to you, and I just wanna thank you for sharing your insights, Diane. It was a pleasure. And if any of our listeners would like to reach out to you personally, what's the best way for them to do that?

Diane: I'd say call me, but that would be a joke. Call me. No, it's either through our website, or just email me. It's dkrakora@partner-pass.com. So emails, I love email. I do them well into the night, as do all of y'all as they know it. Also, I do a lot on LinkedIn, so if you need to...if you wanna message me through LinkedIn that works as well.

Nicki: Great, great. Well everybody, there you go. That's your way to contact Diane if you wanna, you know, maybe order some services and work on some consulting, or just chat with channel about her.

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

Aug 16, 2017

Narrator: Effective selling takes an ecosystem. Join host Jen Spencer, as she explores how to super charges your sales, and master the art of never selling alone. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast, The fundamentals of accelerating growth with partners.

Jen: Hi everybody. Welcome to the Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer. And today, I am joined by Travis Smith who is Technology, Global Channels and Regional Vice President for HMI Performance Incentives. Welcome Travis.

Travis: Hi Jen. Thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Jen: It's great to have you. And for those of you listening who don't know Travis has a lot going on. So, in addition to his role at HMI Performance Incentives, he's also the CEO and Founder of Move the Channel, which we're gonna talk about, and CEO and Founder of TribeVest. So we're gonna get into a lot of good channel talk. But first, can you tell us a little bit about Move the Channel, because I know that's something you're really passionate about. I'd love to get a quick overview of what this is.

Travis: You bet. Absolutely. Again, thanks for having me Jen, and good to be here with all your listeners. Move the Channel, absolutely is something I'm passionate about, and it's hard to believe it started eight, almost nine years ago. And in the way that it came to be was…of course, you know, I come from the technology space. So worked with a number of manufacturers and developers, worked for some distributors, was even a VP of sales for a system integrator and re-seller. So, along the way I had met a ton of friends. You know, colleagues, partners, and people I liked and really respected in the channel marketing and channel sales space. And, as you know in technology, there's a lot of moving that goes around, so it's sometimes hard to keep track of everybody. And so, I was playing around in this new thing called LinkedIn. You gotta remember this is 2010.

Jen: Right.

Travis: So it was kind of a very new...it's hard to believe.

Jen: Right.

Travis: In particularly, groups were even more new or more foreign to some of us. What I saw was that it was an opportunity to create a group, a community of old friends that I had met and worked with over the years. And so, I came up with the name. I'm convinced it's dumb luck, but it's a little bit of the genius of what has become Move the Channel community, and that's the name, Move the Channel. And we...I invited probably 40, 50 of these people in my network. Again, as a way to kind of keep in touch, and really, not just keep in touch but it turned out to be this network of friends that supported each other, collaborated, opened doors for each other. We even went as far as calling ourselves the Move the Channel Mafia, which I'm glad we didn't do. Sounds exciting doesn't it?

Jen: I know.

Travis: But, you know, it didn't take long. Here was this tight-knit group of 50 of us. And before we knew it we had 50, and then we had 100, and 1,000, and then, you know, 4,000. And now we have over 6,000 channel marketing, channel sales professionals worldwide.

Jen: It's awesome.

Travis: And that's how we came to be.

Jen: I love it. And I just love, you know, your mission, the vision of it, you know, really trying to cultivate a community. And a lot of people try, and it doesn't always work. And so, I think you got in early like you said. You've kept it very helpful, it's organic. And I think that it's authentic. And I think that's part of why it's been so successful. Do you have like a success story about channel leaders who have been part of this community? Anything that you can share, like an anecdote of something really cool that's come out of it?

Travis: You bet. And you nailed it. If you were to go try to start a group today, there's just so much noise and so much out there, it's hard to stand out. So, you know, credit a lot to the name, which I think captured a lot of people's attention and creativity. And the timing of it, getting in first, was obviously a big deal. I think we were, if not the first, one of the first groups dedicated to channel marketing and channel sales. Over the years we've really just been blown away by the impact that Move the Channel, and the reach that Move the Channel has been able to have. And there's...you know, I think about the successes out there, and all the channel leaders in the community. I mean, every time you see these lists of the channel chiefs, the women in the channel, at anytime they're kind of recognizing leadership in channel marketing and channel sales. There's a really good chance that they're a part of this community, whether it's in a Move the Channel group, or our movethechannel.com. But, you know, what we're probably most proud of is just all of the connections that have led to business successes in this group. It's impossible to measure, but I can't tell you how many stories I hear about two people, two leaders getting together, you know, connecting, finding each other from the group or Move the Channel community, and connecting and helping each other. Look at their respective channels from a different angle, through a different lens. And so we don't take credit for these big events that happen, or huge successes, but we like to take a little bit of credit when they actually...those connections were made in the Move the Channel. And a lot of, you know, finding new hires, more teammates, and even vendors. Finding vendors that have helped them achieve their goals, getting referrals to vendors that have helped them achieve their goals. So, you know, there's a lot of specific people that come to mind, but I think highlighting the success of the community is what I'm most proud of.

Jen: Well, I think it's definitely something to be proud of. And maybe people listening here, well, if they haven't found Move the Channel yet, they'll go join that community and start reaping the benefits of it as well. Let's talk about HMI Performance Incentives as your, kind of that's your day job, right? That's your main gig. So tell us a little bit about that. And I really wanna learn how you've seen incentives really put to use in the channel. Because it's a big question, you know, people talk about incentivizing sales reps, gamifying experiences, incentivizing your channel. Channel sales reps are, you know, they're just their sales reps that are just not working all the time for you, right. So I'll stop talking. You tell me more about HMI.

Travis: You bet. Absolutely. Yeah, you're right. You know, and there's a lot of buzz words out there. It's tough to know what's the appropriate strategy when it comes to engaging, not with just your channel partner, right? And I think of the channel partner at the organizational level. And then there's the channel sales person, the person, the human that works for the partner organization, or the partner sales engineer, or customer support. And HMI, gosh, it's such an exciting company right now. Even though we've been around for 35 years, we really are at an exciting point. We continue to innovate and move the incentive world forward. You know, Jen, when most people think of incentives, they think of the reward. And don't get me wrong, the reward is so critical. If you don't have the right reward, and the reward isn't motivating, your strategy is dead on arrival.

Jen: Yeah.

Travis: And more than ever, the reward options are more compelling to your target audience. You know, we're seeing huge trends towards experiences, and sporting events. You know, pick out not just merchandise or things like that. You can actually pick out the event, the theater, the summer concert. And don't just stop there but pick the date, the venue, the seat. And what about booking a hotel, and a shuttle to the show, you know, all this online in the incentive program, real time. And it's really, really cool. But let's be honest, I mean, compelling rewards are the baseline, you know, that's just the beginning. And I think what's most exciting that we're seeing at HMI is how channel incentives are solving big problems, you know, big challenges in the channel. And again, most people don't think of incentives like solving challenges.

Jen: Right. Do you have an example, like an interesting use case you've seen for a particular partner program?

Travis: Yeah, there's a lot of them that come to mind. You know, when I think of these challenges that we're solving, I think of…you know, the three that come to mind that are most common out there is the manufacturer distributor, either, A, doesn't know who's selling their stuff. They might know the partner that they've signed up to distribute or sell their solutions, but they don't necessarily know the sales person on the front line. And so, you know, they don't even have a database to communicate to them. And that's one challenge. The second challenge is you know who these people are. At least you have their contact information, but you don't really have any insight into them. You don't know how they're selling it, or what else they might be selling, or how your solutions might be complimenting their total solution that they're bringing to their customers. And then, C, you know, the third would be insight. They know who the customers are, they have a pretty good insight into their business, but they don't have...are they really winning the engagement, you know, the mind share, and grabbing the mind share and wallet share of these partners? And, you know, HMI has a pretty, really cool story to tell around solving these problems through channels and incentives. So for example, if you were looking to bring in a new, you know, someone that you didn't know. You don't have their information, but they're supposed to be selling your stuff, but you wanna communicate to them. It's much easier to get them to come sign up and register for an incentive program than it is a partner portal or something like that.

Jen: Right.

Travis: Right. And I know you guys understand why the indirect sales force are just not going to those types of applications. And therefore, you can't really engage with them very well with the traditional partner portal. But anyway, you know, an incentive program, it's pretty easy to not only get them to come register, but to surrender all sorts of information. Even maybe competitive information on who else they're selling. But anyway, back to your main question, you know, I think if I was gonna kind of single out one impressive program out there that just comes to mind, it's with my buddy Todd Owens over at QLogic and Cavium. Who's probably one of the...Jen, I've got to introduce you to him if you don't know him. He's one of the brightest and most strategic thinkers in the channel as far as I can tell. But what he did was he took HMI and his program and turned a traditional incentive program on its head, where most incentive programs are at the core incentivizing for sales. He doesn't reward for any actual sales but rewards all for engagement and enablement. So things like watching a 90-second video and taking a quick quiz, setting an appointment with one of his sales engineers in the region. So there's all these kind of other things that he's measuring and tracking, and ultimately giving rewards out for, which has been really cool. Of course there's a direct correlation between the people that are engaged in doing these things, and the sales that come in the end.

Jen: I love that. Yeah, you have to introduce us, because I love the idea of incentivizing. Not the end result, but the behaviors that you know are gonna lead to the end result. So that's awesome. Love it. I want to ask you about your time at ProfitStars. So you were at ProfitStars before you joined HMI. When you were there, you were really in the thick of it, living, you know, day-to-day strategic alliances, identifying, recruiting, on-boarding, and then managing those partners. I'd love to hear some of the biggest struggles that you had in executing your job effectively, because a lot of our listeners are living that life right now.

Travis: You bet. Yes. You know, but before HMI and Move the Channel, that was my world. You know, that was the world I was living. And I mentioned working for a number of manufacturers and distributors. And so, a few years ago, I was actually recruited back to that world where they wanted me to run their strategic alliances and roll out partner programs. And was just an incredibly awesome and exciting initiative…for those of you who don't know ProfitStars, it's part of Jack Henry, the $1.8 billion software company that sells through banking channels, so banks and credit unions. And then ProfitStars is the division that sells through all the other partners. So everybody that's not a bank or credit union. And that was the division I was in. And it was pretty easy, because the name was so well-known and they're so respected. You know, getting a meeting with the owner or CEO to sign them up as a partner wasn't a difficult part. And, you know, the CEO and the partner got the value prop that ProfitStars and Jack Henry were bringing to the table. So closing the partner, and you know, recruiting partners was a little bit the easy part. I know that not everybody has that luxury, but that was the case. And it turned out that, you know, the biggest challenge wasn't finding and signing up the partner. It was, you know, how can we engage with that new partner's front line. The sales people, the account managers. Jen, as you know, they're the ones that have the influence over the sale.

Jen: Yeah.

Travis: So that was our challenge, you know, and that was the fun part. And had a lot of good success, and very proud of the work there. But, you know, it's not something you solve and say, "Oh, we're engaged with the front line and sales people check."

Jen: Yeah.

Travis: It's something that you're always working on.

Jen: Right.

Travis: You're always, you know, making sure that you continue to engage and have their mind share.

Jen: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, speaking of that kind of engagement and results that you get. You know something we talk about quite often here is that 80/20 rule in the channel where, you know, right, 80% of revenue comes from 20% of partners, or even more. You know, even 90/10 sometimes, or more often, lately it seems that we're hearing that. And a lot of that goes back to recruitment, and then how you're engaging, how you're maintaining mind share. You know, what are your thoughts on this principle? Is it something we just have to accept, that this is just the way it's gonna be? Is there a way to avoid it? Love to hear your thoughts on that topic, because I know there are people that definitely fall into both camps.

Travis: Sure, sure. Yep. There are people out there that just accept it, and the statistics would be tough to argue that. But, gosh, great question. We've seen though, HMI specifically. I think we're uniquely positioned to help with this dilemma. You know, here's the thing, it's way easier to move up, you know move up an existing customer, a partner, than it is to find and train a new one. And, you know, recruitment and out there finding new partners always needs to be part of your plan. But, if we could just take a look at that middle 60, you know that middle 60%, and focus on them. You know, there's a great opportunity to move them up to that next level. And the challenge has between with performance incentives and channel incentives is a lot of companies kind of roll out these blanket reward programs, right? And when you do that, you have the same 20% hitting those goals and enjoying the rewards, or the president's club trip to Hawaii. And, you know, taking a page out of Allbound's book here, you know, it's all about…today, it's all about personalizing it, and customizing it to each individual person. So, to be honest, the technology wasn't there five years ago. But today, literally, each person that logs in to, you know, an HMI system for example, has a completely unique experience. You know, they see their unique goal or threshold, or unique promotion that's available to them because they sell a certain product or in a certain region, or there's unique rewards available to them. You know, all depending on their demographics or how we've segmented the customer/partner database. So, and then those goals are based on how much they sold from the previous quarter, or how much they sold from the previous year. It's not this, you know, "You have to sell this for us to get our attention," it's, "If you show us progress, we're gonna invest back in you."

Jen: Awesome.

Travis: And we call this intimacy at scale. You like that?

Jen: I do like that. I do like that.

Travis: I'm trying to get it to stick.

Jen: No, I like that because I think it's something that; you've hit on something that really plagues, you know, a lot of sales and marketing professionals. And the tactics that really work well tend to be ones that are very hard to scale. Because as soon as you start scaling something, you start automating it, it makes it impersonal. And then, you lose that effect, right? Like, you think about the experience, the feeling you get if someone takes the time to write a handwritten note to you, right? And so, I like getting this note, right? Well, then it becomes, let's just e-mail everybody, right? And then it's just another piece of noise in your inbox. And so I like that, I like that idea of intimacy at scale. Yeah. I'm a fan.

Travis: Right on. No, that was an awesome perspective. You're right. You know those things that work we try to scale them, and then in the process, we lose the personal touch. And that's usually what it is. It's the personalization that we lose. But, you know, I think technology is finally there. We can still personalize and have the user feel special, because they are, if you're using the right systems out there.

Jen: Yeah.

Travis: And as a result, you know…so getting back to the 80/20 rule, you know, if we kind of segment our partner, customers in your A tier, and B tier, and C tier, you know, we're all about moving those C tier customers to B, and the B's up to the A tier. And then...now, the only problem is how do we create a new tier for those A's because we've run out of letters.

Jen: Right. Right. So I've one more, like channel question for you. And I'm gonna ask you to kind of look through your crystal ball here. Wondering about the future of partner programs, you know, you think about like the last 10 years or 20 years, and then where we are today, they've definitely evolved. If you were to look ahead, where do you see the future of partner programs going? And what are you most excited about for the next decade or two of this world of strategic alliances?

Travis: Gosh, that's a fun question. Good question. You know, partners...it used to be…I mean, I guess if we were going to look back before we look into the future, it used to be, you know, the strategy was build it and they will come. And that included all these resources. And they would build these things and kinda put these libraries in place. And back in the day when there was only a handful of vendors doing that, they actually had a little bit of success. They would actually get their partners to come and use these resources. But today, there is just so much noise. Everybody has these resources that they expect their channel partners to come to and access and use. And it's not happening, and it's not gonna happen in the future. It's not build it and they will come.

Jen: Right.

Travis: It's not the field of dreams. And so, you know, what we're seeing now is...and where I see the future is, it's not getting all these assets and resources. It's how can you integrate with your partner? How can you integrate? And you've always tried to integrate your product into theirs. You know, you've got to keep doing that. You've got to integrate your marketing into theirs. You've got to keep doing that. And you've got to keep doing it better. But the real advance is gonna be, how can you integrate with the buying experience? And can you help your partners be more effective out there selling, and help them through the journey? And, you know, we don't have all the answers there but it's starting to crystallize. Again, companies like Allbound are doing things in ways that people had never seen before or considered just a couple few years ago. And those are areas of advancement that are starting to show us the future of channel marketing programs. And on the HMI side, five years ago we weren't having intimacy at scale, and customizing each participant's experience in the channel incentive program. Today we are. There's a long way to go, but that's where it's heading. Those are gonna be the vendors that win. The ones that can integrate into the buying experience.

Jen: I agree, because it's all about the customer. That's exciting. I'm looking forward to seeing that all transpire along with you. So thanks for this. Thanks for sharing a lot of your time today with me about incentives and channel programs. This has been awesome, and I do hope that folks who haven't had a chance to participate in Move the Channel will get over to LinkedIn and join that group and start contributing to that group's success. Thank you for starting that. I think it's...I'm glad, I'm very glad you did.

Travis: Also, I think it's where we first crossed paths, virtually.

Jen: Yep. That's right. So, but Travis before I do let you go, like, really, I have some more personal questions that I always ask our guests. Just so we can get to know you a little bit better. So I'm gonna put you through that rigor now. So, my first question for you is, what is your favorite city?

Travis: Gosh, great question. Cleveland, Ohio.

Jen: Really. Tell me why you love Cleveland?

Travis: You don't get that answer very often, do you?

Jen: No, I don't. I don't. I've been there once, and I liked it when I was there. But why do you like Cleveland?

Travis: You know, I'm a little bit from Ohio, and a little bit from California. I always joke my parents when I was really young, so there was a lot of back and forth. I was born in California, more raised in Ohio. But growing up in Mansfield, Ohio, which is about an hour south of Cleveland. I became the biggest die hard Cleveland Browns, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland Cavs, and everything Cleveland. And it was always such a big trip to go to the big city. And so, I have really fond memories of it. And to this day, it's still one of my favorite cities to go visit.

Jen: That's great. That's wonderful. Okay, next question for you. Do you consider yourself an animal lover? Do you have any pets?

Travis: I do. I'm not a cat person, although my wife is.

Jen: Okay.

Travis: But fortunately, she's also a dog person. And we saved a mutt from the pound, about seven years ago, and it's part Boxer, part Lab, part Golden Retriever, and a few other things that we're not quite sure. But it is still a puppy today. Seven years later, it has not calmed down a bit. And her name is Honu, which is turtle in Hawaiian.

Jen: Yeah.

Travis: So, we call her a dog turtle.

Jen: What inspired that? I've never met a dog named turtle.

Travis: We went on our honeymoon in Hawaii, and went swimming with some honus, some sea turtles. And we found ourselves kind of calling them, and trying to get their attention like you would a dog.

Jen: Okay.

Travis: And so, we said, "When we get a dog we're gonna call him or her Honu."

Jen: That's great. Oh I love it. Okay, next question, Mac or PC?

Travis: Oh gosh, I"m sitting here looking at both right now.

Jen Spencer: Oh, you're one of those.

Travis: I have both, and I love both of them. I have recently been turned onto Mac, and that's where I run a number of my businesses. But, you know what, I have the Microsoft Surface Pro.

Jen: Okay.

Travis: And, pretty sweet, I have to say. They've come a long way.

Jen: Yeah, I've heard great things about that. Okay, last question for you. Let's say I was able to offer you an all expenses paid trip, where would it be to?

Travis: It would be to Sydney, Australia.

Jen: All right. Have you been there before?

Travis: I have. I spent a summer abroad over there. And I've been trying to get back ever since.

Jen: Well, I hope you have a chance to return.

Travis: Well, should I expect that package in an e-mail after this, or?

Jen: No, not any time soon.

Travis: No, I was just curious.

Jen: Never. It was just hypothetical. Let's say, I was able to offer this.

Travis: Yeah. I would say there or Patagonia, Chile, which is another place I've been before, but I'm dying to go back.

Jen: Well good.

Travis: How about you? I'm curious, what's your answer on that one?

Jen: I wanna go to Greece. I really wanna go to Greece, because I want...my background is in theater, and there's a lot of history there, and I want to be able to experience that. But then, I also just love to like just chill on a beach and do nothing. And as far as I can tell, I can do both of those things in Greece. And so that's what I would like to do.

Travis: Beautiful.

Jen: Yeah.

Travis: You've almost made me change my mind.

Jen: Oh.

Travis: Now, I want to go to Greece. That sounds awesome. I've never been, and that's definitely one high on my list too. That's cool.

Jen: Well, thanks for again spending some time with me today. It was awesome. So if anyone wants to reach out to you personally, obviously, they can go to LinkedIn and they can join the Move the Channel group. Is there another way for them to get a hold of you if they want to chat, maybe about HMI or anything that we've talked about here on the show?

Travis: You bet. You can go to movethechannel.com and reach me there by submitting just an e-mail, which is perfect. And also, at my HMI e-mail, tsmith@hmiaward.com. And I look forward to it. I love this stuff. I'm kind of nerdy when it comes to channel marketing and sales programs, as you can tell.

Jen: Perfect. That's what I like to hear. Thanks again. Thanks Travis for joining me, and thank you everyone else. And we'll catch you next week with an all new episode.

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

Aug 8, 2017

Not one, but two channel thought leaders share the spotlight today: Larry Walsh, CEO and Chief Analyst at The 2112 Group and Scott Salkin, CEO and Founder of Allbound. Larry and Scott chat about driving more revenue with the right partners on this episode of The Allbound Podcast.

Larry, you wrote an article called "Scale Matters, but the Channel has Size Limits" and you state that if an organization wants to double its channel-generated revenue then its number of partners will need to increase by 115%. Can you explain?


What I was saying in that blog post is there are natural limits to productivity. And if you accept that the 80/20 rule is alive and well in the channel, then you've also accepted that there's a speed limit to the number of partners, or the potential growth that you can get out of any side. Let's start by looking at the tenants of what the channel is supposed to do. The channel's supposed to extend market coverage, and particularly get you into niche markets. The other purpose is to create points of presence to create points of sales for customers to come in. Now, that theory works well, but there's a certain point after you start to exceed capacity, which is the reason why we actually have such an exaggerated 20% rule in the channel. 

So, the notion of squeezing more value out of the long tail, particularly, the extreme end of a long tail, becomes less advantageous. If you start pushing down the long tail, and you want to start growing your channels and thinking that you're going to double your channel revenue just by adding more partners, then you actually have to over-subscribe and get lesser value out of your partners over time, which is the reason why we come to a 115% increase just to double revenue rather than just a pure one over one increase.  

 

Scott, reruitment has an enormous influence on channel program success. What should channel leaders be doing today when it comes to recruitment so they can focus on quality over quantity?

Today's channel leaders have so much more access to data now that can tell them which partners are having the most success and also predict which partners are best postioned for success. We've got to get smarter with new more modern day KPI that doesn't just measure success based on how many partners you're bringing in, but exactly on what those partners are —  things like velocity rate, and how they're actually growing the business with you.  


What advice can you give leaders who would like to transition into a more account-based partnering strategy?


Larry: Start at the end.  When you make recruitment a metric, then it's all about bodies, or it's all about the number of companies. Stop making recruitments, or the number partners important. Make productivity of it important. When I say "start at the end," one of the other tenants of the channel is that it has to be a net contributor to the vendor or to the enterprise, and enterprise in this case, means business venture. 

Scott:  Channel has to be aligned with your entire business. if you don't have the education, enablement, empowerment and training nailed down for your channel partner program, it's going to be hard to drive more revenue, create more margin, and add more logos to the business. You've got to take care of the partners you have, and you've got to help them be more successful. 

To learn more about driving more revenue with channel partners, tune in to episode 39 of The Allbound Podcast.

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