Bold Journeys Podcast

By Rob SpeeReligion & Spirituality Education Self-Improvement Religion

Bold Journeys Podcast episodes

August 22, 2023 Dave Taylor: Why the Next Era of Partnering is Here to Stay - CJ121
There's a lot of buzz around ecosystems and the next era of partnering. Dave Taylor, Chief Marketing Officer at Impartner, explains why this next era is here to stay. Find out how you can weave partnering into your go to market strategy and improve the overall business health of your company.
39 min
August 16, 2023Lana King: What do Saas Companies Need from the Channel?
I recently had the opportunity to host a live SaaS Partnership Podcast with channel programs and enablement expert, Lana King. We discussed what SaaS companies really want from channel partners, what it takes to be successful, and how to create a better partner experience.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are just a few of the takeaways from my conversation with Lana:
First, know why you want to attract partners. What do you want from them? Are you wanting partners to grow sales, do you want them to take on implementation or post sales support? It’s probably all three.
Once you know what you want from partners, determine what you need to do to be effective with those partners. And make sure it’s aligned with your go-to-market strategy.
Just because you build or rebuild your partner program, don’t expect revenue to come pouring in. It takes cross-functional buy-in and alignment internally to put everything in place to enable the partners to succeed.
Create a partner journey map, similar to a customer journey, to understand the partner experience at each step.
Run transactional surveys, measuring and assessing partner experience at different touch points with partners along their journey. Create a baseline and ways to measure the effectiveness of any changes you make.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Lana on LinkedIn
Learn more about the Cloud Software Association
Check out the SaaS Partnership Podcast
Lana King on Maintaining Partner Trust through Massive Change
Lana King on How to Drive Cloud Adoption in the Channel
The post Lana King: What do Saas Companies Need from the Channel? first appeared on Channel Journeys.
43 min
August 14, 2023 Lana King: What do Saas Companies Really Need from the Channel? - CJ120
Channel programs and enablement expert, Lana King, discusses what SaaS companies really want from channel partners and how to they can succeed in getting it.
43 min
August 02, 2023Katie Landaal: Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business
At some point every company outgrows it’s partner program and even some of it’s partners. For ZoomInfo, that point came after concluding a very successful IPO during the height of the Covid pandemic. Katie Landaal, AVP Global Partnerships and Ecosystem at ZoomInfo, shares how ZoomInfo was able to revamp their partner program to make it more scalable and attract the right partner ecosystem.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are five things you can do to scale your partner business:
Look at partner types you need to add, such as delivery partners, and push business to the ones who are providing the best customer experience.
Look for technology partners who have a large customer base and complimentary technology that you can integrate with, along with the cloud providers who can host your technology and offer it on their marketplace.
When introducing new partner types to your sellers, start with the one easy thing they can talk about, the one sales play, to get early wins. Expand from there, taking the crawl, walk, run approach.
Scale back and simplify elements of your program that aren’t providing a great partner experience. Get back to basics, simplify, remove complexity, and then build from there.
Apply as much efficiency and automation as you can, with a smart selection of channel technologies. Strip out any technology that is creating too much complexity.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Katie on LinkedIn
Hear Darren Bibby on Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business
With RAGBRAI’s 50th edition concluded, what’s ahead for the ride?
The post Katie Landaal: Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business first appeared on Channel Journeys.
42 min
August 02, 2023 Katie Landaal: Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business - CJ119
At some point every company outgrows it's partner program and even some of it's partners. Katie Landaal, AVP Global Partnerships and Ecosystem at ZoomInfo, shares how to ZoomInfo was able to revamp their partner program to make it more scalable and attract the right partner ecosystem.
40 min
July 19, 2023Rob Spee: 10 Ways to Measure Partner Ecosystem Performance
Building a partner ecosystem requires a substantial investment in your channel team and your partners. How do you know if you’re making progress? How can you measure the performance of your partner ecosystem with so many different partner roles and types?
Knowing what to measure and setting goals on those key performance indicators (KPIs) drives internal alignment on what’s most important, helps keep your executive team informed of progress, and highlights challenge areas that need to be addressed.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are 10 KPIs that you can track to measure your partner ecosystem performance. They fall into 4 main categories:
Partner Growth
• Overall partner revenue
• Partner originated revenue
• Focus partner revenue
Partner Contribution
• GSI revenue influence
• TAP influenced
• % opps partner delivered
Partner Satisfaction
• Partner Margin
• Partner NPS
Partner Success
• # Certifications
• Partner Delivery NPS

These are 10 ways to measure the performance of your partner ecosystem, as well as the effectiveness of your partner program. There’s one more measure, the most important of all…and that’s the overall growth of your company.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Rob on LinkedIn
Hear Joe Golemba’s recommendations on KPIs for the Modern Partner Ecosystem
Listen to Josh Lewis: Driving Breakthrough Partner Performance
Learn more about the RAGBRAI bike ride across Iowa
The post Rob Spee: 10 Ways to Measure Partner Ecosystem Performance first appeared on Channel Journeys.
14 min
July 18, 2023 Rob Spee: 10 Ways to Measure Partner Ecosystem Performance - CJ118
Rob Spee, SVP Channels & Alliances at BeyondTrust and Channel Journeys podcast host, shares ten ways to measure the performance and effectiveness of a modern partner ecosystem.
14 min
July 05, 2023Rob Spee: My High Seas Summer Sailing Adventure
In celebration of summer vacations, I’m taking a break from our usual channel topics to share my story of sailing 1500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. This is a replay of episode 60, A Sailing Journey Through Covid. Hear what it’s like to sail from the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean to Rhode Island in the middle of the global pandemic. This is my “little big one” with 5 crew and 2 captains, including my sailing hero, Tania Abei, the author of Maiden Voyage.
HIGHLIGHTS
Our ride: Aphrodite – Swan 68
A fiery sunrise to start the day
Cobalt blue in the middle of the ocean
Dolphins coming back to play
The mysterious fogbow
LINKS & RESOURCES
Find Rob on LinkedIn
Read more about Tania Abei and get a copy of Maiden Voyage
Listing to another sailing adventure, Sailing the Bermuda High in a Covid Low
Learn more about Offshore Passage Opportunities
The post Rob Spee: My High Seas Summer Sailing Adventure first appeared on Channel Journeys.
28 min
July 04, 2023 Rob Spee: My High Seas Summer Sailing Adventure – CJ117
Rob Spee, SVP Channels & Alliances at BeyondTrust and host of the Channel Journeys podcast, shares the story of his summer sailing adventure from St. Thomas, USVI to Newport, Rhode Island.
28 min
June 21, 2023Channel Pro Panel: Impact of Hyperscalers on the Partner Ecosystem
Wondering what role the three cloud hyperscalers, AWS, Microsoft, and Google can play in your partner strategy? Today I invite my fellow podcast hosts, Vince Menzione of the Ultimate Guide to Partnering podcast and Paul Bird of the Ultimate Channel Sales podcast, for a channel panel chat. We talk about the impact of hyperscalers on the partner ecosystem, why they are so important, and some things you need to know to be successful.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are some of key impacts cloud hyperscalers are having on partner ecosystems and what IT vendors can do to
Cloud and Everything-As-a-Service technologies, along with consumer online shopping, have changed IT buying behavior. Customers aren’t looking to buy technology, they’re buying a solution to a problem.
IT infrastructure that used to take a week to set up can now be purchased at the click of buy button on a cloud hyperscaler marketplace.
Partnering with Microsoft, AWS, and Google on their marketplace not only gives you access to their sales organizations, but also their customers’ budgets. These three hyperscalers hold an aggregated $200 billion in customer cloud commitments they can burn down that commitment on partner solutions.
Partnering with a cloud hyperscaler effectively is about co-marketing, co-selling, and co-innovating.
We’re in the infancy of generative AI, like we were twenty years ago with smart phones. Technology like Chat GPT being developed by the hyperscalers is going to change IT solutions and the partner landscape in ways we can’t even imagine.
With the rising success of the the hyperscaler marketplaces, distributors are evolving to find their place as in the ecosystem. They’re learning more and more to service delivery and being the ecosystem orchestrators.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Vince and Paul LinkedIn
Hear Rob chat with Vince and Paul about 2022 and 2023 Channel Trends
Listen to Vince Menzione on How to Lead Partnerships in Uncertain Times
Learn 3 Tips for Finding the Right Channel Partners with Paul Bird
The post Channel Pro Panel: Impact of Hyperscalers on the Partner Ecosystem first appeared on Channel Journeys.
42 min