Bold Journeys Podcast

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Bold Journeys Podcast episodes

June 21, 2023 Channel Pro Panel: Impact of Hyperscalers on the Partner Ecosystem– CJ116
Channel Journeys host Rob Spee chats with Vince Menzione, host of The Ultimate Partner podcast, and Paul Bird, host of the Ultimate Channel Sales podcast, about the impact of cloud hyperscalers on partner ecosystems. Find out what role AWS, Microsoft, and Google can play in your partner strategy.
42 min
June 07, 2023Daniel Nissan: The Unlimited Power of GPT for Channel Marketing
If you’re like me, you’ve been testing out the unbelievable capabilities of generative AI on sites like ChatGPT and DALL-E. Their ability to generate text and images from natural language defies comprehension. While new technology is always a threat to the status quo, smart folks are thinking about how to leverage this technology to develop new products and launch new careers.
One such individual is Daniel Nissan, Founder and CEO of StructuredWeb. Daniel has the mind of an engineer and the spirit of an entrepreneur. He and his company have developed the first channel content generation engine using generative AI called ChannelGBT. Daniel shares the boundless potential Channel GBT to transform the way channel partners create highly customized marketing materials.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here’s what I learned from Daniel about generative AI and ChannelGBT.
GPT stands for Generative Pre-Trained Transformer. It a very large language model. The power of GPT stems from the size, speed and training of the model.
The cost to develop and train a GPT model can be hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. That’s why we see companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon behind these advancements.
The cost is forecasted to drop by 80% to 90% over the next five years, which will bring new entrants and even greater advances in the technology.
StructuredWeb looked for ways to bring GPT to the channel in a simple way that doesn’t require people to become experts.
ChannelGPT addresses the long standing challenge of generating and customizing a wide range of marketing content for partners.
With ChannelGPT you can take generic content and generate highly specific content for a particular industry, use case, market segment, even in a different language.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Daniel on LinkedIn
Learn more about ChannelGPT
Sign up for RAGBRAI, the great bike ride across Iowa!
The post Daniel Nissan: The Unlimited Power of GPT for Channel Marketing first appeared on Channel Journeys.
37 min
June 06, 2023 Daniel Nissan: The Unlimited Power of GPT for Channel Marketing – CJ115
Daniel Nissan, Founder and CEO of StructuredWeb, shares the boundless opportunities of using generative AI technology for channel marketing with Channel GBT.
37 min
May 24, 2023Hope Galley: How to Leverage Partners to Drive Customer Success
As the IT channel transitions from large on-premise deals to smaller recurring revenue SaaS deals, customer success is more important than ever. And while vendors are very accustomed to using partners to drive new sales, many have not yet realized the important role partners can play in customer success.
In this podcast reboot, Hope Galley shares how Cisco is enabling partners to drive customer success through an innovative partner program. At the time of this interview, Hope was Sales Director of Software and Services in Cisco’s America’s Partner Organization. She is now the Cisco Meraki Global Sales Leader.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Cisco places a huge importance on customer success. Here’s what I learned from Hope on how they are transforming their channel to play a front-seat role.
Customer success is a lot more than the initial sale. It’s about what comes after that. Post-sales support, adoption, and expansion are vitally important to you and your customers’ growth and success.
As many companies move to the SaaS model, customer obsession is even more important to reduce churn and, better yet, reach negative churn.
Start by looking at your partners and your partner ecosystem as a whole. Look at their staff, their business processes, their financial incentives, how they recognize revenue, how adaptive they are, and how open they are to change.
Cisco created the Lifecycle Advantage Program to enable partners to drive customer success. The purpose of the program is to align the partner’s services to the customers’ software life-cycle.
With the Lifecycle Advantage Program, Cisco provides opportunities and incentive rewards to help partners land, adopt, expand, and renew business.
Partners are evaluated for the program based on how committed they are to meeting with Cisco, going through the metrics, and whether they have some sort of customer success motion where they’ve been successful.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Hope on LinkedIn
Pick up a copy of Customer Success.
Read about the Cisco’s Lifecycle Advantage Program or watch the video
Check out the TSIA blog to look at what they’re talking to customers about their leading industry indicators.
The post Hope Galley: How to Leverage Partners to Drive Customer Success first appeared on Channel Journeys.
34 min
May 23, 2023 Hope Galley - How to Leverage Partners to Drive Customer Success – CJ114
In this podcast reboot, Cisco Meraki Global Sales Leader, Hope Galley, shares how Cisco is enabling partners to drive customer success through their Lifecycle Advisor Program.
34 min
May 10, 2023What Partners Really Think of Your Ecosystem Strategy – CJ113
Last week I was busy enjoying the BeyondTrust Go Beyond partner and customer event in Miami. The theme, tied to the Formula One race taking place, was Accelerate. We kicked off the event with Partner Connect day, discussing how we can accelerate our partner ecosystem to drive faster growth and faster time to value for customers.
I sat with three of our partners to talk about our Partner Connect day and the impact of our partner ecosystem strategy. Joining me is Justin Christiansen, Enterprise Account Executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS), Michael Fleming, Practice Manager – Security, Identity & Access Management at XMS Solutions, and Sean Remnant, Chief Strategy Officer at Ignition Technology.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are five takeaways on our partners’ view of our partner ecosystem strategy:
Partners of all types can see the value of bringing different partners into an account to sell and deliver the full solution and drive a business outcome.
Hyperscalers like AWS depend on their partner network to co-sell and deliver the full solution running on their platform.
The role of the distributor is changing to more of an orchestrator of the partner ecosystem, bringing in all the partners needed for customer success.
Distributors are also expanding their capabilities on the technical side, helping with pre-sales demonstrations as well as post-sales delivery to capture higher margins.
Delivery partners want to work more closely with the vendor sales reps, and other partner reps, to be a team player in the ecosystem.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Justin, Sean, and Michael on LinkedIn
Listen to the last Partner Panel on How to Build a Modern Partner Ecosystem
Find out the Top 10 Skills of Ecosystem Leaders
The post What Partners Really Think of Your Ecosystem Strategy – CJ113 first appeared on Channel Journeys.
32 min
May 09, 2023 What Partners Really Think of Your Ecosystem Strategy – CJ113
Live on the show floor of Go Beyond, BeyondTrust Channel Chief, Rob Spee, chats with a panel of partners about the partner ecosystem strategy and the impact on their business and their customers.
32 min
April 19, 2023Taylor Macdonald: Driving Growth through Alternative Channels
Where do you look for completely new partner types to add to your ecosystem? How do you build a SaaS partner program that attracts new partners? To answer these questions, I went back to an earlier podcast with channel veteran Taylor Macdonald. In this episode reboot, Taylor shares how he won big with a modern partner program and a less conventional sales channel as channel chief at Sage Intacct.
Taylor describes what many vendors are doing wrong and what a best-in-class partner program and philosophy, that he calls “Channel 3.0” , looks like. He provides a long list of ways you can catapult your channel sales. It all boils down to focusing on one singular priority; making your partners successful.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Taylor uses alternative channels to find partners who truly understand customers’ business and accounting challenges.
Partners do not like programs with tiers and get tired of spiffs and incentives. Instead, they want a program that rewards all partners equally.
Be selective in who you allow into your program. Don’t be afraid to ask more of them, as long as you’re providing more. And weed out the bottom performers every year.
If your partners ask for additional discount, ask for something in return, like requiring them to follow your sales process.
If you believe your number one goal is to make your partners successful, you have to ask if your organization is aligned to that goal.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Find Taylor on LinkedIn
Check out Taylor on How to Double Revenue with a Hybrid SaaS Channel
The post Taylor Macdonald: Driving Growth through Alternative Channels first appeared on Channel Journeys.
39 min
April 18, 2023 Taylor Macdonald-Alternative Channels-CJ112
How do you build a new SaaS partner program that attracts new partners? Channel veteran Taylor Macdonald shares how he won big with a modern partner program and a less conventional sales channel as channel chief at Sage Intacct.
39 min
April 05, 2023Bart Fanelli: Moving from Channel Leader to Channel Coach
Driving the transformation to a partner ecosystem strategy requires new skills and new conversations. How do you enable your CAMs, your sales reps, and your partners to behave differently, to work together in new ways? Bart Fanelli, CEO and Founder of Skillibrium, recently shared how leaders and managers can shift from command and control to coaching and collaboration in an interview with Karen Mangia. In today’s podcast, Bart shares how to apply his five step approach to turn channel leaders and managers into effective coaches to drive the ecosystem transformation.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are the five coaching steps channel leaders and channel managers can use to execute your partner ecosystem strategy:
Establish a role-based sales methodology baseline. Your baseline is the grounding mechanism for coaching. Be sure to include how to work with your partner ecosystem in one cohesive methodology.
Ask the person you’re coaching for an outline of the problem in a simple framework such as “current situation, challenges occurring, desired situation.”
Offer to schedule time to “strategize and determine our next actions” grounded on your baseline methodology. This helps determine the person’s willingness to be coached.
Let the person you’re coaching lead the scheduled meeting and determine the appropriate actions. That way you’re developing the skills the person needs to do it on their own.
Recap the meeting and who is responsible for the next actions and hold them accountable to the outcome.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Bart on LinkedIn
Read Karen’s interview with Bart On How Leaders and Managers Can Become Better Coaches
Check out the X-Mentor interview of Bart on Designing GTM Growth
Get Bart’s book The Success Cadence
Sign up for the Murph Challenge
The post Bart Fanelli: Moving from Channel Leader to Channel Coach first appeared on Channel Journeys.
42 min