Bold Journeys Podcast

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Bold Journeys Podcast episodes

April 05, 2023 Bart Fanelli: Moving from Channel Leader to Channel Coach - CJ111
Driving the transformation to a partner ecosystem strategy requires new skills and new conversations. Bart Fanelli, CEO and Founder of Skillibrium, shares 5 steps channel leaders can take to shift from command and control to coaching and collaboration to achieve that transformation.
42 min
March 22, 2023Darren Bibby: Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business
Many times I’ve come across the beginnings of a partner business that lacks the discipline to really take off. How do you take a fledgling partner business from a bumpy dirt road into a high capacity freeway? Darren Bibby, CEO and Founder of AlignedPartner, shares the five top things you can do to scale your partner business to maximize growth and value add from your partnerships.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are Five Things That Will Make the Difference to Scale Your Partner Business
“Programatize” Everything. You need to transition from one-off agreements and discretionary discounts to a formalized partner program and consistent rules of engaging partners of different types.
Document Everything. Put all your legal terms and conditions into a standard partner agreement and all your program benefits and requirements into a partner program guide for your external partners. Create field guides and rules of engagement for your internal teams.
Build Partner Support Teams. Whether they sit in the partner organization or distributed within other departments, partners need people who provide sales, technical, and marketing support. One lower-cost way is to build an offshore channel operations and program support team that can do all of the back-office work like cleaning up partner data records, checking data quality, and making sure the portal is working as expected.
Harmonize with Direct Sales. Getting your sales team working with your partners can be the most challenging item, but also the most rewarding. Make it as easy as possible to work with partners and lower the barriers. Provide comp neutrality so the reps can earn the same amount whether they work with a partner or not, both for sales and services.
Automate your Systems and Processes. Much of the daily administrative work can be automated through an ever growing number of channel technologies including a partner portal, partner performance dashboards, and account mapping tools.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Darren on LinkedIn
Learn about the Murph Challenge
Hear How to Build an Ecosystem Partner Program
The post Darren Bibby: Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business first appeared on Channel Journeys.
43 min
March 19, 2023 Darren Bibby: Five Ways to Scale Your Partner Business – CJ110
Darren Bibby, CEO and Founder of AlignedPartner, shares the five top ways scale your partner business to maximize growth and value add from your partnerships.
43 min
March 08, 2023Josh Lewis: Driving Breakthrough Partner Performance
With all the focus on building partner ecosystems, we can’t forget about driving partner performance. This interview was recorded four years ago when Josh Lewis was the Vice President of Global Channels at Alteryx, an analytics firm on hyper-growth. The lessons learned are just as relevant and impactful today.
The channel strategy that got Alteryx to a $50M company wasn’t going to scale and continue fueling hyper-growth. The channel program reached a plateau. As a result, Josh needed to take a different approach to accelerate channel performance.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are five tips I learned from Josh on how to accelerate partner performance:
Cull non-productive partners who aren’t willing or able to re-engage and commit.
Take a data-driven, targeted approach to recruit new partners who have vertical industry or functional area expertise.
Having a channel-friendly culture makes it easier to accelerate growth. Likewise, so does recruiting partners with cultures that match your company culture. Seek ways to fuse your brand experience into your partner program.
Align your channel teams and partners to the sales teams to gain sales relevancy. Coach your channel managers to develop trust internally with your sales team and externally with your partners.
When you’re looking to double the business you need to hire partner managers who have intellectual curiosity, are interested in the big picture, and have both a direct and indirect sales background. Then empower and enable them to think as general managers running a franchise.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Josh on LinkedIn
Learn about the Murph Challenge
Don’t forget your KPIs for the Modern Partner Ecosystem
The post Josh Lewis: Driving Breakthrough Partner Performance first appeared on Channel Journeys.
45 min
March 07, 2023 Josh Lewis: Driving Breakthrough Partner Performance-CJ109
Josh Lewis shares how he accelerated channel partner performance through consistent and focused efforts as the VP Channel Sales to help Alteryx fuel it's hypergrowth.
45 min
February 22, 2023Olli Fleischhut: How to Simplify to One Partner Program
Over time, many vendors have created multiple partner programs to cater to different partner types, markets, and business units. But partners want simplicity, predictability, and ease of doing business. Multiple partner programs do just the opposite. Olli Fleischhut, VP Marketing at Honeywell Building Technologies, faced this very challenge. He shares how they simplified and consolidated a vast number of partner programs into one global program that drives partner success.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are ten tips I learned from Olli on how to simplify and consolidate down to one global partner program:
Consolidating your programs starts by taking the partners’ perspective and determining how they define success.
Learn what partners need to be successful and build your program benefits and partner enablement to meet those needs.
Determine what KPIs really define growth for your partners’ success.
Leverage your advisory boards. Honeywell has technology advisory boards, distributor advisory boards, and customer advisory boards
Automate and standardize. Your partner technology stack needs to support your program and your partners.
Start small. Honeywell started in a particular country with a small group of 20 people. They ran the new program for a while, got the feedback and then improved before rolling out the global program.
Don’t sacrifice quality for speed in rolling out your program improvements.
Partner enablement and continuous feedback loops on your enablement for improvements is vital.
Change is never easy. Make sure you bring everyone in the company along on your transformation journey.
At the end of the day, the success of a partner program is if partners are successful and end customers are happy.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Ollie on LinkedIn
Learn about the Murph Challenge
Hear How to Build a Modern Ecosystem Partner Program
The post Olli Fleischhut: How to Simplify to One Partner Program first appeared on Channel Journeys.
39 min
February 22, 2023 Olli Fleischhut: How to Simplify to One Partner Program - CJ108
Partners want simplicity and ease of doing business. Oliver Fleischhut, VP Marketing at Honeywell Building Technologies, shares how to simplify and consolidate multiple partner programs into one global program that drives partner success.
39 min
February 08, 2023Janet Schijns: Top 10 Skills of Ecosystem Leaders
What’s a partner ecosystem leader? Who can become one? What are the most important traits? Those are questions I posed to Janet Schijns, CEO of the JS Group. Janet shares the top ten skills sales and channel leaders need to become ecosystem leaders. If you’re a sales rep looking to leverage the ecosystem or a channel leader with your eyes on becoming a Chief Ecosystem Officer, this podcast is for you.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Channel pros, just because you’ve worked in the channel for years, it doesn’t mean you’re getting that top ecosystem leader job. Here are the ten critical skills you need to not only to stand out but to succeed as an ecosystem leader:
Understand what’s happening with partner programs and have the skills to know what’s needed to develop an ecosystem partner program.
Shift your strategic focus from the channel as an expansion or replacement of sales to a strategic focus on co-selling. Sellers need to get the notion of owning an account out their head. Don’t block your partners from engaging you on an account. Embrace them.
Train your sales reps to become managers and influencers of their ecosystem. And train your Sales RVPs to become Ecosystems RVPs, levering the full partner ecosystem to drive sales growth.
The technology expertise you need now as an ecosystem leader is to understand the tools that will aid your ecosystem to do the job better. That includes PRM systems, account mapping tools, and automated partner services orchestration.
Gain the financial acumen to read an annual report, understand how EBITDA is calculated, and be able to have financial conversations with your partners and their business models.
Learn how to use digital marketing to stimulate demand. Today’s B2B buyers rely far more on digital information in their buying journey, spending less and less time with sales reps. Companies that provide customers the information they need, when they need it, through the channels they prefer, are best positioned to drive success.
Gain the ability to see the future that others haven’t seen yet by spending time with the folks who are going to influence the behavior of tomorrow. Don’t spend your time with the same partners at every event. Go out and meet the influencers in your industry.
Practice proactive listening. You need to get to the right watering holes and listen to what end customers, analysts, and partners are saying. Dedicate 20 or 30 minutes a day of going to the online watering holes like Reddit, LinkedIn, and Facebook, or hire an intern or an agency like JSG to do it for you.
Build communities bottoms up instead of top down. Who will be the most important ecosystem leaders 3 year, 5 years, 10 years from now? Start by asking where will your customers be? What communities will they be listening to?
Last, but not least, gain the skills to build your own brand and become a partner ecosystem influencer. This is the decade of ecosystem influence!
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Janet on LinkedIn
Read how Traditional B2B Sales and Marketing Are Becoming Obsolete
Gain financial acumen by signing up for free finance courses on Corsera
Learn How To Become Channel Influencer in 3 Easy Steps
The post Janet Schijns: Top 10 Skills of Ecosystem Leaders first appeared on Channel Journeys.
48 min
February 07, 2023 Janet Schijns: Top 10 Traits of Ecosystem Leaders - CJ107
Think you've got what it takes to become a partner ecosystem leader? Janet Schijns, CEO of JS Group, shares the top ten skills sales and channel leaders need to learn and apply to leverage the power of the partner ecosystem.
48 min
January 25, 2023Maciej Danielski: The Role of a Channel Chief
Last episode, I spoke with Jay McBain about how to turbocharge your channel career. In this episode, I join Maciej Danielski, host of the Channel Voices podcast, to discuss my role as Global Channel Chief at BeyondTrust. I share my channel journey, the responsibilities of a channel chief, and some practical advice for those who aspire to sit in the top channel seat.
LINKS & RESOURCES
Connect with Maciej on LinkedIn
Subscribe to the Partner Voices Podcast
Learn How To Turbocharge Your Channel Career
The post Maciej Danielski: The Role of a Channel Chief first appeared on Channel Journeys.
33 min