Bold Journeys Podcast

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Bold Journeys Podcast episodes

March 03, 2021 Larry Walsh: The Channelnomics of the New Normal – CJ66
According to Larry Wash, CEO and Chief Analyst at Channelnomics, the only thing that's certain moving forward is more change. The Covid pandemic may have accelerated Digital Transformation, but we're still more at a point of digitalization and haven't even started the transformation yet. And that's the next evolution that's going to drive even more changes in the channel.
47 min
February 03, 2021Mark Brigman: The 5 Phases of Successful Partnering
Mark Brigman is the founder of the company and author of book Partnernomics. After a career leading partnerships with Sprint, Mark studied the economics of partnering, wrote a book, and took the leap to launch a company focused on helping others drive successful partnerships. In this episode, he shares the five phases of a successful partnering process.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Successful partnering starts with a playbook. Here are the five key elements that Mark has learned drives repeatable success:
Partnering Strategy – create a living strategic plan to drive internal alignment from the CEO down to the field on what, how, and over what time frame you are going to achieve through partnering
Engage Partner Candidates – identify your high value candidates, understand their business model, position your value proposition, then objectively score and rank them against each other to maximize your probability of building a long term successful partnership
Negotiate the Partner Agreement – start with a business term sheet that lays out how you are going to work together. Make sure you have total alignment before getting legal involved and before you sign the agreement!
Close the Agreement – make a go or no go decision based on alignment and strategic fit with the partner
Operationalize the Partnership – proactively manage to success leveraging the Strategic Partner Leadership Model
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Over 50% of failed partnerships can be eliminated before the deal is even signed - @partnernomics
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The most powerful partnerships out there are the ones where our strategic plan intersects with their strategic plan. - @partnernomics
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LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Mark on Twitter and LinkedIn
Read Partnernomics
Listen to the Partnernomics Podcast
Check out the special offer for 2 free months of Magentrix
The post Mark Brigman: The 5 Phases of Successful Partnering first appeared on Channel Journeys.
50 min
February 03, 2021 Mark Brigman: The 5 Phases of Successful Partnering – CJ65
Mark Brigman is the founder of the company and author of book Partnernomics. After a career leading partnerships with Sprint, Mark studied the economics of partnering, wrote a book, and took the leap to launch a company focused on helping others drive successful partnerships. In this episode, he shares the five phases of a successful partnering process.
50 min
January 20, 2021Hans Peter Bech: How to Go Global on a Shoestring
When is the right time to introduce your B2B software solution into international markets? How do you attract your first customers in foreign countries when you have a great product but only a small budget? International channel expert, Hans Peter Bech, author and founder of TBK Consult, shares his B2B software channel expertise and lessons from his new book, Going Global on a Shoestring.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are five tips I learned from Hans Peter on going global on a shoestring:
No matter where you launch your company, have the international opportunity in mind from day 1. Otherwise, you will have to re-engineer your business considerably down the road to make it ready for international business.
Going global on a shoestring is normally done by leveraging partners and building a channel, but not always. Some products don’t have a channel or benefit from the channel model.
Before building a channel in a foreign company, get in and land a few deals so you can attract the first partner. Hire or contract a business developer to find the first set of early adopters who want to try out your product.
You may have to provide exclusivity for a short term to help the first partner recoup their investment. But you have to convince the partner that having more partners to build the market is actually good for them.
When selecting which countries to expand into first, look for countries that speak your language. Next, look for countries that aren’t already dominated by your competition.
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How do you attract your first customers in foreign countries when you have a great product but only a small budget? - @hpbech
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How big is a shoestring budget depends on how much you can afford to lose. - @hpbech
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LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Hans Peter on Twitter and LinkedIn
Read Going Global on a Shoestring
Check out all of Hans Peter’s books
Check out the special offer for 2 free months of Magentrix
The post Hans Peter Bech: How to Go Global on a Shoestring first appeared on Channel Journeys.
48 min
January 19, 2021 Hans Peter Bech: How to Go Global on a Shoestring – CJ64
When is the right time and the best way to take your B2B technology company into international markets and go global? In this episode, Hans Peter Bech, author and founder of TBK Consult, shares his B2B software channel expertise and lessons from his new book, Going Global on a Shoestring.
48 min
December 30, 2020Jay McBain: Channel Disruptions You Need to Prepare for in 2021
When I want to know what’s happening or going to happen in the channel, I turn to Forrester’s Principal Channel Analyst, Jay McBain. In this year-end special episode of Channel Journeys, Jay shares channel lessons from 2020 and makes his predictions for what we need to plan for in 2021.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Here are five channel disruptions we need to prepare for in 2021:
Incentives. Instead of front-end discounts and back-end rebates, partners will be most interested in your multiplier effect. How much can they earn for every dollar of software that the vendor sells? Professional services the partner can deliver to drive customer success is the biggest and fastest growing multiplier, dwarfing the transactional incentives. Take whatever you are spending on partner incentives and spread it out like peanut butter. One third of the money should be spent before the point of transaction on the influencers. One third should be spent on the transaction. And one third for driving adoption, stickiness, cross sell and upsell forever.
Influencers. The average business technology buyer will use five different people as influencers. The battleground for 2021 is finding out who are sitting in those five chairs around every one of your buyers and making sure they are endorsing you and driving influence towards your solution.
Marketplaces. Marketplaces will continue to play a bigger and bigger role. There are 20 marketplaces that you have to strongly consider for 2021. This includes the hyper-marketplaces like AWS, Azure and Google for infrastructure and SaaS marketplaces from companies like Salesforce and ServiceNow.
Co-innovation. 825,000 new products are going to be built in the next 10 years. You’re going to build some of them, your partners are going to build some of them, AWS is going to build some of them. What can you build together so that 1 plus 1 equals 5? Think co-innovation with your partners. The talent to drive this co-innovation likely sits in your alliances organization.
Channel Managers as Community Marketers. Channel managers will still have their 10 or so dedicated accounts like they have in the past, but how they spend their day must change. Channel managers need to learn how to influence the influencers. Becoming one of those top 100 people in their territory becomes all important. How you spend your day and how you become visible and carry your brand to be visible every day in front of your target partner audience is going to be the measure of success for channel account managers in the future.
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If you're not selling digitally, if you're not selling socially, if you're not really looking at your early customer digital moments, you're losing deals without ever knowing there was a deal. - @jmcbain
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Think co-innovation with your partners. 825,000 new products are going to be built in the next 10 years. You're going to build some of them, your partners are going to build some of them. - @jmcbain
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How you flip between podcasts, keynotes, associations, and social groups to be visible every day in front of your target audience is going to be the measure of success for channel account managers in the future. - @jmcbain
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LINKS & RESOURCES
Follow Jay on Twitter and LinkedIn
Google Multiplier: Partners Make $5.32 For Each $1 Of Google Cloud Tech Sold
Check out the special offer for 2 free months of Magentrix
The post Jay McBain: Channel Disruptions You Need to Prepare for in 2021 first appeared on Channel Journeys.
44 min
December 29, 2020 Jay McBain: Channel Disruptions You Need to Prepare for in 2021 – CJ63
When I want to know what's happening or going to happen in channel, I turn to Forrester's Principal Channel Analyst, Jay McBain. In this year-end special episode of Channel Journeys, Jay shares channel lessons from 2020 and makes his predictions for what we need to plan for in 2021.
44 min
December 16, 2020Frank Rauch: Drive Growth & Profitability with a 100% Channel Strategy
How often does the Founder and CEO of a high tech company come out of the gate with a 100% channel strategy? And how often does that same founder remain steadfast in that strategy, year after year, for 27 years, while taking the company public and driving consistent profitable growth? Frank Rauch is the head of Worldwide Channel Sales at this very cybersecurity firm, Check Point Software. For most of us channel chiefs, we drool at the thought of a 100% channel strategy where no deals go direct. Frank shares the benefits and challenges of their channel strategy. Learn how he rebuilt and refreshed their partner program to continue driving partnerships, growth, and profitability with all sales going through the channel.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Check Point’s commitment to the channel is truly incredible. Here are a five examples how you can replicate that commitment:
Hold the line on not selling direct. Even with the largest financial institutions around the world who will say “you know, we don’t need a partner, we don’t want a partner, we won’t do business that way, either sell direct or don’t sell at all.” Check Point has always held the line and sold through a partner.
Convert all your customers over to a partner. When Check Point acquired Dome9, they had a problem. Dome9 had several hundred direct customers. So they converted every one of those customers over to a partner, in probably less than 30 days.
Don’t pay any differently on a partner-led deal versus a collaborative co-sell deal versus a fulfillment deal. Pay a premium for new logos, but don’t spend the time arguing over the level of partner involvement. The metrics are never all that clear anyway
Just because you’re 100% channel, don’t expect that you will eliminate all of the conflict. Check Point continues to train their people and have rules of engagement so people are choosing the right partner for the right reason.
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People certainly envy that 100% channel position, but with that position comes a ton of responsibility. - @FrankRauchCHKP
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We hold the line on not selling direct. Even with the largest institutions around the world who say we don't need or want a partner, we hold the line. - @FrankRauchCHKP
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Just because you're 100% channel, don't expect you'll eliminate all of the conflict. Have rules of engagement so people are choosing the right partner for the right reason. - @FrankRauchCHKP
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Check your ego at the door, have some degree of humility, have some empathy, enjoy the ride and never forget who was in the car with you when you took that ride. - @FrankRauchCHKP
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LINKS & RESOURCES
Find Frank on LinkedIn and Twitter
Read the Check Point Partner Growth Playbook
Visit John and Peters legendary rock bar
Check out the special offer for 2 free months of Magentrix
The post Frank Rauch: Drive Growth & Profitability with a 100% Channel Strategy first appeared on Channel Journeys.
50 min
December 16, 2020 Frank Rauch: Drive Growth & Profitability With A 100% Channel Strategy – CJ62
How often does the Founder and CEO of a high tech company come out of the gate with a 100% channel strategy? Frank Rauch is the head of Worldwide Channel Sales at one such company, Check Point Software. Frank shares how to build a partner program and drive growth selling 100% through the channel.
50 min
December 02, 2020Jason Cutter: The Key to Channel Selling with Authentic Persuasion
Channel Management is more of a sales game than you may think. As a channel manager, you constantly have to persuade. You have to sell your company, your products, and your channel program to your partners. You continuously have to convince your sales teams and your management why you need the channel. That’s why the topic of this episode is so interesting to me. Jason Cutter, host of The Sales Experience Podcast and author of Selling With Authentic Persuasion, shares how channel sales and partner managers can gain influence and success by selling with authentic persuasion. Learn how to grow from an order taker to a quota breaker.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What is authentic persuasion and how do you use it? Here are my key takeaways from Jason:
Being authentic is based on self awareness and understanding who you are, what you bring to the table, and why you’re doing what you’re doing. What drives you? What what are you going to get up every day and be excited to work towards?
Being authentic is understanding your strengths in your sales style and your approach, and then bringing that with you into the conversation and not trying to be something or someone else.
Many sales reps end up being order takers. They may be good at giving a good demo presentation, but then their strategy is hope. They’re hoping the other person is going to see the value for themselves and go, yes, I would like that. Here’s my money. But that only works a small percentage of the time. The rest of the time it requires persuasion and action. And that’s just the line sales reps don’t want to cross because they think to do that requires manipulation and tricks.
Your partners and customers don’t really care about you, your products, your company. What they care about is what’s in it for them. How can you help them?
Authentic persuasion is about taking the time to find out what what matters and then talking about what’s most important to them, not to you.
One of the telltale signs of an order taker, somebody who’s not operating like a sales professional, is when you listen to them talk and they pause. The problem is that nature hates a vacuum and wants to fill it. Your prospect is scared. And so they’re going to fill that vacuum with another question. And then you answer and you pause, and then another question. Sales professionals who are in control keep moving the conversation forward by answering the question and then going back to whatever they were talking about, or asking the prospect a follow up question.
Find out what’s behind your prospects questions. Why is that topic so important? Get to the heart of the matter so you can have a meaningful conversation.
Another big key to authenticity making sure that what marketing is saying is not different from what sales is saying. Too often there’s a disconnect, almost a marketing vs. sales culture. Remember, it’s one prospect to one client, that started in marketing, passed through sales, going to fulfillment or account management, and on to service, whatever that looks like. Everyone should be telling the same story throughout that journey.
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As a channel manager, you constantly have to persuade, you have to sell your company, your products, your channel program, and you have to sell internally to convince your sales teams and your management why you need a channel. -…
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Being authentic for me is based on self awareness and understanding who you are, what you bring to the table, and why you're doing what you're doing. - Jason Cutter
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Being authentic is understanding your strengths in your sales style and your approach, and then bringing that with you into the conversation and not trying to be something or someone else. - Jason Cutter
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LINKS & RESOURCES
Find Jason on LinkedIn
Read a free sample of Selling With Authentic Persuasion
Listen to The Sales Experience Podcast
Check out the special offer for 2 free months of Magentrix
The post Jason Cutter: The Key to Channel Selling with Authentic Persuasion first appeared on Channel Journeys.
43 min