Bold Journeys Podcast

Understanding the challenges your partners face can create opportunities for channel managers. It can also create an idea for a company. That’s the case for today’s guest, Joseph Landis, who is the Chief Revenue Officer for Nerdio, a Chicago-based startup helping MSPs create successful cloud practices in Microsoft Azure. Joseph shares the top 3 challenges MSPs face in moving to the cloud and how Nerdio is addressing them through their SaaS offering.

MSPs face 3 common challenges when building a cloud infrastructure practice. Addressing these challenges can help your success in leveraging the MSP channel. 

1. Talent. MSPs often don’t have the people with the experience to architect and manage a cloud infrastructure. One way to solve this problem is to provide automation to stand up and manage the cloud. 

2. Complexity. The complexity of trying something new can prevent MSPS from taking the leap to the cloud. Get creative in how you can educate your partners through a variety of vehicles including blogs, podcasts, and trade shows. 

3. Risk. Many MSPs view doing things a differently, like moving to the cloud, as risky. Not as much from a technical perspective, but financially. This risk can be addressed through education as well as technology that mitigates the risk. 

I've talked to many MSPs over the past month that wish they had actually made the move to the cloud much earlier. @josephlandes
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If you're looking to be successful with MSPs, look at how your solution automates or reduces the amount of labor required by that MSP. @josephlandes
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How do we stay connected and build our network while being forced to stay home by a global pandemic? That’s the question I had to ask Social Media guru Sally Jo LaMont of Social Sales Link.  In this 50th episode of Channel Journeys, Sally eagerly shares how we can leverage LinkedIn to build and strengthen connections. She provides valuable tips that will help you convert connections to conversations during and after this global lock-down. Spoiler alert: we don’t mean sales conversations. Nobody wants to be sold to, especially during this crisis. 

1. Update your LinkedIn headline. This is your billboard. Use it to promote how you can help others, not what you’ve done or what title you hold.

2. Use the About section to provide value, offer tips, make it read like a valuable resource so people will want to connect with you and learn more. 

3. Find new connections, your buyers and influencers, by first providing value to your existing 1st level connections. Use the LinkedIn video feature to send short videos to reconnect, give kudos, endorsements, and recommendations. Then ask for warm introductions to others in their networks.

4. Your first conversation with a new connection has to be about providing insights, not about your product or what you do. Do your research on them before you ever pick up that phone or schedule any kind of meeting so that when you go in your insights are valuable.

It's just super important to be very empathetic to your network and to consider what their needs are in this in this difficult time. @SallyJo_LaMont
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Consider two people a week who've really made a difference in your business life, write a recommendation for each and put them on LinkedIn. @SallyJo_LaMont
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Becoming that thought leader at a time like this, that really will help you become memorable. @SallyJo_LaMont
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This podcast takes us to Bali, Indonesia where I caught up with channel globetrotter Greg Eckstein. Greg is the founder and CEO of Channel Sales World, a channel consulting firm based in Singapore. It took a global virus to slow him down, presenting an opportunity for us to chat about changes in the IT channel and the latest best practices in channel sales enablement. Greg has honed his practice serving the 50 largest IT vendors in the world, vendors with the largest channel teams and the largest channel needs.

1. Train your channel managers on articulating your value proposition to partners, down to the vertical or even micro-vertical level.

2. Webinars and on-demand e-learning still works for internal channel sales manager training, but not as well with partners. 

3. It’s no longer about the brand of the vendor. It’s about what you add to the partners business model.

4. Provide your partner training in 15 minute modules with short easily consumed chapters, leveraging video and podcasts in their local language.

5. Rather than putting all the certification questions at the end of the module, insert 2 questions at the end of each chapter. 

In a mature economy and mature industry, in order to grow, the differentiating factor is your ability to capture partner mindshare. @GregEckstein
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There are still some vendors out there who will put together professional services organization and actually compete with their partners for services. @GregEckstein
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What can you learn from an Air Force veteran who worked for the Pentagon, Homeland Security, and the White House? Quite a lot I found out in this week’s episode with Vince Crisler. Vince is the founder and CEO of Dark Cubed, a cyber security SaaS company. Chris successful navigated two major transformations. First, he converted his product from an on-premise appliance to Software-as-a-Service, which is not easy for any vendor. But that wasn’t enough. Chris wanted more organizations to have access to his SaaS offering. So he tackled a  second transformation, moving sales from an all-direct model to virtually 100% channel via MSPs. You’ll learn about the top security threats organizations, including MSPs face today, how he “swallowed the SaaS fish”, and his creative approach to building a channel..

It's pretty much accepted that a breach is going to happen. The question is, how do you handle it? How do you communicate? How do you inspire trust and confidence when that bad event does occur? @VinceCrisler
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It was a tough transition. But in the end, it's been worth it. Margins are up. We can be running on a network in 10 minutes without having to ship or configure anything. It's completely transformed the business. @VinceCrisler
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The thing I love about Reddit is people are blunt, and you know, you go in there and you can be crucified and people don't mind calling you out. @VinceCrisler
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There’s a lot of talk about moving from traditional on-premise selling to the as-a-service model. This remains a big challenge for traditional vendors and partners alike. I’ve always thought of this as shifting the sale of technology (software and hardware) from a big upfront sale to a much smaller recurring revenue stream. But as I learned in this conversation with Peter Wolf, founder of Azamba Consulting Group, partners also have a huge opportunity to shift from fixed time and materials service contracts to selling services-as-a-service. Listen to Peter as he shares the challenges and benefits of transforming his CRM services business to the subscription as-a-service model. 

Peter shared some great tips for partners looking to make this transformation. Here are my favorites:

It's easier for a customer to understand my subscription services model when they're buying the software the same way. @CRMWolf
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Today's customers are very demanding. If you're not serving them the way they want around their results, they will find someone who can. @CRMWolf
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Where all this transformation is coming from is not a desire for vendors or people like myself to shift. It's because the customers are leading us on this journey. @CRMWolf
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