Channel Edge

"The first thing is making sure you have the right mix of partner types in your ecosystem..."

Jennifer McCready is the Global Channel Chief for Steelcase, bringing more than 18 years’ professional experience successfully managing sales teams, marketing teams, project teams and technology/devices strategy for enterprise companies like Microsoft. Upon joining Steelcase, Jennifer had the chance to build her channel programs from a clean slate - a compelling opportunity for any of us who have been dropped into legacy ecosystems.

“ They NEED to all stick with rebates...”

Melinda Aguilar is back for round two. After kicking up dust in her first appearance back on ep. 38, Dear Vendor, Let Me Introduce You to Our Customer…. she is back to share her perspective on what makes a great partnership with a vendor.

“The vendor community needs to understand that our business is driven by the customers' experience ...”

Tommy Wald is president of TW Tech Ventures, founder of "The MSP CEO", and author of the book, The MSP CEO: Your Guide to Building a Successful MSP Business.  His background includes being a founder and CEO of a regional IT managed services provider (MSP) and as a consultant for various MSPs, vendors and distributors. Tommy's practice experience is relevant to evolving business models, sales, social marketing, M&A, performance optimization, staffing and sales performance.

“Everyone acts like everything's perfect, and that's the problem ...”

Melinda Aguilar is the sales manager at RenWes Sales in Lake Forest, CA but she's also much more than that. She is a 37 year veteran of the appliance business and proven number one appliance salesperson in North America, possibly even the world.  For this reason, she is often sought out by CEOs of the world's top appliance companies who want to tap into her experience and wisdom.

“The reality is that in a channel there are still a lot of in-person sales that happen...”

Amy Belcher is VP of Global Partner Marketing at Xerox with a history of successes in channel expansion and growth & a focus on revenue acceleration. Repeatedly recognized for her consistent achievements in this area, Amy was recently named CRN’s Power 100: The Most Power Women of the Channel 2018. She joins the podcast to talk partner success and the difficulties inherent with digital transformation.

“Are you speaking your partners’ language?”

Lori Cornmesser is VP of Worldwide Partner and Alliance Sales at Infoblox where's she's responsible for indirect sales, partner performance, channel reach, revenue attainment and partner profitability.

“Getting people 4 and 5 degrees away from you to do what you want them to do is the most difficult thing in the world…”

Tina Gravel is the Channel Chief at Cyxtera Technologies and shares perspectives from over 25 years of indirect and direct sales and customer service/support in IT with a special emphasis on Blockchain, IoT, AI, AR, Security and cloud computing.

“Machines don’t create trust; emotion creates trust and emotion is between people.”

Scott is a partner at Brainrider where he helps companies create better B2B marketing including better websites, better content and better lead generation & nurturing programs.

“How do YOU put all that time and resource into a partner who’s also selling not only your strategic partners, but also your competitors?”

Heather Margolis is an entrepreneur, part-time foodie, and founder of Channel Maven Consulting. She has led channel programs for companies like EMC, EqualLogic, and Dell. Heather helps channel organizations build smarter channel programs, manage channel relationships to find added value, and engage their communities through social and traditional media. In this episode, she joins Steven to discuss each of their top three observations from the recent CompTIA ChannelCon show.

Diane Krakora of Partner Path joined Steven to present this webinar packed with both foundational and trending elements of successful MDF and Co-Op Marketing programs. We've had so many requests for the recording that we're presenting this handy podcast edit for our Channel Edge audience...