Channel Edge

The Video Growth Hacker, Robert Cassard is back with some new stats on the power of video in your marketing toolkit. Looking to build social post engagement? Check. Looking to improve SEO for your corporate site? Check again. The even better news is that video production has become...

Joe Sykora is the VP Worldwide Channel Development at Bitdefender and has a storied career in channel sales, including early days as an entrepreneur.

Pete Przybylinski and the team at Duckhorn Winery have a ton of great ideas for using channel data to optimize their marketing and sales.

Great news though: you don't have to be in channel marketing to appreciate Pete's stories. You don't need to be in the wine business either. If, however, you happen to be interested in business, marketing, sales or wine, you are sure to enjoy this episode. In fact, while editing it occurred to me that the recording had gotten better with age; the audio file displays beautiful layers of dense dark red fruit, cedar, graphite and cream, as well as hints of wet river rock. Enjoy!"

With autumn now in full swing, it’s that time of year where many of us are starting to focus seriously on planning what it’s going to take to accomplish our business goals in the coming fiscal year. For many of you, that means looking for new ways to drive sales channel growth. Cameron Avery has a take on a powerful strategic direction: “Bear hug your partners,” says Cam.

Cam is currently the SVP of Business Development at Zift Solutions, fresh off of Zift’s acquisition of Elastic Grid, the company he started in his Australian beach house back in 2001. With a serious background in the technology space and an ever-expanding view of the partner world in everything from consumer electronics to the oil and gas business, Cam has a hot take on what it takes to foster meaning sales channel growth.

Sal Patalano is back to join Steven in the Chit-Chat Room (patent pending) and besides Sal’s time at the legendary discotheque Studio 54 and his work with the late Steve Jobs, he’s here with a serious message about the strategic importance of learning how to merge sales and marketing operations.  Sal believes that this integration of resources is not a trend and it’s not going away any time soon.

To put it bluntly, “Companies with strong sales and marketing alignment will achieve 20% annual revenue growth, while those without this type of alignment will see revenues decline by 4%,” says Sal.

Account-based marketing is a marketing discipline that, at first glance, sounds like the perfect strategy for any company with a long sales cycle and complex business proposition. As with so many marketing strategies, much of the disciplined work involved with rolling ABM out successfully is foundational and un-sexy. Gary Morris, CEO of Successful Channels knows that pain and has codified a great way to approach implementing account-based marketing within an organization.

Gary is a career senior marketing/business executive, entrepreneur, and thought-leader with deep expertise in automated marketing technology, channel strategy, and business innovation strategy. He has recently built three startups from the ground up on his path to leading Successful Channels Inc. and previously held several executive corporate marketing roles in global corporations. (In this episode, he also helps Steven to step up his vocabulary game!)

“For millennials, the wage you earn is a satisfier but not a motivator.”

Carol Neslund has built a long career in the channel space, including leadership roles running billion-dollar business units with technology companies such as Avaya, Seagate Technology, Westcon and others. Over her career, Carol has become an expert at identifying leadership and management skill gaps and offering a range of ways to improve performance including skills training, leadership development and 1:1 executive coaching, a skillset she leverages in her current role as principal at PartnerPath.

In this episode, Carol drops a ton of practicable insight on human resources management, attracting and retaining the best people and some surprising facts on what’s motivating to today’s workforce.

Rod Baptie has been a channel marketing professional for longer than many of my colleagues have been alive. 

The great thing about having such a long perspective is that it helps one to see what truly matters during the ebbs and flows of the industry, having seen so many trends, downturns and upswings come and go.  The ability to stay detached from the hype that accompanies each new wave of change and identify only that which is going to be of meaningful or even lasting value is a skill that comes with wisdom gained through experience.  Rod is no exception to this rule, and as the principal of Baptie & Company, he curates a community of some of the top vendors and channel chiefs on Earth.

“Well, first of all, I think it IS your fault…” 

A prominent industry analyst and thought leader, Laz Gonzalez brings unparalleled channel expertise to his role as Chief Strategy Officer at Zift and has served as strategic advisor to leading B2B channel programs worldwide. Before Zift, Laz was Group Director of Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies at SiriusDecisions, where his team published extensively on channel management, partner recruitment, enablement and lead generation while developing transformative frameworks, such as the SiriusDecisions Channel Program Model.

A prominent trend in the channel marketing space that bubbled up in late 2017 has continued to be a hot topic well into the second half of 2018 is the notion that many organizations have an unfocused, and undisciplined approach to their marketing technology stacks…

Sal Patalano founded his first software company building applications for the Apple MacIntosh in 1983, working closely with Steve Jobs and his team, but currently happens to be the Chief Revenue Officer at Lenovo Software.

The idea of eliminating the channel account manager (CAM) role sounds controversial at first, but Sal’s talk track is firmly rooted in data and modern business realities.

From Sal's perspective, four factors are driving the change: