CJ8. This episode of Channel Journeys features Jacqui Rand, co-founder of Channeliser, a platform for finding and getting social with partners. Learn about Jacqui’s channel journey and how she met Peter Norton and Bill Gates. Find out how she’s helping vendors find the right partners and drive higher partner engagement through social channel marketing. And not just the largest and most strategic partners, but the long-tail partners as well. This episode is loaded with insights on leveraging social media effectively and efficiently in the channel.

[2:00] Favorite food is Bangers and Mash. Favorite sport is horse racing.

[3:45] After traveling the world, Jacqui’s favorite spot is Scotland and loves cycling there with Skedaddle.

[6:30] Worked for Ashton Tate, then Peter Norton of Norton Securities during acquisition by Symantec, and then got immersed in partnering at Microsoft.

[7:30] Formed a channel consulting business in 2011 with her business partner Ann Lampton helping vendors find new partners. This led to the development of Channeliser – a match.com for the channel.

[10:30] Met Ben Rosen, founder of Compaq, and met Bill Gates in Cannes.

[12:00] Millennials entering the channel grew up with social, and used to using social platforms, not email, to communicate.

[13:30] Need to be driving relationships in the channel, including the long-tail partners. Having technology than enables you to interact without increasing your workload is crucial.

[15:30] Channeliser provides a partner portal with all social features built-in. It becomes your private social channel marketing platform that can be integrated with your existing partner portal. And it helps you communicate more effectively with your largest and most strategic partners as well as your long-tail partners.

[17:30] Has an Industry Network of partners open to IT companies around the world to find partners by location and skill sets. Allows you to connect at company and individual level.

[20:40] The inspiration for Channeliser was initially the difficulty in finding and connecting with the right partners around the globe. Then market demand from vendors to have a private social channel marketing platform for communicating with partners led to the expansion of Channeliser.

[23:00] Now have about 3000 partners from around the globe in the Channeliser community. Still curating and growing to make sure it’s valuable.

[24:30] Challenges include looking for funding while running the company and finding the right developers – they found great team in Ukraine.

[27:30] Channeliser helps to drive more social behavior and best practices within the channel team.

[29:00] Looking for partners including channel technology vendors and consultants to help expand business outside of Europe.

[31:00] Great opportunities for women in the technology channel, both in channel management and channel marketing.

CJ7. This episode features Mike Kelly, founder of the Channel Institute. Inspired by entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Elon Musk, Mike loves Big Hairy Audacious Goals like scaling mountains and running marathons. But these adventures look easy compared to Mike’s most audacious goal yet. He is on a mission to turn channels, and roles like channel management and channel marketing, into a profession.

Websters defines a profession as a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation. For many of us, channel is our calling.  The goal of the Channel Institute, and the Channel Journeys podcast, is to share specialized knowledge, elevate the channel, and turn this calling into a profession.

[3:30] Mike grew up in Dublin, his favorite drink is black with a creamy white head! Favorite food is game pie.

[4:30] Of his many adventures, one of his most memorable is a joy ride flying with just the pilot over Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Africa. They’re in a small plane with wooden a propeller, that turned out to be rotten. As their flying over the jungle, the propeller blew off and they crash landed into the jungle!

[6:30] Mike is more than active. His outdoor sports include sea kayaking, mountaineering, running marathons, surfing, and skiing.

[7:45] Since he was 13, Mike wanted to be an entrepreneur. Studied marketing to learn how to create value and demand. Won a green card lottery to work in a marketing agency in Boston.  Met his business partner and launched a marketing agency, TSL.  After reaching over 300 employees, sold TSL to launch Ridge Consulting to help tech companies grow their channel and channel partners.

[10:30] Earned a Charter Director certificate, a gold standard for business strategy in the UK. He took the strenuous 2-year program to help him run his own business, be a better business consultant, and eventually join the board of directors for a charity.

[12:45] Launched the Channel Institute to fill the skills gap found among channel managers at the lower end. No one is teaching the fundamentals. His mission is to make channel management a channel profession.  Formed an industry council with tech leaders to validate the courses to ensure content is hitting the mark.

[16:30] Channel  Institute only one year old, but already gaining momentum, forming partnerships with Universities and vendor training academies. Focused on the fundamentals and look for ways to dovetail into other courses.

[18:00] His target audience includes:

[20:00] Even vendors with “gold-star” channel marketing teams are coming to the Channel Institute to gain digital co-marketing skills.

[22:00] Provides the channel management and channel sales certificates to meet the needs of channel managers who are more business consultant and the ones who are more sales focused.

[22:45] Sees a lot of people taking the course who pay out of their own pocket because they’ve been dropped into the role without any training.

[24:15] Biggest challenge in launching Channel Institute – being a small company trying to teach the religion of a channel profession.

[27:00] Sending a channel manager on a solution selling course designed for field sales people without first providing training on channel fundamentals is kind of pointless. Make sure they have the fundamentals first so they can combine the two skills.

[28:30] Mike’s inspiration comes from entrepreneurs with Big Hairy Audacious Goals like Richard Branson and Elon Musk. The have confidence, audacity, and vision.

[31:00] Channel Institute is a stepping stone for we as an industry to up our game and make channels a profession. Let’s treat our profession with more respect and give new people entering channels a lot more support.

[32:00] Channel technology is great. But don’t forget the soft skills.

CJ6. This episode features Harry Brelsford, founder of SMB Nation, ski racer, and cycling enthusiast. Harry is a long-time advocate, consultant, and spokesperson for partners and is passionate about helping them succeed. Harry is on a new mission to help MSPs through partner transformation. Find out why his message is Start Up or Start Over in this fun episode spanning Harry’s own channel journey.

[3:30] Harry’s favorite place is Stellenbosch, South Africa, known for its wine country and amazing cycling. (after seeing pictures, I can’t wait to go there!)

[4:15] His favorite pastimes are cycling and cross-country skiing. He was a Nordic ski racer growing up in Alaska.

[9:00] Harry was an adjunct professor for 12 years before launching his small business server business. Writing articles led to books which led to workshops. His audience was the “computer guy” who’s now often called an MSP.

[11:30] Harry’s interest was in saving the world with small business servers and got involved in shipping servers to the Peace Corp to help small businesses compete.  He’s since been to 45 countries during his career.

[15:30] With today’s technology, growing sentiment in Seattle is “why have office space, why have employees, why commute?”

[17:00] Russell Johnson, the actor best known The Professor from Gilligan’s Island, lived and died on Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle.

[17:45] Harry’s new mission with SMB Nation is to transform partners into new areas like analytics and dev ops and get them to create intellectual property to increase their value.

[19:45] Start Up or Start Over – it’s the tagline of SMB Nation and their mission which is half geek and half business. If you are 50 and at a Fortune 500 in Seattle, you’re fired. Only option is to start up a company. Start over refers to the core MSP audience of SMB Nation who need to reinvent themselves and transform their businesses.

[24:45] Harry’s transformation of SMB Nation includes moving away from live events to digital content and online events like Tech Talks to help the MSPs who are members. Vendors are invited to sponsor the Tech Talks.

[31:00] Seeing population of MSPs shrinking and transforming. Contraction coming in many forms, from mergers and acquisitions to exits.

[35:00] Pivoting SMB Nation content to 8 minute YouTube videos including his On-The-Road series.

SMB Nation

CJ5. This episode features Rod Baptie, the founder of Channel Focus – the world’s largest community of channel professionals. Rod shares his channel journey that took him from London to Colorado to Scotland. Hear  how customers are driving channel transformation – having a huge impact on vendor programs and partner business models.  And learn what you can do to drive channel growth as traditional channel partners are exiting and merging and a new whole breed of partners is emerging.

Channel Focus Community

CJ4. This episode features channel rock star Jay McBain, a super-connector and channel analyst with Forrester Research. Jay shares his analysis, insights, and predictions on the channel, including a wave of channel automation that could turn Channel Chiefs into Chief Channel Officers, just as marketing automation has turned Marketing VPs into Chief Marketing Officers. Jay talks about his channel journey, how he became fascinated by numbers, and his quest to visit 100 countries on roller blades.

Jay says we are seeing three stages of automation in corporations over the past twenty years:

Channel Software Tech Stack Infographic

100 Country Rollerblades and Red Bull Tour

Jay’s Crazy MBA Story

CJ3.  This episode features Matt Reaves, channel chief, distribution veteran, and long-distance swimmer. Matt tells how his career went from drilling for oil to creating a value-added distribution model and becoming a leading distributor for IBM.  Hear Matt’s view on the role of distribution today and learn about his personal journey from horseback riding next to the pyramids of Egypt to swimming with sharks in the San Francisco bay.

2019 Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim

CJ2.  Our first episode of 2019 features Rich Blakeman, a channel chief, consultant, and author of The Hybrid Sales Channel.  Rich explains why direct sales reps are often so hesitant to work with partners. Then he lays out how you can overcome channel conflict through a hybrid sales approach. By doing so, you maximize the talents and strengths of both your company’s sales reps and your partners so that one plus one can equal eight.  As you’ll learn from Rich, his approach is all about the customer, where all good sales strategies should begin.

CJ1. Welcome to the first episode of the Channel Journeys podcast. My guest is an entrepreneur who has developed an innovative solution to a classic problem – how to increase the performance of channel managers.  Gary Morris is the founder and CEO of Successful Channels and the creator of the 5-minute channel manager toolkit.  Get to know Gary, the channel journey that led him to take the entrepreneurial leap, and the mission he is on to improve channel manager performance.