HOW THEY DID IT! Unique stories partnerships-led sales and success.

HOW THEY DID IT! Unique stories partnerships-led sales and success.

By Alex GlennTechnology
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HOW THEY DID IT! Unique stories partnerships-led sales and success. episodes

  • How Speargrowth increase revenue by including partners in events

    Agency: Speargrowth.com, B2B marketing, 20 employees

    CEO: Ishaan Shakunt

    Situation: In need of new leads. They were doing all inbound marketing. They decided, after learning about Partnerhub® ironically, to start turning on partnerships. Subsequently, partner-led events.

    Result: Hundreds of leads, lots of personal thought leadership for Ishaan, and pipeline for the agency.

    Partner(s) referenced: https://www.vweby.com/

    Listener takeaways: 

    • Setup checklist for a partner event

    • How to ensure reciprocity from the event partners

    • Post event strategy

    • Why use these virtual summit tech platforms like Airmeet and Hubilo versus a meeting room tech like Zoom

    • Repurposing content post-event

      • Links: 

      Reveal.co/

      Partnerhub.app/



      30 min
    • How a top enterprise salesperson and agency went to market together successfully w/ Jill Rowley and David Lewis

      Situation: It’s early days at Eloqua and David Lewis sees a huge opportunity to build an agency focused on helping companies adopt marketing automation - specifically on Eloqua to start. He allies with Jill Rowley who is a top salesperson at Eloqua at the time. 

      Result: Together they close huge deals with Eloqua - building David’s agency while making Jill the top salesperson - then shifting focus to Marketo and adding other platforms until David’s successful exit in 2021.

      Agency guest: David Lewis, Founder of DemandGen

      His GTM partner: Jill Rowley, Nearbound Strategist 

      Companies referenced: DemandGenEloquaMarketo

      Reveal

      Listener takeaways: 

      • Why David decided to launch DemandGen as a power partners

      • Why Jill chose to sell against “Smart Starts” internal service packages

      • The partner playbook they created used to succeed

      • How David’s partners lifted his exit

      • Why and how salespeople should bring partners into the deals

      • Why in-house service packages are a bad idea

      • Pre-selling software with partners

      • Why your solutions partners are (or should be) the insurance policy for your largest customers

        • Links: 

        Reveal.co/

        Partnerhub.app/


        1 hr 32 min
      • How they won a larger client together - Duo Strategy and PBLC Media

        Agencies: duostrategyla.com and pblcmedia.com

        CEOs: Taylor Kratz, Grant McNaughton, Jon Farah

        Situation: Jon needed to grow his client base, and he knew partnerships was the way to get there quickly. 

        Result: A successful partnership between two agencies that resulted in net new business and higher client retention.

        Listener takeaways: 

        • Why Jon went right into partnerships with larger agencies as his growth strategy

        • How white label vs collaborative strategic partnerships differ. 

        • How to set up the billing relationship between partners and clients.

        • Finding and converting a first shared customer.

        • Creating a shared process to find more successes.

        • Why it’s important they made Jon client-facing and not 

        • How Jon’s expertise in marketing and the tech stack enabled their early success.

        • What they did wrong.

          • Sponsors: 

          Reveal.co/

          Partnerhub.app/


          50 min
        • A very large rep-driven deal that led to Carabiner Group's “Cocktail of solutions” with their partner Formstack

          Situation: A high-profile customer was having a difficult digital transformation off a legacy tech stack. Carabiner and Formstack worked closely to get them through it.

          Result: A successful digital transformation off of a failing tech stack onto a new reliable stack which 

          Carabiner group supported them in. The client was able to expand and grow after the transformation was done. 

          Agency: carabinergroup.com

          CEO: Seamus Ruiz-Earle

          Partner(s) referenced: Formstack.com

          Listener takeaways: 

          • The value of this deal in terms of revenue and other after effects.

          • Successful digital transformation for a large org. 

          • How to work with partners when there is a lot at stake.

          • The importance of process alignment in these larger deals.

          • What Carabiner Group does to stay top of mind with their partners.

          • How they are expanding on this deal to get more like it.

          • How this formed their new “Cocktail of solutions” at Carabiner to bring.

          • Relationships formed along the way…

            • Links: 

            Reveal.co/

            Partnerhub.app/

            https://www.formstack.com/customer-story/njcaa


            57 min
          • How the #1 Eloqua salesperson + the #1 Marketo service partner = GTM perfection

            This episode is very special. I interviewed David Lewis in 2018 on my last podcast about his success in his agency DemandGen. 

            My guest, Jill Rowley, is a social selling evangelist who was one of the first employees at Salesforce. She met my David Lewis, our guest, while leading sales at Eloqua. David was one of their customers. Soon after their connection, David left his role to build a 7 figure “power partner” agency of Elequa.

            In this episode, the three of us discuss:

            • Why david decided to launch DemandGen as a power partners

            • Their history with Eloqua

            • How Jill sold against “Smart Starts” service from elequa ($6500) and instead pushed that 

            • The transition when they doubled-down on Marketo

            • The partner playbook they created used to succeed

            • Partner meeting strategies  

            • How David’s partners lifted his exit

            • Why and how salespeople should bring partners into the deals

            • Why in-house service packages are a bad idea

            • Pre-selling software with partners

            • Why your solutions partnerss are (or should be) the insurance policy for your largest customers


              • ‍Sponsors:

              ⁠Reveal⁠ - A free account mapping solution.

              ‍⁠Partnerhub⁠® - for finding and managing your partnerships.

              1 hr 13 min
            • Get scrappy with Growth and Partnerships alignment - with Gauri Chawla and Mason Cosby

              When partner managers attempt to create with their strategic growth teams, it can often be an uphill battle for both sides. Misalignment, lack of understanding of the other departments objectives, processes and tribulations… And many times, it ends in failure.

              This episode is all about how to overcome the roadblocks partnerships teams may face when working with their marketing and growth leads. 

              To help us all understand, I have found two individuals who know more about partnerships-marketing alignment than anyone. 

              Help us welcome Gauri Chawla, Enterprising Partnerships Leader, Public Speaker, Angel Investor, and partner of our second guest Mason Cosby, Founder of Scrappy ABM, ABM Speaker, TCK Husband, and 1X Girl Dad.

              These two help us all understand:

              • The biggest reasons partner teams struggle to work with their growth teams

              • How partner teams can avoid these pitfalls of working with growth teams

              • Ways they can “go rogue” and start building pipeline without losing their job

              • Building an ABM campaign that includes partners

              • Efficient content creation with partners

              • Facilitating logical referrals with these partner campaigns

              • Ways partnerships people be looked at as a positive aspect of your growth teams day



                • ‍Sponsors:

                ⁠Reveal⁠ - A free account mapping solution.

                ‍⁠Partnerhub⁠® - for finding and managing your partnerships.

                53 min
              • What the young CEO of a $50M startup thinks about sales and partnerships w/ Mac Reddin of Commsor

                In today’s sales climate, account executives and partnerships teams need to collaborate more than ever before to win deals. 

                Enter Mac Reddin, CEO of Commsor which is pivoting into sales enablement with their product Bronto. 

                Mac has been an outspoken contrarian this past year (follow him on LinkedIn) and is joining me today to share his views on partnerships, sales, and go-to-market. 

                On today’s episode, Mac and I discuss:

                • How Mac interprets “The people are your partners” as a strategy

                • Why partner people talking to partner about partnerships people doesn’t move the needle

                • How can partnerships people actually move the needle for their org

                • Community vs partners

                • The future of partnerships 

                • What Mac is and would do differently with a SaaS GTM strategy for the next two years

                • The honest truth about partnerships as a team and process

                • And we end with some advice on how to fix co-selling

                  • It get particularly good after minute 20, so hang in there… you’ll be happy you did. 


                  ‍

                  ‍Sponsors:

                  Reveal - A free account mapping solution.

                  ‍Partnerhub® - for finding and managing your partnerships.

                  54 min
                • Efficient partner operations w/ Marco De Paulis

                  Marco De Paulis began his career work at top digital agencies before joining Privy as their agency-partnerships lead. He’s now been spearheading Ryder Commerce’s partner program using little more than Google docs, sheets, and Salesforce. 

                  In this episode, Marco and I will dig through: 

                  • Marco’s tech stack for managing Ryder Commerce’s partner program

                  • Why he set it up the way he did

                  • When what type of solution or process makes sense

                  • Why some “typical” partner tech stacks and routines never make sense

                  • And we’ll take you through his actual template for partner success. 

                    • Resources:

                    “How to run partnerships effectively without a software budget” - with a setup video and template links.

                    Marco’s linkedin

                    A free account to Partnerhub® if you are in the boat of needing a place to call partner operations home. 


                    ‍Sponsors:

                    Reveal - A free account mapping solution.


                    ‍Partnerhub® - for finding and managing your partnerships.

                    51 min
                  • How partnerships work between top agencies

                    Today’s episode is a look into a successful agency-to-agency partnership between two top development and design agencies; Merix Studio and Wayf Digital, and their partnerships leads; Jan Kubczak and Szymon Królikowski.

                    ‍

                    This is a first for us. We typically interview tech and agency partners together, or just tech teams, but it’s very important for all of us to know more about the type of partnership between two service providers. So, here we are.

                    ‍

                    In today’s conversation we learn: 

                    ‍

                    • How Jan started this partnership
                    • What makes WAYF an ideal partner for Merix
                    • How their partnership works
                    • What happens when there is a shared customer
                    • How each of them thinks to enable one another to bring more deals to the table
                    • What their leadership (they are both partner managers) expects from them to find and activate more partnerships
                    • How they mitigate the expectations (true and false expectations) from leadership
                    • Their plans to grow faster together

                      • ‍

                      ‍Sponsors:

                      Reveal - A free account mapping solution.

                      ‍Partnerhub® - for finding and managing your partnerships.

                      ‍

                      ‍

                      43 min
                    • Partnerships timing and GTM - a conversation with VC Sean Kester

                      In this episode, I speak to Sean Kester, Partner at In Revenue - a unique new operator-immersive capital firm obsessed with enabling founders with what their Partners have learned. 

                      I asked Sean to join me because he is a former Partnerships lead at Salesloft, Stax, and an advisor to partnerships-driven org’s like PandaDoc. So he has the ideal experience to help us understand: 

                      • What is GTM fit and how partners fit in. 

                      • Where partnerships can help with capital raises.

                      • How Sean and In Revenue incorporate partnerships strategy with their portfolio companies.

                      • Ecosystems-led vs community-led (i.e. DealHub in HubSpot or Qualified in Salesforce eco vs Lavendar.ai which started as a community + services, then launched their Ai product) 

                      • What must be in place before any startup launches into partnerships.

                      • And, I ask Sean to poke holes in a Partnerships-Led GTM that we are testing with our V2 product (Partnerhub®):

                        1. Paying partnerships leaders for __ number of posts on social about the launch. 

                        2. Bringing PL’s into the product by way of templates branded with their name that the users can deploy for their internal partner operations. 

                        3. Matching new users with expert consultants - exclusive to vertical and type of support.

                          4. This is a type of episode I’ve been wanting to do for a while, so I hope you like it. 


                          Sponsors:

                          Reveal - A free account mapping solution.

                          ‍Partnerhub® - for finding and managing your partnerships.

                          Links mentioned: 

                          https://www.partnerhub.app/blog/when-is-the-ideal-time-for-a-tech-startup-to-invest-in-partnerships

                          https://www.linkedin.com/in/theseankester/details/experience/

                          48 min

                        About HOW THEY DID IT! Unique stories partnerships-led sales and success.

                        From the publisher's feed

                        This is a derivative of our popular "Make Them Famous" podcast about partner enablement. Only this time, I wanted to take a journalistic approach to uncover unique stories between partners. You will hear parts of the story being told in an interview I had with the guest. Then, you will hear my co-host Chris and I break down the key learnings of the story and provide more context or anecdotes from our experience running agencies and working with partner teams.