Webinars are back.

According to a recent report from Crossbeam, webinar utilization is now back to pre-pandemic levels and continues to grow.

But as soon as I tell you that, you’re immediately reminded of the fact that your last webinar saw just 25 registrants and only a few attendees, right?

If everyone’s doing webinars again, they must be seeing some success, so how do we get there? How do we drive more qualified leads from webinars, and what’s their proper place in our funnel?

That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked.

Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too! Subscribe to learn how you can amplify your growth strategy – with a solid takeaway every episode from partnership experts in the industry.

A few years ago, I was tasked to run a series of webinars with partners for us here at Agorapulse. I’d been hosting large virtual summits with multiple speakers and sessions, but hadn’t really planned one-off webinars.

And it showed in the numbers.

While one of the webinars saw over a hundred registrants, the others were all well below that and were considered a failure. I turned my attention back to massive virtual summits and those work great, but I can’t do more than one per quarter due to bandwidth.

If you’re anything like me, you’re hoping that webinars can be a tool for bringing in new sales leads and funneling existing prospects closer to won-closed. How do we build a repeatable, scalable process for executing webinars that deliver on that promise?

That’s exactly what Justin Zimmerman is going to talk to us about.

Justin has spent years in the partnership world and saw there a huge gap - and potential - for brands who were underutilizing webinars and partnerships. He’d experienced the same pains we all have with underperforming experiences, and then cracked the code. He started seeing more and more success with his initiatives and began to share that knowledge and experience with others. He now consults big brands on their webinar strategy, has playbooks available for others to learn from that we’ll get into today, and regularly takes the stage to share his wisdom with the crowd.

I talked to Justin Zimmerman about:

♉️ Why brands should invest in partner webinars

♉️ How to leverage partners and webinars

♉️ What your webinars goals should be

Learn more about Justin Zimmerman

• Connect with Justin Zimmerman on LinkedIn

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• PartnerPlaybooks.com
• Airmeet
• HubSpot
• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Full Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/driving-more-partner-sourced-leads-from-webinars-w-justin-zimmerman/

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Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

Warren Buffet once said, “Partnership is not a legal contract between two equal individuals. It’s an emotional alliance between two people who are committed to each other’s success.” And that’s true, isn’t it? Whether you’re new to strategic partnerships or have been doing this for years, you doubtless understand that your most successful endeavors have been due to the relationships you forged with your partners.

But as the field of partnerships has grown in recent years, so too has the challenge to partnership leaders who are now tasked to support every aspect of a business.

How do you secure the right background for a successful career? And how do we develop the necessary skills to foster emotional alliances that achieve business results?

That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked.

Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too! Subscribe to learn how you can amplify your growth strategy – with a solid takeaway every episode from partnership experts in the industry.

When I left college after having studied History and Computer Science, my first salaried job was handling ERP support for Dana Corporation and helping our 80,000 employees deal with their questions about Baan, Lawson and Oracle. After a few years, I joined a local IT firm as Sales Manager and a few years after that, took a break from IT and sold swimming pools and hot tubs in Northern Ohio. Later I became an entrepreneur and started my own marketing business, The Social Media Hat, leveraged that into a role as CMO of Sitesell, and then shifted to Agorapulse where I’ve been leading partnerships since 2018.

While one could say that I’ve been in sales & marketing for over twenty years and that the majority of that time has been in the digital space, the reality is that my career has not been a straight line.

Surely it doesn’t always have to be like that. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a better understanding of what partnership leader roles today require in terms of skills, and how those can be developed and applied?

That’s exactly what Greg Rust is going to talk to us about.

Greg is the Senior Director - Global Holdco's & Digital SI Partnerships at Oracle and a 5 time Partner of the Year. He has decades of experience as a Global Strategic Alliance Executive that’s based on years working in sales, product management, and more. He’s established trusted relationships with key executives across multiple industries and verticals, and has just the diverse background and perspective we need to tackle this topic.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Greg about:

♉️ The ideal career path of a partnership leader today

♉️ The importance of establishing trust, both internally and externally

♉️ The role of communications and diplomacy in business partnerships

Learn more about Greg Rust

• Connect with Greg Rust on LinkedIn

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• Oracle
• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/the-importance-of-trust-communications-amp-diplomacy-in-strategic-partnerships-w-greg-rust/

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Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

Would your organization benefit from a global network of reseller partnerships?

In a time when marketing budgets are shrinking and global economies are in turmoil, having resellers on the ground in various regions and countries who have already established a trusted relationship with your target audience is a real asset.

But such a network isn’t tossed together overnight.

Where do we start, and how do we grow and scale reseller partnerships to levels like what Snap has accomplished?

That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked.

Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too! Subscribe to learn how you can amplify your growth strategy – with a solid takeaway every episode from partnership experts in the industry.

We’ve talked in a previous episode about building agency partner programs and the idea of using resellers to grow our businesses is a topic I wanted to dig into more.

How do we structure these programs? How do we expand into new regions? How do we measure success? I have so many questions…

And what better way to learn than to talk to someone who has been there from the beginning with a tech company like Snap.

Max Rivera joined Snap at an early stage to launch the international expansion practice before the company's IPO. He’s led high-performing global teams and launched the business across new markets in Latin America, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Today, he is leading some of the largest business partnerships, and he’s also an angel investor and board member for startups in emerging technology sectors.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Max Rivera about:

♉️ How reseller partnerships work for tech startups

♉️ How to start a reseller program that can scale globally

♉️ How to measure and achieve success with reseller partnerships

Learn more about Max Rivera

• Connect with Max Rivera on LinkedIn

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• Snap
• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-global-partnerships-can-generate-billions-in-revenue-w-max-rivera/

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Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

Because events are not only great for lead generation, but also for attendees to learn about you as much as other attendees, they’re a hot bed for growth and opportunity. And like all marketing and sales motions, events are even better with partners.

How can we use events to go to market with partners, and what does that even look like?

That’s what we’re covering in our first episode of Partnership Unpacked, season two!

Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too! Subscribe to learn how you can amplify your growth strategy – with a solid takeaway every episode from partnership experts in the industry.

I’ve been hosting massive online conferences virtually every quarter since 2018, and they’re a tremendous amount of work. Countless hours building agendas and assets and driving attendees.

But they’re also extremely valuable and rewarding. Our annual Agency Summit, for instance, attracts over 3,000 marketing agency owners and technicians every year, and features dozens of speakers and dozens of partners.

How can you integrate events into your go to market strategy, and how can bring partners along to make these events even more effective?

That’s exactly what Kabir Uppal is going to talk to us about.

"My definition of go to market is really finding your customers where they are. With the right messaging and positioning that shows them that your product or service can help them achieve a goal or overcome a challenge and to try to keep it as simple as possible."

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Kabir Uppal about:

♉️ What a GTM co-marketing event partnership might look like ♉️ Different kinds of events partners can employ ♉️ Best practices for ensuring event success

Learn more about Kabir Uppal

• Connect with Kabir Uppal on LinkedIn

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• Airmeet
• Chili Piper
• How To Drive Successful Content Partnerships w/ Josh Bernoff
• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Agorapulse with a free demo

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-to-go-to-market-with-partners-using-events-w-kabir-uppal/

Brought to you by Agorapulse: the #1 rated social media management solution.

Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

Every episode of the classic Western TV Show, The Lone Ranger, started out, "With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!" And throughout the decades since, the concept of working alone has often been equated with being a Lone Ranger. And we’ve used that phrase here on this very show.

But it’s a bit of a misnomer, isn’t it? The Lone Ranger wasn’t alone, he had his friend and colleague Tonto with him to help.

Tonto wasn’t a Ranger of course, but having a resource to turn to who at least has some understanding of our world and environment can be a real asset. It can help us lone partnership heroes feel less isolated, and give us additional avenues of research and brainstorming.

Can AI be that kind of faithful companion for us today?

That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked.

Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too! Subscribe to learn how you can amplify your growth strategy – with a solid takeaway every episode from partnership experts in the industry.

Today we’re in for a real treat, as we’re joined by one of my best friends and she just happens to be a brilliant expert in generative AI. And she’s going to help me, er… us… with the fact that many of us are operating as partnership department leaders yet we’re a team of one. We’re expected to foster new relationships, bring on new partners, spearhead new initiatives, and often do that across several different kinds of partnership types.

How can AI help us to be more efficient and feel less isolated?

That’s exactly what Katie Richman is going to talk to us about.

Katie spent decades at the intersection of content production, brand storytelling, and emerging tech at well-known brands like ESPN and Meta. She’s now an incredible writer, thought leader, and consultant in the generative AI space, conducting emerging tech workshops and coaching sessions for industry leaders and executives. She’s a tech optimist but a business operations realist, and we’re blessed to have her with us today to help us understand the power of generative AI.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Katie Richman about:

♉️ Why partnership leaders should utilize AI in every aspect of their work

♉️ How AI can help with pitching and onboarding partners

♉️ Where partnership leaders can use AI for campaigns and engagement

Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Katie Richman

• Connect with Katie Richman on LinkedIn

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• TechNormal
• Marketing AI Institute

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/partnering-with-ai-throughout-the-partnership-journey-w-katie-richman/

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Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

Through the first three quarters of 2023 in the U.S., over 170,000 tech workers have been laid off.

Now, more than ever, it’s critical for partnership teams to be focused on the right initiatives and have plans in place to measure and demonstrate success.

How do we prioritize the right partners? Where are strategic partnerships headed in the coming years, and how do we define success?

That’s what Tai Rattigan is here to help us with.

Tai is a giant in the partnership space having built teams at Optimizely, Amplitude and Deel. And he’s co-founded an organization, Partnership Leaders, dedicated to providing partnership pros with a community and the resources they need to succeed.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Tai Rattigan about:

♉️Prioritizing the right partners

♉️Measuring partnership success

♉️The future of strategic partnerships

Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Tai Rattigan

• Connect with Tai Rattigan on LinkedIn

• Connect with Tai Rattigan on Twitter

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• Deel

• Partnership Leaders

• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

• Learn more about Agorapulse with a free demo

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-a-serial-partnership-leader-defines-success-w-tai-rattigan/(opens in a new tab)

Brought to you by Agorapulse: the #1 rated social media management solution.

Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

One of the keys to successful partnerships is the creation of great content.

You might not always equate partnerships with content, but the fact is, the partnership space is filled with content-filled satellites such as onboarding, case studies, pitches, white papers, reports, sales introductions, books, and of course the more obvious rockets such as blog posts, eBooks and webinars.

Each one an opportunity to partner with a colleague within your organization, or a partnership leader from another brand.

How can we ensure these content partnerships succeed?

That’s what Josh Bernoff is here to help us with.

Josh is a prolific writer and is dedicated to helping other businesses and authors publish amazing content. Books he has written or collaborated on have generated over $20 million for their authors. Josh’s daily blog at Bernoff.com has topped 4 million views. He was formerly senior vice president, idea development at Forrester Research, where he spent 20 years analyzing technology and business.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton will ask Josh Bernoff on Date at Time:

♉️How brands can leverage content partnerships

♉️Where to start to ensure a successful partnership

♉️What pitfalls to avoid with content partnerships

Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Josh Bernoff

• Connect with Josh Bernoff on LinkedIn

• Connect with Josh Bernoff on Twitter

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• Bernoff.com

• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

• Learn more about Agorapulse with a free demo

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-to-drive-successful-content-partnerships-w-josh-bernoff/

Brought to you by Agorapulse: the #1 rated social media management solution.

Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

B2B SaaS companies all have a shared challenge:

Helping their customers actually succeed with their product.

You can have all the help videos and tutorials in the world, but sometimes customers want someone else to do the work and for that, they’re going to turn to an agency.

Should we partner with agencies? What should that look like?

That’s what Franz-Josef Schrepf is here to help us with.

During the height of the pandemic and everyone’s rush to leverage online events, Franz stood up Hopin's channel program, app store, and strategic alliance efforts, and helped that company’s rapid rise from zero to $7.75B valuation. He is the host of The Partner Ship 🚢, a bi-weekly LinkedIn Live show where partnerships leaders share their tricks of the trade, and currently serves as the Head of Strategic Partnerships for our favorite live streaming tool, StreamYard.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Franz-Josef Schrepf about:

♉️Why starting small is a good thing

♉️Where to start with a new agency partner program

♉️How to trim and scale your program to success

Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Franz-Josef Schrepf

• Connect with Franz-Josef Schrepf on LinkedIn

• Connect with Franz-Josef Schrepf on Twitter

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• StreamYard

• Hopin

• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

• Learn more about Agorapulse with a free demo

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-to-build-a-b2b-saas-agency-partner-program-w-franz-josef-schrepf/

Brought to you by Agorapulse: the #1 rated social media management solution.

Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

Are you the only partnership professional in your organization?

Are you struggling to demonstrate value to your team and organizational leadership?

Are you tired of recruiting new partners only to see those relationships fizzle out?

That’s what Cory Snyder is here to help us with.

Cory is the VP of Partnerships at Sendoso and has been in this industry for decades. He’s seen new technology and new mindsets be developed and, all the while, maintained his commitment to excellence and successful methodologies. He’s worked tirelessly to create, launch, accelerate and scale partner & sales organizations, was awarded the Partnerships Leader of the Year in 2022 by PartnerStack, and was recently a guest on the terrific podcast, Friends With Benefits.

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked Cory Snyder about:

♉️How to develop a daily routine to support partnership success

♉️How tools like Reveal create opportunities for revenue growth

♉️How to measure & communicate success as a Lone Ranger

Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Cory Snyder

• Connect with Cory Snyder on LinkedIn

• Connect with Cory Snyder on Twitter

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• How To Develop A Strategic Partnership Into A Cornerstone w/ Sam Yarborough

• Trust Isn’t One Dimensional, Friends With Benefits interview with Cory Snyder

• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

• Learn more about Agorapulse with a free demo

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-to-be-a-successful-lone-ranger-in-partnerships-w-cory-snyder/

Brought to you by Agorapulse: the #1 rated social media management solution.

Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Alton

How do you successfully scale a partner ecosystem with hundreds of partners?

We talked about starting a marketplace of partners for your business in a previous episode, but what happens when your early success translates into increased demand and a slew of new partners? There are app ecosystems in the MarTech space that have grown to thousands of partners and integrations. How did they get to that level of success?

That’s what Greg Karelitz is here to help us with.

Greg is the Global Director of Technology Partnerships with the mission of helping millions of businesses easily integrate their tech stack with HubSpot. HubSpot recently passed 1,500+ publicly available integrations which means over 1500 partners that Greg and his team have been responsible for sourcing, onboarding, and managing. 

Partnership Unpacked host Mike Allton talked to Greg Karelitz about:

♉️How to scale and manage an ecosystem of hundreds of partners

♉️Tools & Tactics for leveraging a MarTech marketplace

♉️Recommendations for maintaining internal alignment

Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

Learn more about Greg Karelitz

• Connect with Greg Karelitz on LinkedIn

• Connect with Greg Karelitz on Twitter

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

• HubSpot

• HubSpot App Marketplace

• Subscribe to the show calendar: agorapulse.com/calendar

• Learn more about Agorapulse with a free demo

Full Notes & Transcript: https://www.thesocialmediahat.com/blog/how-one-of-the-largest-martech-marketplaces-achieves-scale-w-greg-karelitz/

Brought to you by Agorapulse: the #1 rated social media management solution.

Music by Jumbo, "Peripheral" (feat. Plum Soul)

Produced and Hosted by Mike Allton