Channel Waves by StructuredWeb

Welcome to ChannelWaves, the podcast where channel

leaders share success strategies, best practices, emerging trends,

brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Here's your host, Steven Kellam.

Welcome everyone to ChannelWaves.

StructuredWeb's view into everything channel.

I'm your host, Steven Kellam, and today we're

going to dig into partnerships and how you

can get the most out of your partners

in demand generation and revenue generation.

Everything that's important to you in H2.

And I'm joined by Diane Krakora, who's

the CEO and founder of PartnerPath.

Welcome, Diane.

Hey, Steven, thanks for having me.

One of the reasons that I'm excited to have

Diane one is, gosh, we've known each other quite

some time, and I have a lot of respect

for what Diane has done and the knowledge that

she has in the channel, particularly about partnerships.

And one of the reasons I asked Diane to join

was actually there were two reasons to be totally transparent.

One is she talks to people in the

Marketing circle, she talks to people in Channel

Sales Circle, and she talks to people in

the Channel Chie . f circle last time I checked.

That's a pretty broad

and comprehensive perspective, right?

Yeah.

So it's really fun to be able to talk

across all the different discourses within the partner ecosystem,

to be able to see how they all come

together to support and grow ecosystems, particularly in 2023,

which takes a village, that's for sure. It does.

And the second reason is because I live

in a lot of the tech stack.

I've done the MDF, I've done

the incentives, I've done all that.

Now we're in the market automation tech stack.

And Diane, I think this is absolutely true, no matter

how good your technology and how good your stack is.

And we're going to talk about

that and talk about integrations.

If your programs aren't done well and if

isn't lined up and you don't have your

go to market strategy for all that together,

then you sort of automate for automates sake.

And I don't think that really makes things successful.

And you kind of end up with,

I think, selling everything short that way. Yeah.

And I think that'll certainly be one of our

five key partner program challenges or one of the

outcomes or the answers to one of the five

key program challenges that we're seeing this year.

It's certainly the new world order in 2023.

So I think there's some aspect of automation

that is definitely growing as well as refining

and really getting specific around what are you

trying to do with the partner program? Sure.

So why don't we start with Demand Generation?

It's something near and dear to my heart oh, by the

way, listeners, we're going to talk about the challenges.

But Diane and I were talking about this before.

There's a lot of opportunities around that.

Every time there's a challenge, somebody is going to

figure out how to make it work, and they're

basically going to have a competitive advantage.

Absolutely.

I think in one of the five is demand

generation which right now we are seeing so many

people kind of freaking out about pipeline and running

to partners and saying we need more pipeline, we

need our partners to generate more pipeline.

The whole world is in a pipeline crunch right now

and we're kind of seeing this entire student body left

into we need our partners to do more marketing or

do more demand generation or get more partners that can

do demand generation and really drive that pipeline.

So certainly I think those are

the realities of mid year 2023.

And the question is can some partners do demand

generation for you as a vendor and will they?

Well, what's the answer?

Look, I have my opinion.

I think people want to hear your opinion.

I think certain partners can do demand generation.

I think certain partners are going to be challenged.

Which is why there's to,

through and for partner marketing. Right.

And I think the problem I'm seeing is I think

there's some confusion on where to use to, where do

you use through and where to use for?

And even more importantly, in which individual

segments to go after that, right.

The small, the medium and the large.

I think that's really the challenge.

I see people flip flopping around a lot and

it's certainly not a one size fits all.

In terms of can partners do

demand generation or will they?

I mean, certainly they can else

they wouldn't be in business, right.

If they weren't able to generate the demand for

at least themselves, they wouldn't be in business.

But will they do it for or with a vendor partner?

And it's really a mixed bag.

Some will and a lot will do more of an ABM. Right.

In terms of trying to reach new accounts and sell more, drive more?

I think the biggest answer here is you can't

paint, use one brush to paint your entire partner

ecosystem and say they will or they won't.

Some will, some won't.

And how do you find the 8% to 10% that will and can?

Yeah, what's a good way to do that?

Have you run across someone who's doing a very

good job of segmenting their partners and how they

segment their partners and how they build those segmentations?

One way that we see is successful here

is just allowing partners to opt in, right.

And saying, hey, we have marketing campaigns for you.

We have marketing automation tools to help you

guys be successful through those communications, allow them

to sign up and opt in.

And instead of expecting 100% of participation,

we just need to start expecting 10%

participation and thinking that's great.

Instead of it has to be every partner in

our ecosystem adopting and leveraging our marketing so it

might align to some of their business models, then

it might not align to other business models.

So again, we can't think everything.

We can't think everything is a nail right there's.

Definitely a whole bunch of different types

of partners in your ecosystem with different

business models and different priorities, quite frankly,

even in this quarter. Sure. Okay.

Number two on your list was partner contributions.

Are partners influencing deals?

So what's going on there?

Yeah, the other thing, along with partners generating demand,

the second thing we're seeing is a lot of

requests and centering around measuring partner contribution.

This might be our vendors justifying their existence,

our vendor partner aims justifying their existence.

We're seeing some organizations like Workday swing heavily towards

partnering and say, oh my God, we haven't partnered

in years, we've got to start doing this.

And we've seen other organizations like New Relic

kind of lay off most of their partnering

came and say, oh, we're not getting enough

contribution from our partners and we're going to

kind of swing the pendulum the other way.

So in that kind of divergence, it's understanding what

the partner contribution is and is it influenced, is

it assisted, is it resold, is it developed?

And trying to put measurements to that, I

think, is one of the big challenges that

we're seeing for partner programs this year.

How does the vendor go about that? Right.

Is there a process that you bring to that?

How do they create best practices around that? Right?

Well, the hardest part of

measuring partner contribution is data. Right.

Everybody knows I love data, but what are your

systems, what are your tools to be able to

collect data in terms of are partners doing marketing?

Right.

That could be an indication of contribution

that the partners are actually adopting your

partner marketing and doing marketing and generating

leads and registering those leads.

And like, regardless of those close or

not that still are closed with that,

partner can be considered contribution.

So the hardest part is getting the data, the

data entry, the leads in, the deals registered, the

deals closed, even assigning actions, really being able to

define are there seven steps or 27 steps in

your sales cycle and who's doing what within those,

there might be multiple partners. Right.

So how do you kind of have those

capabilities and systems to see what actions, what

activities partners are doing along the sales and

customer success lifecycle, to be able to then

say kind of measure partner contribution.

Well, so that leads I was going to

say that leads into your next number three

on that, which is customer success and renewals.

And how are partners managing and working

to that and adding contribution there? Yeah.

And how are vendors allowing or

not allowing partners to contribute there? Right.

And is the expectation that

partners are driving customer success?

Most of you guys all

have subscription models out there.

And are you expecting your partners to help

the customers adopt and use the solution so

that they are renewing it and growing?

And are those customer success

motions part of your expectations?

And I think that's one of the big challenges that

we see in partner programs for this year is that

we all know that customer success is important.

But kind of the rigor and

even the expectations are not kind of

written into your partner programs and your partner

program guides that we're expecting the partners to play

here and even rewarding them for that in terms

of additional deal registration or discount around renewal.

That renewal motion.

But 2023, we need to keep our customers.

Not only do we need to find them with new

leads, but we need to keep the ones who pass.

Making sure that they're using is important.

I was going to ask you

about rewarding them for do that.

It makes total sense to me.

It also makes sense to me that that is

a place I think partners could play really well.

Historically, everything I've heard having been a partner

a long time ago, getting new business or

new logos was a hard thing.

It was always wanting to sell to the existing.

So if that's part of the DNA of a lot

of partners, why not just go that extra effort onto

the renewal side and that partner success.

But it is a behavior modification. Right.

That changes the program, changes what you ask of

them and changes most importantly how you reward them.

Absolutely.

And that's why we kind of calling them

challenges for this year because we all see

that renewal and that adoption is important.

We're getting pressures from executives around and

boards and the street around renewals.

But that hasn't really made its way into

a lot of partner programs around those expectations.

So certainly kind of redesigning and looking at

your overall expectations for your partners and the

benefits or rewards for them and those activities.

It's really partner programs just come down to

what activities do you want partners to do

and what are you paying them to do? Right.

Or where are they getting that MDF or additional

discounts or discount off training or something like that.

So how are you setting up that value exchange? Yeah.

One of the coolest reward programs I ever had when I

was a partner is if I hit 95% customer satisfaction on

all the implementations because such a huge part of setting up

what the renewal is going to look like asking for the

renewal and trying to be a good partner to a client

eleven months down the road when you're trying to do a

renewal versus doing the beginning big thing.

It changed our whole organization

how we did onboarding.

Because let me tell you, the project manager, everyone in

that organization knew they wanted to hit that 95% because

it had a drastic effect on our profit margins.

Right, right.

And it's all about the metrics that

matter these days is adoption and usage

and renewal in a subscription model.

Especially as we start running out

our first two and three years.

If you sold them for a two year subscription

model, which really isn't a subscription model, but I

don't want to go into that now.

But when that two or three years start, which

now, then we start saying this is now not

the time to start making sure that the customer

is actually happy with the product and using it

because we're 60 days out of renewal.

That should have happened a year ago.

Oh, no, I totally agree.

I mean, someone told me there's three

things that happen on a launch and

there's positive, neutral and negative.

And you don't want the other two. Right.

You only want the positive.

It makes a huge difference to cross-sell, upsell

even way before you get to renewal, right.

Just really change things.

So the fourth thing on your

list kind of ties into that.

If partners aren't making it, which partners

do you cut from that program?

I saw someone, I think this is really hard to do,

that had the Premier League way of doing it, right.

Literally cut the bottom 10% every year. Right.

When I first heard that, I was

like, well, that sounds really cool.

I kind of like the Premier

League way they do that, right.

For those who don't follow soccer, bottom

three teams and then Premier League gets

sent down to another league.

and you'll get it. Yeah.

Kind of, either way at least you enjoy yourself, right?

But yeah, look, when do you do that?

Why do you do that?

Well, this is, again, a challenge that not necessarily

people have or have a firm pat answer to.

The question is, do we cut?

And if we cut, how do we cut?

And we see very two different camps on this.

One is like absolutely.

Just like we're cutting the bottom 10%, right?

If you haven't done a transaction in x long we're cutting you off.

Which then brings me back to the conversation

of are they contributing other than transactions? Right?

Are they doing marketing?

Are they generating leads?

Are they an advisor out there in the world?

Are they influencing even

though they're not transacting?

Do you know if those partners are

whispering into your prospects executive ears?

And that was the thing that closed the

deal, even though they didn't show up in

your POS reports, quick throwback to the 1980s, those POS reports.

So I think that the question becomes, if you

don't have good data on what are partners doing

and how are they contributing to your sales and

success cycles, then we end up cutting partners that

actually could be influencing and actually driving contribution.

So to cut or not to cut this long tail, we used

to say, yeah, 90-10, rule and lop off everybody else, because

if they're not doing, we get 90% of our revenues from 10%

of our partners, and the rest of them are just out.

But I think that's changing in 2023 because

we're seeing so many more touch points to

the customer's buying journey and it's more difficult

to really measure who is being successful.

If we can automate some of those relationships and

have less of a cost to them, then there's

no harm, no foul, having partners out there that

don't look like they're transacting, right?

So while it's more difficult, I would say it's

never been more critical to have that data so

that you don't inadvertently cut off someone who is

an influencer and maybe you just didn't know it.

So here's the scenario, I'm going to paint

the picture for you because this is how

you're going to wrap it up, right?

So you need to know more about your partners

and how they interact with all the customers.

The buying has gotten more diverse and challenging because

there are more partners involved, because the buyer's journey

has changed and how they want to buy.

And you have to have all of this

data so you can really accurately do things.

But we're doing more with

less people, with less resources.

So you got in one hand I need to do all

these great things and in the other hand you're like, oh,

I don't have as many resources, or maybe it's not that

I don't have as many resources, maybe I'm not getting more

resources yet I'm expected to do more.

Certainly doing more with lots is a topic yet again.

It was also a very hot topic in 2008.

And we're seeing either reduced budget so we don't

have as much money for MDF to be able

to do more of that partner demand generation that

we talked about is point number one.

So how do I drive more demand with less MDF budget?

Or how do I do program changes or do I

have to cut partners because we don't have as many

people to help address or manage those kind of longer

tail partners that may not look like they're contributing?

Definitely.

I can't imagine there's anybody out there who's not feeling

the pressure to do more, to grow more pipeline, to

grow more partner sales, to contribute more from the partner ecosystem

with not the same resources, less resources we've seen across

the board for the last year.

Many, many cuts, right?

Many human resources are kind of removed or changed.

Still only 3% unemployment out there.

So I don't understand.

People are finding jobs pretty quickly, but we have

definitely seen in the technology industry, there isn't a

client we've had in the last year who has not

had some version of a reduction in force.

So for me, I would say there's two places actually

I want your answer on this, but my first place,

or first thought is there's two places they have the

program side and like how to review it.

Every time you say things like the MDF, sorry, I

go back to my roots, I'm like, well you should

review your guidelines and you should view what you're operating.

MDF is not, somebody was saying they had 95% use

of MDF and then they looked at it, went oh,

all my partners coming to my partner event, they're not

actually doing demand generation, actually driving demand.

They're not doing any stuff, but

they're not actually driving demand.

Two different things.

That's a very different thing.

I was like, maybe you should review that and then

you should look at your to partner marketing, by the

way, and if your guidelines read like you hate your

partner, maybe you should change your font.

I mean, I'm serious.

Stuff matters.

The other side is the technology piece to It.

And I know you live in the programs world.

I live in the technology world.

My technology world can't do well without your programs.

And I think your programs need technology like

never before, but not like hodgepodged together, right?

I'm still seeing a lot of hodgepodge on

stuff, which makes it really hard to get

good data in a more with less world.

You have to go to automation.

You have to go and leverage technologies.

The investments that you all make in

technology systems pay three, four, five fold

from the human resources aspect, right?

So instead of a body, if you spend that same

amount on systems, which is a lot of money, if

you're talking about what kind of bodies we've got here,

then we really see that help grow and scale.

It doesn't all have to be AI.

We don't have to be on the kind of the

cutting edge of some of these technologies that having systems

that talk to each other or unifying systems really help

the data, which helps you show contribution and value, which

helps you actually get more budget.

Because if we can show that we are

as a partnering team and through the partner

programs contributing to the corporate goals, generate revenue,

generate revenue, generate revenue, generate pipeline, then we're

certainly showing that value and usually getting more

money to go after those and continuing to

get that leverage, which is quite literally the

definition of partnering is leverage.

Well, can I think this is a great place

to wrap it up because if they can't do

that, I think, Diane, this is where you can

come along and help if they can't justify it.

I can't tell you how many situations where I've been

in where automation would have been really good and they

could help, but they couldn't get the IT resources.

It wasn't even the budget for, say, someone's software

platform, whether it's mine or somebody else's, it was

the internal resources and even the IT.

To get it implemented.

People got to figure out how to sell that so

that they can get that in there. And certainly outsourcing

even implementations and being able to work around IT or

being able to work with IT and have consultants that

help, implement and install and even run your types of

systems can show a pretty big ROI fairly quickly, which

then gets IT on board.

And it's not that they will not want

to play, they just have other priorities. On their list.

And our partnering tools aren't always the

number one priority on their list.

But that doesn't mean that we should sit

there and say, oh, okay, go implement that

great big ERP system or that big, huge

CRM system, and we'll wait for three years.

We, as a partnering teams, need to fight a lot

faster because we have to do more with less.

So, Diane, thank you for joining us.

And what's the best way for people to reach you so

that you can share some of that wisdom and help people

figure out how do they make this happen, how do they

get the budgets, how do they get it through internally?

So how can people reach you?

Certainly easiest way to reach us

is partner-path.com, is the website.

So there is a little hyphen in there,

and it's dkrakora@partner-path.com as well and LinkedIn and

kind of all the standard social media aspects.

If you can Google, you can probably find us.

Fantastic.

Once again, Diane, thanks for spending

a few minutes with us.

Listeners and viewers, thank you for taking some time.

Hey, everybody. Have a great day.