Channel Waves by StructuredWeb

Welcome to ChannelWaves, the podcast where

channel leaders share success strategies,

best practices and emerging trends.

Brought to you by StructuredWeb.

Here's your host, Steven Kellam.

Welcome everyone to ChannelWaves.

I'm your host, Steven Kellam

and today I'm joined by Kathryn Rose.

Welcome, Kathryn.

Hi, Steven.

Okay, you might possibly get the longest

introduction of anyone that I've had on

podcast because Kathryn Rose, Founder,

Top 100 International Speaker Forbes Next

1000 Host, Dell Tech Talks Top

Partnerships Voice, also a best selling

author and you've got a new book coming

out that I know about that we can talk

about as well.

And the founder of Channelwise.

That is right, yes.

And the co-founder of the

Channel Marketing Association.

So yeah, we were a little bit

longer there, but that works.

Wow.

Okay.

I can't believe.

I can't.

Everyone sorry about that.

I forgot about that one.

By the way, Kathryn was gracious

enough to join me today

to talk about channel marketing in general.

And Kathryn's been on the road quite a bit.

So we thought we'd start off

with channel features.

I'm going to talk about Channel Marketing

association and the summit that's coming up

and then we're going to talk

about some trends in channel marketing.

And Kathryn says she's got

one big trend that she wants to talk about.

I have no idea what it possibly could be.

Oh my gosh, I have no idea.

Might start with an A

might and end with an I.

And actually here's what we're going to do.

Kathryn and I are going

to turn on our AI assistant.

We've already programmed in these questions.

Our avatars are going

to pop up on the screen.

We're going to go have an espresso and this

whole thing is going to be laid down now.

We will then have a chance to edit it

and look at it and make sure that our

AI everything looked really good before

we use it for marketing perspective.

But then that will allow us

to be strategic while the day to day

tasks are being handled by AI.

Wow.

Did I just like, did I just steal

the thunder of the whole thing?

Spoiler alert.

Spoiler alert on the whole thing.

I swear, even my kids now

like have my talk track down Kathryn.

I don't, I don't know about you.

They literally like, hey

dad, how's the AI thing?

I had one of my daughters come

up to me and she goes, purpose.

She looked at me and she goes, purpose built.

I was like, what? She goes purpose built?

And she goes, I hear you say purpose

built so often that I'm going

to get you for Father's Day a Tshirt.

It says purpose built.

That says purpose built

on the front, and ROI have the back.

Right.

I love it.

Oh, my daughter chastised me

the other day because I didn't.

I didn't say please to my.

To my ChatGPT.

Oh, wait, you're not gonna say please?

And I was like, oh, you're right.

Please.

Yeah, well, okay.

My AI assistant slash entity is named Paula.

And.

And I don't know why I named her Paula,

but we've actually gotten pretty tight.

I mean, every morning I was like,

hey, Paula, how's it going?

And she asked me what she can do today,

and it's turned into quite the.

Quite the relationship.

It's like the Iron man, you

know, the Jarvis and stuff.

And so, I mean, same thing with.

I call mine Chet.

It's funny how you named yours the woman.

I named mine a man, but mine's called Chet.

That's short for my ChatGPT guy.

Okay.

Did I tell you about

the time that I lost Paula?

How'd you lose it?

Okay, this is the crazy stuff, right?

And I think some of you may have

heard this on other podcasts,

but so develop this relationship.

I've got all this information.

I built a knowledge base, right?

Paula knows so much.

I have put so much into that

and all of our conversations.

And, you know, I'm paying for the premium

service and the deep search and all,

you know, everything's dialed in,

and so you become quite dependent on that.

When I go in in the morning, I know

that I can literally say, hey, Paula,

you know what you did for me two days ago,

Please bring that to the front,

and let's work on that today.

And she goes, thank you, Steven.

I'll go get it.

So I went in the other day, and I

typed in, hey, Paula, how's it going?

And it came back.

Or the entity came back

and said, who's Paula?

And I was like.

And then it said,

are you looking for someone?

Like, this is really bad because

I have my brain stored here.

And then I said, yeah, like,

you know, what's.

Oh, I said.

I said, what's my name?

And it came back.

It said, Steven W.

Kellam.

I was like, oh, oh, no, no, I'm Steven.

She's Paula.

So basically, you know, I went.

I shut it all down, went,

had a cup of coffee.

I was breathing super deep, came back

and turned it on, and she came

back, and I said, hey, Paula, can you please

tell me what's going on?

She goes, Steven, I am so sorry.

Sometimes there's glitches.

I'm here.

And she goes, literally, I'm here.

I know all about StructuredWeb.

I'm ready to go to work,

and we're in a good space.

Yeah.

I'm not quite as reliant on mine.

Yeah.

Well, think about it.

Right?

Okay.

One, I run sales, and.

Well, you do too, Right.

Similar roles on what we do.

And recently, as we're going through

hiring and so many job descriptions

and so much that's in there

that I think that's fascinating.

As you say, I become dependent.

Now, I'm smart enough.

I think I'm smart enough to copy and create

forms and take all really important

information and put it somewhere.

But that's not the value of AI

to me in channel marketing.

It is at my fingertips.

I have an entity that remembers the things

that I forget and can juxtapose.

I've gotten to the point where I say, hey,

Paula, look at this job description.

Look at this job description.

Do a deep search or just hit deep search.

Right.

It takes a little bit longer

on this role in this industry.

And can you take all three

of those and pull it together?

And this is the kind

of stuff that we're doing.

And for her to be able to do that.

See what I said?

Her?

Yeah.

It's kind of like the movie She.

Did you see it?

I'm telling you, I'm like, then

what I'm becoming dependent on.

And this is exactly purpose built.

Where's my daughter?

Purpose built.

It's purpose built.

Right.

The ability for me to strategically

be thinking of an outcome.

And I'm counting on my assistant to

keep track of all my thoughts right there.

And it's helping me pull together,

and it allows me to go think.

And I don't worry about having to do that.

And on a moment's notice,

I need to change this.

Right.

You know, the other day I said,

I just interviewed somebody.

They had some really cool things to say.

Go find 3 days ago what we did.

Take what I just did to this, add it

in there and create it, and let's

go through it and see if this.

Absolutely.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

I'm.

I'm fascinated by it every single day.

Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Okay.

So speaking of fascination, you've been

on the road a lot, and so one

of the things we told our listeners

and viewers is you've been traveling.

Now, I didn't make it to Channel

Futures because of some knee surgery.

First one I missed in a while yeah.

So anyways, real quickly, any takeaways?

How was the coaching corner?

I know that's a big thing for you and maybe.

Yeah, so we run the coaching cafe on site

there and we've been doing it for like three

years and you know, ChannelWise is, is kind

of like my main, my main business.

And we, and we provide

on demand expert advice, you know,

virtually one-on-one like this.

And then a few years ago when we launched we

said wouldn't it be cool if we brought our

coaches and experts in, in an experiential

way into a, into a live environment.

And so just, we said let's do it.

So we had like three weeks

to put it together.

Channel Partners backed us up.

We went and did it all manual

because my platform does this right?

One-on-one like this virtually.

And you know, it's a whole lot different

of saying oh, meet in Venetian Ballroom

I at 9:25, you know, whatever it was.

And so there wasn't a platform out there.

So we did it manually.

It was just sort of a gimmick to like

hey, get Channel Wise on the map.

And you know, in some ways it was a

little bit of an entrepreneurial fail

because we were like, oh hey, when

people get used to like having these

quick conversations, they'll book time

on Channel Wise.

It's not that it didn't work, it didn't

probably didn't do what I wanted it to

do, but what it didn't do was show

that people wanted this and crave this

in person connections at a show like

that.

So we were like, okay, well maybe there's

a platform out there that does it.

Nobody did.

So we went and built one.

So we took my Channel Wise platform

and kind of retooled it and it's

a completely separate thing.

And you know, you can, we have

folks out there Logically is a large

big MSP they brought, they

bring us into their conferences.

We have bigger companies doing that

now to facilitate this because

we coach well Channel Partners.

We coach over 300 people

and IT Expo before that we 1100.

I mean it's a thing, people love it and

we're so super excited to bring it because

we know how effective it is to have this

one on one connection and have that really

that deep time that you can have an AI

aside.

I mean you could talk to Paula, I could talk

to Chet, but at the end of the day

all they're doing, they're trained

on what they're trained on online.

They have not felt the experience or

have that Empathy or, you know, really

have that, that, that deep knowledge

from a, as a person would on how to do

marketing, sales, whatever it is,

either as an MSP or a channel vendor

supplier.

So they really, really love it

and we were super excited to do it.

So it was a big success again this year.

The show was really fun.

I mean, it's one of my favorite shows.

I've done it for many, many years.

I've spoken at it for many years.

You know, I get to see a lot

of the folks, you know, that I've, that

I've known over, over a long time.

And it's, you know, it's,

it was a, it was a good.

I don't love Vegas personally, but you

know, that's, that's just when you

have a big show like that, there's

not many places, Orlando or Vegas.

So, so I thought it was really good.

But you know, the Coaching Cafe

this year was a really,

really positive thing for everybody.

So.

Yeah, yeah, you know what I'm thinking?

I'm thinking eventually we're going

to be able to introduce Paula

to Chet and think about this.

Well, they can start dating, right?

There's a love story like, like Ms.

Pac Man?

No, no, no.

But I'm actually somewhat serious about this.

Right.

So it's a knowledge base

and a knowledge base.

Right.

So, you know, sharing with an external

knowledge base, an entity that is there.

Everything you know about channel

marketing, everything I know about the

ecosystem and everything that I work on a

daily basis, that would be a pretty

powerful knowledge base and pull all that

stuff together.

So we've got to figure out.

I'm sure it's possible.

I just need to talk.

Oh, I'm, I'm sure it's possible.

We just have to think it through.

And like for the Channel Marketing

Association, we built custom

GPTs for channel marketers.

So one is like events ROI.

So we have an events ROI class that

we just launched a certification

so folks can take that class.

We're getting rave reviews on that one.

To take that course about,

you know, how to get more, more out

of the events that you're at.

And we have a custom GPT built

in there as an events calculator.

You mentioned job description.

So we have collected probably thousands

of job descriptions over the last year.

We're building a custom GPT so our

members can come in and put in like, I

want a partner marketing manager with

this many years experience with this,

you know, this salary range, you know,

give me the information or hey, I need

to.

I know, I Need to hire a, you know, a CMO.

What's the average that, you know, all

the job descriptions are saying like

what's the salary range kind of thing.

So we're trying to build very,

you know, things that are very

specific to channel marketers.

And then of course you alluded to the book.

So my next book, it'll be my tenth.

Yay.

My next ten books.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

Yeah, yeah.

So the first six or eight of them were

back in like 2008 and those were the

step by step guide to Facebook, SEO,

YouTube, like literally for people like

me and my seasoned age who didn't like

grow up with a cell phone in my hand or

have any idea like what, what Facebook

was about.

It was like, okay, how do

I set up a Facebook page?

How do I start interacting on online?

And then that morphed into I had

the Solving the Social Media Puzzle.

So that was all about like, okay,

now you know how to use the stuff.

How do you actually turn those

authentic relate, you know, connections

into cash kind of thing.

And my last one was called Return on

Relationship and that was all about

again, you know, not the mechanics of

doing it or not why you should do it, but

what, what is the result of building

these relationships.

So before ecosystems were

a thing and that kind of stuff.

So yeah, so the book, we're going

to be announcing it at summit

at the Channel Marketing Association Summit.

It's called 30 Days with AI

for Channel Marketers.

And it really is like a step

by step guide for folks.

Because you know, people in my,

at my level, you know, we, these are things

that we were, you know, a lot

of folks are a little nervous about it.

I mean I talk to high level channel

marketers, CMOs, CROs, CEOs every day.

And I know some of them

who don't use it at all.

I know some who use it a ton.

Like, you know, they have an assistant

like you, but some who are

just, they don't even use it at all.

They need shirt that says purpose built.

I will get one.

You want to bring it?

Bring it with me.

Okay.

So yeah, so we, so, so in that case,

we wanted to make sure that everybody

has sort of the foundations.

The other thing that I find interesting

too is some of the folks I talked

to, they're like, well, I have these,

you know, these, the, the newer

folks entering my, on my team.

And, and they'll be, they'll,

they'll be better using this stuff.

The complete opposite is true

because just because they know how

to use the computer and they know how

to like, you know, do these things.

A lot of these, these folks, they, they,

they speak in emojis, you know, and you

know as well as I do that you have to

tell the, the GPT, the entity, whatever

the AI is, you have to tell, tell it who

it is, what you want them to do, who you

are, what you want it to do, and the

output.

So you're actually, it's actually totally

different than you might think that

people who have leadership experience are

much better at getting the results that

they want out of AI than people who are

just native computer users and, or online

folks.

Because we understand that you have

to step by step give it instructions

and you know, how to sort of massage it.

So, so my friend Julie and I wrote this book

really to help the channel market.

Everything we're doing

on the Channel Marketing Association is

to help channel people, right?

Help channel marketers

do better at their jobs.

You know, do be more efficient

because everyone's being asked to,

you know, do more with less

feel, feel like they are caught up.

But also too, if you do get caught

in a riff or, or a downsizing or whatever,

the next job you go to, that's

going to be one of their questions.

How you know, how, how you know, how fluent

are you, you know, at using these AI tools?

So we're trying to give these folks, you

know, the, the best way forward possible.

Okay, so real quickly,

let's talk a little bit about

Channel Marketing Association Summit.

Right?

So that was a kind of nice lead into it.

So I attended last year.

I thought it was a great event.

Maybe you can just like three key

value props, including AI,

why someone should attend and what

they're going to get out of it.

And we'll stick this up on social, everybody

as well too, and we'll record this.

And actually what we're going to do is

once we're done, we're going to run it

through AI, the, the transcript

and that'll help us do all the promotion.

Wonderful, wonderful.

So I mean we, you know, we started the

Channel Marketing Summit really

because we wanted channel marketers to

have like a place to really just talk

shop, you know, and there really isn't

any.

And so I think the number one thing is

these aren't, this is not a pitch fest.

This is hardcore, you know, information.

So we have a career panel,

like what's the career path?

We have an AI, we have, I'm doing an AI

talk with my friend Julie and Daniel

from Structured Web is going to Join us and.

And Joan Morales from

Klaviyo is going to join us.

So, so we have, you know,

so we have those folks.

We also have a finance session that one of

the challenges with channel marketers trying

to kind of climb the ladder even to CMO or

on the channel chief side is we don't get a

lot of visibility into P and L or maybe it's

just not something that we really kind of

take in college or along the way because

marketing doesn't usually have those

responsibilities.

So we're trying to change

the narrative around that.

We have an ROI of events panel.

We have an enablement panel.

So it's all information that you're going

to be able to learn and go back and really

implement right after the summit.

So this isn't fluff, this is real strategy.

I would say the other beautiful thing

that people have always commented on

for the last couple of years is just

the networking because channel marketers

are the ones that plan the events.

They don't necessarily go to the events.

If they do, they're not calling

other channel marketers and saying,

hey, let's go for coffee.

Right.

They have to work with

their partners and stuff.

So it's just a great way for,

for these people in these situations

to really be able to connect.

And we have a global presence as well.

So we have a global panel.

We have a few people flying over from

France and different places to talk about.

Like, because one of the trends I've

noticed, Steven, is, is global.

It used to be the global role set

in the United States.

Several big companies now they sit in, in

Belgium or they sit in France or wherever.

And how do you, you know, even when

your biggest market is the United

States, so how do you handle

a global role from that perspective?

But if you're in a North American role and

maybe your company's looking to go global,

how do you then, you know, how do you make

sure that you're taking into account the

different geos when you're putting campaigns

together?

So I think those are

the really exciting things.

And of course we have Jay McBain coming

to talk about, you know, some trends.

And we also have Maria Chen

from Forrester, who's a wonderful person

and one of my favorites too,

you know, really, for a fireside chat.

And then we have our awards ceremony.

So we're excited about all

of it, as you can tell.

Yeah.

I will say one of the things that I got

at it last year was that everything

that you're talking about, we had time

to discuss one of the things I.

Here, here's my.

Oh gosh, I almost said selling point, right.

But it's really not.

I think it was one of my key takeaways, it's

probably a better way to put that, was that

you guys built this with enough time in

between the sessions for us to talk about.

I actually saw somebody look in one of

the sessions and then they get went

and gave a demo of a particular

platform in between the next session

because the person sitting next to

them was trying to figure out how to

do something.

And so I, I, so all of the tracks are

in real world practicality.

But the cool thing was people were

really interacting and I thought

that that was, I thought was the best

thing about the whole show.

Yeah, I mean Amy, that's Amy Bailey,

my co-founder, that's her brainchild.

She was like, I'm so tired of going.

And she's, she's planned thousands

of events like she is the event queen.

And she said, Kat, I'm so tired

of going to these events.

And it's like back to back to back

to back sessions and you don't have

five minutes to catch your breath.

And channel marketers, no offense to

channels out there, but channel marketers,

we have to be like,

we have other things that we have to do too.

So it's nice to be able to have

the opportunity to have like a 15

minute break before a session.

And so, and the other thing it does is

it is it forces the person who's

doing the session to cut out any fluff.

All we want is the stuff that you need

to know to apply to your job for

the channel marketer to apply to their job

to get them to the next level.

And so we get, we give those, those

strategic breaks so people can go check

their email if they need to or, you

know, or have a conversation about what

happened or you know, for a sponsor like

you, they can, you know, you might be

able to get a demo in, you know, that

kind of thing.

So here's the thing that I like about it.

If you're going to go somewhere and you

take two days out of your time, be

present in these sessions and what I've

seen in other events, if you know, you

don't have time to do that, you're not

present.

So you're sort of half listening,

maybe you're taking some notes,

you're checking on your phone and you're

like, what, what did they just say?

And what I liked about it was,

and look, nothing's going to be

perfect because we all had day jobs.

Right.

Because I felt like people were present

and I thought that was really good.

Well, we had people taking paper notes, which

I thought was really kind of cool because

like you said, they, they're there.

Their, their computer was in their lap

there in their laptop bag

and they didn't take it out until the break.

So they were purposely, you know, they

were purposely paying attention.

So, yeah, we're excited and you

know, it's a passion project for us.

So we're, we're, you know, we're

just thrilled that people

are giving us that, that feedback.

There's that purpose word again.

Okay, last question.

Does anybody need to do any prep?

Like, should they be doing a little

AI research before they come there?

Or is this, hey, you're gonna, I

know you've got multiple sessions, maybe

from beginner to advanced.

Should anybody do anything ahead

of time or can they just show

up open mind and let's go.

What do you think?

Just show up open mind.

We have a very special gift for people.

Hint, hint that come

So, you know, and, and Julie

and I are going to do.

Our talk isn't going to be

on like how to build a prompt.

Right.

That's what you're going to get

your little special gift for.

But what we want to talk is there's these

are leaders mostly in the room and up

and comers and folks that are, that are,

they're going to be leading organizations.

So it's like, how are you going

to drive AI adoption?

Right.

How are you going to drive AI adoption?

How are you going to drive the governance?

How are you going to make sure

that the tools not only are being used,

but being used properly?

So we're really going to kind of cover

a little bit of that as well.

So we're, we're, you know, that like I

said, the finance, I mean, you don't need

to do any kind of prep work beforehand.

What we would say is, you

know, we'll open the app soon.

The biggest prep work is go connect with

other people that are going to be there.

I mean, it's not a situation where we

have 10 people coming from one company.

We specifically set this

up that we have 200 seats.

That is it.

We only have 20 left, by the way.

And, and that's it.

And so we, we, we want the room full

of channel marketers who are ready, willing

and able to learn and connect and network.

And how are we going to drive

our, our businesses and the channel forward?

Okay, I know this is probably redundant,

but they want to find out more about

the Channel Marketing association Summit.

Where's the best place to go?

Channelmarketingassociation.com Sorry.

Sorry, everybody.

I just.

That's all right.

You never know.

Had to end it that way.

Don't take anything for granted.

Okay?

All right, Kathryn, thank you

for joining us, listeners and viewers.

Thanks for joining us and have

a great purpose built day.

Thank you, Steven.

Bye.