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 Kellum.

Welcome, everybody, to ChannelWaves.

I'm your host, Steven Kellum.

We appreciate everybody tuning

in, whether they're listening

and driving in their car,

whether they're watching us.

We appreciate you spending

a little time with us today.

I'm excited, I actually am excited

to have my longtime friend Larry

Walsh, who is the founder and CEO

at Channelnomics, joining us.

Welcome, Larry.

Hey, Steven.

So here's how we got here today.

I reached out to Larry

and said, hey, we've done a bunch

of podcasts before.

Let's get on, talk about

what's going on in the world.

I asked him about partners and I

said, we can talk about this very

broadly because I go back and forth

in my conversations because a lot of

times we talk with our vendors about

what's working for them on the tech

stack.

Right?

We're channel marketing

automation platform.

Lately, it's been a lot

of conversations around

partners, which I like because

I used to be a partner.

So it's really easy for me to sit in

there and go, I can relate to this.

We're going to keep this

pretty, pretty succinct.

There's a couple of things I

wanted to ask Larry about,

and Larry has a take on it.

I'm sure the first one is

partners are ROI'ing their time.

And I saw a couple of articles

about this, and I've been talking

about partners ROI'ing their time,

I don't know, for 10 years.

And so it makes me feel really good

to start to see a lot of

conversation around the fact that

there's a realization that, you

know, understanding of what

partners are going through and that

they're just not ROI'ing an outcome

of something they're doing.

They're literally from

six or seven o' clock in the morning

going, I'm ROI'ing my time, and if

it's not valuable, I'm going

to go do something else.

Thoughts?

I think that's true

to a certain degree.

I think it's not necessarily

that there's a choice of

if it's not worth my time,

I'm not going to do it.

It's more of once a partner finds

their scene, you know, the, the,

the groove that they can really

makes maximize their, their

returns on, they stay in that

groove until it's no longer

productive.

And so that is a.

And I think that that creates a,

a, a, a gulf between them and the

vendor or the supply side,

because the, the vendors are

always looking forward to what do

we need to do next to be relevant

in the market, to stay ahead of

the market.

Whereas the partners are typically,

sometimes they're laggards

in this and that's.

They are doing very well

at the things they did yesterday

and are reticent to change course

just because their suppliers are

going in a different direction.

And so that can create the perception

that the partners are not

really being productive or active.

When the reality is, is that when you

talk about ROI, what I'm hearing,

what I interpret that is, is that

they are still reaping the benefits

of the investments they made two and

three years ago, rather than taking

on more risk for the sake of

satisfying whatever the transient

trend is today.

Okay.

So I would agree on that.

Most of that.

Here's the issue

and here's the challenge.

Maybe it's even the opportunity.

So the partners are presented

with new things that they could do.

Right.

New.

I live in the channel

marketing automation world.

Right.

It's changing a lot.

We're going to talk about AI

a little bit and there's new

things that they could do

to enhance their demand generation,

enhance their presence in

the market, a digital perspective.

Lots of ways they can

enhance their presence.

And what I'm hearing, the way that

I think about it, is as you

were saying, they're in a groove.

This works, right?

And so you've got this much room

to try something new and they're

going to ROI their time on that.

And if they're not successful in it

pretty fairly quickly, they're

gonna just, as you said, pull back

and either try something different

or not gonna try it at all.

So maybe we're both

saying the same thing.

To a degree.

We are.

I, I think though is that, what gets

lost in, in a conversation like this

one is from a, from a channel

partnership ecosystem leadership

perspective, the people who run

these programs, the, the, the people

you and I work for, Steven, they're

given a task.

So from their executive leadership

comes down, whatever the

corporate objective and missions

are, they have to assimilate to

that, align with it, so that the

channels, or the ecosystem or

whatever we want to call it

today, is a net contributor to

that, to that effort.

And the, the truth is, is that they

don't typically think about what

that actually translates into.

The partner.

It'll come up.

And I've had those conversations with

many people who talk about, yeah,

we're gonna, we're gonna offer them

this because it aligns with this

market opportunity we're seeing and

it's going to be growing at this

cagr, then we're going to give you

this benefit.

So we're going to discount this,

we're going to rebate that, we're

going to give you free this

and training and materials,

and everybody's going to make money.

And if you really dissect that,

pick that apart a bit.

What does it sound like?

It sounds like underpants gnomes.

And if you're familiar with

the entire south park, famous

south park episode about

underpants gnomes is like, okay,

Step one, collect this.

Step three, profit.

Well, what's step two?

Big question mark.

And from a partner perspective,

there's a lot

of cost that goes into that.

And so if I'm making money over

here this way and it's going well,

but over here, it's going

to cost me X to get in.

And it's another period of two

to three years of ROI, then, yeah,

I'm going to stick to my knitting.

Well, here's the reason.

The world that I live in.

Okay, I'll agree with that.

But I also think in the world

that I'm living in, where.

And we're going to talk

about AI in a second about

how partners feel about AI.

Do we have to?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We really need to.

Historically, you've seen

the adoption rates and channel

marketing automation side of things

and how that's worked with partners.

And I think we all understand that

marketing is the weakest

side of what partners do.

Good in product.

Okay.

In sales, pretty bad in marketing.

Right.

And so even the channel automation

side of things, which sort of fits

in historically into what you were

talking about, we'll package

something up, we'll say this is what

you can do with it and we'll give it

to partners and we'll see what

happens because this is good for

them and this will help us drive

demand and make money.

And you've seen the adoption over

the years on, historical, TCMA.

The interesting for me is

I'm a big AI person, right?

I.

I live in it every day.

It, to me, it's just a big benefit.

I have no phobias or fears

or anything about it.

It's totally fine.

You know, I'm starting to see,

we're starting to see,

surprisingly, that a lot of

partners are coming in and

willing to, to try this and

start to understand how to do

things quicker and faster.

And I think it is going to lead

to roiing their, their time

on this because if we can get

them there, they're going

to see the huge benefits of it.

And I also believe that

certain ones are going to get there

and certain ones that aren't.

And there's going to be probably

the biggest gap between the haves

and the have nots on

marketing capabilities inside

the partner community since forever.

Right.

So sorry, I just tied in ROI

in time, ROI, anything that's given

to them and I all into one.

I mean I think I can, you know,

let me help you out here.

So for more information about

through channel marketing automation

go to StructuredWeb.com

there's great resources there.

No, like I, I think part

of the reason when we, when we,

we as an industry we, we are

very dismissive of partners

marketing capabilities.

I, I would almost say that that's

facts without evidence

or the evidence is misleading us

to a, to an improper conclusion.

So when you're sitting here talking

about roiing, is this worth my time?

Consider this.

The average partner,

the average partner is under $7

million, $3 million in top line.

The number, I was one

of those, Larry.

So this is where I can come from.

For years I ran an MSP

under $7 million.

Right, right.

So, so, so let's,

but let's just draw this out.

Okay, so when you talk about

the number of partners that are

doing more than $25 million

in top line revenue is less than

a quarter percent of the total

population within the channel.

Okay.

Right.

So these are small companies

and they're typically

very regionally focused, if

not metropolitan focused.

Yep.

Right.

So to go through and say I'm going

to have a marketing person, I'm

going to invest in these marketing

programs, I'm going to do things

beyond T shirts and flyers.

The ROI on that is probably limited.

And so they will then turn and we

can see it in our own research at

Channelnomics, we released a

report on this earlier this year

is that the partner community is

looking to the vendors to do more

of the marketing lift because what

are they really able to do and

focus on?

They're able to shape

a customer experience.

But where do they get the actual

economies of scale or where can

they leverage the economies of

skills through the vendor resources?

And so I think we, we're a bit,

I, I think we over rotate

on this idea that partners

are just bad at marketing.

Maybe it's not that

they're bad at marketing.

Maybe at their scale

it's just not efficient enough

for them to be engaged.

You Just made my whole point.

Yeah, you just made my entire,

Did you try to do that on purpose?

No, you paid me to do that.

This is what again is an ROI.

Is ROI.

Once again, it's ROI on time.

It in its perceived results

from that time as, as well too.

Right.

Look, I always tell people, look, I'm

Steven, I, I live

in Napa, I sell in the wineries.

I want to, I reach out

to the CEOs, I sell risk

mitigation business continuity.

At 7 o' clock in the morning

on a Tuesday, about 20 employees

that are going all over the place.

They are wearing a lot of hats

and by the way, I need to feed my

family and what am I going to do

with my next hour that I have?

Right?

And can I, can I do it

easily and succinctly?

But what I need is, hey, I need

a marketing campaign for the next

four weeks on demand generation,

demand generation that sells risk

mitigation business continuity.

And I need it pretty daggone quickly

and it needs to be minimalist effort

for something like that to happen.

Right.

And that's been impossible.

Okay, we got to go into the AI.

Say it was impossible without the AI.

It really was impossible

without the AI.

It just, it was just

never going to happen.

Okay.

I, you know, I think that AI,

I was just asked this question this

morning is what's the future

of AI and the partner tech stack?

And I said it's wonderful.

It's going to be glorious.

Well, when is it Today?

I said it's non existent.

You know, there's, there's a lot

that still needs to be done.

We're on the leading edge of all

this and yeah, we're going

to be releasing and creating tools

that are going to make things easier

from the partner tech stack.

There's multiple tools that are

out there available to

the partner community that they can

adopt and use on their own.

But we're still in the early days

of all this and whenever anybody

says move now or you're gonna miss

out, okay, there's another bus

coming right behind this one.

And, and I don't think that

there is necessarily a,

a true first mover advantage.

Steven and I were in an event

a couple weeks ago and San Diego

and I posed this question

to everybody talking about AI.

Is that, is AI the means

of a competitive differentiation

or are we really just talking about

operational efficiencies?

Is it really commoditized

out of the gate?

And I would make the argument that

AI is commoditized out of the

gate is that there is such a

flood of it that nobody is really

getting a first mover advantage

out of it.

And it's not creating a separation

between the haves and have nots.

In fact it's actually creating more

of an equilibrium to where I

could be doing something completely

different from you but still

having the same net effect.

I'm not sure I agree with that 100%.

So, so, so, so, so we'll

see how this goes.

Right.

For instance I just had a customer

of ours who had had X amount

of engagements across

their marketing automation platform.

And then with AI and enablement,

I think there's

a couple pieces to this.

There is a curiosity level

of where this will take them.

You know they had 5x partner,

engagement over the first three

days, rolling out a program.

How that's actually going to end up,

I don't, I don't know Larry.

But to me what I'm seeing is

a big interest in the partners

for figuring out how to do this.

And I agree it's early days in terms

of what the, what the long term

engagement will be because this sort

of gets into, we were talking about

enablement side of things, right?

Can you just throw it out and

think that they'll come and

they will use it or are we

going to have to enable the

partners so that they can

actually they can actually take

advantage of it?

Well look, there's, there's two,

there's two ways, there's

two sides to the AI story.

It's the selling AI to the customer.

You know, selling and meaning.

There, there's a product, there's a

service, there's an enablement,

there's an experience aspect that

the customer needs and then

there's the adoption of AI as a

tool to make the business

operations better.

Now whether that is automating

marketing and, and I will say that

of, of all the, all the

applications within the, the

partner tech stack, the one that

has the, the best and most obvious

AI AI use right now is tcma.

It's, it's a purpose built.

It's actually a purpose.

It's actually purpose built.

Yeah, yeah.

And, and, and I'm not, I'm not

blowing smoke when I say this.

I'm you know like Channelnomics

and StructuredWeb and we've

been partnered for a long time.

I have a great, great amount

of respect for what StructuredWeb

has done in terms

of using AI to advance TCMA.

But when you start Looking at this

from an operational perspective,

it's one piece of piece of it.

So MSPs are looking at AI to,

or using tools that are infused

with AI to make their

customer engagements better.

So using things like, like ITSM, you

know, the, the ServiceNows and the

Zendesk that are using AI to make

that process of ingesting tickets

in processing them better, or

looking at customer experience

platforms like Genesis or 8x8 that

are infusing AI into their call

center applications to make those

more efficient.

There's a lot that can be done

on the customer side, though.

I mean, this is where

things get really messy.

Because the way that I view the world

is that the hindrance for AI is much

like the early days of the cloud

where we said, oh, we can do all

this stuff, but what are we supposed

to do?

And you have a lot of AI that is

a feature within applications.

Good.

But it's not a product, it's

a feature within the application.

And then you have these really big

digital transformation use cases

that multinational enterprises are

building custom, you know, so the

Deloittes and the Accentures roll

in and they do these things in

between.

There's not a lot yet around AI.

And that's where the gap is.

And the customers are turning to

the partners because they have

relationships with them and saying,

hey, what am I supposed to do?

And the partners are like, going,

well, we're not sure yet,

but we know it's going to be big.

Where did we see this before?

We saw this in cloud computing.

This is exactly what happened.

Now.

This is where there is a risk

for the partner community

because if they don't have a good

answer, the customer will go looking

for somebody who does.

And that's where you have

to tie all this together.

So for me, look, I'm just a sales guy

deep down in my heart.

Who?

The sales guy.

I'm a good sales guy.

Oh, bless your heart.

But no, this.

Look, when I was, you know,

running a, MSP, right.

I'm, the sales guy.

Right.

It's where I was.

That's how I think about things.

To me, I think it's fascinating.

You know what would be really good

to something that be good

that came from you is how

I'm surprised I haven't seen this.

How AI for the partner affects

their entire sales funnel.

Like from the top of the funnel all

the way down to the close for the

customer, and then the inverted

funnel, like, how are they managing

and taking care of rules and all

that.

It'd be really interesting to see

where AI fits into it now.

Full transparency.

I live in the AI

at the top of the funnel.

And as you said, it's

a purpose built thing.

Right.

It's pretty simple how to create,

how to edit, how to localize,

translate content, how to start

at the very, very top

at the awareness side of it.

We're in the marketing world.

Right.

So yeah, I admit it, I sort of live

up there and I sort of watched

how those other pieces of AI would

fit across that inverted funnel.

Yeah.

But that does exist today.

It's been, we've had

that for a while.

So within CRM, Salesforce,

HubSpot, trying to think who

else, Zoho has had this for a

while where they actually do

monitor pipeline activity or

account activities and they do

alerting to say, hey, have you

talked to this customer?

And this has been stuck at this

stage for so long and going through

and doing the analytics on that.

Yeah.

That the next stage is to how do we

move beyond the funnel to say,

okay, well you've completed this.

Well now what can you do

with the customer?

Well no, that's, but, but that

is the invert, that is

the back end of the funnel.

Right.

It's so like that whole back end, not

like the sales funnel goes this way.

And then when it's done it is like

how do I take care of the

customer and engage the customer

and get the customer to, to buy

more, sell more, whatever they

need to do.

I completely agree with you.

And how do I respond?

And by the way, you're right.

I think when I, when you say go

beyond the sales funnel, it's

still, you know, how do I respond

to the customer, across

all of those sort of pieces.

Right.

And that's the customer service

side and the support side which

by the way is all driven to either

cross, sell, upsell or renew.

That's why they're doing it.

Right.

They're not doing it out

of the kindness of their heart.

They're doing it out of how do

I create a good relationship

so that I can keep this

customer or grow this customer.

Yeah, I mean there's a,

there's a lot to it.

I think the, the the thing that

people really need to understand

about the customers

is that they, they want.

It still sticks with me to this day.

I was having breakfast with this

was a long time ago, I was

having breakfast with the then

Head of Channels at SAP and he

said to me, he goes, he wants

his customers and partners to be

delighted.

And I'm like going, you're a German

enterprise software company.

Delighted is the last thing

I expect to hear from you.

But it's true that the customers are

not just looking at functionality

or even just raw performance

or even trying to measure roi.

They want this to be

something that is integral

to the way that they operate.

They want to have whether it's

an Amazon experience or a GrubHub

experience or Uber experience,

where it's just simple and it just

makes things easier for them.

And that ease is a recognition.

And you can see just, you know, think

about this in your personal life

when you go to use one

of these common apps that we use

for ourselves and it doesn't work.

This was happening

to me the other night.

I was having terrible trouble with

with a parking app I use and I

was getting really frustrated

with it, but I was like going, I

don't recognize how much easier

this app makes my life when it is

working.

So the absence of it really does

tell you what the value that

it's, that it's delivering.

And I think that that's what we need

focus on is how does the customer

experience all that and then

how does that translate into

renewal and expansion rates?

Yeah, look, you know the world I live

in and I think it is, and the way

we look at it is ease of use

and then value on top of that.

Because you could make

something really easy to use

and somebody will come and try

it once and that's great.

And I think that's a requirement.

You've got to have that from

the experience, but then you've got

to add the value on top of it.

It sounds to me like with your

parking app the value was actually

pretty strong and you were able

to actually even put up with

a little bit of a hassle in that.

If the values, the values that good?

Oh no, no, it actually,

it was a complete fail.

That's what I mean.

It's like it was a complete fail.

And you know, just, again, just, just

extrapolate this out

to what a business experience is

with an application is

that here I am, I'm used

to this app working, working.

It didn't work.

It was non responsive.

I finally was able to get my

parking reservation at a garage.

I pull into the garage, they,

they wave me off, it's full, so

I have to park on the street.

And so the entire time I'm

in the meeting, I'm anxious

about getting a parking ticket.

Now does that now make me question?

Am I going to use this again.

Yeah, absolutely does.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, look that when kind

of pulling this all back around, it

goes back to what I was talking

about earlier in that, you know,

once again, so a couple things.

That partner is coming

in and using a tool like ours

or using a tool with AI.

And here's what's interesting, Larry.

And we're in the process

of building the ROI and the value

for them doing that.

So if it's not easy to use out

of the gate, once again, it

comes back to they're going

to ROI their time and they're.

And they're going to be very, They're

not going to have a lot of patience.

This is, this is what I'm going.

They're not.

Okay, we're taking this

all the way back to what

you said in the beginning.

Partners are tried and true.

They've been doing all

this sort of stuff.

Everything they've done

is pseudo working.

Unless they see a reason to go

beyond, they're not going to do it.

So now we have some opportunities

to try that and show them that they

can do some things and, and break

out and maybe do something better.

Once again, it needs to be easy

to use and it needs to have value.

And if we mess it up.

Okay, sorry, just wrapping this.

It's going to go.

Goes back to enablement.

Right.

I can only speak of what I know,

that if we don't make it easy

and we don't show them how to do

it and we don't guide them down

that path so that they can see

success, it's going to be a

while before we're going to get

them back and we're going to use

them again.

Are they going to use it again?

That was so 30 minutes ago.

A lot has changed.

But you just got through

telling me it hasn't changed.

You started this whole

thing that say partners have

been doing it this way.

They're not.

They've been doing it for years.

They're not going to change.

What's it going to take?

No, no, no.

I think, it's not that

they're not going to.

So, like, let me, let

me be clear on this.

It's not that they're

not going to change.

I think that the, this, the vendor

or supply side of the industry

makes too many assumptions about

the readiness and the willingness

of partners to change.

I don't think that we as

an industry do a good enough job

of making the case of the why.

We talk a lot about the what and then

we translate the what into the how.

But we don't ever, we don't do a very

good job of talking about the why.

I agree.

And that's the value.

Look, I'm such a simple person

when it comes to this stuff.

Once again, from a partner's

perspective, it has to be easy for

me to do and it has to have value.

That value is a pretty

broad statement, right?

And like what is that?

How long does it take

to get that value?

Is the value the same for one kind

of partner or the other?

What are they trying to get?

Like, one partner could be just

thrilled that they're able to get

a demand generation campaign

and they get a lead back, right?

The other partner may be going

now, I need to make sure that

I'm actually really getting

some value and some revenue.

And they thought it out.

I mean, there's still a lot

to be proven on what that value is.

Hey, here's the thing.

I mean, here's a really

simple thing, right?

I'll tell you what used

to frustrate me as a partner, right?

I sold risk mitigation and business

continuity and all my vendors wanted

me to use their, their content.

It had nothing to do with what I did.

Right.

That's not very good.

Now a value proposition is with AI I

can blend that messaging together.

It's purpose built.

It's a really simple thing.

Right?

Yeah.

I mean, look, it's the old,

what's the old, the old response

of, you know, so enough

about me, let's talk about me.

Which is the way a lot

of vendor content is created.

And one of the things that, you

know, StructuredWeb is doing

very well is creating, using

that content as the foundation

to create net new ideas that are

more tailored towards the value

proposition or the, the

messaging that the partners

want, want to convey.

I, I think that that is, that is,

you know, because as a, as an ink

stained wretch that I am, so,

you know, at my core I'm a writer.

That's what I do.

Putting, words together

is hard for people.

I, I, and to me it's, it's

unfathomable because I sit

down and just words flow

from my fingers and, and that's

just the way it goes.

For a lot of people, being able

to create a crisp, coherent

and poignant message

in words, whether it's written or

spoken doesn't matter.

It's hard and be able to have these

tools that actually simplify that

so you can then shape it rather

than worrying about the creation.

That's powerful.

It's pretty cool.

Sorry.

And I'm not trying to turn this

into an ad for, for what we do.

Here's the interesting thing.

Then what the hell are

you paying me for?

Well, I.

Okay, I can only talk about

what I live in every day.

Right.

And so, I mean that's the most

interesting thing

for me to talk about as well too.

And having lived that as a partner,

everything you just said is so true.

Here is the differentiator.

If you realize that that's

a challenge and then we as a tech

stack and a vendor community now

give you the capability to do that.

And then my point is, I

think enough, partners are going

to figure that out.

Once again, this is a very

purpose built, very simple use

of AI and I think they are going

to be ahead of the game.

I think what we don't know is

how fast adoption will take place,

how successful partners are going

to be at this, which ones are

going to be successful at it.

I mean we could

probably analyze that.

You could do a great study on what

are the traits and characteristics

that are going to allow

that forecasts which partners

are going to take advantage

of a technology like that.

That'd be fascinating.

I guarantee you there are

commonalities and traits

out there that you could

do predictive analytics.

We can ask AI to do that.

Yeah.

Now the, the one thing that, that I

am seeing more of though is that

if you, if you're looking at this

purely on the, on the partner side

is that they are looking for

things that will make their lives

easier.

They are looking for

cues from their vendors.

And I think one of the things that

the vendor community is still

the vendor side of the equation.

They're the ones that are wrestling

with a lot of the issues associated

with AI and how to best use it.

A big issue that we've identified

is that everybody wants

to incorporate AI,

in the analytics and the insights

that can come from it,

but nobody has the data to do it.

And so when you're talking about

things that are more

creatively focused, TCMA being able

to use a large language model

to create content based on whatever

the LLM has been trained on.

Okay.

It's not simple, but we know

it's within our reach.

Being able to ingest huge amounts

of sales data from multiple points.

So not just from thousands of

partners, but thousands of points

of sale because many partners

have multiple locations and being

able to ingest them and normalize

them and make them accessible and

then to be able to do something

with it that's proven to be a lot

harder.

And that's why the AI side coming out

of a vendor community is a lot

slower to really develop

in a meaningful way than we,

than we would anticipate.

And so let's wrap this

up around partner experience

because the other thing that I'm

hearing is that partner

experience is the North Star.

And I think that ties

in AI is a piece of that.

Right.

I know you have some interesting

thoughts on is partner

experience really a North Star for

vendors for their partners?

And how effective is that?

And is that actually really a,

a fairly accurate statement?

Like a lot of things I, I think

partner experience is one of these

things that it's a bit tortured.

Because wrapped inside

a partner experience is ease

of doing business.

And then you know, what's the total

market opportunity or the economic

impact of the relationship?

Ultimately the, the partner

wants to have a more

collaborative relationship.

You know, so there, and, and we do,

we, we build programs and strategies

and models based on, gives the gets,

you know, you know, the vendor.

I'm going to give you

something and you're going

to give me something back.

But a lot of the vendors are

looking at this from a,

from more of an automated motion.

So what can we throw out into

the ether that will make

the partners lives easier or make us

more compelling and then we're

going to see things happen.

And the reality is, is that there's,

there's two levers that trump

everything else and one of them is

ease of doing business or creating

frictionless processes which is a

lot harder to achieve than people

give credit for.

The second reason is engagement

With account managers.

And my concern as we keep talking

about the incorporation, the

adoption of AI on the vendor side

is that they're going to come to

the wrong conclusion that they

can replace account managers with

agents.

And the truth is, is that we

should be looking at how do we

use AI in Agentix to eliminate

needless processes or at least

speed them up so that we can free

people up, to actually go out and

do collaboration, do business

planning, do co selling in the

field to cultivate and curate

those relationships to a higher

level of productivity.

But I don't know if that's the way

this is going to shake out.

I think that the, the inclination

is, is that well, let's

just send them to the portal

and they'll figure it out.

Okay, out, of this whole

conversation, this may be the first

we agree on a lot of stuff where

I 100% agree with you, that I

think that the opportunity.

And with you I believe that the

opportunity is allowing the

account managers to be more

effective, more productive,

build those relationships and

then use the AI to make them

better at what they do.

Whether it's their ability to

handle more accounts or

to handle them more effectively,

to prepare for a QBR in a tenth

of the time to, to be relevant.

So basically you're talking

about the ability to scale,

strategic engagement.

So if you look at it that way,

if I can scale strategic engagement

by eliminating all of the day

to day things that, that hold

that back, that's a win win.

Right?

Right, Absolutely.

Yeah.

Look, the, the.

Okay, so whether you call it

a Partner Account Manager or Channel

Account Manager, a BDR, it

doesn't matter what we call them.

It's the person who interfaces

with the partner.

The average account manager

only spends 30% of their

time working with partners.

The rest of the time is, is

spent on internal meetings,

administrative tasks, trainings,

you know, you name it.

But it's anything for data, trying

to find data, looking for data.

And so if you start talking about

how do we use AI to take that 30%

and move it up to 50%, then that

shift will also have a

corresponding effect, on moving

the needle on sales, or at least

it should.

But again the way that a finance

person will look at this and

say, well, if AI is going to do

these administrative tasks,

then why do I need that

salesperson or that account

manager there?

And again that's where I have

the fear that we're actually

not going to, we're going

to draw the wrong conclusions.

Okay, so, so final thoughts on this.

What can channel leaders do to

make sure that AI is used that

right way, both to make life

easier for the partners, but

then also I think the point,

last point that you're making,

and I think it's a great point,

is how to make the account

managers more successful.

How do, how do they, how do,

as a channel leader, how do

I make sure that happens?

I think it's a, it's a bifurcation

of what we call the tools.

All right, so there's tools that we

use to manage the relationships.

So that's the partner, that's

the PRMs, that's the incentive

management, that's the TCMA.

Right.

So these are management tools.

But I think we also need to be

looking at how do we empower

the account managers with tools

that will help them actually

go and sell with the partners?

How do we empower them with tools

that actually use AI to do account

mapping and, do the product

selection or do the

conceptualization of system

designs or even more so vision

that I would love to see happen is

how do I take a deal registration

and marry it up, so I can actually

spider out to actually see the

broader ecosystem engagements that

can come with it and then use that

to orchestrate relationships.

These are things that we need

to really start thinking

about the differences

between administrative tools

and field tools.

And I don't know if that's.

It doesn't really feel like

we've gotten that far yet.

All right, great opportunities ahead.

Larry, I want to thank you for

joining me for in the audience here

for a few moments and sharing your

pearls, of wisdom.

I don't know if it's wisdom is,

but sure, I'll go with pearls.

Okay, Larry, if somebody doesn't

know you and listeners want to get

in touch with you, what's

the best way to reach Larry Walsh?

So look, you come find me

at Channelnomics.

Channelnomics.com.

You can always find me

on LinkedIn as well.

I am not hard to find.

And you can also check out

the podcast that we produce.

We have Changing Channels and in

the margins on, on YouTube.

So there's a lot of great

material out there.

So I invite everybody

to come check it out.

All right, thanks, Larry.

Thanks, Steven.