{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Growth Wizards Podcast","title":"Partners are the most undisciplined discipline in GTM","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1624,"description":"Summary\nJeff Ballard has spent more than 20 years building partner programs at companies so small his employee number was a single digit and so large it had letters in it. On The Growth Wizards Podcast he tells Tanner Green why partners are \"the most undisciplined discipline\" in go-to-market, why partner ramp is never one big delay but 15 small ones hiding in the white space between marketing, enablement, partner ops and sales, and why the first question in any partner program is about the customer, not the partner. He closes on the AI partner gap: vendors have an AI ambition, customers want an AI outcome, and partners are the bridge that decides whether it lands. For CEOs, CROs and CMOs who have a partner program on paper and not enough pipeline from it.\n\n\nChapters\n00:00 Welcome and 20 years of partner programs\n01:49 From marketing to partners at IBM Cloud\n03:44 \"Go grow partners\" in a market that wanted AWS\n05:06 Making a 100-year-old brand cool in cloud\n08:06 Partners are the most undisciplined discipline\n10:30 Who is your customer and where do they buy\n12:53 15 little delays that stretch partner ramp\n17:12 Partner experience is intentional design\n21:06 What about partners? Baking partners into GTM\n22:31 The AI partner gap and the last mile\n\n\nTakeaways\n- Partners are the most undisciplined discipline: every company names, staffs and owns them differently, so a partner problem has no obvious owner.\n- Partner ramp is not one 6-month delay but 15 small ones, and the fix lives in the white space between marketing, enablement, partner ops and sales.\n- Start with the customer, not the partner: who they are and where they want to buy decides which partners you need and what program each one needs.\n- Partner experience is intentional design, the same discipline as customer experience, and good partner experience is what produces the revenue experience.\n- Vendors have an AI ambition and customers want an AI outcome; partners are the bridge, the last mile for your AI...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/kYU1r7AN1wfu5VwSvUXQh9Slgj19jh1pqnbdvEPpuzs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS81ZDM5/NWQyMWY3YzA2NjE3/YzExZGQwYjI4NmY3/YTUxZi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}