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.