Welcome to ChannelWaves, the podcast where channel
leaders share success strategies, best practices, emerging trends,
brought to you by StructuredWeb.
Here's your host, Steven Kellam.
Welcome everyone to ChannelWaves.
StructuredWeb's view into everything channel.
I'm your host, Steven Kellam, and today we're
going to dig into partnerships and how you
can get the most out of your partners
in demand generation and revenue generation.
Everything that's important to you in H2.
And I'm joined by Diane Krakora, who's
the CEO and founder of PartnerPath.
Welcome, Diane.
Hey, Steven, thanks for having me.
One of the reasons that I'm excited to have
Diane one is, gosh, we've known each other quite
some time, and I have a lot of respect
for what Diane has done and the knowledge that
she has in the channel, particularly about partnerships.
And one of the reasons I asked Diane to join
was actually there were two reasons to be totally transparent.
One is she talks to people in the
Marketing circle, she talks to people in Channel
Sales Circle, and she talks to people in
the Channel Chie . f circle last time I checked.
That's a pretty broad
and comprehensive perspective, right?
Yeah.
So it's really fun to be able to talk
across all the different discourses within the partner ecosystem,
to be able to see how they all come
together to support and grow ecosystems, particularly in 2023,
which takes a village, that's for sure. It does.
And the second reason is because I live
in a lot of the tech stack.
I've done the MDF, I've done
the incentives, I've done all that.
Now we're in the market automation tech stack.
And Diane, I think this is absolutely true, no matter
how good your technology and how good your stack is.
And we're going to talk about
that and talk about integrations.
If your programs aren't done well and if
isn't lined up and you don't have your
go to market strategy for all that together,
then you sort of automate for automates sake.
And I don't think that really makes things successful.
And you kind of end up with,
I think, selling everything short that way. Yeah.
And I think that'll certainly be one of our
five key partner program challenges or one of the
outcomes or the answers to one of the five
key program challenges that we're seeing this year.
It's certainly the new world order in 2023.
So I think there's some aspect of automation
that is definitely growing as well as refining
and really getting specific around what are you
trying to do with the partner program? Sure.
So why don't we start with Demand Generation?
It's something near and dear to my heart oh, by the
way, listeners, we're going to talk about the challenges.
But Diane and I were talking about this before.
There's a lot of opportunities around that.
Every time there's a challenge, somebody is going to
figure out how to make it work, and they're
basically going to have a competitive advantage.
Absolutely.
I think in one of the five is demand
generation which right now we are seeing so many
people kind of freaking out about pipeline and running
to partners and saying we need more pipeline, we
need our partners to generate more pipeline.
The whole world is in a pipeline crunch right now
and we're kind of seeing this entire student body left
into we need our partners to do more marketing or
do more demand generation or get more partners that can
do demand generation and really drive that pipeline.
So certainly I think those are
the realities of mid year 2023.
And the question is can some partners do demand
generation for you as a vendor and will they?
Well, what's the answer?
Look, I have my opinion.
I think people want to hear your opinion.
I think certain partners can do demand generation.
I think certain partners are going to be challenged.
Which is why there's to,
through and for partner marketing. Right.
And I think the problem I'm seeing is I think
there's some confusion on where to use to, where do
you use through and where to use for?
And even more importantly, in which individual
segments to go after that, right.
The small, the medium and the large.
I think that's really the challenge.
I see people flip flopping around a lot and
it's certainly not a one size fits all.
In terms of can partners do
demand generation or will they?
I mean, certainly they can else
they wouldn't be in business, right.
If they weren't able to generate the demand for
at least themselves, they wouldn't be in business.
But will they do it for or with a vendor partner?
And it's really a mixed bag.
Some will and a lot will do more of an ABM. Right.
In terms of trying to reach new accounts and sell more, drive more?
I think the biggest answer here is you can't
paint, use one brush to paint your entire partner
ecosystem and say they will or they won't.
Some will, some won't.
And how do you find the 8% to 10% that will and can?
Yeah, what's a good way to do that?
Have you run across someone who's doing a very
good job of segmenting their partners and how they
segment their partners and how they build those segmentations?
One way that we see is successful here
is just allowing partners to opt in, right.
And saying, hey, we have marketing campaigns for you.
We have marketing automation tools to help you
guys be successful through those communications, allow them
to sign up and opt in.
And instead of expecting 100% of participation,
we just need to start expecting 10%
participation and thinking that's great.
Instead of it has to be every partner in
our ecosystem adopting and leveraging our marketing so it
might align to some of their business models, then
it might not align to other business models.
So again, we can't think everything.
We can't think everything is a nail right there's.
Definitely a whole bunch of different types
of partners in your ecosystem with different
business models and different priorities, quite frankly,
even in this quarter. Sure. Okay.
Number two on your list was partner contributions.
Are partners influencing deals?
So what's going on there?
Yeah, the other thing, along with partners generating demand,
the second thing we're seeing is a lot of
requests and centering around measuring partner contribution.
This might be our vendors justifying their existence,
our vendor partner aims justifying their existence.
We're seeing some organizations like Workday swing heavily towards
partnering and say, oh my God, we haven't partnered
in years, we've got to start doing this.
And we've seen other organizations like New Relic
kind of lay off most of their partnering
came and say, oh, we're not getting enough
contribution from our partners and we're going to
kind of swing the pendulum the other way.
So in that kind of divergence, it's understanding what
the partner contribution is and is it influenced, is
it assisted, is it resold, is it developed?
And trying to put measurements to that, I
think, is one of the big challenges that
we're seeing for partner programs this year.
How does the vendor go about that? Right.
Is there a process that you bring to that?
How do they create best practices around that? Right?
Well, the hardest part of
measuring partner contribution is data. Right.
Everybody knows I love data, but what are your
systems, what are your tools to be able to
collect data in terms of are partners doing marketing?
Right.
That could be an indication of contribution
that the partners are actually adopting your
partner marketing and doing marketing and generating
leads and registering those leads.
And like, regardless of those close or
not that still are closed with that,
partner can be considered contribution.
So the hardest part is getting the data, the
data entry, the leads in, the deals registered, the
deals closed, even assigning actions, really being able to
define are there seven steps or 27 steps in
your sales cycle and who's doing what within those,
there might be multiple partners. Right.
So how do you kind of have those
capabilities and systems to see what actions, what
activities partners are doing along the sales and
customer success lifecycle, to be able to then
say kind of measure partner contribution.
Well, so that leads I was going to
say that leads into your next number three
on that, which is customer success and renewals.
And how are partners managing and working
to that and adding contribution there? Yeah.
And how are vendors allowing or
not allowing partners to contribute there? Right.
And is the expectation that
partners are driving customer success?
Most of you guys all
have subscription models out there.
And are you expecting your partners to help
the customers adopt and use the solution so
that they are renewing it and growing?
And are those customer success
motions part of your expectations?
And I think that's one of the big challenges that
we see in partner programs for this year is that
we all know that customer success is important.
But kind of the rigor and
even the expectations are not kind of
written into your partner programs and your partner
program guides that we're expecting the partners to play
here and even rewarding them for that in terms
of additional deal registration or discount around renewal.
That renewal motion.
But 2023, we need to keep our customers.
Not only do we need to find them with new
leads, but we need to keep the ones who pass.
Making sure that they're using is important.
I was going to ask you
about rewarding them for do that.
It makes total sense to me.
It also makes sense to me that that is
a place I think partners could play really well.
Historically, everything I've heard having been a partner
a long time ago, getting new business or
new logos was a hard thing.
It was always wanting to sell to the existing.
So if that's part of the DNA of a lot
of partners, why not just go that extra effort onto
the renewal side and that partner success.
But it is a behavior modification. Right.
That changes the program, changes what you ask of
them and changes most importantly how you reward them.
Absolutely.
And that's why we kind of calling them
challenges for this year because we all see
that renewal and that adoption is important.
We're getting pressures from executives around and
boards and the street around renewals.
But that hasn't really made its way into
a lot of partner programs around those expectations.
So certainly kind of redesigning and looking at
your overall expectations for your partners and the
benefits or rewards for them and those activities.
It's really partner programs just come down to
what activities do you want partners to do
and what are you paying them to do? Right.
Or where are they getting that MDF or additional
discounts or discount off training or something like that.
So how are you setting up that value exchange? Yeah.
One of the coolest reward programs I ever had when I
was a partner is if I hit 95% customer satisfaction on
all the implementations because such a huge part of setting up
what the renewal is going to look like asking for the
renewal and trying to be a good partner to a client
eleven months down the road when you're trying to do a
renewal versus doing the beginning big thing.
It changed our whole organization
how we did onboarding.
Because let me tell you, the project manager, everyone in
that organization knew they wanted to hit that 95% because
it had a drastic effect on our profit margins.
Right, right.
And it's all about the metrics that
matter these days is adoption and usage
and renewal in a subscription model.
Especially as we start running out
our first two and three years.
If you sold them for a two year subscription
model, which really isn't a subscription model, but I
don't want to go into that now.
But when that two or three years start, which
now, then we start saying this is now not
the time to start making sure that the customer
is actually happy with the product and using it
because we're 60 days out of renewal.
That should have happened a year ago.
Oh, no, I totally agree.
I mean, someone told me there's three
things that happen on a launch and
there's positive, neutral and negative.
And you don't want the other two. Right.
You only want the positive.
It makes a huge difference to cross-sell, upsell
even way before you get to renewal, right.
Just really change things.
So the fourth thing on your
list kind of ties into that.
If partners aren't making it, which partners
do you cut from that program?
I saw someone, I think this is really hard to do,
that had the Premier League way of doing it, right.
Literally cut the bottom 10% every year. Right.
When I first heard that, I was
like, well, that sounds really cool.
I kind of like the Premier
League way they do that, right.
For those who don't follow soccer, bottom
three teams and then Premier League gets
sent down to another league.
and you'll get it. Yeah.
Kind of, either way at least you enjoy yourself, right?
But yeah, look, when do you do that?
Why do you do that?
Well, this is, again, a challenge that not necessarily
people have or have a firm pat answer to.
The question is, do we cut?
And if we cut, how do we cut?
And we see very two different camps on this.
One is like absolutely.
Just like we're cutting the bottom 10%, right?
If you haven't done a transaction in x long we're cutting you off.
Which then brings me back to the conversation
of are they contributing other than transactions? Right?
Are they doing marketing?
Are they generating leads?
Are they an advisor out there in the world?
Are they influencing even
though they're not transacting?
Do you know if those partners are
whispering into your prospects executive ears?
And that was the thing that closed the
deal, even though they didn't show up in
your POS reports, quick throwback to the 1980s, those POS reports.
So I think that the question becomes, if you
don't have good data on what are partners doing
and how are they contributing to your sales and
success cycles, then we end up cutting partners that
actually could be influencing and actually driving contribution.
So to cut or not to cut this long tail, we used
to say, yeah, 90-10, rule and lop off everybody else, because
if they're not doing, we get 90% of our revenues from 10%
of our partners, and the rest of them are just out.
But I think that's changing in 2023 because
we're seeing so many more touch points to
the customer's buying journey and it's more difficult
to really measure who is being successful.
If we can automate some of those relationships and
have less of a cost to them, then there's
no harm, no foul, having partners out there that
don't look like they're transacting, right?
So while it's more difficult, I would say it's
never been more critical to have that data so
that you don't inadvertently cut off someone who is
an influencer and maybe you just didn't know it.
So here's the scenario, I'm going to paint
the picture for you because this is how
you're going to wrap it up, right?
So you need to know more about your partners
and how they interact with all the customers.
The buying has gotten more diverse and challenging because
there are more partners involved, because the buyer's journey
has changed and how they want to buy.
And you have to have all of this
data so you can really accurately do things.
But we're doing more with
less people, with less resources.
So you got in one hand I need to do all
these great things and in the other hand you're like, oh,
I don't have as many resources, or maybe it's not that
I don't have as many resources, maybe I'm not getting more
resources yet I'm expected to do more.
Certainly doing more with lots is a topic yet again.
It was also a very hot topic in 2008.
And we're seeing either reduced budget so we don't
have as much money for MDF to be able
to do more of that partner demand generation that
we talked about is point number one.
So how do I drive more demand with less MDF budget?
Or how do I do program changes or do I
have to cut partners because we don't have as many
people to help address or manage those kind of longer
tail partners that may not look like they're contributing?
Definitely.
I can't imagine there's anybody out there who's not feeling
the pressure to do more, to grow more pipeline, to
grow more partner sales, to contribute more from the partner ecosystem
with not the same resources, less resources we've seen across
the board for the last year.
Many, many cuts, right?
Many human resources are kind of removed or changed.
Still only 3% unemployment out there.
So I don't understand.
People are finding jobs pretty quickly, but we have
definitely seen in the technology industry, there isn't a
client we've had in the last year who has not
had some version of a reduction in force.
So for me, I would say there's two places actually
I want your answer on this, but my first place,
or first thought is there's two places they have the
program side and like how to review it.
Every time you say things like the MDF, sorry, I
go back to my roots, I'm like, well you should
review your guidelines and you should view what you're operating.
MDF is not, somebody was saying they had 95% use
of MDF and then they looked at it, went oh,
all my partners coming to my partner event, they're not
actually doing demand generation, actually driving demand.
They're not doing any stuff, but
they're not actually driving demand.
Two different things.
That's a very different thing.
I was like, maybe you should review that and then
you should look at your to partner marketing, by the
way, and if your guidelines read like you hate your
partner, maybe you should change your font.
I mean, I'm serious.
Stuff matters.
The other side is the technology piece to It.
And I know you live in the programs world.
I live in the technology world.
My technology world can't do well without your programs.
And I think your programs need technology like
never before, but not like hodgepodged together, right?
I'm still seeing a lot of hodgepodge on
stuff, which makes it really hard to get
good data in a more with less world.
You have to go to automation.
You have to go and leverage technologies.
The investments that you all make in
technology systems pay three, four, five fold
from the human resources aspect, right?
So instead of a body, if you spend that same
amount on systems, which is a lot of money, if
you're talking about what kind of bodies we've got here,
then we really see that help grow and scale.
It doesn't all have to be AI.
We don't have to be on the kind of the
cutting edge of some of these technologies that having systems
that talk to each other or unifying systems really help
the data, which helps you show contribution and value, which
helps you actually get more budget.
Because if we can show that we are
as a partnering team and through the partner
programs contributing to the corporate goals, generate revenue,
generate revenue, generate revenue, generate pipeline, then we're
certainly showing that value and usually getting more
money to go after those and continuing to
get that leverage, which is quite literally the
definition of partnering is leverage.
Well, can I think this is a great place
to wrap it up because if they can't do
that, I think, Diane, this is where you can
come along and help if they can't justify it.
I can't tell you how many situations where I've been
in where automation would have been really good and they
could help, but they couldn't get the IT resources.
It wasn't even the budget for, say, someone's software
platform, whether it's mine or somebody else's, it was
the internal resources and even the IT.
To get it implemented.
People got to figure out how to sell that so
that they can get that in there. And certainly outsourcing
even implementations and being able to work around IT or
being able to work with IT and have consultants that
help, implement and install and even run your types of
systems can show a pretty big ROI fairly quickly, which
then gets IT on board.
And it's not that they will not want
to play, they just have other priorities. On their list.
And our partnering tools aren't always the
number one priority on their list.
But that doesn't mean that we should sit
there and say, oh, okay, go implement that
great big ERP system or that big, huge
CRM system, and we'll wait for three years.
We, as a partnering teams, need to fight a lot
faster because we have to do more with less.
So, Diane, thank you for joining us.
And what's the best way for people to reach you so
that you can share some of that wisdom and help people
figure out how do they make this happen, how do they
get the budgets, how do they get it through internally?
So how can people reach you?
Certainly easiest way to reach us
is partner-path.com, is the website.
So there is a little hyphen in there,
and it's dkrakora@partner-path.com as well and LinkedIn and
kind of all the standard social media aspects.
If you can Google, you can probably find us.
Fantastic.
Once again, Diane, thanks for spending
a few minutes with us.
Listeners and viewers, thank you for taking some time.
Hey, everybody. Have a great day.