Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 041 - Self-sustainable partner revenue: finding opportunities

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041 - Self-sustainable partner revenue: finding opportunities · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:07
  Welcome back to Partnerships Unravelled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel on a weekly basis.
• 0:15
  My name is Rick van den Bosch, and I'm the CEO and founder at Channext.
• 0:18
  And I'm here together with Alex Whitford, VP Partners at Channext.
• 0:21
  Alex, how are you doing today?
• 0:21
  Really good.
• 0:23
  One of the great reasons working for Channext is we always have an office full of dogs and my dog is actually making a guest appearance on the podcast today.
• 0:31
  So, yeah, if I look happier than usual, it's because I got a dog next to me.
• 0:35
  Yeah, we got a visitor.
• 0:35
  Indeed.
• 0:36
  So this is definitely big advice to the listeners.
• 0:38
  If you're not on YouTube at the moment, cheque it out because Alex's dog Whiskey is here.
• 0:43
  She's very cute.
• 0:43
  Yeah, I know, I'm incredibly biassed, but she is the world's cutest dog.
• 0:48
  I'm especially curious whether she will actually lay like this for the upcoming 30 minutes but..
• 0:53
  Yeah.
• 0:53
  I think she will.
• 0:54
  We went for a walk just before and if you're not in the Netherlands in middle of June, it's so hot in this office that I think she's going to be passed out for the whole time.
• 1:04
  Excellent.
• 1:04
  Well, hopefully we won't pass out.
• 1:08
  We're going to be so interesting that we're both going to be asleep halfway through the podcast.
• 1:12
  That's the plan anyway.
• 1:12
  Love it.
• 1:14
  And last episode, we actually kick started our new five part series, which is how can you enable your partners towards self sustainable partner revenue?
• 1:24
  And with this we mean, how can you help your partners find close, renew and upsell end users on their own?
• 1:32
  And I think today we're actually going to talk about the first topic, which is finding opportunities.
• 1:36
  Yeah, to me that's the bit of the pie that's actually the most important and the most difficult.
• 1:42
  I think when I speak to sort of channel leaders, they'll talk about good renewals, good upsell rates, the high conversions, but actually consistently finding new opportunities at scales through partners without having to get very involved yourself, funnelling leads and that sort of thing.
• 1:59
  That's actually the most critical element.
• 2:01
  We talked a lot about how revenue drives engagement and engagement drives revenue.
• 2:05
  If there's lots of opportunities in the pipeline that's going to keep partners bought in and keep your revenue growing consistently.
• 2:12
  So to me, if you're going to listen to one of the episodes, this is the most important episode.
• 2:15
  I may say that every week, but this one is true.
• 2:18
  100%.
• 2:19
  I was just thinking, indeed during the bridge, the partner recruit to revenue gap, we spoke about bringing your partners to first revenue as soon as possible.
• 2:27
  And there indeed, distributing leads plays an important part because you can give them that little kickstart.
• 2:32
  But I think today we're actually going to talk about exactly the opposite.
• 2:35
  Let's say there would be zero leads from you towards your partners, but you need to enable them how to find those leads and opportunities themselves, right?
• 2:43
  Yeah, 100%.
• 2:44
  I like to think of leads as a fire starter.
• 2:46
  Right.
• 2:46
  It's the bit to get the bonfire going, but you don't want to consistently throw those in.
• 2:51
  That gets very expensive.
• 2:51
  Right.
• 2:53
  At some point the wood just takes over and you just top it up.
• 2:56
  You shouldn't be giving leads past a certain point to accelerate.
• 3:00
  Once it's going, it should be self sustainable.
• 3:02
  And today we're going to cover right, we've got the first few deals in now we're pivoting into that moment.
• 3:07
  How do we consistently ensure that quarter over quarter, we're generating a consistent amount of leads through all of our partners in a scalable way that ultimately means famous last words, channel.
• 3:18
  People can be a bit lazy and they can take a step back because actually they don't need to do a lot of driving, they're just doing course correction.
• 3:24
  Yeah.
• 3:24
  And I think for the record, for a listener, this does not mean that you should stop providing your partners leads because it's always reciprocity and that will help a flourishing channel long term.
• 3:35
  But today, in this episode, we are really going to dive into that specific piece of helping your partners to generate them themselves.
• 3:42
  And maybe to start with, how would you define finding opportunities for our listeners?
• 3:47
  Yes.
• 3:47
  So to me, one of the first things you want to be able to do is to understand how does the partner generate its own opportunities today without the vendor that you are?
• 3:56
  Right.
• 3:56
  So they sell lots of other products.
• 3:58
  How do they go to market?
• 4:00
  Because one of the things that you want to be very specific on is build a generalised plan, but then cater and customise that plan on a per partner basis.
• 4:09
  So some partners will be it resellers, they'll have thousands of end users, they sell a lot of the same types of products to most of those end users.
• 4:17
  That's a very different process to enable that partner versus a partner that has 20 end users.
• 4:23
  But they're super large enterprise customers and they sell multi, multimillion pound contracts to each one of those.
• 4:28
  You've got to understand that even though your product might fit within those two partners very well, your go to market motion has to be wildly different and the way those guys open and generate opportunities is going to be massively different.
• 4:40
  And so you want to cater your plan slightly differently to each of those two.
• 4:44
  I think there immediately you see how important it is indeed to segment your partners and really find your ideal partner profile.
• 4:50
  But also within that IPP, there's always multiple different types of partners, of course, because indeed, it's very true what you say, an enterprise partner needs to be enabled very differently in terms of finding their own opportunity than someone who's really mass recruiting end users.
• 5:06
  Right?
• 5:06
  Yeah.
• 5:06
  And this definitely comes down to channel maturity.
• 5:09
  So what you'll find is when we talk about an IPP.
• 5:12
  If you're a very new channel, we'll talk about find one IPP.
• 5:16
  You may have multiple, but pick one.
• 5:18
  Focus on that when you build your programme and really just go after one.
• 5:21
  But if you're talking about a business that's been in the channel for 15 years, well, they'll have multiple IPPs, that's great.
• 5:28
  But then you've got to build a channel programme that facilitates and enables those partners differently, because that's why you have multiple IPPs.
• 5:36
  An enterprise partner versus an SMB partner.
• 5:39
  It's great.
• 5:39
  You can sell to both of them, but don't push the same channel programme at both of them.
• 5:44
  That's never going to facilitate them both equally.
• 5:46
  Yeah, makes perfect sense.
• 5:48
  And then when you would kick start, or you would start thinking about building a programme about teaching your partners how to find opportunities, where would you start?
• 5:57
  Yeah, so the first thing I do is I would build a programme around attachment sell ecosystem sell or replace sell.
• 6:04
  And so what that'll do is you can have different pillars for your go to market motions.
• 6:08
  So the example I always use, because everyone gets it, if you sell a Microsoft ecosystem attached product, and your go to market motion is to recruit partners who sell into that ecosystem, then build your opportunity creation around that model.
• 6:22
  So I used to work for Zoom.
• 6:23
  Zoom is a very good video platform, but there's hardware products that hang off the back of that.
• 6:28
  Your meeting room technology.
• 6:30
  Well, Zoom started the sales cycle and then the meeting room technology is attached into it.
• 6:35
  So if I'm selling that meeting room attached technology, I'm coaching the partner on.
• 6:39
  Right.
• 6:39
  If you're selling in this way, you're going to find these opportunities and attach in it.
• 6:43
  It allows me to drive very specific sales, enablement messaging in, so the partners know where to look for and how to sell it effectively.
• 6:51
  So you really try to find out for a partner, what are you actually selling the most at the moment.
• 6:56
  So, first, what type of products and what's your most important revenue stream, and then secondly, what brands within those product types.
• 7:02
  And then you really are trying to position and explain to them, actually like, hey, you're already doing a lot of business with this product line, actually.
• 7:10
  But do you know that you can very easily attach our product onto it and then you'll make this extra revenue, this extra margin based on your deal size, et cetera, is that a little bit how you position it towards the partner?
• 7:21
  100%.
• 7:22
  And what's really good about that model is there's actually two motions.
• 7:25
  There's strategic and organic.
• 7:27
  So by strategic, you can look through existing endusers that have bought the first solution and you attach into that.
• 7:34
  But organic is you also build into the sales process on an ongoing basis.
• 7:39
  Hey, every time you sell a laptop, you should also sell this every time you do that.
• 7:43
  And you can coach the sales team in a way that they just intrinsically understand.
• 7:48
  Oh, I'm quoting a laptop quick.
• 7:49
  I'll also quote this and you just get into this organic motion.
• 7:53
  Well, if you teach a partner that way and they're selling a lot, they're creating a lot of opportunities on product one and you attach into that, suddenly you're going to generate opportunities at a very consistent rate, which for self sustainable revenue is what you want to do.
• 8:06
  Yeah.
• 8:07
  I was just thinking, is there a difference as well?
• 8:10
  I think you can find opportunities in the existing customer base or teach your partners how to do that in the existing customer base.
• 8:16
  But there's also net new.
• 8:17
  Is there a big difference or is it quite similar, would you say?
• 8:20
  No, very different, for sure.
• 8:22
  So the thing about existing end users is you want to build a messaging into those existing end users that very targeted for net new end users.
• 8:31
  It depends.
• 8:32
  Is it a net new end user to the partner or is it a net new end user to the brand?
• 8:37
  Those are two different sales messages.
• 8:39
  The net new end user to the partner means that the partner's got to be able to acquire that end user with a very high conversion rate because that's the hardest thing to do.
• 8:47
  And so you want to be very confident that your brand is going to help that closing motion.
• 8:52
  What I see a lot of brands really fall over with is they go, oh yeah, target loads of endusers.
• 8:57
  But actually the story is not that compelling.
• 8:59
  The partner doesn't have enough experience with you to really do the hardest bit of sales, which is acquiring net new end users.
• 9:06
  So for me, a bit like the IPP maturity model, I would save that for the end, right?
• 9:11
  I would go through the easiest sustainable motions that you can until the partner is two, three years embedded with you and they're doing very well.
• 9:20
  At that point, they're going to have the experience level to use your brand to acquire net new end users.
• 9:26
  If you've got a really strong attachment or ecosystem play prioritise there, the partner is more likely to consistently win and it's a lot less effort for the partner, meaning their ROI is going to be much more significant.
• 9:40
  That actually makes so much sense.
• 9:41
  Like if you think of it as in a phased rollout, like in the beginning, you provide them with some leads so you can immediately start getting traction.
• 9:48
  They are going to teach them how to sell your product into their existing customer base.
• 9:53
  They have the warm relationship already.
• 9:54
  They are selling products there and then in the final phase you're going to teach them how to do net new business, which we're going to touch upon a bit later in this episode.
• 10:03
  But I think one of the things I would like to give to our listeners, what I heard so often from partners when I was speaking to them a lot was, rick, what I really struggle with is getting to the table.
• 10:14
  That's how they it's a bit of a Dutch saying probably, but they literally said, like, if you can bring me to the table, then I will close the deal.
• 10:21
  But I have so much difficulties to find customers and start those conversations, especially in the net new there.
• 10:28
  And I think that's really a thing that's very interesting to focus on, which your partners indeed like first you explain to them you always already have those worm relationships.
• 10:37
  First we're going to utilise them in an optimum way for you and the end user, but then finally we are really going to teach you how are you getting in those net new sales motions as well?
• 10:47
  Yeah, exactly.
• 10:47
  And look, I would always be building a plan and this is what a channel account manager should be doing.
• 10:52
  That's what the Pivot comes to when you're in self sustainable revenue.
• 10:56
  It doesn't mean, hey, the channel account manager doesn't need to do anything.
• 10:58
  But you enter a different phase of enablement and you're taking them on that journey that you are one of their top brands and that they are going to acquire net new customers with you and you are a real priority.
• 11:10
  But you don't do that day one and you certainly don't do that within three months or six months.
• 11:14
  It's a gradual journey and in my mind the attachment sale is the right vehicle to get there.
• 11:19
  Stage two might be the replacement sale.
• 11:22
  And if you're being really dynamic and creative and really sell it in the message, those partners probably sell your competitor.
• 11:29
  And so a replacement sale to your solution is a really dynamic way to steal wallet, share off a competitor and what's really good about that, if there's extra value to the end user, you can go through all of their existing customers and at point of renewal flip them over to you.
• 11:44
  Right.
• 11:44
  And that's a really strategic way you can acquire a lot of endusers very, very effectively.
• 11:49
  But then as you mature, you want to get into that net new customer acquisition.
• 11:53
  And if you reach that point with your partner, I can guarantee you are one of their top five brands.
• 11:58
  If they are consistently acquiring net new customers to them for you, you're one of their primary brands and that's absolutely where you want to be.
• 12:06
  And quickly touching upon the replacement sale.
• 12:10
  What are things that partners find important to consider doing a replacement sale?
• 12:15
  Yeah.
• 12:15
  Why are you better for the partner and why you better for the end user?
• 12:18
  You've got to be able to very accurately answer both of those and why you are better for the partner alone is not good enough.
• 12:25
  I see this mistake happen all the time.
• 12:28
  Where we go, you make 10% more margin.
• 12:30
  10% more margin is great, but not if I have to risk my customer to do that switch sale, that's not enough.
• 12:37
  I have to understand why it's better for the end user.
• 12:40
  Other vendors will get it completely wrong.
• 12:42
  They go, no, but we're a much better solution for the end user.
• 12:44
  You should sell us.
• 12:45
  And you go, well, I make more money with the other brands.
• 12:48
  I'm obviously going to do that.
• 12:49
  And if you got to get me to do more work, which doing a switch sell is more work than just renewing, I've got to understand how it's beneficial for me and the partner, and I've really got to embed that into the sales process.
• 13:01
  By the way, it's one of the most lucrative things you can do because if you enter in with a disruptive technology and they've been selling your competitor for five years, they're going to have an embedded landed base of endusers for you to attack.
• 13:13
  So if you get it right, it's one of the biggest scaling vectors you can do.
• 13:17
  Start small, grow it over time and then you can really start to see that hockey stick of growth.
• 13:22
  Yeah, I think that's really good to realise for our listeners, like, a replacement sale is always indeed a big risk for a partner, so you need to make it very convenient for them but also very clear why they have to do it before they make a move with such a thing.
• 13:36
  So it's the same around your attachment sale, your replacement sale, but also when it's completely in that new cell, like you really need to explain to your partner continuously why this is in the benefit for the end user and for them.
• 13:49
  And that's what will help you get a lot more attention and also mind share within the partner when they are starting sales conversations.
• 13:56
  Yeah and it's a great point around mind share because actually if they are proactively replacing you and they've got an organic approach to attach to existing end users that is really when you're starting to dominate and win a partner and if you can continually do that and continually seed those wins into the partner, that's where I really see relationships really starting to flourish and deepen within the partner network.
• 14:20
  And that's a real goal that you should be working on.
• 14:23
  So we've covered attach, we've covered replace and then obviously you're into the net new motion, which is how does the partner acquire net new customers?
• 14:31
  But certainly if you get one, two and three right, if I speak to a partner and say, how much do you value that brand?
• 14:36
  And you've got ticks in all of those areas, I can tell you they value very, very highly.
• 14:40
  Yeah, 100%.
• 14:41
  Then you've got your flywheel with that partner because it's continuous traction and they keep feeling, oh, there is traction here, there is more revenue, they get more engaged, more revenue and that's really the motion you want to see.
• 14:52
  That's the self sustainable part, right?
• 14:52
  Absolutely.
• 14:54
  And there's wins from multiple areas.
• 14:56
  I think that's what maturity within the channel and the partnership really is.
• 15:00
  It's not just, oh, every time I sell a laptop, I sell your product, that's great.
• 15:04
  It's every time I sell a laptop, I sell your product.
• 15:06
  But also when this happens, this happens when I replace these renewals, I'm going to replace them all to you.
• 15:12
  Suddenly that just means there's a real decent book of business flowing through the partner on a consistent basis and that's going to keep you at the highest engagement level.
• 15:21
  Revenue drives engagement, so the more you can tick that up, the better you're going to be doing.
• 15:25
  What role do you see for segments and verticals in that space?
• 15:29
  I think now we have quite clear understanding on the sales motion, but is is it also important to look at that?
• 15:34
  Yeah, 100%.
• 15:35
  So one of the things that the data is incredibly clear on in the channel is specialised messaging converts better.
• 15:43
  Say it again.
• 15:43
  Specialised messaging converts better.
• 15:46
  So don't have generic copy aimed at all verticals, that's the first thing you build, but then get super specialised.
• 15:53
  If you're dealing with a partner that specialises in manufacturing, give them content and training around the manufacturing vertical, because what they want to be doing is bringing case studies and logos and messaging around how it's helping customers like them, like theirs.
• 16:10
  One, that's going to get your partner more engaged because they can see that it works for their types of end users, but two, when they take that messaging to the end users, it will convert better.
• 16:18
  So the more specialised you can get into the verticals and the segments that your partner sells into, the higher and more consistently you will convert.
• 16:26
  And that's the message that you have to be delivering at a consistent basis.
• 16:30
  I like that because I think it's also crucial, like when I think, for example, about teaching your partners how to sell, you should really approach it as if how you would train your own team members.
• 16:40
  So you need to teach them the elevator pitch, you need to teach them the use cases, you need to do a combined call out day where you're literally going to practise together and stuff like that.
• 16:49
  And indeed, if you have very verticalized and segmented messaging there as well, it's much easier to remember.
• 16:54
  Oftentimes a partner is specialised into such a vertical.
• 16:58
  Let's say they are really good in banking.
• 17:00
  If you give them three use cases to practise around banking and the elevator pitches around banking 100% that it's going to resonate so much better and stick so much better with them as well.
• 17:11
  So I think there it really ties back together.
• 17:13
  If you get the strategy right, then like the things that are following towards self sustainable revenue, especially in terms of the enablement and the training, will resonate a lot better as well.
• 17:23
  Yeah, I mean, it's funny, I just thought of it when you were speaking, you're absolutely right.
• 17:27
  That's how you structure your own internal business.
• 17:30
  If I go and speak to a brand and I go and speak to their end user team, their high touch team, they'll have people who work in commercial and they'll have people work in enterprise, and it'll be split by verticals.
• 17:39
  So this will be government, this will be finance and legal.
• 17:42
  If that's the way you segment it internally, it's the way you should segment it within your partner base.
• 17:47
  Because your high touch team have specific case studies and messaging around the verticals that they specialise in.
• 17:53
  So do your partners.
• 17:54
  And the reason that they convert better that way is because it just resonates better.
• 17:58
  I can understand you are talking not to customers, you're talking to me.
• 18:02
  And that resonates and converts so much better.
• 18:05
  So treat your partner network the same way you would treat your very expensive high touch people.
• 18:11
  That's the same level of care and quality that you want to drive into the ecosystem.
• 18:16
  Yeah, I think we almost say it every episode by now, but partner segmentation is the name of the game.
• 18:21
  That's really what's going to change everything.
• 18:22
  The better you do that, and then indeed customise and tailor your partners journey to those partners and your enablement, the better the results you will see both within the partners, but also in terms of conversion towards the end user.
• 18:36
  Yeah, and obviously, look, we've had this conversation from a very sales basis, but we're talking about finding opportunities.
• 18:42
  And finding opportunities is sales and it's marketing.
• 18:45
  And we run channel marketing here at Channext.
• 18:48
  We see it all the time.
• 18:49
  The data is very, very clear on reach and engagement.
• 18:53
  When we message end users around their segment and we do segment specific marketing content, engagement in reach is up by a factor of ten.
• 19:04
  Like, it really converts better.
• 19:06
  And so my message is, if it works from a marketing perspective, it works from a sales perspective.
• 19:11
  Ensure that you're taking the extra time to take your boilerplate content, which is generic.
• 19:16
  You don't have to do much alteration, right?
• 19:18
  It only has to be 5% extra work to customise that messaging for banking, for finance, for manufacturing, for healthcare.
• 19:25
  But that little bit of extra work gets the outsized return.
• 19:29
  So that's really where I'd be targeting your training from.
• 19:32
  Yeah, I liked it.
• 19:33
  I actually think this is a good link to the next subject and the final subject of this episode, finding net new opportunities.
• 19:39
  And I also think that that's where marketing plays a massive role as well.
• 19:44
  Why is it so important to find net new opportunities with your partners?
• 19:47
  Because they are the most valuable ones.
• 19:49
  Simple as that, right?
• 19:49
  We understand.
• 19:51
  And SaaS gets it that customer retention and contract growth over time is what continues to tick it up.
• 19:58
  But if you don't have net new business coming in, you will never grow.
• 20:02
  And the partners who really are switched on get this, they value the brands that bring the customer in for the first time more than other brands who they may have more revenue because cost of customer acquisition is critical.
• 20:16
  And so if you are a brand that consistently brings net new business to the partner, you will be valued at a higher rate than even the revenue you bring that partner.
• 20:25
  It's the hardest thing to do in sales and it's the most valuable thing to do in sales.
• 20:29
  And so if you want to be considered one of the primary brands on the market, get the best partners and get their bias.
• 20:36
  Acquiring net new customers for the partner is the best way to do that and marketing is the strategy to make that happen consistently.
• 20:43
  Yeah, I think it really ties into the story I shared earlier of what the partners told.
• 20:49
  That's so true, what you're just saying, because that's really where they are struggling, getting net new conversations.
• 20:55
  And that's what they love, because that's how they can grow their business.
• 20:58
  They get in with one vendor, they tie their service around it, then the other vendor, the other vendor, and all of a sudden it could become their largest new customer.
• 21:05
  And I think that's really, indeed, I fully agree on this piece and I want to emphasise on it once more for our listeners.
• 21:12
  Bringing them net new and showing them that your brand is the one that can bring them net new end users is really what will drive partner loyalty, what will drive partner engagement and traction, because that's what they really, really want.
• 21:25
  So you should really focus on enabling them, indeed, from a sales perspective, but also from a marketing perspective, how am I going to teach and enable my partners to actually get in those net new conversations?
• 21:36
  And the better you do that, the more they will value you.
• 21:39
  Yeah, I completely agree and I think this is where you can start to get bias.
• 21:44
  I talk about this a lot when I'm coaching channel account managers.
• 21:48
  You want bias in your partners, you want them to be over rating you, you want them to really love working with you more than all the other brands.
• 21:57
  And if I know, if I run a segment within the partner and I go, I look after healthcare for the UK for this partners, and I know that I'm acquiring new hospitals with this brand, they will become my favourite brand, even if they're not my top billing brand, they are the vehicle for me to overachieve consistently.
• 22:15
  And so that's the level of focus that you want to be delivering?
• 22:19
  Yes, it's the hardest thing to do.
• 22:21
  Let's be really clear, acquiring net new customers is the hardest thing to do, but in turn, it's the most valuable thing to do.
• 22:27
  And so if you want to be driving the best relationships and the best growth, doing the hardest thing is going to give you the return in the long run.
• 22:34
  And so getting your marketing strategy dialled in to acquire net new customers, and I think we can come on to a few tips and tricks that we have.
• 22:41
  There is the right mechanism to do that.
• 22:43
  Yeah, I just want to ask you, but maybe I can kick it off and be like, sharing some very practical tips to finalise this episode on what are good ways to provide your partners with net new conversations and net new customers.
• 22:56
  And I think the one I would like to start with, because I've run an agency five years before Channext, the number one way to help your partners generate net new conversations and net new leads is paid advertising.
• 23:08
  And I keep emphasising, I keep saying it, if you provide your partners with market development funds, try to gear a lot of it towards paid advertising.
• 23:16
  It's highly measurable.
• 23:16
  You learn a lot.
• 23:19
  You learn a lot in your messaging what is resonating, what has the best cost per lead, et cetera.
• 23:23
  And it can really be the kickstart of you.
• 23:26
  For example, let's say, you know an agency that's really good at it, introduce them to your partners and help them to do it together.
• 23:33
  So you're not going to do the paid advertising on behalf of them, but you are going to provide them with the budget, the right expectations, the right goals, et cetera, that you keep them accountable to, to eventually bring that back together.
• 23:44
  But if you get into a motion where you give your partners market development fund or MDF on a quarterly basis and then also you keep iterating and you keep improving, that will highly drive a lot of net new conversations and net new pipeline as well.
• 23:59
  Yeah, I completely agree.
• 24:00
  We see the data, we work with some great brands internally and we help coordinate some of those activities.
• 24:06
  And the ROI is off the charts, right?
• 24:07
  If you can acquire customers with very, very specific messaging.
• 24:11
  Which brings me on to my point.
• 24:13
  The one that I love to see is logo tied case studies, right?
• 24:16
  If you're selling into healthcare or finance or whatever it is, and you've got an amazing brand that you've managed to get a case study for that makes great content to then leverage that to do paid advertising and marketing in that way.
• 24:30
  Because nothing leads a market or gives a market security that you're a good product, like a brand that everyone trusts trusting you.
• 24:39
  We've seen it time and time again where we've shortened sales cycles because we would go, oh, we work with X, Y and Z and they go, love it.
• 24:45
  Okay, we're in.
• 24:46
  That is the way to unlock a segment, unlock a vertical.
• 24:49
  So, strategically, so I would leverage paid advertising as your messaging vehicle, but a logo case study that everyone loves and represents within that vertical, take that and use that as the catalyst to drive your deals forward.
• 25:01
  The combination of that can be super strong because indeed, like having that use case, then the paid advertising is your distribution method.
• 25:08
  So let's say you use LinkedIn advertising, you can literally help your partners define as well who are we going to target, what vertical, what segment.
• 25:16
  So for example, you say we want to target healthcare only for companies with 1000 plus employees and then your use case together with that partner will be put in front of all those specific decision makers.
• 25:29
  And you can say I only want to see sea level people or I only want sea level people to see this.
• 25:33
  That is the quality of how you can put your content in front together with your partners of the right end users which can drive those net new conversations.
• 25:42
  Because what we started this episode with you are so segmented verticalized and have such precise messaging, combining that with the right tools of enabling your partners to get in front of those net new users is really a great way moving forward.
• 25:55
  I can hear the new customers requesting a demo already.
• 25:58
  That's absolutely the right vehicle.
• 25:59
  And the last one I touch.
• 26:01
  And it's a little sales trick as old as time and one that I've used a lot in certainly, my older career, which we used to call the Pepsi Coke strategy, which is the second you sell to Pepsi, you walk right across the road and say, we just closed the Pepsi deal and you go and sell to Coke.
• 26:15
  And again, that's what is so important about that coordination of verticals and segments is if you go and close British Airways, then you walk down the road and you go and close Air France, right?
• 26:25
  And that's the vehicle you're in.
• 26:27
  And you can coordinate that really, really targeted with the partners who work in those specialisations.
• 26:32
  So live and breathe through their success and strategically target the way to solve those cold start problems in a way a way to really just break down that vertical and dominate in one vertical.
• 26:43
  I must stress it's so much better to dominate in one vertical than to close 5% of every vertical.
• 26:50
  I would much rather be known as the product that's brilliant for manufacturing than, oh, quite a few people buy us in lots of verticals because it's really easy to dominate in manufacturing and then go, and now we've added a finance thing and all you've done is change your messaging.
• 27:04
  But it's the same product, but that specialisation, that focus that will give your partners the confidence to acquire new customers consistently.
• 27:11
  And again, that's going to what's by you that mind share in across your channel.
• 27:15
  Yeah, I was just thinking, I think one of the things that I really like is repackaging and bundling things as well.
• 27:21
  So let's say you've built that beautiful use case with that partner.
• 27:24
  Then what is also converting really well is for example, hosting a webinar around that do a panel with that partner together and the end user have an open discussion.
• 27:34
  You invite each other's customers, but you also advertise to get more people in and then really you get exactly the right people who are listening to what you have to bring, which is highly relevant for them.
• 27:45
  And I think that's really super important that when you try to get net new customers the more tangible you can make it for them, but also the more personalised that it's really relevant for them will really help you increase the conversion and help you and your partners get into the right conversations.
• 28:00
  Yeah, I remember a few years ago I closed a deal with Asos which for anyone that doesn't know is a sort of fashion brand and they sell a lot of clothing and we sold them some video conferencing stuff and they allowed it to use for better manufacturing.
• 28:13
  Sped up their delivery times, sped up their design times.
• 28:17
  Now I can sell that story, that's great.
• 28:20
  Can't sell that story as well as the sort of chief product design person at Asos who went and did a webinar and you think, well why would they do that?
• 28:27
  Because they're also building their own personal brand.
• 28:30
  Right?
• 28:30
  It's a great advertising for the great work that they've done.
• 28:33
  So you can get the customers the end users to help sell your product.
• 28:38
  That's like getting the chief product person at Pepsi to explain to Coke why they sold, why you bought their product.
• 28:44
  And people do it all the time, but you've got to be thinking in that way of how can I dominate this vertical?
• 28:49
  How can I get this partner to win consistently against its competition?
• 28:54
  And that's what your cams want to be doing, setting strategic initiatives in.
• 28:59
  And you can only do that if you've allowed your cam the free time by getting your partner into a self sustainable motion where they are finding opportunities consistently without your need to help all the time.
• 29:12
  What if a partner or one of our let's say it like this what if one of our listeners does not have MDF for their partners?
• 29:21
  So paid advertising, et cetera is not really a possibilities.
• 29:23
  Are there other things you can do to still try to find those net new customers with your partners?
• 29:29
  Yes.
• 29:29
  The first question I'd be asking is how are the partners finding net new customers today with other brands?
• 29:34
  And then you want to tie into that strategy, you want to understand what they are doing with other brands and then understand how you can get involved and just carve out a little piece.
• 29:44
  Right?
• 29:45
  If a partners is acquiring ten customers a month, you go okay, right, how can I get you to acquire eleven?
• 29:51
  I'll be the one extra.
• 29:53
  Understand what they are doing and support that motion.
• 29:56
  Over time you can learn what they are doing and what's great about the channel is one learning is lots of learning, right?
• 30:03
  Because you can cookie cutter wins elsewhere.
• 30:06
  So don't forget to get your channel team together.
• 30:08
  Don't forget to discuss the wins and the losses and the learnings.
• 30:12
  Because if someone's doing a great job in France, there's no reason that you shouldn't then be doing a great job in Germany and the UK as well, right?
• 30:18
  You learn from each other.
• 30:19
  So build that practical knowledge out there.
• 30:22
  And pivot.
• 30:23
  I really like that one.
• 30:24
  I think that's an excellent way to finish this episode as well.
• 30:28
  Maybe to summarise your point as well, if your partner is really strong at outbound, make sure you tie your elevator pitch in.
• 30:34
  Their outbound go to market.
• 30:36
  If they are really strong on LinkedIn Organic with their full team, let's see if you could do a social selling campaign.
• 30:41
  If they're really strong with paid ads, let's see if you can give them some budget there.
• 30:44
  And in such a way, you really align completely with what your partners are doing as well, I think.
• 30:49
  Thanks again for sharing everything today, Alex.
• 30:52
  I'm already looking forward to the next episode, which will be closing opportunities.
• 30:56
  Very important, and I hope our listeners enjoyed it as well and see you all next week.