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Miguel Carrero - Meeting Partners Where They Are with WatchGuard · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of channel and partnerships on a weekly basis.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Efe, and I'm really excited to introduce our special guest, Miguel.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Miguel, how are you doing?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Doing very good, Efe.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for uh you know joining us.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited for this conversation.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Also, really grateful today.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sunny day in November in Amsterdam, which is rare to find.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm doubly excited.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: Nice enjoyed the day.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully you get to do something fun at the end of the working day.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I hope so as well.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: For the uninitiated, Miguel, maybe you could give us a bit of an introduction, uh, share where you come from and who you are.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh sure.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Miguel Guerrero, uh as a working title and the vice president of Partner Ecosystem Growth Globally for WatchCar.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that both my name and my accent gives me a way.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a Spaniard, right?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Born and raised in Spain, although I spent 16 years of my life in the Silicon Valley.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: I went there looking for what I thought it was a couple of years of the US experience, and took 16 years and came back with a dual citizenship and two kids that we didn't have when we went there.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: As a more of a professional introduction, I think you and I discuss.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have a first of all, my first job, my very first job was a serious job.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: I did many things when I was young just to make some pocket money.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: But my first serious job was in a bar.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: My value add reseller at the time was actually a collaborative term.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: We were moving from reselling to vars.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Nowadays has changed, right?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh of Hewlett Packer at the moment at the time.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: Then I actually joined a large company.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: I did join HP.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's an introduction.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I worked many years in sales roles in what a big multinational would call the field, so in a country.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then I moved to Palo Alto to the headquarters in 2005.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I have that experience between working close to the reality of the field, but also being in headquarters of a large corporation.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the elements that I that I'll highlight on my background.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing is that I not only did large company after many years in the in the Bay Area, you realize that hey, people don't come here to do large company.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: They come here to do a startup, doesn't it?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I did actually the startup.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not for the fate of spirit, right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: But a fantastic ride with a fantastic access.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: So Google Cloud Acquire as in the beginning of 2022.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Great headlines, great experience, but but life in the trenches was different.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: So having done large companies, small company, and also mid-sized companies, similar to WatchCard, right?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: More private equity-owned company in a growth trajectory.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the LMS big company, small company, mid-sized company, working at the field, working at headquarters, and always around working with partners.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: They may manifest themselves very differently.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Different types of channels of partners, more smaller, bigger, big GSIs, smaller ones.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: So always have been working around how you how you leverage what you can do with a bigger ecosystem that works with you.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the most fascinating things about your career is that you had the privilege of working at a smaller company, successful startups, more mid-sized companies, watchcard, private equity, also large public enterprise as well.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to hear what's mindset or what's one rule that you have for yourself when you uh are building partnerships.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter the company size, industry, or stage of growth.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: What has been a key rule that you've been following since your first job at the war?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love the question.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, sometimes the answer comes across as cheesy, but it is not.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's genuine.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's genuine, right?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: And for me, that element is when you are partnering, you must care for the other party.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not an opportunistic, even if it's opportunistic for both and is productive for both parties.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you are really not transacting with companies, you're really partnering, you have to care.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You have to care.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And to care, you need to understand the other party.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Understand what they are doing, what is critical for them, what is not.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: You may have a point of view and may try to influence, but you need to come with a very respectful element that normally people and businesses know what they're doing, they know their limitations, their ambitions, and that curiosity to understand the other party.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Understanding that if when you understand, you can find the common ground.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: What I see sometimes is that it's not a genuine interest to understand the other party.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's more to understand how I can use the other part.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: That, in my humble opinion, is not partnership.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a business relationship.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's nothing unethical about it, right?
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: There is nothing illegal about it, but it's different.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: I look for that spirit on the people to understand.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: On the conviction that by understanding, we can find how we help each other.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: And by helping each other, we can actually also maximize our own business objectives that we have.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not naive.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: We are not in a non-profit, we are in a for-profit company.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: But when you really believe in that, then many things happen naturally.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I fully agree.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I we've been doing this podcast for over 200 episodes now.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we got to I got to speak with so many amazing channel leaders, partnership leaders, and one thing I always notice is in this space, people are high EQ, people care, people have high empathy.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've been so privileged to speak with such amazing inspirational leaders, also yourself as well.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: But this is so true.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think in this space, it's a must-have skill, that soft skill, the personal skill, the ability to empathize is such a must.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also curious to hear is this something when you're hiring for your team?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that this is something that you qualify for when you're hiring partner managers, you know, channel account managers.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you qualify that in a person?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like what's the what's something that you would ask?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this is this one of the priorities for you?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's good.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: First, you just ask about partnership, how that they believe the partnership is established, how is Chrome, experiences.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: But then other thing that is very telling to me, I tend to ask, give me, give me an example, doesn't it to be the biggest one or the biggest partner, the biggest transaction, or something that you are proud of in your evolution.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there sometimes it says, when in being proud is I'm proud that I helped this company doing that.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not only that I brought my top line to this and I did all those things, like you start getting symptoms, right?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Of okay, the person really cares, or it's really good to understand.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the other question that I many times do is like, I'm just telling me a learning experience, something that didn't work well.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: For whichever the reason, right?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: What was your learning?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: And again, in the way people express, you can see is there a genuine, true, foundational belief that this understanding and this finding the common ground is what will maximize the benefit for both parties.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is not fully altruistic, I'll be very clear, right?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Then um thing is clear.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: The other aspect that is a little bit less about partnership, although it is, is more about soft skills.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like people that they really care about what they do and they put the passion and they have the energy.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, just in many companies, the larger the company, the bigger it is.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: But part of the job is really crystallizing the value of your company to the partner.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that requires tenacity.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you need to go convince people.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody may have this deep partnership approach that we try to have in our team.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that energy, that tenacity, that conviction to do the job internally and externally is something that I also care.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: I always say that you can you can channel energy, right?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to tune up if somebody doesn't have that passion to drive the business.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: That is that is harder to attain, right?
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think also one of the reasons why empathy is important is because for a successful partnership, you really need to understand the partner's business.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: You really need to understand it deeply.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked about it in our previous conversation.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: You said the importance of meeting partners where they are.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is such a recurring topic also in this podcast.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about it all the time.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like how important it is to meet the partner where they are instead of forcing uh your own goals, own expectations of them.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I remember what you shared, especially in the MSP space, there are a lot of businesses, maybe like three to five people, lifestyle businesses, they don't want to grow 200% per quarter, right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to have that level of growth.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really important that when you're building these programs, partnerships, that you understand the partner and you make sure that you are working in a way that they want to work with you.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm curious to hear what does that look like for you in practice in Watchcard?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: How are you making sure that you're meeting the partner where they are?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is this is a great thing.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very, very close to not only to my heart, but to WatchCard, pure business culture.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the challenge for us in this industry is that everybody uses the right terms, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm people that we speeding it up, we can use that.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: For me, is is the validation point, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I love when people say, hey, we really want to meet with the yard, but then when you ask them, how do you look at your partners and they give you a classification?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So what they care.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: These categories, whatever they are, right?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Silver, broad, gold, whatever, based on how much revenue they do, based on how many of those things they do.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that is important.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I am not saying that you don't need to have that, and we actually have a view of looking that way.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: But do you have a different angle as well?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: So we have time put the time and the effort and intellectual curiosity to also classify partners on what they are as a business.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And you touch which are the business model, which are the business objectives, in which part of the life cycle of the company they are.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Are they a reseller?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Still exist, still they have a value and they still add value in the market.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: Are they a reseller?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a smaller or a big reseller, but it's a reseller, it's more of a var.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm adding value at solution on top of where I'm reselling, right?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Am I an MSP?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Nowadays, everybody's an MSP.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Since that reselling and vars have in reality, some are and some are not.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a big journey from the beginning of an MSP to a more fully end, if you wish, in the case of cybersecurity, MSSP, this mana security service provider.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when we put the effort to understand by different parameters, what I said, business model, what they sell, how do they sell it, in which part they are companies that really want to grow, and there are some of those small companies that are actually looking for capital to acquire or grow.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some other are telling you, no, right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: When we understand them, for us that was the foundation, that now that we look at them from a different present, from a different angle, from an angle of what they care.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now we can think, okay, which is our value contribution to that part.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I tend to bring the the an example just because it's very telling in my mind.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: You have a reseller, whatever, and maybe they do business at volume.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: You can have different elements to incentivize what they want to attain.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: And you can have a program and you can have rebates, and I'll give you a better price when you do this and that trick.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have a true MSSP.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that company, what it needs the most is predictability in the in the cost of goods sold.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're selling them technology.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: What they need is predictability.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're building a service with your technology embedded, maybe it's not even visible from a pricing perspective to the end customer.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And they need to understand that I have the right cost structure so I can price my service correctly and predictable.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And you give me that price at the beginning.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: When I'm doing all my investment on people, on process, and setting up this true mana service provider, I'm doing that.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Don't tell me that you give me the price that I need when I reach volume of business.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's easy.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, when I'm when I'm selling all this, you give me a good price, but that's not what I need.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I need more a good price at the beginning and predictability.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: So you could see that by trying to understand the business model of the partner, you can have a better view of what is your value proposition to them.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you maximize what matters to them?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, in the conviction that by doing that, you're gonna get also what matters to you, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Which is which is the business.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm seeing very little of those programs out there.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that we have the exclusivity of doing something like that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not that that uh arrogant to say.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I see there is more, but in many cases, what I see is the proverbial, and you get this amount of million dollars, and then you get this extra discount, and all those things.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you're not meeting the partner where they are.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because you may have a small partner that either don't have the volume yet or don't ever intend to have the volume.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: But profitability is critical to them.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's one of our core late motifs as a company, is all the value proposition that we do with our security, is effective, it's enterprise security for all types of businesses, it's operational excellent.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: But one is when we talk about partners, is they need to make money.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: They need to make money.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you're convinced that by them making money, you will make more money.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Then you put the money where your mouth is, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the kind of thing that that meaning, so I will always ask, don't get just the pitch, right?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: We can always like check their programs.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: How are they doing, right?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: How are they doing?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: How is this company really put in the fundamental framework to be able to meet the partner where they are and not only push them to what the vendor may want them to be?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I always say there are three things that a partner cares about when choosing to work with a vendor.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: The first bit is always the profitability, more specifically, how much margin I can make or what's like what kind of services revenue I can wrap around your solution.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the second piece is how easy you are to sell, how much demand there's in the market, and finally, also a really important piece is how trustable are you?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do I trust that you're not going to screw me over a year from now that you're going to completely change your program?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna uh cut my margins.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you'll have problems with deal registration and things like that.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: But that's my that's what I've seen, that those three things are the key uh for partner when deciding for part for partners to decide which vendors to work with.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Would you say that that's a good overview?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now, a lot of comments on the on the trust part, right?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because one is the typical thing, are you a hundred percent channel company or not?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Different business decisions, different direction.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Clarity for me is critical.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're clear who you are, you're already building trust more than trying to be who you are, who you are not.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: But if you if you say the other is that, okay, I'm clear on that aspect, but but the other is am I really going to support that partner in front of another bigger partner?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Am I actually having core principles of meaning those partners what they are?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I can build the trust, not because the probably example, I went there and the vendor went direct and they took the bill.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say that that doesn't happen sometimes, but it shouldn't happen often.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: But an extreme favoritism to the bigger partner, the one that has a bigger check to you.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that is we can see more how so how do you find the right balance, that you are providing an even playing field to different types of partners with different business objectives, and that you're doing your foremost effort to ensure right profitability for the different types of partners, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: That is where I think that you build the trust.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: The other aspect of trust, thanks God, people.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And where it be people is not only we say in in world where we have this real security for the real world, and one of the elements that we say is people that show up.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Is people that show up is not only the channel partner manager, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: That you expect that to be is the company and then like in many things in life, you build that trust when things are not going well.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Angelo on the business that will be moming off miscommunications, mistakes, uh technology hiccups.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna say that we're super proud of our technology, but I will not say that has never happened.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: But when you show up, it's like a friend.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: A friend is great to go and have drinks and have fun, of course.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you sometimes say this is my true friend when when the things got rough, he was here by me.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes because he has the solution, sometimes just because he's here by me, even working together through the problems, right?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that that's how you build trust is on the programs, how you do certain things, and the people that you have, and that people are throughout the company.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's why working many companies in different ways, it's very hard to be leading partners if the company doesn't have a partner DNA.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's tough.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that many people do it and do fantastic jobs, and it's but it's that's a tough job.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because whenever there is something to to to find concessions, to find, let's mean it could be uh an inertia, no interest.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't see this uh partner culture throughout the company, then there is capabilities of the company to be put into the partnership.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is that making sense?
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that's for me that that trust it'll show.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you lose the trust, it's super hard to gain it back.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: I fully agree.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that also partner DNA, channel first culture, also really comes from an executive uh level as well.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's built there and then has to be, you know, cascaded through the team.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we've seen it happening a lot, you know.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe like these hybrid companies have hybrid go to market.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: A new C suit comes that doesn't bleed so much in the channel, like a new CRL comes, and then the whole channel is uh deprioritized, and then the channel leaders leaves.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like we heard this story so many times, so that's also really important that it's a priority at a board level, that we are a partner first company, we're going after partners.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk back, uh talk about something that you mentioned earlier about metal tiers and partnering, bronze, silver, gold.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is how partners have been segmented for decades in the channel.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: But for the first time in the last couple of years, we are seeing that this era is kind of coming to an end.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now vendors are starting to realize, as you said, that this is maybe not the best way how we segment our partners.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: This doesn't make so much sense.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you shared earlier that in Watchcard also you segment your partners in a different way.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me a little bit more about how that looks like in practice?
• 20:03
  unknown: Yeah.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: So yes, okay.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: We do also have, and I I brought it uh intentionally the silver, gold, platinum panels.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have it.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: For me, what is more critical is what is the parameter that you use to get to that determination, right?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's one, and then the other is combining with a different classification that we didn't even find very nice market terms.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: We call them reselling MSP1, MSP2, MSP3, because there's a whole bunch of parameters behind, right?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the aspects that you said it um for Wosga is it's a large ecosystem of partners and getting bigger, not only on the number of partners, but the typologies of partners.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we we can from a fundamental principle.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: When we care about each other and we care about the partner and we want the partner to care about Wolfgang, you try to understand each other.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: We just said it, right?
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: And also you you devote the time to that understanding.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the aspects that we saw is when it's the business, is those companies that train on our technology are showing that they care about us.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then training, you may have a certification that gives you everything.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: But it's is is certification is the way to check.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: But what we really want is people that put the time, the effort, the energy, the investment to know our products, our direction, our platform, our evolution in the absolute belief and the data supporter that those partners that are well trained will generate better and bigger business with us.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we say, okay, why don't we use that as a parameter?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Let's look at all the people that are doing the training, the certification on the commercial side, on the technical side, on the different, we have different product lives engaging in a single unified security platform.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Those companies, they're doing what we want them to do.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's a company of 3,000 people, we have a different number of people certified.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: There is a company of five.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: But if the company of five is putting the effort, the the slice of their time and women to train, we say, you're a good partner to us.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: We want to meet you where you are, we want to understand which is the model and how you give you profitability, right?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're using.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay, it's still may have metals, names, right?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the parameter that we use.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I am not saying that volume of business is never taken into consideration.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: What for me is a little bit hype hypocritical is what I say is the only thing.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I got all this thing, I've got all the does that generate this amount of business, this other, this other.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like, well, this is what the outcome that you ultimately may care for, but that cannot be the single parameter that you use to get your partner program, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then what I said, internally, we have this other classification just to show like how do we add value to that typology of partner?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And which also the different uh monetization earning capacities for that partner depending on what they are.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: So being able to adapt the program to that topology is um is critical for us.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, we intentionally don't want it to be here's the program, we'll look at it in five years.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that we're constantly looking at.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that we're changing it constantly because it will get everybody crazy, but you need to keep on looking at it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is this hitting the mark?
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's talking to those partners, are we doing the right thing?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Are you getting the value you were expecting?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not how we can keep on improving, right?
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the program needs to be a leading animal that keeps on evolving.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think that constant feedback loop is so important.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: You also shared in a previous conversation you shared about like half of your time spending with time with partners trying to understand what's going well, what's not going well.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: You so basically change your tiering, not just on revenue, but the amount of certifications that partners gain.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of actually reminds me of another conversation we had on the podcast a long time ago where one of our guests shared that they also looked at the data and they realized that the partners who had more certification had also better customer retention.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: The partners who had less they were suffering with churn.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that's also something that they realized okay, there's a problem here.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: We need to help partners, help our partners uh train and upscale to make sure that we are not having a churn problem.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now you made that shift in your partner program, so now uh watchcraft partners are basically have different levels of support based on the certifications they have, if I'm correct.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to hear how did partners react to this because a lot of vendors do not have the segmentation.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: What's the feedback that you've gotten from partners about how you segment them, how you support them?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the good thing is we have been doing this already for for a number of years.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that that is good because naturally they they do see they they fundamentally understand.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so just want to see what you can squeeze out of us.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to enable us.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that we have done more recently is also based on the topology of partner, have different groups of people devoted to serving them or to working with them.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the notion is that it is very different if you are this, say, for example, that MSSP that is advanced, how how does your partner manager add value to you needs to understand your topology and what the company has for you.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you are more of a very more reselling in a different part of the world, you want a different so we also change our internal organization structure to have people that say, okay, we believe that you will train yourself as well to understand this type of partner, to understand what the company can deliver for this type of partners, and then grouping them that way.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: So even the structuring of our organization, how we put both the people that deal with the partners on the day and the people that recruit partners.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: So my team that we're looking for not only more number of the same types of partners that we have, that we do, but also different types of partners.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: What is happening with the hyperscalers?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: What is happening with these cloud marketplaces that are coming?
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: What is happening with these new entities that are part of the ecosystem and that sometimes are very synergetic with each other, if you look at it?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: How we can potentially connect, yeah, a small reseller that is better served buying from, let's say, a digital marketplace.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the credit scoring is now so severe, maybe there is different ways of transacting.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So how we look at all those different angles and how we structure our team aligned with some of those dimensions, you cannot slice and dice too much.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's how we how we actually are showing our commitment to those partners to uh be the way they are and do the best we can for them.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you're responsible for the whole partner ecosystem.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the challenging task, you said hyperscalers, MSPs, WARS, different kinds of marketplaces, what's happening with them.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: What's one principle that you follow to keep the partner experience as friction-free as possible at Watch Guard?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So there is two key elements.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: From a programmatic side, the word is simplicity.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: And simplicity, because in my mind, in many ways, simplicity uh aligns in in a very or correlates in a very strong way with effectiveness.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I think that vendors we tend to do is we think about this program, it has all those many angles and things and variations.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe the partner, even if he's really interested in knowing about us and devoteing sometimes to understand, doesn't have that level of deep understanding.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's it's too sophisticated that uh hinders effectiveness, you're giving nothing, right?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so one is how we keep a program that makes things accessible to the partners, it may be marketing assets, it may be product information, technical support, uh pricing, deal reason.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it would be that as easy as possible, but simple.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Simple that people will not know our partner program website the way that our people do.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's one aspect.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: The second is back to the to the people, people that shows up.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: And thus part of the friction less is having the right people with the right profile, the right curiosity to understand what those partners are looking for, right?
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: To alleviate some of the potential friction that may happen and people that show up.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: And as I said before, they show up in the good times and we'll go and celebrate.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: We do it often and we like it.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: We'll show up if you are we're having a hiccup in whichever part of the process, right?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Simplicity in the program, people that truly care.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think that combination tends to get uh frictionless, or when there's a bit of friction, we very clearly and quickly uh smooth it out.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like that importance of ease of doing business, frictionless, is double important when you're talking about the long tail, the SMB partners.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like their friction kills deals, like kills partnerships so fast because uh especially like when it comes to pricing or messaging, if things get complicated, these partners don't have the uh the resources or the patience to really deal with that.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And also, most of the times that I see this part of the channel being depri de prioritized.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about like the importance of thickening that long tail, like kind of helping those partners.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: How do you approach?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like, first of all, maybe two two-part question.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why do you feel like that's an important strategy for your channel?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you see the value in investing in resources in that part of the channel?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And second, is then how the approach of like, okay, where do I draw the line?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do I divide my resources between supporting that long tail compared to your top tier partners?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the long tail for us is very critical.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: You see in Wozga, we talk enterprise security for all types of businesses, right?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: How do you reach those all types of businesses?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: How do you reach not only the mid-company or the enterprise company that is known, but this the smaller company that is there?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think that you need a capillarity, a commercial capillarity and commercial proximity that for us is given through our ecosystem of partners.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: And many of these may be small because they are serving mid-sized or small company in one part of the planet, whatever it is.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: So if you believe that that is the way to deliver enterprise security to all types of businesses, you need to take care of that long tail.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the long thing from a very selfish uh money numbers perspective has a huge compound effect.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: So each one of them individually, maybe neglectable, but altogether is a significant part of the business.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: So the thing for us from that long tail is uh fundamentally around having the right program and having through a two-tier distribution model.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: So let's try to get proximity to that end customer, through that partner that is close to them, through potentially that distributor, uh old fashioned or new fashion, different things that is close to them.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's all about getting proximity.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Proximity to the end customer, then proximity to the partner that services the end customer, then proximity to that second tier that gets service to that to that to that partner.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that is a lot about uh partner program simplicity.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do I make it accessible to them?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: That they ideally don't need to call anybody, but if they call, we'll have the people that show up.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that is that is uh an element that we obsess.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that is is a very anchoring principle about that aspect of simplicity.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: Simplicity becomes even more evident on that long table.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: When that is critical of your thinking mode, right?
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: You tend to gravitate towards simple.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I said different partners, not only in the long term, the amount of business, but what they do, different type of value that are expecting for us.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll have certain the program, the long tail, how we manage, and then we may have things more uh ad hoc for a different type of partners, right?
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's in that combination.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I have the fortune, because it's a fortune that I oversee both elements, the more volume, space in terms of recruitment of those partners, and the more uh sophistication, new types of partners in the channel ecosystem that we do.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, it's intellectually um super interesting, but sometimes I need to put myself in a particular frame of mind.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're talking about the long tail, the volume, what do we do for that?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe three hours later we're talking about a very specific type of partner, which is a different type, but that we need to think more ad hoc for that.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, the intellectual challenge is sometimes changing the context.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Understand when you're talking to one type of partner, understand when you are not only talking, thinking about what to do for a type of partner, and when you are talking or thinking about what to do for a different type of partner.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's completely different how we approach enabling those top partners compared to the long tail.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: For me, long tail, the keyword is always at scale because unit economics don't work if you're going to put headcount on people, you know, put partner managers, it just doesn't work out because as you said, a single partner doesn't add up that much, but they altogether come compound to a significant amount.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we always look at okay, how can we enable partners at scale?
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: How can I make programs that are automated and easy for these partners?
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And also at the same time, I think understanding that you know, meeting partners where they are, understanding that these partners don't have a lot of internal resources themselves as well.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: So when building you know programs, tools, it has to be as easy to use as possible.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned sometimes that is in my mind not a contradiction, but a balancing act, right?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: You think what I like about the long tail is you try to put that program that is simple, that is accessible, people that will show up.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: But you say, but but what is the drawback?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: What is the problem?
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Is that yeah, I I would like to have an individual treatment to each one of them, but it's not it's not possible, it's not financially feasible, it's not so sometimes it's not a contradiction, it's a balancing act.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay, how do you how do you show that you got programs, but you have programs based on a segmentation of partners that is with the right granularity?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot say granular to the individual, no, but it's not one program fits all.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's it's different elements, right?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's um and that's what it says a living animal.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: You you you're always at it.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think they say, oh, I got it.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: I got it.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Keep on looking, look more.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because more likely there is still room for improvement.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: Also, we we like to chance ourselves like we're happy and proud of what we have, but we're never content.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: We don't claim victory.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: This is always, always work in progress in a very positive sense.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to come to a topic where as chanx, we like to believe that we are experts, that there's marketing, especially with that within that long tail of partners.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: How do you support them to do marketing?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think historically, also coming back to meet the partner when they are, I feel like something that the channel has tried and didn't work out so well was the campaigns in a box and partner parcel approach.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we've thought that we would create these campaigns and then the partners would come, they would log in and they would use those campaigns.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then in reality, we saw that a lot of partners didn't have the time, didn't have the urgency to do that.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to hear how do you see, first of all, marketing play a role in two-partner marketing, but also through partner marketing to help them enable them to generate demand for um watch card.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what how what does that what is the importance of marketing for you in that long term?
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious to hear.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: For everything we do, right?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a company, and and in this case, we have the the pleasure and the luxury of having a world-class marketing organization with with different functions and with that partner philosophy DNA that is that is uh true.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we look at it different, and you mentioned already, but very important, we look at how we do marketing to the partners.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do we do marketing with the partner?
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because one of the key elements that I think WatGuard has for those partners is a whole bunch of marketing assets capabilities and willingness to work with them.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that marketing may manifest itself a bit different.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_01: You may have more of a massive air coverage for the long tail.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: You may move more to just account-based marketing.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: You could say segment-based marketing or account individually account-based marketing.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you need to want to have a marketing organization that is powerful and flexible enough to understand those concepts.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: When am I doing things that are air coverage for a particular type of uh when I need to do do a marketing that is more dedicated to either one account or a segment of accounts?
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we have uh in Wolfgang.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then thinking about all the marketing shortages that our partners may have, how can we help them with that?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because we sometimes have the critical mass that some of those long tail may not have.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or not only long tail, maybe mid-tail, or maybe actually very very close to the dot, right?
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's not in the tail anymore, it's in the in the body, but they may have uh some critical mass shortages that that they don't have, they cannot afford something.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: But we may not have it.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, okay, we have the critical mass to do X, then we put X at the disposal of our partners, right?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking that marketing to marketing with is constant with us now.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's how I look at it super critically.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: In my mind, unless you have something super neat, specialized, uh, and with a market differentiator that will last a couple of years, and marketing is a key function because at the end is how we get out there, how we get to the market, how we reach the end customer as well.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great answer.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before I let you go, Miguel, I have one last question we ask every guest, and that is uh, who do you think we should have next?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is how we continue the podcast.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: We ask for recommendation, it makes my life easy.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, who do you think we should talk next?
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's it's an interesting question.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll give you a name.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll probably give you a name, maybe not right now, but I'm gonna give you an angle that I think I would suggest that you consider is that the partner ecosystem has different pieces, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: We have the vendor, we have different types of partners, we have distributors.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: We mentioned them.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: But if there is a figure that I believe is under um strong transformation is distribution.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_01: Distribution may be more the old-fashioned broadliner distribution.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: There is a value for that, and there is a place for that.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: There is also an evolution to value add distributors, they call it.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: There is also these new cloud marketplaces.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: They don't like sometimes to call themselves distributors, so that there is an angle of that.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: I would suggest one of those value add distribution elements.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: We also see a consolidation in the market, some rollovers of different mid-size uh distributors being together to gain the critical mass to provide value add services to those partners, right?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that would be a fascinating um type of partner, so to say, uh, to bring to the conversation and see how they're looking at it and how they keep on on adding value to this out of this ecosystem that we that we play with.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: We've had so many guests from distribution.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's always very interesting because distribution has been like their business model has been like under tread many times, and people were like, oh, is this are they going to survive it?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: But distribution always finds a way to evolve themselves and stay relevant in the channel.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I always find it really fascinating talking with distribution leaders.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Also, a lot of people, a lot of guests that we have on a podcast also had roles previously in distribution, and they will share that how much that role has helped them uh in their career in understanding channel from both sides.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll definitely try to get more uh distribution leaders, you know, thanks to your thanks to your suggestions.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you a couple of names right later, but I think that there's a couple of people to share the evening below is will enjoy the conversation and their perspectives.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be amazing.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much, Miguel, for joining us, and thanks everyone for listening and see you in the next episode.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you to all.