Latest / Partnerships Unraveled / 066 - Peter Geytenbeek of Delinea - Navigating the Vendor-Reseller relationship for Sustainable Partnerships

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066 - Peter Geytenbeek of Delinea - Navigating the Vendor-Reseller relationship for Sustainable Partnerships · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about channel and partnerships on a weekly basis.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: My name is Alex Whitford.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm the VP of revenue here at Chanak's.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to welcome our special guest this week, peter.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Peter, how you doing?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I'm fine, alex.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: How are you?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really good Thanks.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe, for the benefit of our listeners, are you able to give us a quick introduction who you are, where you've been and what's your role Absolutely.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Thank you for the invitation, Much appreciated.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: So my name is Peter Geithweig.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I'm working as the director for the EMEA channel at DELINIA.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: In that role, I'm responsible for driving the entire channel community in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: I'm very lucky that I'm not doing that alone.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: I've got a team of 11 people working together with me.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I am an industry veteran, as some people would say.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Next year I will celebrate my 160th quarter in my life.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: So that's me in a nutshell.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm excited to also announce maybe on your behalf, but I think you are quite literally an expert because you've quite literally written the book on the channel, right.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: You really understand how that works, yeah that's correct.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: I'm finalizing my book about channel.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It's basically covering what I call an eight-step plan in building and managing a channel organization.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So thanks for that, Alex, mentioning it.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Much appreciated.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: A little plug in there.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: That's why we're on.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: But no, I think I've obviously gone through all the way back to Symantec.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You've been working in the channel for years and years.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: One of the things I very often joke around how the channel work is we're one of the few industries where seemingly not much has changed.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: We still do a lot of the things that we used to do 15, 20 years ago.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: I'd love to see if you share that perspective.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: That's very interesting.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I don't share that perspective and it's really interesting that you mentioned it, because when I was writing the book and a friend of mine was proofreading it Peter, I'm missing a part about okay, how did the channel evolve and I said that's a great idea.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: So I started to do some research about okay, how the channel evolved, and in a way, I concur with what you just said, because you know we're doing already for years and years and centuries.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: We're doing the same, because there were channels in the past as well, although they didn't know that was a channel.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: But I think the way that we are dealing with channel is way different than, for example, that we did in the past.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And the way that we managing channels is very different to the past.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: What changes have you seen?
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So okay?
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: So if I look, for example, when I started working in the channel, what I saw is that resellers were very interested in a vendor and initially they were about to sign up as many vendors as they could because it acted like a sort of advertisement sign saying okay, you know, we've got all these brands that we can help you with your customer.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: What I've seen changing over the years that this is really changing and turned around.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: So instead, vendors are now turning into partners to basically approach end users, and the resellers are very, very selective on the kind of vendors that they are now choosing.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: In the past, they also saw that signing up 100 vendors is simply not doable, because your salespeople need to know.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Let's say that on average, a vendor has 20 products.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: With 100 vendors, they need to have roughly 2000 products.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Nobody can do that, and what you see at this moment in time is that, on average, a reseller has around 30 vendors and they are already struggling to manage all those vendors.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: But also think of the pressure on the salespeople, because if you have 30 vendors, I can guarantee you one thing that there will be 30 channel account matches from those vendors all over those salespeople saying, hey, you need to sell my product, can we do a marketing campaign?
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So that's something which we saw really changing?
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the things that I've, and I think you're absolutely right.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: We're certainly not exactly the same as we were in the 90s.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: What I find funny is some of the same swivel chair processes, the people with people, relationships.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: They've not evolved.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe is the rate of change that we've seen in other industries.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I have noticed has changed is previously, I think the name of the game was for a partner was signed the right vendor Right.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: If you bet on Cisco 25 years ago, you're in a pretty good spot 25 years ago because you've just climbed with them.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Now I'm really seeing that evolution has switched around and now I'm seeing a lot of vendors are having to bet on the right partner and that real management of key partner relationships and having the right strategy around how you onboard, retain and engage partners, the brands that do that the best.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: They're the ones that are getting the outside return.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Do you sort of see that where you're sitting?
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and I think what has also has been playing more and more is that the vendor selection from the reseller perspective has been determined by okay, what's the contribution of that specific vendor?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Are they able to make some good money out of that in the short term, but also in the longer term?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think one of the things we often evangelize here when we talk about partner acquisition is from my experience and I've done a fair job signing up thousands of partners maybe in my career and I see partners fundamentally only really care about three things who do they need to sell to, how much money are they going to make, not just in the product but in wraparound services, and how easy is it to sell.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: And if you get that pyramid right, we have lots of those types of customers already.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: It's very easy to sell and we're going to make pretty good money.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: If that pyramid is in balance, you've got a really scalable methodology to acquire partners.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Absolutely Conqueror of that.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what has changed.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: What hasn't changed that you really would love to see change within the channel.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, that's a very good question.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: So what hasn't changed?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: What I think and that's something which I think still is very important and I should not change.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: So let's start with that one and that it's people doing business together with people.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's always, and I found that out, for example, after the COVID period, where we basically had all kind of 30 minute slots, you know, through zoom sessions or team sessions or what have you.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: But after the COVID went away and we were able to meet again face to face with partners, you saw that what you could achieve in a face to face meeting with a partner and having really in depth discussions about their business and what is driving them and how we can jointly work together, that was really a game changer and still is a game changer.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: So it's about people working with people.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: That's something we never should change.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: What we should change is maybe, I think, the way how we are thinking of working together with with partners.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I think if you are building a channel, you really have to think okay, what do you want the channel to do?
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: Do you want them to simply sell your solution, or do you also want them to bring you business, or do you bring business to them.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: So, depending on what, what you expect from the people, you also have to realize yourself as a vendor.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: For example, how are you going to help them and to motivate them, to enable them?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: And that's something, and I think that's something where we really as a, as an industry, have to do a better job.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: We often simply say, okay, let's assign a partner, and then we give them a training, a sales training of 30 minutes off half an hour or an hour.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: And then, especially, the expectation of the salespeople from the vendor.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: They think, okay, now, now things will get started.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: But then they see, okay, you need to continuously work on it.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I always say internally it takes a village to build to raise a child, and it also raises.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you need a village to build up a partnership, and I think that that's something which is really really very important.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And so what we need to change is the thinking about how to work with your partners and how to enable them.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I completely agree, and it's one of the things that really frustrates me about sometimes how channels are orchestrated or architected is we either overload or under load a partner, depending on what our expectations are of them.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: And so for me you know I've sat in engineering and pre-sales and post-sales sessions when we're speaking about a referral partner is just going to toss a lead over the other.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It's like why are we doing this?
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Like, if we've got a very clear expectation of what we need from the partner, have we explained it to them?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Have we explained how we are going to support them?
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Have we told them the goal, the timeframe, the roles and responsibilities, what's in it for them, what's in it for us?
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And if a partner doesn't know that immediately, then we're just wasting each other's time.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Right, and I think that's the real power where we're really big on automation and scale here at Channex.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: But, frankly, the bit that we want to preserve is the one-to-one relationship, right?
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: How can we get people with people more often by automating everything else so that we can have those candid conversations, yeah, yeah, what I'd love to get into is we've been speaking, actually earlier today, around the impact of product maturity for a channel vision, and you've worked in a very mature product segment.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: You've worked in a more immature product segment.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Can you talk to us around the challenges, the opportunities of building a channel in each of those different?
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: points.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is a topic which is really close to my heart, alex.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: People always ask me OK, what's your favorite book, especially when it comes to sales and sales and marketing and building channels, and I always refer to your own book.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: No, no, that's well, absolutely.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: But I always refer to Jeffrey Moore's Crossing the Chasism yeah, I love that book.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: So basically, jeffrey Moore is basically describing the product lifecycle and then mapping the product lifecycle, ok, and the go-to-market model.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: So in the first part, where you really have the introduction of your solution, he basically recommends that you go direct and basically create a couple of reference customers, reference customers that can be used to reference other customers and convince other customers to buy your solution.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Then, when the product matures, especially in that first maturing phase, you will see that you will have partners that really you need, partners that are really able to do implementations and deliver services, really add value around your solution.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: When your product even further matures, you will basically create a mass and then transactional business becomes more and more important and that is also where the part where you, for example, are looking to increase the number of sales points and distribution can be a very important part in that perspective.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: And then in the end, when your product goes down, you need to come up with all kind of ideas of okay, how can you incentivize, how can you motivate the partners to really push your solution more?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So for me, that product life cycle and mapping it to the go to Marta model is really very, very important aspect.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: Is that an answer, any question?
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, 100% and crossing the chasms an absolutely fantastic book, and I think one of the things that's really interesting is that lifecycle curve that you see, which starts low and then creeps up and then tails off towards the end.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: That's actually, in my opinion, a great mirror, maybe slightly lagging on the size and scale of your channel as well.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: You're very, very focused early on in depth rather than breadth.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: As your product matures, as it becomes more Commoditized, easier to create that critical mass, you can then scale your channel wider and wider, and then, as it starts to tail off, you want to actually bring it slightly tighter and focus more on value.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: One of the key mistakes that I see so often in Channel is people's try to scale before they've actually worked out how to go deep, and so we're adding breadth before depth, and the problem is you actually don't know what's working yet, yeah, and so then it's really easy to waste a load of time.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: As you say, it takes a village to raise a partnership.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Imagine a village raising a partnership that actually is doomed for failure because we don't we're not really sure quite why we're winning yet, yeah, and so for me it's really really critical that we understand hey, we've, we've got these seven relationships in France.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: They're working really, really well.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Now we know why they're working well.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I can replicate those relationships in Benelux, in Germany and wherever else, because I know why we're winning and then it's really important we scale from there.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is that something that you've seen and you've deployed when you've, when you've started maturing that product stage and maturing your channel?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: That's something that we started to see?
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, and it's something.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So the interesting thing is that, if you look to our business and At this moment in time, I'm not only responsible for the immediate market, but also for the APAC market Now, the APAC market is less developed than, for example, some of the European Countries now and especially in those market where we the initial step from a lot of people that have a traditional channel Background is okay, let's appoint the distributor and then let the distributor do the acquisition.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: So I Always prefer and is that okay?
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: If you look to those countries, why are we not, for example, focusing on one partner that is helping us to build the business and then select a partner that is basically has a breath of customers so we can basically mind their customer base, instead of building initially Signing a distributor?
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And the reason why I'm saying that is that over time, I've also learned and I've done that as well.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: You know I've made that mistakes, but what I'm seeing is that people and companies are starting to appoint a distributor in a region like, for example, take Vietnam.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is a market that is maybe has an addressable market of 400 to 500k annual recurring revenue.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It takes us, on average, three to six months to enable a partner or a distributor.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: So when we enable the distributor and then the distributor we are going to ask them to target partners and resellers, we lose six months.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: So that's why I simply say, okay, select one reseller, work with them.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: I give them all the leads and work with them, make them successful and then when you reach a stage of 500 to 1 million, then you can start thinking of a distributor and Further building that business 100%.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I think you know my distribution is close to my heart spends seven years either managing distributors within zoom or working within distribution, and and what I so often found is we would especially American-led companies with which have a very direct go-to-market motion.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: It's one legal, it's one tax, it's one currency, it's very simplified.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: And then they go right.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: We need to go to a Mia will appoint a distributor and hopefully they'll just crack on and do all the work and you go.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: But what type of partners work here?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Do we understand the information?
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: What messaging is working?
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: How are we coordinating between the partner and the end user?
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: If you don't have a great detail and substance for how that works, you can't delegate the responsibility someone else because you're just hoping that it's going to work and they're never going to be as Good as you are because they don't know your proposition as well as you do.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: So I fully agree.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: You've got a, you've really got a win.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I would even suggest with multiple partners, so that you can take those learnings, give them to distribution, as this is the blueprint now.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Now can you go and add 10, 15, 20, 30, 100 partnerships and really scale the depth in that channel, and the irony is you've got to do that for each major new territory, right, and so sometimes the the idea of we'll just sign a tech data, they'll.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: They cover all of you know Europe and a Mia and and us.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: That's great and I think that they to do a brilliant job, but if they don't have the information to understand how to win within each one of those territories, it's really, really hard to be exactly absolutely yeah In terms of that, how that product maturity changes your channel.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: What have you seen in terms of how marketing can play a really critical role in terms of the different scales of channel?
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: So marketing, yeah, that's a very good question again.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: So the role of marketing?
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's, especially if you look to the linear.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: The role of marketing is basically there to help us to create demand.
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: So what we're seeing and what we've seen, has that role changed?
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: No, I don't think it has changed much.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: What I do see is that there's more specializations in marketing.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: So, for example, you've got the corporate marketing, but that is focusing on brand recognition.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: They've got channel marketing, which is, of course, focusing, could be focusing on mining your customer base of your partners, but it could also be aimed, working together with the distributors to find new partners.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Then, of course, you've got the lead generation.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: What I've seen changing there is that social media has become so incredibly important, not only for customers, where they do their orientation, their first orientation, but if you look to, let's say, not only the product lifecycle but also the customer lifecycle and then how they buy, the customer buyer cycle, you can really determine aspects in that buying cycle where marketing is playing a role.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: If you understand how a customer is buying your solution, you can basically understand okay, you can start to influence how they gather the information.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: So we found out, for example, that in our buying cycle the first orientation of our customers that want to buy a PAM solution is that they talk to their peers.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: So for us it's very important that our peers are informed about our solution, that they have got the right materials and that they can share the materials and that sort of stuff.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: In the second phase, where they start to orient more, is that they want to have, let's say, demo versions that they can download.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: So it's really important that you understand that buying cycle of your customer and I think the role of marketing is basically adapted to that buying cycle more and more.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the categorization there right?
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: So when we talk about marketing, we could be talking about partner acquisition, we could be talking about end-user acquisition, we could be talking about lead gen, demand gen, and you've got to have a very, very critical analysis of what's working.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: How are we measuring success and what's our goal?
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: That then balanced with I think there's a statistic that we use internally all the time, but 58% of B2B buyers first interact with a vendor on social media, and so then the question is how do we make that work at scale?
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And I see one of the fundamental things that we see is you need a top-down and a bottom-up approach, which is how, as a brand, are we using our corporate marketing to target end-users and how are we getting partners to market on our behalf?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And if you can create that wave, it increases velocity and conversion.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I think that velocity impact is really important, because if you can shorten a sale cycle from six months to four months, it makes a huge oh, that's a huge difference.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely yeah, and.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I really see marketing playing a real role there in driving that velocity because, as you know, if we're trying to deliver 10 million in 12 months, but suddenly our sale cycle is just dropped by 40%, well, suddenly overachievement becomes much easier and then it's just a pure pipeline game.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, true.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: In terms of what major pain points do you see scaling a channel let's say we've started to hit that, that we're now flowing into the point where we need to generate mass product maturity starting to happen and we're starting to cross the chasm.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: How do you?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: What are the really big challenges in scaling far and wide.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Basically, I think the biggest challenge that we have is enabling the channel and making sure that they are enabling the channel.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's the most biggest challenge that you have.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Can you give?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: me some examples of what friction points you mean by enablement.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: So in a way, enablement is a learning journey as well.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: So if I look again and I will give you examples of our solution, pam PAM is a very short word, only three letters, but it's an incredible.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: It's a challenging solution to implement.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: So for us it's very important that we find partners that have the technical knowledge, not only from a network and security standpoint, but also they need to understand something about compliance, but also integrating in other solutions like SIEM solutions or other governance and regulation solutions.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: So, with that, your enablement program also need to adapt it.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: You cannot simply have a program that says, okay, take the CD out of the box, which is very old fashioned, but take the CD out of the install.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: It, press the setup button and then make some settings.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: No, it's about integration.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: So how do you teach your partners how to integrate it?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: And the other aspects that we have especially around enablement is that how do you make sure that this knowledge is basically kept alive by, for example, give them enough meat and enough opportunities to continue to execute on the enablement and a practice, the enablement of the solution.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: So I think that that is one of the biggest challenges that I see.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And you've spoken that it takes months to onboard a partner and get them fully enabled.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: How are you keeping them engaged within that period?
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: So if I look to enablement, I always say there's four levels of enablement.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So when you have a new partner and enable them, the first one is basically enablement part of how to do business with each other.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: So you basically align the processes, the operational processes, to each other.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: The first element then is the sales enablement.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: So you need to be able to tell the salespeople how to sell your solutions.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Now what we've seen is that you do not need to throw them with all kind of features, but you need to give them the materials, basically to give the use case scenarios where your solution is playing a role.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: You'd also get to give them a view on okay, how is your solution contributing to the value of the company?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And those are the main aspects in the sales enablement.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: So that's something which you can do quite quickly.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Then the third part of enablement is the pre-sales enablement, and what I often see is that those enablement processes are basically done parallel.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: And what we've also seen is that, for example, when you have us done the sales enablement and how to keep them motivated is, for example, encourage the salespeople to make customer meetings, and basically what you then start to do is you do the first three to five visits jointly.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: We're on the first two to three visits and the vendor is making the pitch, and then on the fourth, on the fifth visit, you basically ask the salesperson to do the pitch.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: So you really have a good handover of the sales enablement.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And when they start to see that the customer is interested and motivated and interested in your solution and creates an opportunity for them, that's absolutely a very an aspect that is motivating the salespeople because they see the success and they also start to see the numbers in their eyes that this could be a successful sale.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I really see is that in that interim period before revenues really landed, those first three, four months, if a partner isn't creating opportunities, that's when they're high risk of churn.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Is that something?
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: that you've seen.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's absolutely what we've seen as well.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So, and again, it's like I always compare it like okay, you're starting a relationship and you're dating the first time you know, and everybody's on the pink cloud, as they always say it and then, after a couple of dates, you start to see the strange behaviors of the partner, and that is basically what we call the motivation dip, and it's very important to recognize that and basically continue like okay, this is what we can do to continue that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: So you really need to be aware of that motivation dip.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like the terminology.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I really see marketing playing the key role to smooth that motivation dip out, especially when we talk at scale.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: So salespeople are financially motivated.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: We all wanna hit our target as easily as possible and if there's lots of opportunity, I'm willing to put up with a lot of pain, right?
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: So we've spoken about the pyramid how easy is it to sell?
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: How much money am I gonna make and who do I sell to?
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: If it's really hard to sell but I'm gonna make lots of money, I'm really I'm okay with that balance.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: As long as that balance is in, it is in balance.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: If it's really hard to sell and I'm not gonna make much money, I'm never doing it right.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: And so the way I really help businesses understand how you get through that motivation dip, if we're creating lots of opportunities together, I'm willing to put up with that pain for a very long time.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And this is coming from the guy that works at Zoom.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Right, we have the biggest tailwind of all time with COVID.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Hey, maybe some of our program wasn't optimal.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Maybe some of this didn't work.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: We were really busy because everyone wanted to speak to us, but people were willing to put up with that pain because the demand was so high.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: Now how to how to recreate that?
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: But I think marketing can really play a role and sales can coordinate with marketing.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: That when I'm speaking, I'm doing this enablement and hey, suddenly we have these inbound leads coming in because we've got our social media maybe turned on, or however that functions working.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: That is, in my opinion, how we drive engagement and enablement at the same time to get people to that first revenue yeah, and again, you know that ties into the buying cycle again of the customer, because so you've had the first conversation with your end user customers, together with the part of the part is getting a food, yes.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Then the customer needs some time to digest this.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So, and again, if you as a marketing are able to hook into that aspect by, for example, feeding them with white papers about your solution or use case, specific use case scenarios, or even feed them with our eye cases, that really will help them to build a case internally as well, to to, to help them defend the investment that is needed in your solution.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: No, I completely agree.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: How can we make sales life easier?
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: How can we keep sales people focused on the people part of the relationship and then dot the right content around them to make those conversations as smooth as possible?
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: And that's a little bit about where the channel has been, how we drive a more mature market.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I'm very bullish on how I think the channel is going to continue to become the most dominant revenue stream that we see in big business.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: How are you feeling about the next three to five years?
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: How do you think channel is going to?
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: change.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So it's interesting you know I read some figures about from the world trade organization at seventy five percent of the worldwide trade is gone through over indirect sales channel, so that If you imagine that seventy five percent of worldwide trade, so that's a huge, huge, huge number.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: So that already basically underlines the importance of the channel.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: And if you look to the United States internet tech industry and manufacturing industry, over five million people in the United States alone are working in indirect sales channels.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: So it's a massive market and it's a very important way to basically bring your products to market.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: So how will it change?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: That's a very good question.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: So what I'm seeing at this moment in time is a couple of developments.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Of course, we see the development with the market placing as your market place, google marketplace and AWS.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: That is absolutely something that is starting to come up and will be a different place and different distribution model.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: And I also start to see that, for example, companies like Microsoft, how they are starting to think about okay, how can we bring products to market?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: What I really like is development that is currently taking place in the United States and is offered to Microsoft doesn't want to offend and basically exclude the channel from from their market places.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: So what they've done is this Microsoft private offer, an orange MPO, where basically partners can offer their solution through the Microsoft marketplace towards an end user.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: The end user basically can use their Azure points as an investment or as a payment method for buying that solution, and I think that integration of channel and a new distribution method is absolutely something which I think is fantastic to see.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: The other thing that I'm starting to see is that what I call partner communities, where, for example, partners say are even further specializing not only, let's say, we're specializing on security or storage or what have you but partners saying you know, I only want to do service delivery around security solutions, I'm no longer interested in selling licenses.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: But with that, they are starting to team up with with what I call transition transactional software suppliers and with that you create partner communities that are really very, very strong, and I think it's very important that, as a vendor, you start to understand okay, what kind of partner communities can you build?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: I'll give you another example At this moment in time, one of the drivers for a Pam solution, for example, is cyber insurance, and what we are starting to do is basically starting to team up with cyber insurance companies and team them up with, for example, our partners.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: So in that way, basically a customer that wants to have a cyber security, cyber security insurance, they will either get a discount or they get or a cyber insurance anyway, when they have got a Pam solution in place.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: Now the Pam solution needs to be implemented.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: If you can, basically Teaming between the cyber insurance company and a local partner, that is really beneficial for both of them.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: And then is, when you democratize, specialization happens more, and so what we're going to see in what microsoft are driving towards I've seen hub spot do this brilliantly as you democratize access to the marketplace, what happens is people become more and more specialized.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So you're absolutely right rather than being all, we sell cyber security, we sell cyber security to this vertical and we just do the service delivery element because that's what you want.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Rather than best in suite, I want the best in everything.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Apples done this tremendously well.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: They built an app store and so, rather than me having every apple app, are you spotify?
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: I use whatever, because I know that, hey, I prefer this app, but as long as I get access, we get the specialization deeper and deeper, and I think I completely agree.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: That's where the channel is going to go, because microsoft, a, w s, these other players, are allowing me access.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: I can focus on the bit that I'm extremely passionate about and I'm an expert in, but the vehicle to pay and get the offer becomes easy to access, allowing the end user to get a better quality of service.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: it's another interesting point that you said about the app store, because what we're seeing, especially with the pam solution, is that pam needs to be integrated with other security solutions as well, and a lot of our partners are creating bridges and connectors to other security solutions.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: And what we're now also starting to do is, within our solution we've got a platform and in the platform we basically also have what we call a sort of app store, where our partners can basically offer their connector and that can immediately be used by the, by the end user, and basically, and it's another way of generating revenue for your partners.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: So I completely concur with that.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: so thanks for yeah, the simple thing is right.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: If we can put the end user in mind and we work back from the outcome, what you'll find is we get more organic ways of driving revenue, because if we can just remove the operational friction of transaction, more money flows through.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: So I think it's absolutely a great strategy that you're implementing that.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Peter, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: The way we finish every guest podcast is.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: I'd love to get a recommendation for you of who we should bring on next.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, I think you know I really would like to recommend silica.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Aren't silica are insisting me?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: A director for hub spot?
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I worked with silica for almost two and a half years in the time that the delinium was tychotic, before the merge with center five, and I've learned a lot from her and I think that silica can bring to especially to every channel organizations very deep understanding about processes and why these are important and why it's so important that you have these processes defined.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: So I really recommend silica for your next podcast alex amazing silk will be reaching out and peter, thank you very much.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: You're welcome and thanks again.