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Jeff Skeldon - Turning Channel Complexity into Strategic Advantage · Partnerships Unraveled

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about partnerships, and channel on a weekly basis.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: My name is Alex Whitford, I'm the VP of Revenue here at Chanix and this week I'm very excited to welcome our special guest Jeff.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Doing well.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Alex, I appreciate you having me on.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: It's a beautiful day in paradise here.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited to have you on.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I think the prep call really sort of opened my eyes in terms of running a whole revenue organization where channels are a component part and how that sort of builds your channel strategy.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe for the uninitiated Jeff, you can give us a little bit of an introduction about who you are and what you do.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Jeff, you can give us a little bit of an introduction about who you are and what you do?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Certainly, yes.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: How about I'll start a little bit with myself?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Then I'll explain Armor Code for the folks on the podcast or listening to the podcast as well.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: So my background is one of starting in tech quite some time ago now.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I want to state the number of years, but if I use the term frame relay and Cat5 cabling, you know people might recognize that I started in telecom, kind of in layer one right.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: So foundationally, doing the work and understanding the tech were hand in hand for me.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: I worked for what was called a small interconnect at the time.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: From there I'd moved into systems management and visibility technology at Quest Software, spent a number of years there and then did a couple gigs in the startup land and eventually found myself at what I would call an iconic cybersecurity partner, which is now known as Optif.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: But back in the day Acuvant was brand new on the west coast of the United States and over time we merged with a great VAR leader in the east called Fishnet right, and together we became Optiv.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: So I had the good fortune of being part of something that really didn't exist at the time, which was a cybersecurity-focused partner.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: That taught me a lot right.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: And then after that, I went back to the vendor side and spent six years or so at Scope with another wonderful option to learn from both great sales and channel leadership, which has helped to kind of build to where I am now, which is carrying my own brand and running all of go-to-market for Armor Code.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: So I've got our sales teams, our channel teams, uh, biz dev teams, uh, technical teams and uh, so I get to build the whole thing for go to market outside of our digital marketing and you know my CMO partners, uh side of the of the responsibilities there.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: So that's me, in a nutshell, just a, just a humble servant.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Alex.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a really simple job, not complicated at all, managing all those disparate pieces.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: It's all in perspective.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It's fun, yeah, good.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that a lot of our audience spend a lot of time thinking about, wondering, attacking, panicking about is there comes a moment when a business starts to scale where it has to make a call on are we doing channel or not right?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And some dip their toe in some wade, in some invest way too late.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: What are the signals that founders should be sort of looking for to go okay, now's the time and maybe talk us through some of the mistakes that you see people make?
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: Sure, absolutely yeah.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So in fact, that's a large part of why I'm in the role now is that the timing was right for Armor Code and Nikhil, my chief enthusiasm officer, to drive this right, and so there's a couple of ways I look at it.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: If you're a founder that already has channel relationships, you can go day one, but you have to set your expectations right.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Your approach to the channel is going to be a little bit different.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Right, if you're really trying to scale the channel like where a person like me comes into the business you know I've got experience both on the OEM side and on the channel side I think there's three or four things that are important.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Number one you've got to have a high impact use case that the channel can bridge with the customer.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: They're not the place to land if you're still trying to determine product market fit, if you're experimenting with your ICP and the impact you can have in different segments of the market.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: That's risky and less interesting to the channel.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Right, they want a measure of reliability and success, at least something that's valuable to the customer.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: A lot of them are great at or a number of channel partners are great at an innovation lab or really thinking about well, what's new and going on, and there are a lot of customers they have that want to know those things.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: But will that lead to revenue or not?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: And scale.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: If you're that early, maybe not.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: If you're in experimentation mode, you've got to set your expectations.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Net-net is, I think they really channel, really starts to connect when they start to see a pull market.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Right, if customers are asking them hey, have you heard about ArmourCoder?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: You know we're trying to solve a problem in this space.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: You know ASPM or exposure management, whatever terms they hear in the channel, and it's important just to be setting the groundwork there to be associated with that when that pull market starts happening.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Second of all, super important, there has to be some adjacency to how the channel already drives revenue.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Like, how are you accretive to their business?
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Right, if you fall into the selfish trap which we all do, of what we need, you're not really thinking about what they need.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: You've got to figure out how you align to how they already go to market, what's their core of how they're driving revenue.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Third, I think it's natural for most partners to gravitate toward the broad, scalable markets.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: You know they have the big lines, the transaction volume, the run rate with the bigger vendors and cyber.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: So you've also got to be clear with the channel on how and why you differentiate in order to pull some of that mindshare over.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: So, in sum, if it's core to your GTM motion, timing and commitment are important.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: I think you have to be clear.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: If you're in or out, you can't be on the fence.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: There's no channel.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: When convenient, you either drive a channel strategy or you don't.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: But all those things said, I think that's the bulk of what I would think about.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: That'll vary.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: There will be outliers.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: Some founders know the channel already.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: That's the first place they start.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Hey, I need to get in front of some of your customers.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: I've got an idea.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Can I bounce it off of them?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: But most founders are driving their own sales to begin with and bringing in, you know, an early rep and things like that.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: So it just I think it's best to really have what I explained around product market fit first.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, 100 to me.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: To me, channel can be distilled into as a scaling factor, right, and so, yeah, to scale before you found pmf and you're still in startup mode doesn't make sense.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Um, yeah, now where I think becomes really interesting is when you want to build a broad-based channel.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: That's when we're trying to hit hyperscale.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Right, we can't, uh, hire the amount of reps that we need to hit our revenue goals.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: That means we need to disseminate some of that down and delegate that down its partners, um, and that's where building that sort of cohesive plan, um, one of the things that you said, uh, in a previous catch-up which I thought was really interesting is the intersection between channel and really what that means around a customer success approach.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Talk to me about what that means yeah, I mean, at risk of sounding obvious here I think that any good sales leader, channel leader team campaign has to start with customer journey, right?
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: If that's not your focus, if you're trying to drive your needs and your agenda and you're not really thinking about that, I think those are often, you know, marginally successful campaigns, right?
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: So I guess a way to think about it for me is channel first is not economic.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Customer success first is economic, right, if you have a channel strategy that's built around the customer and the channel sees that, they're naturally going to come along.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Secondly, partners have to live in those accounts for a really long time.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: So if you breach trust or create friction with their customer, it's likely the last time you're going to hear from that partner, right?
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: They have a long memory.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And not only is it important to think about that when it comes to your company, but I would argue that most of my success and time has come with my personal brand, and you got to think about that too.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: You can't burn the channel, you can't burn the customer, you can't make promises you can't keep.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: So it's better to be transparent right At an early stage, right?
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: If what you're looking for is hey, I've got gaps, I don't know my product market fit yet just tell them have a conversation with that customer.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: They're more inclined to maybe think about how they can help you be a design partner or something like that.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: So if you're transparent about those kinds of things, that's really the goal.
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: So at the bottom line is in order to build a sustainable channel program.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: It might seem obvious, but partners spend years building trust in those accounts and have to see the value delivered for their customer before they put their lifeline and, you know, income at risk.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I love that.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I love that thought about authenticity.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Right, I think I was having a conversation with a senior channel executive and I was sharing a story about I made an enormous mistake on a quote.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: What about three, maybe six months into my channel career?
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: It took margin off rather than adding margin on which is yeah, that's a silly mistake to make.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: And I called.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I called the partner and I basically said look, entirely my fault, I'm going to wear the cost.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I just need you to know, because next time when this product is significantly more expensive, it's because I messed up this order.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: And so, like, it's not your fault, it's my fault, but I just need you to know.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: He was really good.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: He turned around and said look, alex, here's what we're gonna do.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Next five orders, we'll, we'll.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: We'll wear it between us, like we'll.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: You'll make hardly any money across five orders, but yeah, don't worry, we don't need you to get into a bad place with management and we'll cover you.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: I'm still friends with that partner 10 years later and I strongly believe that reputation is built in the bad times, not the good times.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so the authenticity to come and be like hey guys, I need your help, I'm not quite sure how to do this.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Authenticity to come and be like hey guys, I need your help, I'm not quite sure how to do this.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: That's why the channel is an amazing place to be, because you can get free answers from partners that maybe customers would be slightly more reluctant to.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, there's.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of reps that I've become familiar with over the years, that are friends of mine, that they've made a living at that.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: You know they, they know which partners to go to.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: I've got a new solution.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I've vetted it.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: It's solid.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Let's get in front of XYZ account and XYZ account and they've made a living just being really authentic with both the partner and the customers.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: The trust is huge.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: I had a CISO years ago at Experian back in the day.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Still, a very close friend of mine say I don't care whose fault it is, I don't care if it's your product or not, I've got a problem to solve and if you're my partner, you're going to help me solve it.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Right, and I never forgot that little things you remember, remember along the way in your career, right?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: So, similarly right, it's like, yeah, you got to just own it.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of pressure, you know, I think I know there's a lot of pressure, especially on new sellers trying to make their name and their career and hit a quarterly number right and it's it's always a balance you got to strike between, you know, making sure your, your sustainability is long term right and you know I'm a sales leader, I've got to drive a number, but that's also something to be honest with the customer and and the partner with about right.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: You know you gotta, you gotta state your objectives very clearly, right?
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: yeah, if you earn the right.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Maybe they'll help you out yeah, it's uh it's actually one of my favorite things about working in the channel because I get to talk to partners about business.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: So you know we're not just talking about why a product's great and how this is going to build value, but it's like hey, by the way, I've got a board meeting in two weeks and I'm up for a promotion.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It'd be really helpful if this deal can work its way through the system and that sort of stuff.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: You'd be amazed how often partners be like yeah, no worries, like that sounds like a really important reason for me to pick up the phone and chase a little bit harder.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: But if you don't have that relationship to to to rely on, it's a really tough place to be yeah, yeah, sort of back to our last conversation, right, if they, if you've already done that work and that leg, that groundwork, that legwork is there, uh, you're in good shape, right?
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: I found some reps are really good at quickly developing.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: You know they have strong, you know eiq and they're they can get that trust faster.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: But a lot of that usually takes time, right, like you gotta you almost have to go through some mistake or some pain to prove you know kind of who you are and your integrity, right.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Correct.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: We opened the conversation with just how simple it is your job because you manage all these different areas.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: It's very easy.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: But you're also building.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: What is interesting about channels.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It's complicated.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: You've got GSIs, vars, tech alliances, referral partners.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: How do you decide where to invest, in what order to what gain?
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: That's a complicated matrix altogether.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Talk me through your motion.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Uh, certainly, yeah, and you're right, it can be.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: And I also see, you know, quite often you know folks newer to different routes to market is how I like to think about it Spend an awful lot of time in places that aren't going to yield the revenue when they needed to, right, and it's exciting to think about channels like the GSIs and MSPs, but you're you're, you're a dime a dozen as a technology partner.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: So you got to get a little bit down the path before they start to, you know, want to change out a 10 year relationship with a different vendor in your space or or whatever.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So you know, a couple of things like like for me.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: First off, finding the right partners with a focus on your problem set and that have customer trust is key.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Might sound like a unicorn, but they're out there, right, you know you have.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: You know for us and you know I won't name names on this call but we've had some very specific partners that they have a focus in our area, our space.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Right, they have different vendors they work with large and small, but they at least have a focus in what we do, right, so they understand that vendors they work with large and small, but they at least have a focus in what we do, right.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: So they understand that that could be a big national, could be a local, regional, but they've got to have, most importantly, reps have to have the relationships.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: But they rely on their own internal architects and teams to understand the different solutions.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: So you got to be able to talk to that level too, right.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: So, with smaller teams and newer companies, got to prioritize the right bars and not just shotgun and spread out across the market.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: We only have so much currency, so it has to be invested in the right places.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the questions I probably have the most, the pet peeve of mine, the most disdain for, is when one of our reps goes to a customer and says which partner do you want to work with?
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Don't ever say that right, drive the customer toward the partner that's going to give the right mutual value.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: That may or may not be an existing partner that that customer has, but it should be.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, but if you've had the investment, this is the reciprocity, you've gotten the commitment, you've gotten that tech.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Buy in at the partner that says I believe in what you're doing.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: I've seen it Right.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: A lot of them, you know they're more risk averse Right.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: They want you to prove it in a customer first, so sometimes you feed that.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: They learn from that customer.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: They see the value that way the best.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: But somehow you got that technical trust right Then you go back in and have that conversation and then it can accelerate it.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: It's important to know you can't lump, so let's move over to other routes to market For us.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: We're at a point now where GSIs and MSPs are very important, but you can't lump them into the same bucket.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: They think very differently than a VAR, whether it's a national or regional.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: You know with whatever focus they've got on what territory they're thinking about longer term IT ops, larger risk management types of projects.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: You know they probably have 10 different lines of business.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: That you know this feeds, you know, into potentially what we do.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So you got to know how they work right and they often.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: You know when a partner like me or a customer, a vendor like me tries to build into a GSI tech stack, you got to realize you're probably going up against a technology that's been in their tech stack for 10 years.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: It's not a quick endeavor and there's lots of business units, multiple stakeholders.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: At a certain point, if I could resource it, which we'll get to, I would put one account team on one GSI.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: That's how big they can be.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: Right, cover, know, cover everything around the globe, right.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: So but back to the earlier conversation.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: You got to know how your customer buys, right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: How do they consume?
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Is it?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Are they a CapEx shop, opex shop?
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: Do they have, you know, services and trust with a GSI?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Now, would that be the better route to market or is it, you know, a more specialized, you know partner with some?
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: You know deep dive, project-based capabilities in my space?
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: So understanding the customer, you know, back to that point, is super important.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: You know those routes to market and how they buy.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Adding in the hyperscalers, right?
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Does it help the customer to burn down discount credits in Amazon?
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: You know if they transact through that, through that, right?
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: So these are all the components to think about.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: That can't be lumped into channel right.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: It's routes to market and it's different things and you got to have different layers of conversations and exposure there.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: So, but you nail it and one gsi globally can take um, you know that that can be the kingmaker.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: So maybe to focus in on on that, gsisi as an example.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I think one of the really complicated things when you're building a channel is you've got to define early success when that success very often isn't revenue right.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: A GSI can be a 12, 24-month lift before we've seen $1 transact.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: How do you define success early on in sort of program channel operational design, when I don't know sourced pipeline or closed one revenue isn't going to be the lagging metric in that early period?
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the simple answer is you've got to find customer number one.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: That is a test bed, a litmus test, right?
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: If you're successful there, you know you got to feed them right.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: If you're in a deal and you know your GSI is in that deal, you know this is the maturity of understanding how a customer buys right, who are the key partners they trust and rely on.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Right, you know it could be, you know both a really strong VAR and it could be a GSI right.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Well, you got to have a conversation with your champion and you know look to engage there.
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: But it does take.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: You know GSIs are short on, they're long on trust.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: I should say it doesn't happen overnight.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: So you got to find that first win.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: You know it's got to make sense architecturally.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: You're selling, you know, above and below the line per se and then under back to kind of understanding your customer.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Most of the big GSIs, you know they have their own internal teams and politics to fight right.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: You've got, you know, large, longstanding firms that are both on the audit side and you know usually audit and risk advisory are going to be separate.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: You know for the big companies, if they're not a customer, they're not doing more of the operational things.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: In a lot of cases, most cases, it has to be separate.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: But you got to understand that.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: What dependencies?
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: I'm introducing a risk to that service If I don't have a track record, if they don't have a customer they can point to and say, look, we were successful here.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: So you got to kind of got to feed it Right.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: You know I could take any number which we've done of my existing customers that we'd landed early where we're scaling and successful and this is where we're at.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Now we're having conversations about how do we bring the GSI to that to operationally help the customer.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: So there'll be good for expand, right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I guess you know as we talk this through we're kind of riffing on this one.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: I would say that you know some GSIs are better than others at this, but most of them are really good at taking the ball from the 20-yard line after the special teams is off the field and you're in a deal and helping you close it.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: They're not necessarily your lead source, right, but if you want to expand and scale and be sticky in that customer they're not necessarily your lead source right.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: So if you want to expand and scale and be sticky in that customer, they're amazing at that right, because they're running it operations and the ticketing and the help desk and that you know the things often that you're going to need to make sure your deployments are successful.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: So I really like that point, because I often hear people and I know we sparred on this before the call uh, they go.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I've onboarded these partners and partners are a BDR team.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Right, that's their job.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: They're there to go do new logo acquisition.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Talk to me about what role partners should really play and, I suppose, what the communication dynamic should look like, so that there isn't that sort of misalignment.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: Sure, I think it's funny, know, it's funny.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I'll never forget this.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I had a really good friend of mine now years ago would come into my office when I was at a bar and he was always happy, you know, as opposed to bars, that would you know, or manufacturer reps, that would you know, not be happy if you weren't bringing up deals or whatnot.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: And I asked John at the time I'm like why are you always so happy?
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: He worked at McAfee.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Back in the day he said, john because, or Jeff, because I keep my expectations really, really low, like I just don't expect much out of you.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And I said, my God, that's a really honest answer.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that You're going to make me want to work harder for you now.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Right, so he just had the right approach and the right attitude.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Right, so it kind of works both ways, like the, the channel they can be.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, our goal is, you know, over time, channel source business.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: But that only comes with proof.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: Right, we have had success on.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: You know they're busy.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Right, the partners have a lot going on.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: They can become a BDR source.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: That's not where they start, but that's nirvana.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Right Is, if I can drive in and I do have some evidence of this now.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: I've got one or two just fantastic partners.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Where I have now turned we as my team I hate using the word I, because it's my team doing all this work Special shout out to KJ and Natasha.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you, rom, you as well on the GSIs.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I got to get that on the podcast, but we have turned the corner to where we're seeing more than half of the pipeline with a couple of these partners is sourced by them, right, so it's their efforts that, and that is a huge, huge reward for everybody involved in that effort, right, including my CEO, right, because that's really the goal.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: However, it is super, super important to really find the right partner.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: We have just as much value and success in the right influence, right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: My advice to every channel partner out there is engage.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Don't just use lip service.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Don't tell me something, don't glad, hand me, help me.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Right, and if you don't have time, say that Right.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Say, hey, man, I got stuff going on.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: You know you're going to have to do some legwork on your own, but get to a certain point and I can get you to the right people.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Right, and we've got deals like that going on with just some amazing partnerships where we're at levels we would not be at with our own individual selling efforts.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Like I said, they live in these accounts forever.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: They sit down and have dinner with even the CFO.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: In many cases, the right partners, they can be king makers.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: So advancing accelerating trust, um, advancing the, you know, increasing conversion rates as a result, is also a big value of the channel pipeline.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, but shortening closed cycles, increasing conversion rates, accelerating trust you can't overlook that, especially at our stage.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: That's usually hugely key, right, there will come a time when it's just autopilot.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Hopefully that's the goal for every company, right, but I'm starting to see the, the scale, um, at a, at a, you know, early adopter market.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: You know, I would say kick in.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: But those are kind of the areas I see the most value, or the I guess the alignment to your question yes, sometimes I think some against these conversations and I think about it.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And people can't see the wood from the trees.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: I, I sort of sit there and go.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: But what's the hardest part of sales and it was new logo acquisition we all know that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: And so how?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: What's the plan?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: We go, we're going to delegate the hardest thing away.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes sense whereas you go, like you said, especially if you're working on large enterprise deals.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: You know, average sales cycle goes down from 300 days to 200 days.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: That's unbelievable.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, that's unbelievable.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: That makes it that's a cfo's dream to be able to pull that cash in and reinvest it and help the scaling engine flywheel.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: And if partners are able to help facilitate that and grow the acv and grow the conversion rate and do it faster, that provides huge value.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And then, jeff, you're absolutely correct that the ultimate outcome is that.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: And then they are at a confidence and an understanding and enablement level that they can do the new logo acquisition.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: But to ask partners to start there, I sort of sit there and go.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: That's not even how we train aes, right, like we don't bring an ae and then go.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: No information off, you go.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Can you go and close nest?
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: That would be that'd be lunacy.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And yet somehow we sort of sit there and go.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Well, hopefully the partner will do that, because I think that's a good strategy.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there's never.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: You know, I would encourage my team not to.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: You don't have to give up deal control.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: You're just partnering on it.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Right, you're getting better.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: You know trust, transparency, visibility and, you know, hopefully, closing more large deals faster, right, that's, that's the nirvana of it, the whole top of funnel effort.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: You know we still have to own our own outcomes and destiny there, right, even if it's.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: You know it's a win to me if a partner pardon me, if a partner simply says, hey, you know what.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: We've had success with Armor Code.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: I know you're looking at two or three other solutions, but you really got to get them in the discussion, right, that's a win, man, I mean.
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: Sometimes, um, uh, I think manufacturers want exclusivity.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: When you know a, you're not giving it to the channel, right, you know if I could, if I could sign an agreement with a scalable partner and say you guarantee me this much, I'll give you everything I'm doing.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Right, but that's not reality, right?
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: So it's okay to have competitors and deals.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: It's not ideal, we don't love it, but you know and you don't want to.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: You know breach trust and you know, give away trade secrets.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: We don't need the channel doing that which they don't the right partners don't do those things.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: But that sort of top of funnel for me with the channel is just like any other lead source, right?
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Hey, if we've got an introduction, there's a warm handoff.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: We get a meeting out of it.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: That's still a win, awesome.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: We sat down a few weeks ago to sort of prep this call and I've been stealing a phrase that I've never heard anyone say, but I heard you say and I thought it really helped wrap up the sort of symbolism and what you're trying to build.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: You just talked about your pursuit team, aesc, bdr, marketing channel, and I really like that idea One.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I like it because of the imagery right we are chasing down business but also in terms of the alignment what makes that model work in practice.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Biggest thing is shared accountability, right, I mean, you know it's really easy to, you know, get on a pipeline discussion and talk about, you know, deals that are in early stage, pipe news that was already created.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Right, the idea of the pursuit team is to drive a more proactive strategy or news that was already reported.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: The strategy is how are we going to go create the news?
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: Right, how do I look at?
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: You know, what are the campaigns that are working, that are having the most impact?
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: You know what are the top white space accounts.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: I'm already working these accounts, you know I've got you know some number of really important accounts that I'm not in yet.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: And then who are the key partners, very specifically, that are mapped to those accounts?
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: And not only that, but then in my plan as a pursuit team, who are the five specific people at partners that I'm going to talk to multiple times a week?
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: Right, so it's a.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: It's a combined effort.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: If, at the end of the day, the seller that owns the territory and the number is responsible to quarterback the team, but the team, you know the quarterback can't run the ball, throw the ball and score every touchdown, right, you know.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: To use an American football analogy, right I.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: You got to have, you know, a right guard and a left guard.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: 've got to have a right guard and a left guard.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: You've got to have a running back and a wide receiver.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: You've got to have optionality in the plays and the only way to have that is shared accountability.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: There's one scoreboard that's armor code, no-transcript.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: What landed with me years ago, uh, to drive that concept home.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: So hopefully that helps answer.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: It's a perfect answer.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Well, um, I like to think of myself sometimes as a one man pursuit team, but I'm backed up by a wonderful production team on the podcast.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: Um, but we're always looking to find our next best guest.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Jeff, I know you've got someone in mind.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: I do oh, I'm gonna say his name on the on the podcast now uh, sheldon muir at torque.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: I recommend that you spend some time uh with this team.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Alex is great um and uh.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: It's really been an enjoyable uh number meetings and conversations.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: In fact, I look forward to joining Alex for a beer in Amsterdam when I'm out there this summer, so I'll be looking for you.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Awesome.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Thanks for the service you're providing to the market too.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: This is really cool.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: No, no, Jeff, it's been awesome having you on today and thanks for sharing your wisdom.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It's been great.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: You bet.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know I would land with look.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: Cyber is different than a lot of categories.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: There's no winning, just losing without partners.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Right, if you're going to scale the business, the channel you know I love and appreciate everything you know, all of you do.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Again, shout out to my team.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: You know I'm the face man on this, but I am nothing without them.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: That includes all of my team, but in particular KJ, natasha and Ram.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much for all the efforts to scale the business.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: So, thank you.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I appreciate it, alex.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: It's been great having you on.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much, buddy.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: You got it, yeah, good talking to you.