As a special treat to wrap up the year, we've put together a bonus episode that's a compilation of your favorite segment, where we ask our esteemed guests a compelling question: 'What's the one thing you wish you knew before starting your career in channel?' Their insights are both enlightening and invaluable, offering a wealth of knowledge to anyone navigating the dynamic world of channel.
So, grab a cup of your favourite holiday beverage, find a cozy spot, and join us for this special episode as we reflect on the past year and look ahead to exciting opportunities in the coming one. Cheers!
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Until next time 👋
Maciej: Hello, welcome and thank you for tuning in to Channel
00:00:05
Voices.
00:00:05
As 2023 comes to a close, we wanted to take a moment to
00:00:10
express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for
00:00:14
being part of this incredible journey.
00:00:17
Your support has been the driving force behind the success
00:00:20
of Channel Voices podcast, and we can't thank you enough for
00:00:24
tuning in and sharing your thoughts.
00:00:26
With the holiday season upon us and a new year just around the
00:00:30
corner, we wanted to extend our warmest wishes to you and your
00:00:34
loved ones.
00:00:34
May this festive season be filled with joy, laughter and
00:00:39
cherished moments that create lasting memories.
00:00:42
As a special treat to wrap up the year, we've put together a
00:00:45
bonus episode that's a compilation of your favourite
00:00:48
segment, where we ask our esteemed guests a compelling
00:00:51
question what's the one thing you wish you knew before
00:00:54
starting your career in Channel?
00:00:55
Their insights are both enlightening and invaluable,
00:00:59
offering a wealth of knowledge to anyone navigating the dynamic
00:01:03
world of Channel today.
00:01:04
So grab a cup of your favourite holiday beverage, find a cozy
00:01:09
spot and join us for this special episode as we reflect on
00:01:13
the past year and look ahead to exciting opportunities in the
00:01:17
coming one.
00:01:18
Cheers Christian Alvarez from the episode on best practices
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for driving Channel sales.
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Christian Alvarez: Wow, well, it's certainly an interesting
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question.
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I have to say that I was very lucky to have been a reseller
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myself for a little over 11 years and I can certainly call
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that having an advantage, because at the time I believed I
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knew it could be exactly what I was getting myself into.
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Boy was I wrong.
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The one thing is, I wish I really understood how deep the
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roots of companies that have or started as a direct company
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versus indirect.
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That's something that I have to say.
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Throughout my career and I've worked for a few manufacturers
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that started direct and then introduced a hybrid, indirect.
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That's something that I wish I knew more of and understood
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better than going into the Channel.
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But I've adapted.
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I've certainly evolved.
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I think coexisting in direct and indirect, especially as the
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market has evolved, it's a win-win at the end of the day,
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something that I have very clear in my mind.
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We're here to support customers and giving customers the
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absolute best experience in the technology that they're
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investing in, assuring that they're getting the value out of
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their investments, and that's why I believe that the evolution
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of how we partner is going to continue to evolve and things
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like having partners with a customer success practice is
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critical, giving partners more tools and insights into how
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their customers are adopting the technology, utilizing the
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technology and giving that partner that telemetry is going
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to give them that much more of an advantage but a great
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experience to the customer.
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Maciej: Lynn Tinney from the episode on creating a successful
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partner advisory board.
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Lynn D. Tinney: Perspective.
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First of all, this is a phenomenal question, like I feel
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like we should ask each other this question.
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It's one thing to understand you know, kind of, what your
00:04:02
position is and what somebody else's position is.
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It's one thing to understand each other's position, it's a
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whole, nother thing.
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It's another step to understand their perspective, and what I
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have found that has been successful in my career is that,
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first and foremost, I'm a channel coach to those who don't
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understand channel or think they understand channel but need
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a little coaching to navigate it more effectively.
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And it's a step of recognizing their perspective.
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And that's whether you're the perspective of a partner or the
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perspective of a customer or the perspective of a direct sales
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person or a direct sales manager , more than likely they have
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been pretty successful at the how they've done something.
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And it's the perspective of success, of don't fix what's not
00:05:12
broken.
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And so it raises your bar to understand the compelling reason
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why they, why you can help them , and whether that's a customer,
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a partner or a direct sales person or direct sales
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management or executives along the way.
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And it's not just position, it's their perspective, it's
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that you know what they've done over the last five years, 10
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years, 20 years.
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That raises the bar for you to increase.
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What is it that you're bringing to the table for them?
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And I also feel like it brings in a tone of making you an equal
00:05:57
player with somebody, meaning you're not.
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This isn't a right or a wrong element.
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This is a one plus one equals three conversation conversation.
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I can learn from you and you can learn from me.
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And if you start the conversation with let's learn
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from each other, you're you're going to end up on the other
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side very productive and you know I've grown up with channel
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conflict throughout my career.
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It will always exist.
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I say welcome to capitalism, nature of what we have here, but
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I also highly encourage my team to.
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I always take the high road and understand perspective rather
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than just position, and so it puts a positive tone on thing
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and I learned that.
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I wish I would have learned that early on in my career.
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I had to learn that through years.
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Maciej: Bader Hamdan from the episode on navigating the world
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of tech alliances.
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Bader Hamdan: Yeah, it's funny Again, I stumbled into this
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channel partner world just by luck, in a sense, honestly, and
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just kind of really enjoyed it.
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I think the one thing I would say is I wish I knew how hard it
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was and I don't say that as an you know like how to bypass how
00:07:22
hard it is, no, it's, it's a very dynamic role and that's
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part of why I actually enjoy it is because every day you're
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wearing a different hat.
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I never knew that early on, right, and especially again the
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traditional channel kind of where I started out in the, in
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the resale, and I saw space it was.
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It was viewed, as you know, almost, almost like a
00:07:42
transactional support role for most channel partner managers.
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Right, knowing that I had one, if you know, if I had known how
00:07:51
difficult it was to actually be a truly successful ecosystem
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leader and partner.
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You know professional, which meant, you know, being able to
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connect all those dots earlier on in my journey then later on,
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right, that would have been awesome because it would have
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helped me accelerate even further and bring more impact
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even early on.
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But no one ever taught tells you, teaches you channels right,
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and then you know back, no one taught you like coming into
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Cisco, like it was all about sales, sales, sales.
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Right, we went and got indoctrinated into sales and you
00:08:21
know go to market motion.
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But channels was never really discussed, even though Cisco was
00:08:25
a huge channel you know, erupt to market in there.
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So yeah, no understanding truly how difficult it is and the fact
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that you are wearing multiple hats is very dynamic.
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Just knowing that sooner would have been awesome.
00:08:42
Maciej: Maeve O'Connell from the episode on the challenges of
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choosing and configuring partner systems.
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Maeve O’Connell: Yeah, so it's.
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It's a hard question.
00:08:50
Actually.
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I was thinking about it this morning before I came on to this
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this recording.
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So I think how varied the area actually is is something I
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wasn't aware of, you know, at the time where I started my
00:09:05
career working with companies.
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There's such a wide variety of skills and knowledge that is
00:09:11
needed to support partners and it's across all elements of the
00:09:15
business really.
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So you know there's obviously the relationship management side
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of things.
00:09:19
You know there's business development, but there's also
00:09:22
and I spoke to Mike is the operational side as well.
00:09:25
So how it is that you know the this was the how behind how we
00:09:31
actually manage all of the stuff and how this, all of this works
00:09:34
.
00:09:34
I think that's really interesting.
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And there's also like a really wide variety of positions so you
00:09:39
can come in from anything to junior.
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You can work your way through working up to you know more
00:09:44
senior exec levels and but you also have the opportunity, I
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think, to kind of work across different aspects of of working
00:09:51
with channel partners as well.
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So you know you can move from relationships to more
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operational side of things.
00:09:56
It gives you a really good view of you know all elements of the
00:10:00
business and how a business works, because I think with
00:10:03
partners they're.
00:10:03
I think some people fall into the trap of thinking that
00:10:07
they're their own little piece of the business, but in reality
00:10:09
they're just.
00:10:10
They span the entire business really.
00:10:13
And one of the things I really like about working with partners
00:10:16
is, you know, within my own organization I get to work with
00:10:20
pretty much all parts of the organization because the partner
00:10:23
program touches all parts of the organization, right.
00:10:25
So can be really interesting because you get to learn about a
00:10:30
business as a whole as opposed to just learning about your own
00:10:33
little piece of it.
00:10:36
Maciej: Kenneth Fox from the episode on what makes a PRM
00:10:39
deployment successful.
00:10:43
Kenneth Fox: She's a much great question, very broad.
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Yeah, I suppose before I started my life in the channel
00:10:52
and that's been a long time ago now but you know, I didn't
00:10:57
realize how powerful the channel was.
00:10:58
I wish I did know some more about it before I started, but I
00:11:01
guess that's.
00:11:01
That's part of the learning curve.
00:11:03
Like the channel is a wonderful thing, I always said to people
00:11:06
and people.
00:11:07
You know, a lot of people are starting their life in the
00:11:09
channel.
00:11:10
It's, it's really is a massively powerful sales machine
00:11:14
once you crank it up in the right way.
00:11:17
And I'm always trying to convince people to do that in
00:11:19
the right way and I think that that's really important.
00:11:21
You know, they're the learnings .
00:11:22
I didn't know how to do it in the beginning.
00:11:24
I learned it a lot of it through trial and error,
00:11:27
mistakes, learning from you know , not doing it the right way, I
00:11:30
suppose, but you know, trying to give those learnings to our
00:11:35
customers, to anybody new that's that's coming along to the
00:11:38
channel.
00:11:38
I really enjoy that because the channel is the most powerful
00:11:43
sales engine there is in the world.
00:11:45
You know, when we think about 75 percent of all trade in the
00:11:48
world goes through the channel, just kind of get your head
00:11:50
around that trillions and trillions of dollars flow
00:11:53
through the channel every year.
00:11:54
So you know it's not, it's not a mistake that all of these
00:12:00
vendors are, you know, really using the channel as their
00:12:04
go-to-market model right from the get go.
00:12:05
They're not even starting with direct sales.
00:12:07
Now we see a lot of them are going straight to the channel,
00:12:10
and I can fully understand why, because of you know the the
00:12:13
returns it can potentially bring when it's done in the right way
00:12:16
matt scotney-jones from the episode on the role of channel
00:12:23
account manager they're probably more than one thing, but I'll
00:12:28
try, I'll try and focus it on one.
00:12:30
I mean, like I said, don't be afraid to, you know, take risks,
00:12:35
calculated risks, you know.
00:12:36
Don't just say, oh, I need to spend 10 000 pounds on her on
00:12:41
taking someone to a football event or something.
00:12:43
You know I'm not talking about that.
00:12:44
Take it, don't be afraid to take calculated risks and don't
00:12:48
be afraid to speak up.
00:12:49
If you've got an idea, don't just sit on it.
00:12:54
You know if you think it will work and you've done some
00:12:57
research and you've done a bit of background work for it and
00:12:59
you really think it will work, don't be afraid to stick your
00:13:03
hand up in a meeting and or a team meeting and say, hey guys,
00:13:08
um, I've had this idea.
00:13:10
I want to bounce it off, you guys and and get your take on it
00:13:13
and see what people say and how they're at, or go and speak to
00:13:17
your manager privately about it.
00:13:18
You know I I quite often do that.
00:13:20
You know I'll come up with something new and I'll I'll
00:13:23
phone up, I'll phone up my vp and say, hey, a bit of a risk,
00:13:28
but what do you think to this?
00:13:29
And he'll either say you're dreaming or he'll say no, I like
00:13:32
that, let's, uh, let's, let's put some more thought into it
00:13:35
and let's see what we can do.
00:13:36
So I'd say, you know, don't, don't be afraid to take about,
00:13:39
you know, calculated risks.
00:13:40
Um, I think I think as well, though one of the things that I
00:13:47
wish I'd known when I'd started is to understand the vendor you
00:13:51
work for, but also understand the different vendors out there,
00:13:53
and what I mean by that is is the different sizes, shapes, uh,
00:14:00
sectors, things like that.
00:14:02
Not all vendors are the same and not all vendor channels are the
00:14:06
same.
00:14:07
So if you're if you're currently a channel manager or
00:14:12
looking to get into channel um and and take that next step,
00:14:18
understand the channel that you're currently in and then, if
00:14:23
you're moving roles, look at the look at the channel going
00:14:25
into um.
00:14:27
This is something that I really learn, and you have to learn
00:14:31
quickly as well.
00:14:32
So I went from a role where we were quite we were probably a
00:14:37
medium to large size vendor and you had your usual suspects in
00:14:44
you know that in the top 10 platinum category of partners,
00:14:49
and we would have channel management teams going in there
00:14:54
every week, twice week, into various different offices across
00:14:56
the country, as well as the dedicated teams, and I was lucky
00:15:00
enough to then, uh, inherit one of those large accounts I won't
00:15:06
say who um, and it was a wake-up call, because it worked
00:15:10
very differently and there are a lot of people you have to get
00:15:12
around and the way you have to work within those partners is
00:15:15
very, very different, but you can build some really great
00:15:18
contacts and you can build some really good relationships.
00:15:20
However, I then move to a smaller vendor.
00:15:26
Networks are important, but don't just expect the door to be
00:15:30
held open for you when you go to a new vendor, because if
00:15:35
you're not there as a vital part of the business for that
00:15:41
particular partner, you're not going to get mindshap and it's
00:15:45
very difficult to get back into some of those bigger players.
00:15:49
If you're a very small and very niche partner as well, you'll
00:15:53
always do business with them.
00:15:54
You'll always do business, but there'll be a difference between
00:15:57
it being a very reactive business rather than what you
00:16:02
may rather be used to, which was a very proactive, flowing
00:16:06
business, to say so, I would say that's one thing I wish I had
00:16:12
known from the get-go is that because you can waste a lot of
00:16:17
time by trying to knock down doors that you think you can get
00:16:21
into again as you've worked with them in the past, whereas
00:16:24
actually you've got to look at it and say, well, hang on a
00:16:27
second, is that partner right for this vendor?
00:16:29
Is it right for this product set?
00:16:30
No, it's not.
00:16:32
Well, who do I need to go after ?
00:16:33
Well, if you're a small, very niche vendor where the product
00:16:36
is very technically led, you're going to need a smaller, more
00:16:40
technically enabled partner to drive that sale for you.
00:16:43
So sometimes it's being able to identify the right partners for
00:16:50
your particular product and know when you've got a time waster
00:16:54
on your hands as well.
00:16:54
So I'd say that's probably one of the biggest things I wish I'd
00:16:59
had when I started out.
00:17:00
I'm not afraid to say this.
00:17:04
I've made mistakes in the partners that I've approached
00:17:08
and tried to onboard, and you can sometimes spend three months
00:17:15
getting lip service before you really realize and see it.
00:17:18
So I think now, if I'd known that back then, I would have
00:17:24
come up with what I use now today, which is almost like a
00:17:28
scorecard system to really identify and help me work out
00:17:32
are they the right partner for me and also, are you the right
00:17:35
vendor for the partner?
00:17:36
It goes both ways.
00:17:37
So I think that's probably the biggest thing.
00:17:44
Maciej: Sherry Foster from the episode titled TCMA Explained.
00:17:50
Sherry Foster: Well, I think that the one thing I wish I knew
00:17:54
is maybe something that I was maybe surprised at, in that
00:18:01
working with the channel is so fascinating it's almost like a
00:18:09
mini MBA program that goes on and on forever because you get
00:18:14
to be involved with so many different kinds of businesses in
00:18:19
so many different industries.
00:18:21
So at Ascendix Digital, we certainly work with tech
00:18:24
companies, but we also work with other industries as well.
00:18:28
We work with B2C companies who sell through retailers.
00:18:32
We've worked with industrial suppliers.
00:18:35
So we've worked with a lot of different industries, and every
00:18:39
time we work with a different partner, they might be a or even
00:18:45
in my career I've worked with a different partner.
00:18:47
They might be an ISV, they might be a value out of reseller
00:18:50
, they might be a retailer.
00:18:52
You really get to dig down and I love working with, especially,
00:18:57
founders to really understand their business model and how
00:19:00
they go to market and just how smart and fascinating it all is
00:19:06
and how unique they all are, and so I certainly didn't know that
00:19:13
before I started working with the partners, but the minute I
00:19:17
started to work with them, it was absolutely fascinating and I
00:19:21
couldn't wait to work with the next one, because there was a
00:19:23
different thought process, a different business business
00:19:26
model, a different idea that somebody had to create a whole
00:19:30
new business, employ people and drive tons of revenue.
00:19:34
So I think that's what I found when I started working, and
00:19:39
maybe what do I wish I knew?
00:19:42
I guess I wish I knew I was going into that because maybe I
00:19:47
would have gone sooner.
00:19:48
So it's been really rewarding and one of the things I like
00:19:53
best about my job.
00:19:57
Maciej: And that's a wrap for this episode.
00:19:58
I do hope you found it valuable and, if you did, please make
00:20:02
sure to subscribe and leave a review.
00:20:04
You can also follow Channel Voices podcast on LinkedIn,
00:20:08
twitter and Facebook, or just visit ChannelVoicescom, where
00:20:12
you can send me a message or leave a voicemail.
00:20:14
All of the links are listed in the show notes and, once again,
00:20:19
I appreciate you tuning in today Until next time, thank you.