Podcasts about partner enablement

Cisco's AI Channel Playbook: Cassie Roach on Partner Enablement and Infrastructure Innovation, Podcast, With major announcements around AI infrastructure, including AI Pods, Nexus HyperFabric, and GPU-intensive servers, Cisco is positioning itself not just as a networking leader — but as the channel's go-to platform for AI-ready data centers "AI is a once-in-a-generation opportunity — and Cisco is making it real for partners." — Cassie Roach, Global VP, Cloud and AI Infrastructure Partner Sales, Cisco At Cisco Live 2025 in San Diego, Technology Reseller News publisher Doug Green spoke with Cassie Roach, Cisco's Global Vice President of Cloud and AI Infrastructure Partner Sales, about the company's bold steps to transform AI hype into tangible partner opportunity. With major announcements around AI infrastructure, including AI Pods, Nexus HyperFabric, and GPU-intensive servers, Cisco is positioning itself not just as a networking leader — but as the channel's go-to platform for AI-ready data centers. Key Cisco AI Updates for Partners: AI-Ready Infrastructure Specialization: A new certification that helps partners align with customer POCs, scale faster, and prove ROI. Black Belt Training & Partner Tools: Designed to educate, equip, and incentivize partner sellers with co-selling platforms, growth planning, and layered rewards. Marketing Velocity Central: Cisco-branded campaign kits and industry-specific go-to-market resources for partners. AI Pods: Modular infrastructure for training, fine-tuning, and inferencing workloads — with “small, medium, and large” sizing for pilot-to-production journeys. “We're creating an easy button for partners — even in a complex AI environment,” Roach explained. Cisco's approach focuses on frictionless engagement — empowering partners with everything from vertical use-case blueprints to hands-on support for opportunity identification through PXP Growth Finder. Roach emphasized that success depends on enabling partners at every level — not just executives or system integrators — but also frontline sellers, who now have access to tools that simplify the AI value proposition and drive sales. She also highlighted how AI is being securely embedded across Cisco's portfolio — from infrastructure to Webex Collaboration and end-to-end security, allowing customers to move from pilots to production with confidence. “This isn't just about AI,” Roach said. “It's about unlocking the entire Cisco portfolio — in a way that creates real stickiness, real customer outcomes, and real partner growth.” To explore Cisco's partner programs and AI infrastructure resources, visit cisco.com, or log into the partner portal via Sales Connect.

Too many vendors leave partners to figure out demand generation on their own—and it's not working.This week on Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Nevzat Bucioglu, Channel Lead for the DACH region at Commvault, to discuss why partner enablement alone isn't enough—and how vendors can truly fuel partner demand and drive long-term success.- Why traditional MDF spending, especially on telemarketing fails- How a "nurture-first" strategy creates higher-quality, sales-ready leads- The power of co-selling: why vendors should stop throwing leads at partners and start closing deals together- Why demand generation should take priority over enablement, and how real-world experience is the best training- How adapting messaging to local markets can make or break your GTM strategyIf you want practical, no-nonsense insights on how vendors can better support partners, this is an episode you don't want to miss!_________________________Learn more about Channext

In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Jennifer Judy, a channel powerhouse with 25+ years of experience leading partner enablement, go-to-market strategy, and channel growth at HP.Here's what we unravel in this episode:- The Four Pillars of Enablement – Jennifer breaks down her proven framework: content, communication, education, and accessibility—and why each plays a critical role in partner success.- Inside-Out Approach to Partner Education – Why training your internal teams first is the key to driving credibility and adoption across the partner ecosystem.- Bringing Dormant Partners Back to Life – The data-driven nurture campaign that revived non-transacting partners and generated $26 million in revenue—and how you can do the same.-  Navigating Mergers & Acquisitions in the Channel – Lessons from the Poly + HP integration: how to blend ecosystems, manage partner transitions, and maintain revenue without disruption.-  The Right Way to Launch New Products Through Partners – The #1 mistake vendors make when launching new products and services in the channel—and how to avoid rollout disasters.Jennifer's insights are practical, data-driven, and battle-tested—this episode is a must-listen for channel leaders, partner marketers, and enablement professionals looking to scale their impact.Connect with Jennifer : https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferjudy/_________________________Learn more about Channext

Ash Sawhney is the Global Director of Professional Services at Zebra Technologies. His experience lies in the successful leadership of large-scale global programs, optimizing customer satisfaction, driving revenue growth, and enhancing operational efficiency. Ash is also a member of the Services Delivery Alliance (SDA), a community of peers in the Professional Services industry. Find out more here. In this episode, host Jonathan Corrie, and Ash discuss the progressive nature of professional services as a function and also not just the delivery but value of SaaS solutions. Some key highlights include:- The power of packaging services delivery- The role and importance of partner enablement- The changing landscape of customer expectations- The role of Professional Services in driving better margin for your business// Follow Precursive on: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/precursiveTwitter: https://twitter.com/precursiveFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/precursiveYoutube: http://ow.ly/RPxH50Chv9k

In this episode of Tech Sales Insights, join us for a fireside chat with Scott Strubel, Vice President of the America's Partner Organization at Darktrace, a leading cybersecurity AI company. Scott shares his firsthand experiences and insights from the first 90 days as a new leader in the cybersecurity landscape. From his childhood jobs shaping his approach to leadership to his impressive career journey spanning HP, Oracle, NetApp, Commvault, Hitachi Vantara, and Darktrace, Scott dives into the importance of building strong partnerships and outlines his strategies for success. Learn about Darktrace's evolution, Scott's go-to-market plans with partners, and his emphasis on fostering a collaborative and accountable culture.KEY TAKEAWAYSThe First 90 Days as a New Leader: Scott delves into the critical initial period of leadership and emphasizes the significance of building relationships with partners, sales organizations, and key team members.Navigating Partner Relationships: Exploring the complexities of the cybersecurity industry, Scott discusses the challenges and strategies for enhancing partner collaborations and sales enablement.Strategies for Growth: Unveiling Darktrace's plans, Scott outlines the six breakthrough goals and the structured approach toward achieving them, focusing on measurable results and partnership expansion.Cultural Accountability: Scott shares insights into the cultural elements he prioritizes, emphasizing the importance of shared values, accountability, and consistency in driving success.QUOTES"What partners want from their technology OEM vendor partners is predictability, consistency, and profitability.""Really good partner sellers sell what's profitable and what's easiest to sell.""We consider ourselves highly accountable to our sales organization and partners, measuring success every 13 weeks.""I have this list of 50 things that we hold ourselves accountable to every 13-week quarter in shaping our culture."Find out more about Scott Strubel through the links below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottstrubelThis episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: Sales Community: https://www.salescommunity.com/Sandler: https://www.sandler.com/

Starting our second year of podcasts with a guest every alternate week.  In this episode, we sit down with special guest Will Yafi, CEO of TIDWIT, to explore the fascinating world of partnerships in the IT industry. From navigating the challenges of content creation to the critical role of AI, we delve into the evolving landscape of partnerships and how businesses are adapting, Will, a serial entrepreneur with a rich history in partnering with major IT giants, shares his expertise and insights. TIDWIT'S ecosystem network is making connectivity and enablement as easy, cost-effective, and as scalable as possible.Discover the key to successful partner enablement, the importance of delivering the right content at the right time and place, and the transformative impact of AI in B2B relationships.Strap in as we navigate through the complexities of engaging partners effectively, eliminating hurdles in the partner journey,  the pivotal role of delivering appropriate content at the right time and place, and the transformative impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in B2B relationships. A podcast episode packed with valuable insights, you can't afford to miss it!_________________________Connect with the podcast hosts

Get ready to elevate your project management game as we sit down with Melody MacKeand, a Principal Consultant for Partner Enablement at Teamwork. With a career spanning from project coordinator to PM program manager and portfolio manager, Melody's journey is studded with insights and invaluable lessons. She spills the beans on her unique career trajectory, influenced by her parents' roles as project managers and fueled by her pursuit of relevant certifications. Listen in as Melody lifts the curtain on the vital skills every PM should hone, unveils the secrets behind her successful transition from agency to corporate roles, and shares the sage advice she'd impart to her younger self.

Join our resident Business Ninja Kelsey and Matt Schalsey, CEO and Co-Founder of The Enablement Squad as they talk about growing and sustaining a Slack community for enablement professional. The Enablement Squad is an online, Slack community, of over 2,000 global members where Enablement Professionals can network, brainstorm, and share best practices and struggles with each other.Learn more about The Enablement Squad here: https://enablementsquad.com/ -----Do you want to be interviewed for your business?  Schedule time with us, and we'll create a podcast like this for your business:  https://www.WriteForMe.io/-----https://www.facebook.com/writeforme.iohttps://www.instagram.com/writeforme.io/https://twitter.com/writeformeiohttps://www.linkedin.com/company/writeforme/ https://www.pinterest.com/andysteuer/Want to be interviewed on our Business Ninjas podcast? Schedule time with us now, and we'll make it happen right away! Check out WriteForMe, more than just a Content Agency! See the Faces Behind The Voices on our YouTube Channel!

Kelly Sarabyn and Asher Mathew are here with us today to discuss key insights from their latest report: The State of Partner-Led Growth Report.This new report promises to shed light on: The power of partner-led growth strategies, Showcasing real-world success stories, Lots of interesting partnerships insights from sales and marketing leaders, And tips to drive business growth through partnerships. To get a better understanding of the implications of the insights they've uncovered, we delve into the specifics behind the results from the report.Link to the report: https://www.hubspot.com/hubfs/The%20State%20of%20Partner%20Led%20Growth%20Report%202023..pdfThis production is brought to you by Magentrix ✨

Successful organizations prioritize partner productivity as a key performance indicator. This requires a strong focus on encompassing crucial activities like training and certification and providing sales and marketing tools. In this podcast, we will explain the significance of partner enablement and explore how state-of-the-art digital infrastructure, specifically a partner relationship management (PRM) SaaS application, plays a pivotal role in driving productivity and growth.

It's not enough to just have partners – understanding them and tailoring the experience to their needs can truly set apart a great partnership from a good one. This episode will cover: Practical Strategies for improving your partner experienceExploring ways to better understand your partners And discussing the potential impact these strategies can have on your overall channel performance.Lindsey Traub brings expertise from: Working on partner programs and operations at Magento – where achievements included: significant strides in enabling partnersWorking at Adobe, as Head of Operations Strategy for Adobe Exchange DX, managing and launching a new ISV partner program that combined the Magento, Marketo, and Adobe partner programs, serving more than 1,000 partners in the process.She also served as the Director of Programs and Partnerships at Cart.com and built the company's partner program from the ground up. This production is brought to you by Magentrix ✨

Want to guide your freshly recruited partners to revenue as quickly as possible? Listen to the third episode of our five-part series – Partner Enablement : Driving Success in Marketing, Sales and Tech.In the episode, Rick van den Bosch and Alex Whitford

 Want to increase your conversion rate from recruit to revenue?Make sure you got a killer onboarding. This week, @Rick van den Bosch and @Alex Whitford are tackling the second part of our five part series about Bridging the Partner Recruit to Revenue Gap (AKA How to get new partners to first revenue as quick as possible?). And this podcast episode is all about the crucial driver for future partner success that is onboarding!A few take aways from their conversation you want to implement:Tailor your onboarding process to the specifics needs of each type of partnerCreate an ideal partner profile and proactively seek out partners who fit that profileBet on automation and a streamlined process to focus on building relationships and closing deals with your partnersStay tuned!  The next three episodes of our series will be about Partner Enablement, Co-marketing, & Co-selling. _________________________Connect with the podcast hosts

In this episode, our host, Tim Ahlenius, is joined by Emily Burton, VP of Partner Enablement at Digital River. They discuss how looking through the lens of the customer can help set up your business for conversions, along with the importance of focusing on personalization in different countries, and altering your marketing to fit the region you're selling to. Understanding cultural nuances is crucial when it comes to ecommerce success as it can help businesses avoid misunderstandings, build trust with customers, and tailor their marketing strategies to resonate with different cultural values. This podcast is brought to you by Americaneagle.com Studios. Follow this podcast wherever you listen to them! Connect with: Lessons for Tomorrow: Website // Twitter // Instagram // Facebook // YouTube Tim Ahlenius: LinkedIn // Twitter Emily Burton: LinkedIn

This week, Karen is joined by Cathy Herbert, EVP of Customer and Partner Enablement at Arria NLG. Integrity is important to Cathy and because of this, she is passionate about building win-win solutions. In this episode, she describes her approach to ensuring the development of useful products that won't get shelved. She highlights the importance of communication and good design, and talks about how to make a great first impression, as well as sharing what makes the difference between building a product that makes customers' lives better, and one that doesn't.  Enjoy!    **********************  Show notes:  **********************  Cathy's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathy-herbert-616846/    She recommends to follow:  Simon Sinek – How great leaders inspire action https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en  Geoffrey Moore - http://geoffreyamoore.com/ 

This week's guest is Will Taylor. Will is currently the Head of Partnerships at PartnerHacker. Will studied Psychology in College, and mindset has been a major focus for him throughout his career. He fell into sales at Rogers Communications prior to working his way through being the first BDR at Bonfire prior to jumping into Partner Enablement at Vidyard. Now, Will preaches the importance of Partnerships, and now works at PartnerHacker, which is the #1 source of clarity, news, and connection in the Partnerships world. In this week's episode, we discussed: Aligning Work With Passions Get Excited With Discomfort Reframing Anxious Into Excitement How No Business Always Knows What To Do Connect With Others At Your Company Making The Jump From Sales To Partnerships Much More! Please enjoy this week's episode with Will Taylor ____________________________________________________________________________ I am now in the early stages of writing my first book! In this book, I will be telling my story of getting into sales and the lessons I have learned so far, and intertwine stories, tips, and advice from the Top Sales Professionals In The World! As a first time author, I want to share these interviews with you all, and take you on this book writing journey with me! Like the show? Subscribe to the email: https://mailchi.mp/a71e58dacffb/welcome-to-the-20-podcast-community I want your feedback! Reach out to 20percentpodcastquestions@gmail.com, or find me on LinkedIn. If you know anyone who would benefit from this show, share it along! If you know of anyone who would be great to interview, please drop me a line! Enjoy the show!

Compra e mídia off: um novo modelo de performance que é tendência nos Estados Unidos. Neste podcast, vamos trazer como que o mercado brasileiro de agências digitais e empresas podem se beneficiar desse modelo de negócio e como incluir no seu deck de serviços ofertados. Anfitriã: Malu Alcântara, Partner Enablement na RD Station Convidado: Ricardo Monteiro, CSO & COO na Tunad @tunad.io

Jennifer interviews Sunnie Weber about her accomplishments professionally as well as family. Sunnie Weber Bio: Director of IoT Ecosystem Partner Strategy and Scale Sunnie has been in the world of IoT for the last 8 + years now having worked in Sales and Partner Enablement, Sales Operations, and Channel Scale Design at Cisco and Intel before focusing on setting up partner programs for our edge partners, the OT SI. Just recently she moved into a broader role in IoT as the Ecosystem Partner Strategy Lead and is excited to be able to take everything she's learned to help build a bridge across the ecosystem, helping our partners cross over from get to go to market with a goal of getting everyone faster time to market and more services opportunities. Connecting our ecosystems through solutions and solution selling is her greatest passion at Intel.

Today, on SSONext, host Jordan Mullins takes a deep dive into the unique nature of the predicted recession and its impact on both talent and accounts payable. Our guest is Emily Nash-Walker, Director of Partner Enablement at Tradeshift. Emily is an expert in enterprise digital transformation and shared services with experience gained at various blue chip organizations where she enables partners to automate, digitize, and grow.  Emily and Jordan dive into: ✅ How the recession will be shaping businesses decisions in the next 12 months ✅ The importance of the way that financial teams respond and the impacts to anticipate ✅ Mistakes that (accounts payable) AP teams could be making right now and what they could be doing better to prepare for the future ✅ What metrics to use as a North star as businesses pursue transformation projects in a recession This episode is brought to you by Tradeshift. They help businesses connect with their suppliers digitally, remove paper and manual processes across procurement and payment, and help businesses buy what they need faster; all while managing risk.  For the full details on that and a lot more,

Larry Walsh talks to monday.com Senior Channel Partner Manager Sarit Chalamish about how vendors can step outside of their comfort zone and embrace creative business solutions to pave the way for unparalleled opportunities for growth and success across all levels of an organization.   As any channel professional knows, building a successful partner program is no simple task. Starting from scratch and finding the right partners to connect with takes a tremendous amount of concentrated relationship-building, typically accomplished through face-to-face meetings and the moments in between wining and dining. Especially for the leaders assigned to getting a new partner program off the ground, securing those first partners is a crucial step, as those early partners can be critical in determining the long-term success of the program.   Combine the inherent nature of developing a new partner program with the unprecedented circumstances brought on by the pandemic and the challenge seems not only difficult but downright impossible. Of course, collaboration, flexibility, and relationship-building took on new meaning with the onset of COVID-19. A firm handshake was replaced with a link to a virtual meeting as the world was forced into a dependency on computer and phone screens.  For those starting something fresh in the midst of the pandemic – whether a new job, a new kind of program, or even the general adjustment to remote work – the question was clear: Could virtual resources be enough to meet the demands of pre-pandemic life?  A channel leader who was quickly forced to answer this question is Sarit Chalamish, senior channel partner manager at monday.com. When she joined the company last spring, she faced a seemingly insurmountable task: to develop the organization's North America channel program as a new member of the monday.com team and amid the onset of a global pandemic. Quick and creative thinking quickly became the foundation for accomplishing this feat as Chalamish navigated unchartered territory.   Chalamish, like other channel leaders, knows the right partners can make or break the launch of a partner program. To ensure the success of monday.com's burgeoning partner program, Chalamish and her team embraced their creative sides, exploring more “out of the box” partner relationships like vertical partners or turning inward and leveraging their own networks. The process was difficult, but the goal was simple: to find partners with the same level of professionalism as monday.com – sharing that same culture of adaptability and creativity – so that clients can enjoy a seamless experience.   In this edition of Channelnomics' Changing Channels, Chalamish joins host Larry Walsh to discuss how adopting a mindset of “thinking outside the box” allowed monday.com to develop a partner program entirely through virtual resources. By embracing this same sense of creativity and flexibility, executives can open the door for exciting new projects and relationships across all levels of the channel.  Follow us, Like us, and Subscribe!  Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/   LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli   Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics      Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production  Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics – the voice of thought leadership – we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.       Episode Resources  Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa  Guest: Sarit Chalamish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarit-chalamish-28177/ 

Our guest today, Kathleen Phillips, has been in channel-related roles for over 20 years. Her portfolio includes leading teams that have generated more than 100 million dollars in new revenue and successfully launched over 35 disruptive products, solutions and services. Today, she is the Head of Global Partnerships and Strategic Alliances at Digital River. Topic summary: The keys to building any relationship where both parties benefit mutually and equally are transparency, commitment and trust. These key concepts should be at the heart of every partner program and every activity in a partner program should lead back to helping flesh out one of these key areas. They are the building blocks for a mutually and equally beneficial partner program, and how you can use them to build yours is the discussion we're going to have in this episode of the Ultimate Channel Sales Podcast. Kathleen discusses how to build a mutually and equally beneficial partner program including: How to show commitment to partners from the start Channel partner training and alignment across the partner organization Shrinking time to revenue and increasing the value of partnerships Partner enablement & incentives Tools for effective partner management Listen to the episode for Kathleen's insights on these topics and more. Read the blog: https://www.magentrix.com/articles/blog/How-to-Build-a-Mutually-Equally-7-4-2022(0:00) Introduction (2:21) Kathleen Phillips' background in channel sales (3:46) How to show commitment to partners from the start? (6:40) Channel partner training and alignment across the partner organization (8:28) Shrinking time to revenue and increasing the value of partnerships (10:17) Partner enablement - make sure your partner is effectively representing you  (13:47) Partner incentives, spiffs & rewards - what's the best approach?  (16:45) MDF & co-op marketing (17:52) Maintaining transparency and trust with partners (19:41) Dedicated partner account managers vs. a team managing partners (21:08) Tools for effective partner management (22:32) What should channel partners do to maintain a mutually beneficial relationship (23:58) The benefits of a partner portal (25:10) What results can you expect from following a symbiotic approach? (26:27) Taking your channel program to the next level (27:49) Conclusion 

What's harder than enabling your own sales team? That's right - enabling multiple sales teams across a complex partner ecosystem. Our guest in this week's episode is an expert in channel sales enablement. She will talk us through the most common challenges she encounters, strategies to scale partner enablement effectively and how to go about launching a new partner enablement program. Please welcome Ring Central's channel sales enablement strategist https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinwholub/ (Devin Holub)! These are some of the questions we're discussing: How do you effectively enable people without having to sit in the office and having those relationships? How do you go about establishing mindshare? How do you build it? How do you manage that balance between sale and personalisation? Are there other areas that you focus on to support your partners? How do you go about assembling those tools and content for enabling partners? If you had a clean slate as a business leader, how would you establish a partner enablement program? Here are some of the resources referenced in this episode. Connect with Devin Holub online: https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinwholub/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/devinwholub/) Connect with Felix Krueger online:https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/hfkrueger/) Sales enablement resources brought to you by FFWD: https://www.goffwd.com/learn (https://www.goffwd.com/learn) Claim your free Sales Enablement assessment valued at $1000: https://www.goffwd.com/podcast (https://www.goffwd.com/podcast) Where to find The State of Sales Enablement: Website (subscriber exclusives can be found here) -http://thestateofsalesenablement.com/ ( http://thestateofsalesenablement.com/) LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-state-of-sales-enablement-podcast/ ( https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-state-of-sales-enablement-podcast/) Apple Podcasts -https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-state-of-sales-enablement/id1558307853 ( https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-state-of-sales-enablement/id1558307853) Spotify -https://open.spotify.com/show/4ceCJYJLuCbTNbRTriOFpe?si=avn_E9EGSNu3gmHfoqJ_6g ( https://open.spotify.com/show/4ceCJYJLuCbTNbRTriOFpe?si=avn_E9EGSNu3gmHfoqJ_6g)

Our guest today, Autum Grimm, is not only an innovator, but also a pioneer, in a division of the channel space that had been left completely unexplored before the birth of her company. Today, she is responsible for revenue, demand generation, operations and business development as CRO at PartnerTap, a leading enterprise Partner Ecosystem Platform that allows companies to automate account mapping, control data shared with each partner, and enable sales teams to cross-sell with partners. Topic summary: Growth of your partnerships can sometimes take a direction that may demand a new set of requirements to keep your partners engaged. Dealing with any unforeseen situations can best be avoided by planning early & carefully, and regularly checking in with partners and tracking efforts. Take care of your partners and your partners will take care of you. This, is how you truly reap long-term benefits for years to come. Autum shares the 3 best kept secrets to creating long-term revenue streams within the channel: Build strong relationships with your channel partners Have a winning channel strategy Track and measure success with your channel partners Listen to the episode for all of Autum's insights on achieving success within the channel. Read the blog: https://www.magentrix.com/articles/blog/3-Best-Kept-Secrets-to-Creating-16-2-2022(0:00) Introduction (2:16) Autum Grimm's background as a channel leader (2:43) What do organizations need to consider if creating long-term revenue through partnerships is their end-goal? (3:04) Secret #1: Build strong relationships with your channel partners (5:29) Secret #2: Have a winning channel strategy (10:46) Building loyalty and engaging channel partners (13:55) Enabling partners to meet their goals (15:54) When to give up on an unsuccessful partnership (18:39) Secret #3: Track and measure success with your channel partners (26:31) Invest in yourself as a channel professional (27:48) Conclusion 

In this episode of The Ultimate Channel Sales Podcast, we bring on Matt Soloman. He has been in channel-related roles for nearly a decade. Currently, he is the Chief Business Development Officer & Co-Founder of a consultancy, The Channel Program. He is also the CEO of Channel Halo and he runs an insightful channel-related newsletter: Navigating the IT Channel. Topic summary: As we know, channel sales is an efficient way to cast a wider net and increase sales – But, did you realize that your channel partner program is also one of the greatest marketing tools you'll ever have? Acting as agents on your behalf, channel partners engage in a variety of activities to promote a vendor, and all this additional marketing for your brand can really help build its authority far beyond what you may be capable of independently. So, what can you do to get the most out of the marketing opportunities from your partnerships and strengthen your brand authority, as much as possible via partners? Matt discusses how channel partners help build a brand's authority including: What to define in the channel marketing strategy Through-partner marketing best practices Joint-marketing activities between partners and vendors that produce the highest ROI Best practices for enabling your channel partners to build your brand authority Listen to the episode to hear Matt cover these topics and more. Read the blog: https://www.magentrix.com/articles/blog/How-Channel-Partners-Help-Build-a-1-2-2022(0:00) Introduction (2:11) Matt Soloman's background in channel sales (4:36) The Channel Program (7:42) Channel partners building a brand's authority: what to define in the channel marketing strategy? (9:19) How to strengthen partner relationships and differentiate yourself from other vendors (13:26) Measuring the success of your efforts: can you use KPIs? (15:21) Through-partner marketing best practices (20:38) Partner-vendor joint-marketing activities for high ROI (24:06) Setting realistic expectations for through-partner marketing (25:25) How to reverse the damage of a partnership that is affecting the ecosystem (27:14) 3 best practices for enabling your channel partners to build your brand authority (31:05) Can the growth rate of a vendor's channel be too fast? (34:39) Conclusion 

Rich Carroll is Director, Partner Enablement at Sitecore.  In this episode, Rich talks about growing up in Chicago, family, photography, sales, and working in technology.  

Our guest, Heather K. Margolis has been in the channel space for over 20 years. She helps channel organizations build smarter channel programs, manage channel relationships to find added value, and engage their communities through social and traditional media. Starting from positions such as Channel Marketing Executive and Director of Marketing and Alliances and later, going on to be founder and chairperson at Channel Maven Consulting and founder and CEO at Spark Your Channel (both now acquired by 360insights), she has carved quite the name for herself in the channel world. Topic summary: At the heart of every channel program are your channel partners. They represent you, they are in direct contact with the customer and carry your reputation for you – which they can either elevate or tarnish, largely depending on the quality of training they get from the vendor they're working with. So why is that so often they are left neglected? Why aren't channel chiefs prioritizing support to channel partners? Why aren't they paying more attention to developing better partner enablement tools, such as optimized training programs to better meet their needs or start even earlier with a comprehensive, dedicated partner onboarding process? Partner engagement is key to your channel success and the best recipe for ongoing engagement is ongoing attention and support from the vendor.  Heather discusses a question all channel chiefs should be asking: are your channel partners getting the attention they need? And what can you do to give them the attention they deserve:  Channel partner training, support and feedback Eliminate barriers – allow for better integration of partners into your channel Be more present, mindful and inspire channel partner engagement Listen to the episode to hear all of Heather's insights on partner engagement and support for channel success.  Read the blog: https://www.magentrix.com/articles/blog/Are-Your-Channel-Partners-Getting-the-18-11-2021 (0:00) Introduction (2:57) Heather K. Margolis' channel sales background (5:13) Channel partners need ongoing attention from vendors (6:45) 1st Consideration: Channel partner training, support and feedback (22:11) 2nd Consideration: Eliminate barriers – allow for better integration of partners into your channel (29:13) 3rd Consideration: Be more present, mindful and inspire channel partner engagement (30:57) Will channel partners leave if you're not paying mind to their needs? (34:08) Channel chiefs need to think differently about their partner programs (35:04) Conclusion 

Meet Christi Williams, a Senior Marketing Manager on the Partner Enablement team at HubSpot. There, she empowers and supports HubSpot Solutions Partners with their go-to-market strategies, sales processes and initiatives, service delivery, and more, especially as it relates to the HubSpot CRM.In this episode, you'll hear how Christi decided to fix a website traffic dip with a "true" inbound strategy. You'll learn how she pitched that initiative to Sales, and then how she executed it step by step, with successful results. Be ready to take notes. Enjoy!Notes:- 02:15 Recognizing the Opportunity for a True Inbound Strategy  - 03:52 Fixing a Traffic Dip After a Brand Refresh  - 04:55 Starting With a Content Gap Analysis  - 06:40 Leveraging Outsourced Help as a True Team Member  - 08:25 Updating All Pages From a Technical SEO Perspective  - 09:40 Creating a Method To Keep Visitors Engaged and On-Site  - 10:00 Writing CTAs Into Content To Continue the Visitor's Journey  - 10:45 Getting More Marketing-Influenced Opportunities Online  - 12:00 Creating Nurture Streams for High-Traffic Website Pages  - 14:20 Results: An SEO Success Story  - 15:30 Seeing Lead Conversion Effects  - 16:20 Advice: Dos and Don'ts When Replicating This Initiative  - 18:10 Lightning Questions 

Oracle NetSuite's Craig West joins Channelnomics' Changing Channels host Larry Wals to discuss the importance of continuous partner enablement.    They say it takes money to make money. One of the ways vendors use money to make money is through the enablement of their partners. This investment leads to the creation and cultivation of partnerships that are – in many cases – more productive. Partners enabled through technology and sales training generate more revenue for their vendors. While training and enablement are universally seen as a channel necessity, connecting the value to the outcome often proves elusive. The vendor community frequently treats training as episodic – only on an annual basis or with new product releases. Also, the training typically focuses on products, not workloads or what customers expect as outcomes. For the most part, training programs treated as onboarding checkbox items do little to speed time to market with new partners. As a result, there's a disconnect between vendor intent, partner engagement, and customer experience. One vendor that's making enablement a core piece of its channel strategy and partner relationships is Oracle NetSuite. Through its SuiteLife program, Oracle NetSuite provides hands-on training and enablement that accelerate partners' ability to take enterprise resource planning applications to market. Craig West, vice president of alliances and channels at Oracle NetSuite, joins Channelnomics' Changing Channels host Larry Walsh to discuss making partner enablement more productive and persistent.   Follow us, Like us, and Subscribe! Channelnomics: https://channelnomics.com/  LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2NC6Vli  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Channelnomics    Changing Channels Is a Channelnomics Production Follow @Channelnomics to stay current on the latest #research, #bestpractices, and #resources. At @Channelnomics – the voice of thought leadership – we define #channel trends, chart new #GTM strategies, and #partner with industry leaders to champion #diversity in the channel.     Episode Resources Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa   Guest Craig West: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-west-17369b3/   Credits  Production: Changing Channels is produced by Modern Podcasting. For virtual content capture and video-first podcasts, check out http://www.modpodstudio.com.  Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa  Voice-Over: Denise Quan      

This is a new type of episode I believe will be appreciated. In it, I spend 30 minutes answering the 8 [loaded] questions I get asked the most around channel partner programs and partner enablement: What are the most attractive partner incentives in order? Do commissions matter? Can a poor product still win partnerships over a superior product? Do agencies or tech companies “Need” a partner manager to succeed in creating a partner program? When do we "need" a PRM? What minimum criteria does a partner need to possess to be ready for partner operations? How can I ensure ROI from co-marketing with partners? How can agencies and SaaS effectively co-sell together? I hope you enjoy this. Please give me feedback: alex@partnerprograms.io or: For tech companies: in the Partner Programs Collective as a post to the news feed. For Agencies: in the Agency-Partners Collective as a post to the news feed. Resources: Sendoso - The leading sending platform. Partnerstack - Partner tracking and payouts. Reveal - A free account mapping solution.

About the Guest Jaspreet is the Head of Sales Strategy for Prisma SD-WAN at Palo Alto Networks. She has 9+ years of successful and transformative track record in Global Go-To-Market Strategies, Partner Enablement, and Communication, and Channel Program Design that fosters optimal customer's success and outcomes.  Connect with Jaspreet Jaffer Episode summary In this episode,... The post Gaps in the training process. Ft. Jaspreet Jaffer appeared first on Sunny Side Up Podcast.

How important is enabling your partners a key to their success, and how is Partner Enablemnent best accomplished? In this interview we ask these questions of Murat Guvenc, currently the Managing Director for Accuras - an IBM Data & AI partner. He leverages this current partner experiences and background as a Business Unit Sales Manager for IBM's Cloud Business Unit to outline the importance of enabling content, tools and storytelling in winning business for partners today. https://www.linkedin.com/in/muratguvenc/ #partnerenablement #salesenablement #storytelling #valueenablement #interactivecontent

Daria Abbaei is the Director of Investor Relations at Naples Technology Ventures, where she is responsible for interacting with all of our current and future LPs. Prior to NTV, Daria held several senior-level positions at SKOUT Cybersecurity including Customer Success Lead, Chief of Staff, and Director of Partner Enablement. In her role as Director of Partner Enablement, Daria was responsible for all client deployments and onboarding functions and oversaw all professional service engagements. While focusing on the direct client and partner experience, she managed relationships and built a high level of trust with top-tier customers where she sustained business growth and profitability by maximizing value. Daria's team was responsible for onboarding direct clients and partners in a seamless, rapid, and efficient manner. In order to do so, Daria believes in a transparent, open communication model where she always makes herself available in order to ensure the client's needs are always met. Daria attended Florida Gulf Coast University where she earned a degree in Psychology and Management. While in school, Daria also worked as an Operations Manager for a spirit company. Music credits: Clouds by MBB | https://soundcloud.com/mbbofficial, Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US IMPORTANT NOTICE: This web series and podcast is intended for informational purposes only. The views expressed are not, and should not be construed as investment advice or recommendations. Recipients of this should do their own due diligence, taking into account their specific financial circumstances, investment objectives, and risk tolerance (which are not considered in this web series and podcast) before investing. None of this information communication is an offer, nor the solicitation of an offer, to buy or sell any of the assets mentioned herein. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/joelpalathinkal/support

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast, I’m Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space, and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Lewis from MuleSoft join us. Lewis, I would love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Lewis Baird: Well, firstly, thank you very much for having me. I’m very excited to share what we’re doing over here at MuleSoft and to share a little bit more about what I do specifically. My name is Lewis Baird, I’m originally from Scotland, now living in Australia, and I’m currently heading up the partner enablement for MuleSoft, which is now part of Salesforce. I’m responsible for our go-to-market strategy, responsible for what industries we’re going to be looking at, and also responsible for spearheading the overhauling of our enablement practice globally as well for MuleSoft. So, no pressure. SS: Well, I am extremely excited to have you join us. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about partner programs because I know that that’s part of your scope. What are some unique challenges of delivering enablement programs to partners, and how have you overcome those challenges in the past? LB: Yeah. One of the biggest issues with partners is that question around the so what. Why should I take time out of my busy day in my busy schedule to learn more about what you’re offering and why your technology is better than others? Sometimes the issue as well is coming from a vendor or you’re trying to sell something, we think that we are the center of the universe and that nothing else matters. We need to overcome that question of, we’re not the only technology out there, we’re not the only thing that someone is focused on, so how can we ensure that the programs that we deliver are really adding value? What I call this is enablement with intent. When we design our programs and we start getting that pushback around “I’m not attending, I don’t see value,” we ask, why don’t you see value? What can we add to your role specifically? What can we bring in terms of knowledge of MuleSoft that really aligns to what you’re trying to do in the context of your everyday, the context of your customer transformation programs, and in the context of what will actually enable you to go further in your career as well? When we start answering those questions, that’s when we start to overcome those problems. But again, there’s particular areas of our partners where you’re never going to win them over. You just have to take the small wins and then start building up from that. SS: That’s fantastic, Lewis. Now, you also mentioned on LinkedIn that one of your responsibilities is driving engagement between your partners and the MuleSoft sales team to really drive revenue opportunities for both parties. How do you see enablement fitting in to bridge the gap between the two and really enhance each other’s efforts? LB: Yeah, absolutely. This is one of the reasons that I took this role at MuleSoft. I used to be on the sales team and thought to myself, what do partners do every day? I’m not getting any value from partners. They come in here and talk about things that just make no sense and they don’t know about our product. What’s going on? And then partners were also sitting going, why am I here? They’re not giving me anything. They have not earned the right to have access to our mutual customer, so I’m not going to attend that, see you later. You know that meme with the four pictures that has what they think they do, what you think they do, what they should do, and what everyone else thinks they do. That’s exactly what happens within partners and our internal teams. They expect each other to be providing information that hasn’t necessarily been providing the context as to why they should be meeting. The amazing thing about enablement is it’s the bridge between the partner and the internal sales team. The awesome thing about enablement, I think it’s the most crucial role actually in any company, because we are neutral. I honestly wouldn’t care whether you chose MuleSoft as a technology or something else, as long as we provided you the best enablement and education around MuleSoft. If it was a fit, fantastic. If it wasn’t, then that’s just how the cookie crumbles. What we do is that we don’t base what we deliver on assumptions. Sometimes what we see within sales teams specifically is that if they hear that our partner is doing something with a customer, they don’t necessarily care about what the partner thinks, they just want to be introduced. That just doesn’t work. What we have to do is create programs that not just enable our partners and the context of what our sales teams are trying to do, but also take that information from our partners, take it back to our sales team, and enable them on what our partners are doing. Do you understand what the point of view is within the industry for the partner to have that mutual accountability and have that mutual success? It’s all about enablement really bringing home the bacon, shall I say, in terms of bringing them information and nibbling on what’s important, and also carrying that through until the end result as well. SS: Absolutely. I think that’s a fantastic perspective. Now, explain to our audience, particularly those that may either do partner or direct, how can the approach to sales enablement differ for partners then for internal sales teams, and when an organization has an internal team and a partner team, how do you balance enablement resources to support both adequately? LB: Yeah, absolutely. What tends to happen, well, I can talk from a MuleSoft perspective as we do have an internal enablement team and then I look after our external enablement. I am not saying that we are perfect in terms of our alignment and our resources, but what I can say is that consistency across enablement if you’re looking at partners and internal, it shouldn’t be different. There should always just be one question in your mind when you’re delivering enablement and it’s, does this bring value to my team? Will his enable them to sell better and sell larger? That’s the same questions that we ask within the partner ecosystem. Do our teams have the specific sales messaging and the same kind of buzzwords and go-to-market strategies internally as they do externally. Do we have consistency across that messaging? What that does is that it brings these teams together because everyone’s getting that same messaging. Effectively, what you need to do if you have an external and an internal enablement team, they shouldn’t be working without knowing what each other are doing. It’s very, very likely, and I’ll speak from a partner perspective, for any internal sales team that is working on a prospect or an account, it’s 99% likely that a partner will be in the account as an advisor, as a technologist, and may well be evaluating your technology. As an external enablement, if we’re not providing that information to our internal teams, that’s not going to work in terms of being successful. I like to call it one team, one dream and killing two birds with one stone. The other nuance to that is we may have people within internal enablement that are taking a lot of things from global and HQ, and there may be a few people on the call thinking, “Oh yeah, a lot of our programs and a lot of our strategy comes from HQ, and we just regurgitate what’s available.” Enablement, whether it’s internal or external, needs to be regionalizing their content. What I mean by that is you can build the foundations of what is coming out of HQ, but that can’t be delivered in the form that you have been presented it in your region because it’s just not going to resonate unless you’re really targeting what the focus is within that region. For example, our HQ is in San Francisco. We get all this information, our internal and external teams will look at it, and there’ll be particular things in there that just won’t work in APAC, for example. We have to ensure that when we’re spreading resources, we’re putting them in the right place. You can have a really high-caliber team, but if they’re focused on the wrong things, then it’s just a waste of time. If people are struggling with, “Oh my God, there’s only two people on our enablement team, how can we get this across hundreds of partners?” Really focus on what the value is and leverage what is going to be a quick win, leverage what is relevant within the region. That’s when you start to see whether you’re a team of 2 or 100, that’s when you actually start seeing value in what you’re delivering. It’s certainly quality over quantity. SS: Absolutely. Now, you touched on this a little bit earlier, how partners will often have very competing priorities and I know that you’ve been very focused on making sure that you’re delivering training paths for partners. How do you ensure that you not only get participation, but also engagement during your training programs? I would love to hear if there are some tips or tricks that you have on gaining mindshare with partners for enablement programs. LB: Absolutely. I’m kind of different in the sense that the way that I am in work is the same as I am out of work, which means that I’m a bit no filter and what you see is what you get. The reason I say that is because within sales or enablement, people buy from people and people get excited by other people. I don’t necessarily go, wow, I really want to learn about MuleSoft today, this is amazing. No one thinks that, but what they do remember is someone that goes damn, he was pretty funny, and people should learn about this technology in a much more exciting way. In terms of getting mindshare from your partners, be your authentic self, have a laugh, have a joke because you’re not there to be selling to a customer account or a prospect. You’re there to go, hey guys, this is awesome, we really want to deliver this for you, we think that we can, and we think that we can do it in this really, really fun way. That’s just one tick at the box. The second tick is not assuming that you have earned the right to deliver enablement or programs. Just because that partner uses your technology or possesses your technology does not mean that you can go to a partner and say, well, we should deliver this because you need it and because you sell our product, and we are going to do this. You really have to ask them, can we come in and deliver something different? What is the value to you? What is the value to your organization? Where we started here was basically calling out, and I think enablement is really, really in a strong position to effectively ask this. If you think to yourself, how many sales teams say this there’s probably not many, but what I say to partners is, “I don’t think that we did a good job last year in terms of our pipeline, in terms of our ACV, in terms of our sourced and it’s my responsibility and enablement to make sure that you’re provided as much value and support as possible. What did we do last year that we should do this year?” Nine out of 10 people will not ask that because the assumption is that since there’s a partnership, there that there shouldn’t be that ask, you should know. It shouldn’t be based on assumptions. Once you ask that question, partners will completely flip and go, wow, we’ve never been asked that, that is amazing. Yeah, let’s do that. Then what that tends to do is start leading down this path of you understanding where the gaps were last year around your partners, around the technology. Why weren’t they possessing your technology? What you actually find is that there are just fundamental knowledge gaps at the very base level. What you do with that is that you start building from the ground up, where you’re casting that net weight, so you get as many people into your sessions as possible. It doesn’t matter who it is, whether it’s the CEO down to the coffee lady, it doesn’t matter. Get as many people as you can into those sessions and start building that traction and the awareness because if people don’t know the basics of a MuleSoft or a Salesforce, how can they possibly identify opportunity and the context of the industry that they’re working in? It’s just not going to happen. Once we call that out, that’s when these programs start running with intent, they start running a value, and that’s when partners go, yeah, this is really delivering on what we are trying to do this year. One of our partners, for example, by using this technique we went from having maybe three or four people attending programs to over 250. What that’s done is that it’s now opened up the global partner to enablement and enablement is reading that, leading that by the front. That’s what I mean by just asking them, what did we do last year that we should do this year? It’s not a stupid question. I get really passionate about it this part because I think what tends to happen is a lot of people within enablement don’t ask those questions because they think “oh, if I ask that question, they’re going to beat me down with a stick because I should know that.” Well, no, you shouldn’t because there are thousands of people in a partner organization and asking that question will really open up doors. SS: I love that question. Now, to call things out as well, or maybe even to highlight, you recently received MuleSoft’s team player award. I’d love for you to talk to our audience about, how does cross-team collaboration help enhance your own partner enablement efforts? LB: You hear this thing called focus on your swim lane. That tends to transcend not just from a sales team, but to all the other teams. Enablement should not just focus on their own swim lane because enablement is that bridge between all functions, all the external and internal partners. What we try to do is if it has not been tried, just try it. This is where we built this cross-collaboration around, well, I could go and do what you tell me to do, but no, I’m not going to do that because I don’t know if that’s the right approach because I haven’t asked specifically. What you’ll find is that enablement tends to come across as a support function, comes across as a way to have other functions maybe not do as much work as they should be doing. Enablement as a function should not be viewed as supportive. It should be viewed as pivotal and delivering success for the business and delivering success for partners. There was one thing that really got me going on this, and it was something from our global team where we had our awards and someone had said in the messaging channel, “it’s so amazing to see enablement right next to channels. Wow, we are valuable.” I thought to myself, why is someone putting that in the channel, that we are valuable as if we’ve never been valuable? It should be ingrained in your mind with enablement that you are probably the most valuable function in any organization. Without enablement, your organization will not function, and it will not function externally either. Once you start thinking to yourself, yeah, I’m going to own this, I’m going to go to every function and understand what their priorities are and how I can bridge these gaps. I’m not going to wait for someone to tell me what the issue is or what the gap is, I’m going to be really proactive and get out there and speak to as many people as possible and design programs where I think I see gaps. We are neutral in enablement. If you’ve got customer success or sales, there’s always a hidden motivation around, I need this because I want that. Whereas enablement is, we’re going to give you this because we think that this will enable you to do a better job. That’s what I started to do last year with our team, which was not wait for someone to tell me where their gaps were but go out. I would definitely say be more proactive than reactive within your organization. Start speaking to people that you haven’t spoken to before and really step outside of your comfort zone. Then you should hopefully see a difference between your internal and your external sales teams and functions as well. SS: I love that, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Sales enablement is such a strategic function for an organization if utilized appropriately, so I absolutely agree. Lewis, in closing, you also mentioned that sales enablement contributes quite heavily to the success of the organization. Now, in order to do that, you have to think about how you’re measuring the impact. How do you go about measuring the impact of your partner enablement efforts? LB: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a brilliant question because it varies across organizations around different metrics and different MBOs. From our end, our enablement was based upon certifications. Successful enablement was when we had to get 300 architects and developers certified on MuleSoft. If we did that, that was considered successful. However, I did not think that that was a suitable metric for success. Sometimes, what tends to happen is for anyone that’s measured on technical aspects of enablement, there’s a difference between practice development and enablement. We know that practice development is, how are you building your ecosystem to deliver on a technology or deliver on a platform? Whereas enablement is that top of the funnel. We’re going to arm you with the best messaging and the best techniques to identify those opportunities to drive that pipeline. When I joined the team last year, I thought to myself, wow, this is not how enablement should be run and I’m not going to run it this way. What I had said was, “I don’t expect you to really care about enablement or care about what we offer. If we can’t help you drive pipeline or ACV or opportunities, there’s no justification for you to do this.” What we’ve done this year is move away from this whole obsession with technical certifications, the whole obsession with project delivery around enablement in its purest sense. What we now measure on is enablement being able to identify opportunities. We are measured on how many opportunities can we influence through our sessions. We obviously get measured on our feedback. It’s very important as well that it’s not just black and white MBOs or KPIs. You have to have good feedback so that you can better improve or edit your next set of programs. Also looking at ACVs, did any of our enablement sessions contribute to the close of a deal? What that does is that it really puts enablement at that forefront of, where are we really adding value? Where do we not? And where can we expand our footprint? SS: Thank you so much for the time today, I appreciate it. To our audience. Thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

When we engage with an organization, they typically seek to help their customers “be more effective with their products and solutions,” says Keth Crotty, a Director of Business Development at EPAM. Crotty's talking about something called “partner enablement”—and in this episode of *Silo Busting* Crotty, he and Jonathan Lupo, our VP of Experience Design, gently unbox the concept. In the course of Lupo's genial cross-examination, Crotty says it's all about asking, and answering, these questions: “What does that user need to know?” and “How do they get to it a very easy, intuitive way?” It's very much about interoperability: “These systems need to be able to talk,” says Crotty. “They need to be able to share data with one another, so that this journey is not disconnected and interrupted.” Crotty also reminds us that a partner's teams may well be siloed (a perfect topic for our podcast): “The team working on training information is not necessarily the same team working on product documentation and that's not necessarily the same team working to support end users.” Click through and learn about the importance of having a unified content strategy, assembling the right professional services team, and more. Host: Kenji Ross Engineer: Kyp Pilalas Producer: Ken Gordon

In this Episode, we speak to Maddy Martin, VP of Marketing (and partnerships) for Smith.ai, and one of her more active agency partners Matt Burke, CEO of Zillametrics. Our goal was to unpack their partnership to determine what makes it so successful for both parties. How to find and enable thought leader agencies to create content with you to attract both users and other agencies. Aligning on target audience overlap, the content and mutual value. Supporting clients who come through those collaborations. Holding each side accountable throughout. And for Maddy - building the repeatable process around this solid example of Partner Enablement. “What resonates the most is when somebody has done the due diligence enough to understand the type of clients we're working with and the type of solutions that are going to benefit us.” - Matt Burke How to attract thought leader agency partners. How to enable them to create help-desk quality case studies for your blog. The strategy for taking the client testimonial > matching that to an agency facilitator > and enabling the agency to showcase it on your blog as well as theirs. How Maddy helped speed up the case study creation by making introductions. How Matt would want to start and progress a new partnership. Maddy’s routine for finding and reaching out to agencies to get a calendar event. Matt’s advice to any tech teams to ensure a successful partnership. Maddy’s survey suggestion to uncover new partnership opportunities. Sections: [00:03:38] - Intros [00:06:16] - Overview of the outcome of their partnership [00:11:04] - Whatenabled Matt to be productive [00:14:20] - Maddy’s SOPs and advice [00:23:30] - How Matt likes to vet partnerships [00:33:24] - How to approach Matt’s agency persona [00:35:29] - Final advice from Maddy Resources: Here’s the article Matt created for Smith.ai Sendoso.com - The leading sending platform. Partnerstack.com - Partner tracking and payouts. Sharework.co - A free account mapping solution.

Right now, Channel Enablement is a top priority for everyone that interacts with partners and/or dealers as their route to market. In fact, Sirius Decisions indicates that 62% of high-performing organizations having some sort of ongoing Partner Enablement in place for multiple partner personas for 2021. So, how do you get ahead of the curve in these particular areas? How do you maximize your time and efforts in optimizing your relationships with your partners and dealers - resulting in better business outcomes? Join us in a candid conversation about these critical topics and more with Taylor Macdonald from Sage Intacct. Hear how Taylor has solved the sales enablement challenge by giving his partners the chance to not only learn the skills they need to drive revenue, but also the opportunity to teach and learn from each other in a community environment.  According to Taylor, nothing is more effective than learning from those that face the same challenges as you do every day.