Best of LinkedIn: Channel Marketing CW 49/50

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennis, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about channel marketing in calendar weeks, forty nine and fifty.

00:00:09: Frennis is a B to B market research partner, helping enterprises translate market, customer and competitive insights into actual strategies that drive growth and success across their channel and partner ecosystems.

00:00:22: OK, let's dive right in.

00:00:24: If you're still thinking of B to B channel marketing as just some separate team running a referral program on the side, you are seriously behind the curve.

00:00:32: Yeah, that's really the old way of thinking.

00:00:34: What we're seeing is this fundamental strategic shift where partnerships are becoming the core of the ecosystem.

00:00:40: Right.

00:00:40: So our mission today is to really unpack the most urgent trends you need to be thinking about, not for next quarter, but for twenty twenty six and beyond.

00:00:47: Exactly.

00:00:48: And what's so fascinating from the posts in weeks forty nine and fifty is that this urgency is really being driven by economics, not just, you know, some new tech.

00:00:56: Okay.

00:00:57: We've synthesized it all down to three non-negotiable priorities.

00:01:01: First, the marketplace isn't optional anymore.

00:01:04: It's becoming the main revenue operating system.

00:01:07: Second, internal GTM alignment.

00:01:09: That's now your biggest competitive edge, not your external strategy.

00:01:13: And finally, you have to treat partner enablement as a continuous system, not just a one-off onboarding task.

00:01:20: Let's start with that first one, because it's the trend that should probably make every traditional channel manager a little... a little nervous.

00:01:28: Yeah.

00:01:28: Marketplaces.

00:01:29: Absolutely.

00:01:29: Roman Kyrsanov shared some hard data on this.

00:01:32: Sauce Marketplace adoption is just climbing like crazy.

00:01:35: The forecast is for it to hit forty percent in twenty twenty six.

00:01:39: Forty percent.

00:01:40: And is that just the big players?

00:01:42: the tech giants?

00:01:43: No, that's the key takeaway.

00:01:44: The median company in that research was only around twenty three million ARR.

00:01:49: So this shows that marketplaces are a primary lead lever for everyone, not just the hyperscale elite.

00:01:54: But the real reason this is so urgent, and this is the financial punchline, I guess, is the cost of acquisition.

00:02:00: Exactly.

00:02:00: The economics of getting a net new customer are just brutal right now.

00:02:04: Customer acquisition, cost, cash, payback hit thirty seven months in twenty twenty four.

00:02:09: Thirty seven months.

00:02:09: So it takes over three years just to break even on a new.

00:02:11: customer.

00:02:12: So if I'm a partner leader, does that mean my entire budget has to shift immediately to co-sell and marketplace?

00:02:19: Or am I still trying to optimize direct sales?

00:02:22: It means you have to shift the priority.

00:02:24: The focus has to be on these higher intent, pre-qualified routes.

00:02:28: Marketplaces co-sell, they become critical because they leverage existing trust and, importantly, existing budget.

00:02:35: Things

00:02:35: like customer commit.

00:02:36: Exactly.

00:02:37: That's what compresses that payback period so dramatically.

00:02:40: It's an efficiency play, pure and simple.

00:02:42: That brings

00:02:43: us to something Trinal B and the team at Vector AI talked about.

00:02:47: They said, listing your product is just logistics.

00:02:50: That's the easy part.

00:02:51: Right.

00:02:51: The real strategy is integrating that marketplace into your core revenue operating system.

00:02:56: And

00:02:56: they did it.

00:02:57: They used automation to sync their COSEL data and private offers.

00:03:01: And that structural change led to two and a half times growth on AWS and a six times growth on the Microsoft marketplace.

00:03:08: Wow.

00:03:09: So that's automation, turning the marketplace from a static directory into, you know, a dynamic growth engine.

00:03:14: This is so critical because, as Desmond Russell laid it out, the whole distribution model is changing.

00:03:20: Yeah,

00:03:20: that great framework.

00:03:22: Yeah, the new GTM architecture.

00:03:23: AI will dominate discovery, marketplaces govern procurement, and partners deliver the outcome.

00:03:29: And your GTM team's job is to build the bridge between all three of those.

00:03:33: AI search, marketplace purchase, partner execution.

00:03:36: And we saw the hyperscalers reacting to the in real time, didn't we?

00:03:39: Oh,

00:03:39: absolutely.

00:03:40: AWS re-invent had huge news.

00:03:42: Ramiz Taki noted they're now offering seventy-five grand in new MDFs specifically for agentic AI specialization.

00:03:50: So a major incentive to get partners skilled up.

00:03:53: fast.

00:03:53: And it's not just funding.

00:03:55: Matt Yankeeshen highlighted the new AI-powered discovery with Agent Mode.

00:03:59: So AI is now actively helping buyers find the right partner solution.

00:04:04: Plus

00:04:04: that big efficiency win.

00:04:06: I think Tim Hanrahan in Francisco Dalmita mentioned that Partner Central is now integrated directly into the AWS Management Console.

00:04:12: With new APIs to automate cost cell tracking and funding requests, that removes so much friction for partners.

00:04:18: It's huge.

00:04:19: And meanwhile, Microsoft is making equally aggressive moves on Azure.

00:04:23: Definitely.

00:04:24: Krishna V highlighted how the Azure Marketplace is now fully established as a strategic platform.

00:04:30: So solutions are validated and, crucially, purchasable through existing MAC agreements.

00:04:37: Which

00:04:37: means customers can burn their existing cloud commit.

00:04:40: But the really big news, the thing Thomas Ritter introduced, is arguably the biggest channel shift we saw.

00:04:46: Resale-enabled offers or REO.

00:04:49: REO.

00:04:49: Okay, so why is this so game-changing?

00:04:51: because it empowers the channel partner to own the entire sales cycle.

00:04:55: It's a whole

00:04:55: thing.

00:04:56: So you're shifting offer management, inventory, even local invoicing directly to the partners.

00:05:01: All of it.

00:05:01: It addresses the friction of global scale.

00:05:03: It gives partners the autonomy to lead the sale, expand into new regions, and drive business in local currency

00:05:09: faster.

00:05:10: It's the closest we've seen to treating the partner as a true extension of your own sales force.

00:05:14: Exactly.

00:05:15: Not just some affiliated referrer.

00:05:17: So

00:05:17: if the hyperscalers have solved the transaction problem, the logistics of buying.

00:05:22: Yeah.

00:05:22: Destiny Murphy reminds us there's still this persistent deal problem.

00:05:26: Yes.

00:05:27: This is the critical choke point.

00:05:29: You have all these ISVs listed, but they still can't be easily used in a complex cloud deal.

00:05:35: And he says there are four groups with these critical blind spots.

00:05:38: We should probably walk through them.

00:05:39: We should.

00:05:40: First, your customers.

00:05:42: They just don't know how to use their commit or their credits with your solution.

00:05:46: They're asking, is this covered?

00:05:47: How do I apply it?

00:05:49: Then second, the CSP sellers themselves, the people selling the cloud.

00:05:53: They don't have the two sentence pitch for your product.

00:05:56: They need to know when to bring you in.

00:05:57: Right.

00:05:58: And third, your partners.

00:06:00: They can't see the repeatable motion.

00:06:01: How do they add their services to the cloud transaction and make money?

00:06:05: And the fourth group, which might be the most damaging, is your own internal seller.

00:06:09: Absolutely.

00:06:10: If they struggle to explain how a cloud-routed deal works, how the commitment drawdown process functions, your whole cloud strategy just stalls.

00:06:20: It's a systemic failure.

00:06:21: Which brings us right into our second theme.

00:06:24: If the external rails are marketplaces, then we have to talk about the engine that drives it.

00:06:29: Internal alignment.

00:06:30: Yes, and Koonstam said it perfectly.

00:06:32: Partnerships don't fail because of a lack of intent.

00:06:35: They fail because of a lack of structure.

00:06:37: Structure over goodwill.

00:06:38: I like that.

00:06:39: He lays out three phases.

00:06:41: Create, integrate, and scale.

00:06:43: Create is the easy part, getting early proof points.

00:06:46: But integrate.

00:06:48: That's where most companies fall down.

00:06:50: That's the operationalizing workflows part, right?

00:06:52: Connecting all the systems.

00:06:53: And that's usually not a technical problem.

00:06:55: No, it's a political one.

00:06:56: Overwhelmingly.

00:06:57: Jui Saha.

00:06:58: Emphasize this point.

00:07:00: Internal misalignment is the number one killer of partnerships.

00:07:04: Not bad contracts, not a lack of enthusiasm.

00:07:07: A perfect contract is worthless if your sales team isn't on board.

00:07:10: Exactly.

00:07:11: And Chris Levoix cited a survey that backed this up.

00:07:14: Internal politics was the absolute number one barrier that partner managers cited for their lack of success.

00:07:20: So to succeed, you have to de-risk these internal functions.

00:07:23: What are they?

00:07:23: There are four.

00:07:24: Sales needs share incentives.

00:07:26: Customer success needs formalized engagement models.

00:07:29: RevOps has to own automated attribution.

00:07:32: And the C-suite needs to provide explicit sponsorship that's tied to revenue.

00:07:36: That sounds exhausting.

00:07:39: Is the modern partner manager just an internal chief of staff now, constantly managing a line in across four different departments?

00:07:45: In a way, yes.

00:07:46: Dulce Fernandez argued that partnerships are internal alignment first, which then leads to external momentum.

00:07:53: If sales, product marketing, and CS aren't in sync, the partnership is just a logo on a slide.

00:07:58: Just gathering dust.

00:07:59: Yeah.

00:08:00: And Rob Moyer really clarified the partner leader's real job.

00:08:04: It's not just external relationship building, it's mainstreaming partners internally as a core GTM accelerator.

00:08:10: So you're an internal evangelist, removing friction, celebrating wins, and making sure everyone's comp plan reflects partner value.

00:08:17: And

00:08:17: you can't scale that without shared accountability.

00:08:19: Elena Zapp detailed this really well.

00:08:21: Product marketing has to own the ICP workflows for partners.

00:08:24: Finance has to define success metrics like hack by channel before you even recruit anyone.

00:08:29: You need a CFO who actually knows the marginal cack of the marketplace channel versus direct.

00:08:34: Yes, because, as Greg Portnoy noted, most partner leaders are unknowingly managing this chaotic portfolio of ten or fifteen different partner types.

00:08:43: ISVs, SIs, referral, agency.

00:08:46: Right, and they all need customized workflows and incentives.

00:08:50: Uniformity is the enemy here.

00:08:52: Legacy PRM tools that treat every partner the same.

00:08:55: just kill the whole experience.

00:08:57: Which is the perfect segue into our third theme.

00:09:00: The new mandate for enablement and attribution.

00:09:03: Let's start with enablement.

00:09:04: And enablement is absolutely not a one and done function anymore.

00:09:08: Sarah Baumann stressed that seventy percent of partners say continuous enablement is the number one driver of their loyalty.

00:09:15: That's a serious decision stat.

00:09:17: So partners stick with vendors who keep investing in them after the kickoff.

00:09:20: Constantly.

00:09:21: So what does that continuous investment actually look like?

00:09:23: Sean Thompson gave a great blueprint for this.

00:09:26: He said, enablement must deliver three things for enterprise outcomes.

00:09:30: One, enterprise grade messaging.

00:09:32: Two, role-based training for sales, pre-sales, and delivery.

00:09:35: And what's the third?

00:09:36: A clear, repeatable partner motion.

00:09:39: The whole sequence.

00:09:40: Hunt, qualify, co-sell and deliver.

00:09:43: It has to be a playbook.

00:09:44: And Angela Lieberman put a formal structure around this.

00:09:46: Three sases, right?

00:09:47: Yes.

00:09:48: First is awareness.

00:09:50: That's grabbing mind share and answering the what's in it for me question for the partner.

00:09:55: Second is knowledge curated, flexible content.

00:09:58: and third is activation.

00:09:59: Where

00:09:59: you empower those early wins.

00:10:01: Right.

00:10:01: Competency validation and resources to accelerate those first few deals.

00:10:05: But all this great strategic work just completely collapses if it's held together by manual effort.

00:10:11: Amit Sinha said partner managers spend eighty percent of their time syncing data across portals.

00:10:16: Salesforce, AWS Partner Central, you name it.

00:10:19: They're a human API.

00:10:20: That's

00:10:21: the perfect term for it.

00:10:22: And that manual work directly creates a trust deficit.

00:10:25: Nick Thompson noted that's the root of most partner conflict.

00:10:28: Because when trust is low, you start seeing weird stuff.

00:10:31: Yeah.

00:10:32: Like asking partners to share competitive SOWs without clear security protocols.

00:10:37: Or partners breaking co-sell rules in a client meeting.

00:10:40: The automation problem is a trust problem in disguise.

00:10:43: But

00:10:43: I have to ask.

00:10:44: For a mid-market company, isn't being a human API still cheaper in the short term than buying and integrating three different automation platforms?

00:10:52: That's the wrong way to look at the math.

00:10:54: The cost isn't the software license.

00:10:56: The cost is the lost opportunity when your partner manager is too busy copying and pasting data to recruit a strategic partner or close a big deal.

00:11:05: So it's an investment in growth, not a cost center.

00:11:07: Exactly.

00:11:08: It unlocks your team to focus on high leverage activities.

00:11:12: Which brings us to the final... crucial piece of this.

00:11:14: Attribution.

00:11:16: Kyle E explained this so well.

00:11:17: He said overindexing on source revenue just ignores reality.

00:11:22: It actively punishes value-add activity.

00:11:25: When only source deals get credit, all those crucial mid-funnel things, the technical validation, the implementation help that accelerates a deal, it all looks like it's underperforming.

00:11:34: So how do you fix that?

00:11:35: You have to define and track two metrics.

00:11:38: First, partner-sourced, which is the initial opportunity.

00:11:41: The second, and this is key, partner-influenced.

00:11:44: Meaning the partner materially impacted the deal's velocity or its win rate.

00:11:48: even if they didn't bring it in the door.

00:11:49: Precisely.

00:11:50: Jay McBain supports this.

00:11:52: He says, in the modern ecosystem, the crucial factor is the influence partners have with customers, not just the transaction volume.

00:11:59: And when you measure influence, executives see that broader impact.

00:12:04: And that's what drives investment back into the partners who are actually accelerating your sales.

00:12:08: And if you connect all three themes.

00:12:11: the marketplaces, the internal alignment, continuous enablement, it leads to this fundamental evolution that Pablo Hano summarized perfectly.

00:12:18: What's that?

00:12:19: Channel strategy is no longer about managing vendors or channels, it's about orchestrating complex ecosystems.

00:12:25: And the ultimate goal here?

00:12:26: as Tracy Rich noted, is building a hybrid intelligence model.

00:12:30: That's the future.

00:12:31: It's a system where AI-powered tools surface the data, human-led partnerships build the trust and context, and together, they create a faster, more agile way to grow.

00:12:40: That framework AI-powered, human-led, and partnership-driven that feels like the only way forward.

00:12:45: It's where everything is heading.

00:12:47: That's the definitive summary.

00:12:48: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:12:52: Also, check out our other editions on account-based marketing, field marketing, AI, in B to B marketing, MarTech, go-to-market, and social selling.

00:13:00: Thank you for diving deep with us.

00:13:02: Don't forget to subscribe for the next Deep Dive.