Best of LinkedIn: Channel Marketing CW 11/ 12

00:00:00: This episode is provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about channel marketing in calendar weeks, eleven and twelve.

00:00:08: Frenness is a B-to-B market research partner helping ICT and tech providers identify niche channel partners by compressing the full journey from identification to qualified first meeting into four or five weeks.

00:00:20: You can find more info in description.

00:00:22: So welcome this deep dive!

00:00:24: Today, we are looking at the top channel marketing trends seen across LinkedIn over.

00:00:39: You

00:00:51: sign an agreement, push out a nice little press release.

00:00:54: Flap a logo on the slide deck and just wait for the leads to roll in...

00:00:57: Which is crazy.

00:00:58: but yeah that was standard

00:01:00: It was Yeah.

00:01:01: But if you look at the trenches right now That strategy's getting shredded.

00:01:05: So no vanity metrics today Just hard revenue Right.

00:01:10: And if you track the discussions, The first massive shift we're seeing is really coming from the top down.

00:01:16: I mean...the hyperscaler ecosystems are essentially being re-architected from scratch.

00:01:20: Meaning what?

00:01:21: Exactly!

00:01:21: Like..The big players are changing the rules.

00:01:23: Totally changing their rules.

00:01:25: It used to be all about badges and certifications You know But those are practically irrelevant.

00:01:31: now The hypers scalers Are moving into a model that strictly rewards customer outcomes and co-sell influence, like Sanjay Dubey had a great post about Google Cloud.

00:01:41: Oh

00:01:41: right the partner advantage thing?

00:01:43: Exactly!

00:01:43: They didn't just update it.

00:01:44: they completely scrapped the old Partner Advantage program to launch this new Google Cloud Partner Network.

00:01:50: The new currency is Outcomes not just you know logging activities.

00:01:54: Let me stop you there because that sounds insane.

00:01:57: if Google was just grabbing a program that partners relied on what happens to those companies who who just spent six months getting all their engineers certified.

00:02:05: Is that just wasted time now?

00:02:06: I mean, it doesn't count for nothing but...

00:02:08: But It's not a golden ticket anymore

00:02:09: Exactly!

00:02:10: Doesn't guarantee you a seat at the table?

00:02:11: Yeah The old system was basically a land grab.

00:02:14: The hyperscalers wanted as many certified people as possible.

00:02:18: Now they look at your actual co-sell influence.

00:02:21: Like did your presence in this deal actually drive Google Cloud consumption?

00:02:26: Right

00:02:26: Its almost like moving from Getting a participation trophy to a strict commission-only structure.

00:02:34: You have to prove your worth.

00:02:35: Yeah, that's the perfect way to put it and Sanjay makes this brilliant point about The opportunity here.

00:02:40: Google just introduced a new diamond tier And because everything is in such flux There's this massive like six month window right now for smaller boutique firms To literally leapfrog the massive legacy system integrators.

00:02:53: Wow

00:02:54: by doing what?

00:02:55: Just being faster.

00:02:56: Speed, yeah.

00:02:57: But mostly extreme specialization.

00:02:59: if a boutique firm has a super sharp vertical focus and leads with packaged AI agent plays they become the obvious choice.

00:03:07: The massive generalist firms just can't pivot fast enough to deliver those specific AI outcomes.

00:03:12: Yeah And it's not just Google doing this.

00:03:15: Alan Bebczyk saw the exact same thing over at Salesforce.

00:03:17: They just compressed a hundred and seventy legacy specializations down into Just twenty eight core competencies.

00:03:25: One

00:03:25: hundred and seventy to twenty-eight.

00:03:27: That is a huge cut

00:03:28: massive Yeah, so if you're a midsize generalist partner listening to this the message is incredibly clear depth over breadth because The app exchange algorithms are going to actively surface boutiques with verified delivery in very specific areas.

00:03:43: Which means?

00:03:43: If you try to be everything to everyone your lead flow's gonna drop to zero.

00:03:47: exactly The algorithm favors a boutique that has, say five incredible revenue cloud migrations over a giant firm that has average scores across twenty different products.

00:03:58: That completely changes the competitive dynamic and it puts a ton of pressure on partnership leaders.

00:04:03: Eric Magizzi actually summed this up perfectly.

00:04:05: he noted that best partnerships right now are deliberately narrowing their focus.

00:04:09: This is more basically

00:04:10: Yeah!

00:04:10: And he issued his brutal challenge.

00:04:12: He said can you defend your top-five alliances with hard revenue impact data in under five minutes?

00:04:18: Five minutes.

00:04:19: I bet most people would panic.

00:04:21: right?

00:04:21: because if you can't Eric says, You don't have a channel?

00:04:23: You just have relationship.

00:04:24: Yeah, you have a friend not a business strategy.

00:04:27: yeah But okay If hard revenue data is the new currency How do you actually execute that?

00:04:33: Because even if you have A highly specialized boutique you still Have to navigate those massive hyperscaler portals.

00:04:41: and based on what we're seeing Most teams severely lack basic operational discipline completely

00:04:48: and look operational Discipline sounds so boring.

00:04:50: It sounds like admin work, right?

00:04:52: But it's the actual plumbing of your pipeline.

00:04:54: Reese Berry did a fantastic breakdown Of The Microsoft Partner Center And he highlighted a huge misconception.

00:05:00: referral thing.

00:05:01: yes

00:05:01: partners think that just sharing A referral in the portal means they are co-selling and absolutely does not.

00:05:06: yeah recently that out so well its Like.

00:05:09: A lot of partners think logging a deal on the portal is like calling the head chef directly to customize your meal.

00:05:14: But in reality, it's like talking to a bouncer outside the restaurant who has like fourteen days to decide.

00:05:20: if you even get to see a menu You have to pass the ops bouncer first.

00:05:24: That is best analogy.

00:05:25: Seriously When you submit that deal.

00:05:27: It doesn't go into Microsoft sales rep.

00:05:29: it lands on the desk of the CO-SEL operation service.

00:05:33: It's just an ops team, not sellers and they have up to fourteen days to review

00:05:37: it.

00:05:37: Fourteen days of sitting there in limbo?

00:05:39: Exactly!

00:05:40: And if your notes are vague or the timeline isn't clear, they just decline it.

00:05:44: It's a filter to protect the actual account executives from getting spammed with garbage leads.

00:05:49: you don't even get The actual sellers contact info until after the ops team accepts that

00:05:53: which is wild because people think They hit submit and the phone going to ring the next day Mm-hmm ,and then they give out at Microsoft when it doesn't

00:06:00: yeah?

00:06:03: Kyle E. pointed out a really similar blind spot with the AWS marketplace, like most ISVs than getting listed is the hardest part?

00:06:10: Oh sure!

00:06:11: The legal and technical reviews are tough

00:06:13: Right but traction is the actual hurdle.

00:06:16: You can't just open a storefront and expect enterprise software to sell itself.

00:06:20: You need a rock solid internal qualification framework for your sellers, And you need a year long communication plan with your partner development manager.

00:06:28: But wait let me play devil's advocate here.

00:06:30: if so many companies are failing at the operational side Failing to fill out portals or get traction on AWS.

00:06:37: Is this just a talent issue our partner managers?

00:06:40: Just dropping the ball?

00:06:42: Or is the whole corporate system kind of rigged against them?

00:06:45: That is the exact tension Rob Moyer brought up.

00:06:47: And he argues it's an organizational failure, not a talent failure.

00:06:52: Companies buy the idea of partnerships right?

00:06:54: They want the logo on this slide but they refuse to integrate them with sales quotas or CRM visibility.

00:06:59: So the partner manager basically just glorified help desk worker chasing deals in his spreadsheet.

00:07:05: Exactly!

00:07:06: A siloed spread sheet that no one else looks at.

00:07:09: Ryan says you have stop performing partnership and start operating.

00:07:12: then Get a quota.

00:07:13: Integrate with HubSpotter Salesforce.

00:07:15: If you don't have that internal plumbing, You can't execute externally

00:07:18: which ties right into what Pete Zara said about AWS success.

00:07:22: His rule is Don't wait for AWS to bring you deals.

00:07:27: Bring the deal first.

00:07:28: Yes Be proactive

00:07:30: Right and when you finally get past that bouncer And talk to the account manager?

00:07:34: Don't pitch your software.

00:07:36: speak their language, talk about the AWS cloud consumption.

00:07:38: that will happen after your software is implemented.

00:07:41: Prime of the pump you know because trust was built before the deal not during it

00:07:44: and You have to do the operational legwork To even earn that trust.

00:07:48: but here's where things get really crazy if human error And siloed CRMs are causing these massive fourteen-day bottlenecks at places like Microsoft.

00:07:56: How do you fix?

00:07:57: It.

00:07:57: The industry's answer right now Is AI.

00:08:00: yeah ai is rapidly becoming the native infrastructure for this stuff.

00:08:04: Elizabeth Robillard and Pete Zarez both discussed this massive news about the new AWS partner central agents.

00:08:11: Yeah, And we need to be clear This isn't just a chatbot that answers FAQs.

00:08:15: No not at all.

00:08:16: AWS is structurally shifting from human-led co-selling To age or affide coselling.

00:08:22: it's built on Amazon.

00:08:23: bedrock agent core actively reads your historical CRM data, matches it against AWS's internal consumption patterns and literally auto-populates your deal registration field.

00:08:34: That

00:08:34: is insane!

00:08:35: It just does the admin for

00:08:36: you?

00:08:36: But it does the Admin...it surfaces pipeline insights that even recommends which specific AWS funding programs your deal qualifies for.

00:08:42: AWS wants you working deals with their AI agent support so you can completely bypass an operational ops desk bottleneck.

00:08:49: And this a massive butt.

00:08:50: Pete Zara has added a really critical caveat.

00:08:53: This AI magic only works if you are already in the game with clean pipeline data.

00:08:57: Oh,

00:08:58: one hundred percent garbage and garbage out

00:08:59: Exactly!

00:09:00: If your CRM is a mess of duplicated accounts & blank opportunity notes The AI will just surface terrible recommendations faster.

00:09:09: You'd have an operational foundation to accelerate.

00:09:11: Yeah, the AI is an accelerant not a savior but we are seeing it used brilliantly on the marketing offside To build that Foundation.

00:09:18: Jasmine Kyle shared this amazing real-world example.

00:09:21: Oh The Amazon Cura one those great.

00:09:22: yeah She had this nightmare scenario.

00:09:25: her team sends millions of emails to AWS partners in over two hundred countries and the manual reporting was just awful Formatting Excel sheets fixing pivot tables answering random slack messages about last month's stats.

00:09:38: A total administrative black hole.

00:09:40: Total Black Hole.

00:09:41: So she used Amazon's AI coding assistant, Kiro to build a self-service campaign digest.

00:09:47: She literally built and shipped it in a single afternoon —a project...she had put off for months because the manual work was so tedious.

00:09:54: See that is real unlock for BDB marketers.

00:09:56: The AI didn't replace Jasmine's strategic judgment right?

00:10:00: It didn't decide what metrics mattered—it just completely removed the barrier to execution

00:10:05: Exactly.

00:10:06: And can Osman Yildirim noted the exact same thing for early adopters of The AWS agents?

00:10:11: Companies like WatchGuard are turning tasks that used to take days into minutes

00:10:16: Just minutes, which gives you a massive competitive advantage.

00:10:20: But uh...that does force A pretty uncomfortable question

00:10:23: What's up

00:10:23: If AI is taking over the data entry Formatting the admin Generating their reporting and even doing the co-sell matching with the hyperscaler.

00:10:33: What does the human partner manager actually do all day?

00:10:36: Well,

00:10:36: their role doesn't disappear it just expands.

00:10:39: They stop being admins and they become orchestrators.

00:10:42: Asher Matthew had this fascinating observation.

00:10:44: he spoke to a bunch of services companies And they also said customers are now actively asking for The Partner Manager To join.

00:10:50: the deal calls

00:10:51: Wait not Just the account executive...they specifically want the Partner Manager.

00:10:55: Yes

00:10:56: Because think about a modern enterprise deal.

00:10:58: It's not just one vendor selling one license anymore.

00:11:01: You have a core cloud platform like AWS, a services partner doing the implementation an ISV providing The software layer and an AI provider for analytics.

00:11:09: right it's incredibly complex

00:11:11: Exactly And the customer is looking at this web of four vendors in saying I don't want for sales people pitching me i want someone orchestrating This entire ecosystem?

00:11:21: I need a general contractor to make sure that all actually works together.

00:11:25: Wow But orchestrating that requires an immense amount of trust because you're managing vendors who all have their own quotas, their own margins or on agendas.

00:11:34: It's so fragile!

00:11:35: It's incredibly fragile and it can blow up in an instant if you aren't careful.

00:11:40: Chad Kaiser shared this cautionary tale That just perfectly illustrates This.

00:11:44: his company was scaling fast And the board decided they wanted a direct sales team In key enterprise markets.

00:11:50: Okay but weren't those markets already covered by their resellers?

00:11:53: Yes They were.

00:11:54: Oh no!

00:11:55: So they're basically competing with their own partners, how do you even communicate that?

00:11:59: Well your supposed to be transparent and set clear rules but leadership decided just quietly build the direct team and figured out later...they thought could double dip.

00:12:07: That never stays quiet in B-to-B sales.

00:12:11: Never The resellers found from a mutual client which is literally worst possible way for partner.

00:12:17: find out your encroaching on territory.

00:12:19: I can't even imagine that phone call, the betrayal they must have felt.

00:12:22: It destroyed four years of trust overnight.

00:12:25: Three of their top five partners froze all new business immediately.

00:12:29: One partner actually told their clients to delay their software renewals.

00:12:32: Their partner NPS dropped from seven point eight two three point one.

00:12:36: in two months They were getting legal letters.

00:12:39: Did they survive that?

00:12:40: Because it sounds like a company ending mistake!

00:13:06: So if we pull all these threads together, the picture for BDB marketing right now is pretty clear.

00:13:12: The ecosystem requires extreme operational transparency.

00:13:16: whether you are dealing with hyperscaler AI agents that need perfectly clean data or human resellers who need clear boundaries and trust... You just can't fake it anymore!

00:13:24: The era of partnership theatrics is totally over.

00:13:27: It's entirely about measurable execution & actually orchestrating customer outcomes.

00:13:32: If you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:13:35: Also check out our other editions on account-based marketing, field marketing AI and B to be marketing.

00:13:40: Martek go to market and social selling

00:13:42: And as you head back to your own partner portals tomorrow I want to leave you with a final thought inspired by Robert Davies.

00:13:49: When you look at your dashboard ask yourself Are you just measuring activity like joint calls in portal logins?

00:13:56: Or are you measuring Joint Market Impact?

00:13:59: because as AI gets better at matching deals and predicting consumption How long until the hyperscaler's AI just bypasses human partner managers entirely and starts negotiating directly with customers' AI procurement agents?

00:14:12: Are you building that kind of deep trust, an algorithm simply can't replicate.

00:14:16: Yeah if your putting on a show then algorithms will replace you but If doing hard operational work You become indispensable.

00:14:22: Thanks for joining us this Deep Dive.

00:14:23: Make sure to hit subscribe.

00:14:25: We'll catch ya in our next one.