Best of LinkedIn: Channel Marketing CW 13/ 14

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, thirteen and fourteen.

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.

00:00:19: You can find more info in the description.

00:00:22: So what if i told you that sending your partners like expensive swag and earning a perfect sentiment score is actually the fastest way to get your partnership program completely shut down.

00:00:33: I mean, it's a harsh reality to wake up too for sure but that is exactly what the data is pointing toward right now.

00:00:38: yeah

00:00:39: today our mission is to distill a massive amount of industry noise into actionable intelligence.

00:00:45: we're unpacking the top channel marketing trends We've seen across LinkedIn over last couple weeks.

00:00:49: Right

00:00:49: And specifically were doing this.

00:00:52: You, the B-to-B marketing professionals listening turn your partner ecosystems into well actual scalable revenue engines.

00:00:59: Exactly!

00:00:59: So if you're listening to this right now and you are struggling to prove the ROI of your partner programs... Which

00:01:06: so many are?

00:01:07: Absolutely.

00:01:08: or If you're feeling the massive pressure of AI kind of shifting Your go-to market strategies underneath your feet consider This is your survival guide.

00:01:16: this entire deep diet Is built on real time insights from industry leaders who are in the trenches today.

00:01:22: So let's start right at The Foundation because before we even look at campaigns or technology, We really have to look at how partnerships Are fundamentally structured.

00:01:33: when you read through this source material from these past two weeks It becomes painfully obvious that most programs Well they're built to fail the minute They try to scale.

00:01:42: yeah it's a classic scaling trap.

00:01:44: Kyle E shared A brilliant framework on LinkedIn recently about the three stages of an ecosystem.

00:01:50: He breaks it down into initiation, momentum and control.

00:01:53: Okay so walk us through those.

00:01:54: Initiation is first?

00:01:55: Yeah stage one initiation Is almost entirely founder-led.

00:02:00: Deals get done purely on trust high energy And you know the founders personal reality distortion field

00:02:06: Right just sheer force of will.

00:02:08: Exactly.

00:02:09: then you hit stage two Momentum.

00:02:11: You get up to maybe sixty partners revenue starts following leadership declares this massive victory and they Just double that headcount Which on the surface,

00:02:20: sounds like a total success story.

00:02:22: But that momentum is actually a mirage right?

00:02:25: Because then they hit stage three.

00:02:26: Yeah

00:02:26: Stage Three Is The Control Stage And this where Kyle points out That most programs completely die.

00:02:32: Wow Why's that?

00:02:34: Because moving to control requires process, it requires governance and deep data infrastructure.

00:02:40: But nobody built any of that during the first two stages.

00:02:43: they just relied on relationship.

00:02:44: I see.

00:02:45: so The trust that closed deals early-on doesn't magically transfer to the newly hired partner managers.

00:02:50: Nope!

00:02:51: The founder steps back to focus on other things...the personal connection evaporates And the whole system sort of stalls out.

00:02:57: What's crazy is companies are throwing money at this broken system without fixing the underlying plumbing.

00:03:03: Gail Calvert pointed out that sixty-nine percent of B to B tech companies actually plan to increase their partnership investment moving forward.

00:03:10: Right, but the results just don't match the intention.

00:03:13: Because of that exact infrastructure gap they have no prioritization frameworks.

00:03:17: They have like...no joint messaging That actually converts buyers and most fatally No pipeline cracking that a CFO would ever trust.

00:03:28: Which perfectly leads us To the harsh truth Of partner management.

00:03:31: today Rob Moyer posted something that I think, honestly every partner manager needs to print out and put on their wall.

00:03:37: Oh yeah the swag post?

00:03:39: Yes

00:03:39: he described a partner-manager everyone loves.

00:03:42: you know The one who sends the best swag remembers everybody's birthdays And boasts these perfect net promoters scores from their partners.

00:03:49: They show up to the quarterly business review with like Fifty slides of relationship health green check marks everywhere.

00:03:56: Right partner logo is all over the place and then the chief revenue officer asks the only question that matters Where is the revenue?

00:04:03: And the pipeline is completely empty.

00:04:04: It's

00:04:05: brutal,

00:04:06: it is.

00:04:06: Moyer says you have to stop measuring sentiment relationships or inputs close.

00:04:10: Revenue Is The Output.

00:04:12: You Can Not Just Optimize The Input.

00:04:13: Call It A Day and Think You've Done Your Job

00:04:15: Yeah, and Sikuti Chah echoed that exact sentiment noting that partner programs without a crystal clear link to pipeline just become low impact activity centers.

00:04:26: They look busy but they generate zero commercial value.

00:04:29: Exactly!

00:04:30: Activity does not equal achievement.

00:04:32: Okay, let's unpack this a bit because I want to push back on the industry behavior here.

00:04:36: If everyone functionally knows revenue is the only metric that matters why are leaders still so deeply distracted by badges and swag and sentiment?

00:04:46: It's human nature really!

00:04:47: To me it's like running a marathon but only tracking how many high fives you got along the route instead of your actual pace.

00:04:53: Why do we keep counting the hi-fives?

00:04:55: Because high fights are incredibly easy and pace is painfully hard to improve.

00:04:59: That's

00:05:00: a great point!

00:05:00: It is much easier to control your swag distribution, run bi-weekly sync call than it is orchestrate complex multi stakeholder co-sell motion.

00:05:10: that actually closes the deal.

00:05:12: Yeah...that makes sense.

00:05:13: But this brings us into an interesting somewhat counterintuitive perspective from Pablo Hano regarding how we structure these ecosystems to drive revenue.

00:05:22: Okay What does he suggest?

00:05:24: Well The current trend of industry is to ruthlessly cut the long tail and only focus your energy on the top ten percent of producing partners.

00:05:33: Right, The classic go deep not broad.

00:05:36: advice Cut the dead weight

00:05:38: Exactly.

00:05:39: But Hano argues that treating your ecosystem like an exclusive VIP club Is actually a lazy strategy.

00:05:46: He uses this great ice cream shop analogy.

00:05:48: I love good food analogy.

00:05:50: let's hear it.

00:05:50: If you walk into an Ice Cream Shop And they have three flavors chocolate strawberry vanilla.

00:05:56: You instinctively think, wow this place is really limited but if they have twenty-five flavors you might still just order chocolate!

00:06:01: But you leave happy because of the perception of choice and ecosystem strength.

00:06:06: That's clever.

00:06:06: yeah depth works precisely because breath exists.

00:06:09: that makes a lot of sense...you need the full menu to validate the core offerings..but wait how do you manage those twenty five flavors without bankrupting your enablement resources.

00:06:18: Well,

00:06:18: you need depth for today meaning joint go-to market motions heavy investment and deal inspection for your top BIP partners.

00:06:24: but do you need breath for tomorrow?

00:06:26: So don't cut the long tail!

00:06:28: No...you just stop treating them like the top tier.

00:06:31: You handle a longtail with scalable product lead activation in self service enablement so they can grow at their own pace without eating up your operational bandwidth.

00:06:40: Okay If we agree that revenue is the true north and we actually have infrastructure to handle both VIPs, and self-serve long tail.

00:06:48: We hit our next major roadblock.

00:06:50: Why are partners who actively in this system still failing?

00:06:54: Which takes us directly into a gap between what we give partners And what they need?

00:06:58: It's an

00:07:00: enablement trap.

00:07:01: Tony Poer from eight by eight had phenomenal insight here.

00:07:05: He said Enablement isn't failing because of lack information.

00:07:08: Because too much

00:07:10: Exactly.

00:07:11: Yeah, partners have more portals PDFs and battle cards than they could ever possibly read.

00:07:16: enablement is failing because of a lack of translation.

00:07:18: What does translation mean in the specific context?

00:07:21: It means vendors are handing over static feature walkthrough like here's what our software Does.

00:07:26: yeah but that falls flat because it doesn't translate your product into the partner's specific sales motion.

00:07:32: Ah, I see.

00:07:33: The partner sales rep doesn't care about your features.

00:07:36: they care About how you're product fits into the overarching solution They are pitching to their specific buyer.

00:07:43: If You don't translate Your feature Into Their Sales Narrative?

00:07:45: The PDF Just Sits in a Portal Gathering Dust

00:07:48: Right and Craig Booth From Channel Force Calls This The Long Tail Problem!

00:07:53: You Look at Your Partner Dashboard...You Celebrate That You Have Like A hundred enrolled partners, but you realize only five percent are actually out there hunting for deals.

00:08:01: Yeah massive drop-off.

00:08:03: his solution to this is fascinating though.

00:08:05: He applies the medic sales framework But not to the end customer.

00:08:09: he applies it to the partner sellers themselves.

00:08:12: That is a crucial psychological shift For those listening who might not use it daily.

00:08:17: medic stands for metrics economic buyer decision criteria Decision process identify pain and champion.

00:08:25: It's

00:08:25: basically a standard framework for qualifying enterprise deals.

00:08:29: Exactly, but Booth says stop just using it on the end user.

00:08:33: treat The partner seller as your customer.

00:08:36: so you have to uncover the partners sellers personal ROI

00:08:39: precisely what is their Personal metrics?

00:08:41: or identify pain?

00:08:43: Usually its Their commission check Or You know hitting there quarterly quota right.

00:08:47: if you don't use medic To connect Your product directly to their personal financial win They simply will not sell it, no matter how glossy your enablement PDF is.

00:08:57: Your product isn't the software to them—your product.

00:09:01: And shifting that mindset goes beyond just sales frameworks.

00:09:05: Elisaveta Shalajina talks about winning MindShare in incredibly crowded distributor environments by shipping from a vendor to a knowledge partner.

00:09:12: I really liked her take on this.

00:09:14: Yeah, instead of pushing product updates on weekly call she suggests providing upskilling as the service.

00:09:20: So for example running advanced Google ads training For your partners marketing teams.

00:09:24: She also advocates radical transparency is part like literally sharing the real learning curves of your own internal marketing campaigns.

00:09:32: Which is a bold move!

00:09:33: It is, walking into a partner meeting and saying here's what we tried last quarter Here's What Completely Failed And Here Is What Actually Worked.

00:09:40: Okay...here where it gets really interesting though If We Practice This Radical Transparency And Actively Share Our Campaign Failures With Partners As Elisaveta Suggests Doesn't That Make Us Look A Bit?

00:09:54: I don't know, incompetent...I mean we're the vendor.

00:09:56: We are supposed to be experts with everything figured out.

00:09:58: It's a completely

00:09:59: natural fear But it ignores fundamental psychology of reciprocity.

00:10:04: How so?

00:10:05: When you show vulnerability and say hey!

00:10:07: We lost fifty thousand dollars trying X So when sharing this that doesn't have make same mistake.

00:10:13: You were saving them tangible risk.

00:10:15: You aren't just a vendor pushing product anymore Your mentor protecting their business.

00:10:21: Oh wow

00:10:22: That builds an impenetrable level of trust that no amount a swag could ever buy.

00:10:27: That makes total sense, and you can really contrast that level of Trust with the sheer awkwardness what Vaughn Mordecai pointed out regarding co-branding.

00:10:34: He calls it the same content different logo strategy.

00:10:37: Oh...that

00:10:37: is the worst

00:10:39: It IS!

00:10:39: You have competing partners in the same region sending the exact same generic asset to the EXACT SAME prospect.

00:10:46: The buyer looks at this and thinks Why are three different IT providers sending me identical brochures?

00:10:52: It completely undermines the partners unique value proposition.

00:10:56: Which is exactly why executing partner marketing mechanically, Is so incredibly difficult right now.

00:11:02: Lucy Harvey shared some fascinating first party intent data from S-IIW media on this.

00:11:07: What did they find?

00:11:08: They tracked thousands of intense signals across the web and found that fifty six percent Of channel teams are actively researching how to execute Partner Marketing Mechanics.

00:11:18: Wait really mechanics not strategy

00:11:20: Exactly!

00:11:20: They aren't researching high level strategy.

00:11:22: They are literally googling how to get the mechanics of these campaigns out the door.

00:11:27: Driving actual reseller engagement remains the single biggest hurdle in the

00:11:30: industry.".

00:11:31: And if you're sitting at headquarters, Francesca Bortop points that your HQ strategies often fail because they completely ignore local market retail realities.

00:11:41: HQ

00:11:41: thinks a campaign that works in North America will just magically scale to Europe or Asia, completely ignoring local promotional calendars cultural buying habits and partner priorities.

00:11:51: It creates massive friction.

00:11:53: Yeah.

00:11:54: Shweta Jade actually highlighted this exact misalignment between Partner Marketing & Enablement noting that blurring the lines between what HQ wants to say And What Local Enablements Actually Needs To Do harms The Entire Ecosystem.

00:12:07: So let's Say You Fix All Of That.

00:12:09: You nail the infrastructure, you fix the enablement translation gap.

00:12:13: You align your global marketing with local sales and your partners are fully armed.

00:12:18: Okay best-case scenario!

00:12:19: ...you still have to meet a buyer where they are And right now the buyer is fundamentally shifting how they procure software.

00:12:25: We are moving rapidly away from isolated one-off vendor deals and entering the era of the hyperscaler marketplace.

00:12:32: It's the biggest shift in B to B procurement, In a decade.

00:12:35: Without doubt!

00:12:36: Chip

00:12:36: Rogers referenced a conversation with Google Clouds Rajiv Batra that perfectly encapsulates this ecosystem convergence.

00:12:43: Yeah The best co-sell motions today aren't just vendor plus partner walking into room.

00:12:47: Who else is coming to the room?

00:12:49: They're bringing an entire ecosystem.

00:12:51: So ISVs, which are independent software vendors alongside GSIs global systems integrators all collaborating to solve a specific industry problem.

00:13:00: they are replacing static PowerPoint pitches with live integrated demos showing how three different software platforms work seamlessly together on the cloud.

00:13:09: but their rules of engagement with these hyperscalers like AWS Google Microsoft...they are brutal.

00:13:16: Neha Uggarwal dropped a serious reality check for anyone trying to partner with them.

00:13:21: What

00:13:21: did she say?

00:13:22: She said traditional certifications and partner tiers are essentially dead noise.

00:13:25: now Having a gold badge might get you in the room, but the hyperscaler field teams only care about two things.

00:13:32: Are you creating or closing A.C.E pipeline, which is AWS customer engagements?

00:13:37: They're internal deal tracking and are you driving actual marketplace

00:13:41: transactions?".

00:13:41: Yeah

00:13:41: she added a critical point for the coming year too.

00:13:44: if you don't have an AI driven cost reduction story You were basically invisible to them.

00:13:49: Oh interesting!

00:13:50: You have to walk in and say by integrating our solution this mutual customer automated X process eliminated Y hours of manual work And saved Z dollars.

00:14:03: If you can't articulate that specific mechanism of savings, the hyperscaler reps won't give you time because it's what their enterprise buyers are demanding.

00:14:12: And speed is an absolute name for this game here!

00:14:14: Eric Hensley noted that Gen AI native offers are shortening procurement cycles by two to three times on these marketplaces... which is wild.

00:14:22: how exactly does that happen?

00:14:24: Because it bypasses traditional enterprise friction.

00:14:27: When a buyer purchases through a hyperscaler marketplace, they're often utilizing pre-committed cloud spend.

00:14:33: Ah!

00:14:33: The budget is already approved?

00:14:35: Exactly They don't have to go though massive bespoke legal redlining process or six month security review because the vendor has been vetted by the Marketplace.

00:14:43: The pricing is standardized and the security is validated And the transaction is correctionalist.

00:14:47: That makes total sense.

00:14:49: It's meant to only stress that top operators in our space are pulling far ahead of the pack Because they treat the market place as core business model an operating system, not just a neat feature to capture extra budget.

00:15:01: But we do have to balance this marketplace excitement with some really sobering data from Jay McBain.

00:15:07: He reported that fifty-eight percent of partners are forecasting a double digit profit decline early next year.

00:15:13: Yeah

00:15:13: it's unprecedented margin compression.

00:15:15: Partners are dealing with geopolitical uncertainties supply chain barriers and vendors pushing increasingly complex programs.

00:15:25: McBain warns that vendors must simplify their programs and proactively protect partner margin or they risk totally alienating the channel.

00:15:32: Because modern platforms are increasingly optimized to extract value from partners rather than distribute it, And The Partners Are Feeling the Squeeze.

00:15:40: So as a vendor I have to ask aren't we just trading our old-channel problems for new hyperscaler tax?

00:15:46: You're paying marketplace listing fees.

00:15:48: your margins are compressing you managing complex multi-partner deals.

00:15:52: is the juice actually worth the squeeze?

00:15:54: It is.

00:15:55: If you design your entire operating model around it, look at Roman Kirsanov's breakdown of Sentinelone success!

00:16:03: They recently passed one billion dollars in revenue and they run a truly partner-dependent model.

00:16:09: Really?

00:16:10: Substantially all of

00:16:11: it?!

00:16:11: Yes, substantially ALL OF THEIR sales flow through the channel... In some market segments, partners run the entire sales cycle end-to-end.

00:16:19: They are deeply integrated across cloud marketplaces and AI services essentially doing a deep hyperscaler co-bill not just to casual co-sell.

00:16:27: Okay so they lean all the way in

00:16:29: Exactly So.

00:16:30: yes there're marketplace fees but leaning into that model creates massive operational leverage .They can grow revenue exponentially without significantly growing their own internal headcount.

00:16:40: Okay, so you absolutely need massive operational leverage to survive this margin compression and manage these complex multi-partner marketplace deals.

00:16:47: And you cannot do that manually?

00:16:49: Definitely not!

00:16:50: Managing thousands of ecosystem interactions using spreadsheets is officially dead.

00:16:54: the only way forward Is deep data AI and revops integration which is the final piece for analysis today.

00:17:00: Manual management isn't just dead it's a competitive liability.

00:17:05: Will Taylor points out a massive sophistication gap right now.

00:17:08: think about this.

00:17:10: Marketing has over fifteen thousand different tech vendors supporting its operations.

00:17:15: PartnerTech has maybe four hundred and fifty.

00:17:18: That is a staggering gap in technological maturity, fifteen thousand to four-hundred and fifty.

00:17:23: And as AI begins to ingest go-to market data across the enterprise.

00:17:27: this gap is going to widen exponentially.

00:17:30: Taylor warns that if ecosystem and partner data isn't deeply integrated into your core RevOps infrastructure, Your company's AI models are only going to be trained on volume-based spam from traditional direct sales & marketing.

00:17:42: Right because thats the only data it has access too

00:17:45: Exactly!

00:17:45: The AI will completely ignore high conversion warm partner motions cause its literally cant see them.

00:17:50: Keeping

00:17:50: partnered data out of revops is like trying train a self driving car but refusing let us see actual roads.

00:17:56: You're guaranteeing a crash.

00:17:57: But if you're listening to this and realizing your data is siloed, how do you practically start?

00:18:13: Then you aggressively force your partner data, your co-sell lists and your ecosystem messaging into every single one of those primary workflows.

00:18:21: You have to stop wasting time on siloed partner activities that don't map directly the core revenue metrics inside those centralized systems

00:18:29: Because if you don't... Your job might literally disappear!

00:18:32: Valerie R Arnan posted a highly provocative thought about what she calls The Great

00:18:37: Hollowing.

00:18:38: Yeah That post was intense.

00:18:39: It was, she argues that AI is hollowing out traditional alliance roles If you are listening to this and your primary value as a partner manager Is merely coordinating meetings taking notes And acting as human API between two companies CRM systems.

00:18:54: Well that role is dead.

00:18:55: You're being replaced by what She calls the monetization catalyst.

00:18:59: A Monetization Catalyst doesn't just schedule syncs.

00:19:02: They leverage data To actively design revenue generating motions.

00:19:07: and we are seeing this shift driven by agentic AI being deployed rapidly right now.

00:19:12: And for context, Agentic AI isn't just a chatbot that writes text...

00:19:16: Right?

00:19:16: Exactly!

00:19:17: It's AI that can autonomously take actions across different software systems to achieve a goal.

00:19:23: Patrick Emfertig discussed using this AI to automatically and continuously assess inbound partners against your ideal partner profile.

00:19:31: How does it do that?

00:19:32: It reads their API documentation checks their market presence and scores them.

00:19:37: No more gut feelings or manual vetting, it's a living automated framework

00:19:42: And the hyperscalers themselves are leading the charge on this execution.

00:19:46: Mike Dowling, Julia Chen and Prey Panwar all highlighted AWS's new partner central agents.

00:19:52: Oh those were fascinating!

00:19:53: Yeah these AI agents sit inside the portal and provide real-time sales plays deep customer insights an even automated funding recommendations directly into the partners workflow as they're building a deal.

00:20:04: it is highly personalized strategic guidance at scale for every single opportunity in the pipeline.

00:20:09: But...and This Is The Critical Caveat The AI is only as good at the context you feed it.

00:20:14: Shugada Sanyal noted that for TSDs, which are technology solutions distributors... ...that aggregate vendor offerings for smaller partners.

00:20:22: Right.

00:20:22: AI works with rich contexts.

00:20:25: if you just use an AI model like a standard search engine You get generic useless results.

00:20:31: But TSD's and partners who feed the AI their own proprietary historical deal data Are jumping to ninety five percent accuracy in there.

00:20:38: automated recommendations

00:20:40: Wow Ninety-five percent.

00:20:42: Yeah, it completely shifts their value pitch to the partner from.

00:20:45: I can save you some software costs.

00:20:47: do i Can fundamentally double your sales teams output?

00:20:51: Your proprietary data is your new competitive mode.

00:20:54: It always comes back to the data.

00:20:55: okay We've covered a massive amount of ground today in this deep dive.

00:20:58: we looked at surviving The control stages scaling.

00:21:00: we unpacked how To fix the enablement translation problem using medic.

00:21:04: If

00:21:09: we connect all of these insights into the bigger picture, it raises an important maybe even slightly terrifying question for everyone listening.

00:21:18: Okay let's hear

00:21:19: think about your own ecosystem.

00:21:21: if a genetic AI eventually automates all partner matching based on data and hyperscalar marketplaces seamlessly handle the complex procurement legal integration steps does The traditional concept of B to be marketing dissolve entirely?

00:21:36: oh wow in the near future you might not be marketing to human buyers at all.

00:21:41: Your entire job may just be optimizing your ecosystem data so that a Buyer's AI agent automatically selects the solution over competitors without ever seeing a PDF.

00:21:53: Optimizing for the algorithm.

00:21:55: Marketing to The Machine, that is a wild paradigm shifting thought.

00:21:58: to leave on if you enjoyed this episode and new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:22:02: Also check out our other editions on account-based marketing field marketing AI & BtoB Marking MarTech GoToMarket And Social Selling.

00:22:09: Thanks so much For Joining us On This Deep Dive.

00:22:11: Don't Forget To Hit Subscribe So You Never Miss An Insight.

00:22:13: Keep Optimizing Those Ecosystems.

00:22:15: We Will Catch You On The Next One.