Best of LinkedIn: Channel Marketing CW 19/ 20

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

00:00:09: Frenes is a BDB market research partner helping ICT and tech providers identify niche-channel partners.

00:00:15: by compressing the full journey from identification to qualified first meeting into four or five weeks you can find more info.

00:00:22: Imagine paying like a seventeen thousand dollar fee just for the privilege of selling your own software to your own customer,

00:00:29: right?

00:00:30: Which on paper I mean that sounds like a terrible deal.

00:00:33: Oh it sounds Like a complete margin killer.

00:00:34: but today we are going To show you why that seventeen thousand dollars fee might actually be The smartest strategic investment Your channel team can make this entire year.

00:00:43: yeah

00:00:43: and We're talking directly to You know the B-to-B marketing professional who is Just Trying to figure out how to Actually scale strategic partnerships Right now

00:00:52: Exactly, because the goal for this deep dive is to just cut entirely through the fluff like no vanity metrics.

00:00:59: No theoretical ecosystem jargon right?

00:01:02: We have come through The absolute top channel marketing trends that are surfacing across LinkedIn over the past two weeks And we're extracting the well the ground level mechanics you can actually use to drive revenue.

00:01:16: And look, if we want to talk about driving revenue.

00:01:19: We really have to start by looking at where the actual transactions are happening today because the sheer scale of this shift toward hyperscaler marketplaces is I mean it's staggering.

00:01:30: Latif Hamlani highlighted this massive data point from Omdia recently.

00:01:34: cloud marketplace sales are hurtling towards a hundred and sixty three billion dollars by twenty thirty.

00:01:39: Wow

00:01:40: A hundred and sixty-three billion.

00:01:41: Yeah,

00:01:42: but Latif points out this glaring disconnect which is that nearly seventy five percent of the partner ecosystem Is still sitting on the sidelines.

00:01:48: they're completely missing This wave okay?

00:01:50: I hear That statistic But i have to push back a little On how you know revolutionary this really is.

00:01:55: oh

00:01:55: Really How so?

00:01:56: because when a lot of channel leaders here The word marketplace They just picture a glorified digital software catalog yeah it feels like an app store for the enterprise.

00:02:04: Like You upload your logo you list a few features set at price And Just um pray someone clicks buy.

00:02:10: And if you are selling complex, six-figure enterprise software a digital catalog doesn't sound like a real growth engine.

00:02:17: Yeah, and that specific misconception is exactly why seventy-five percent of partners are being left behind because it's fundamentally not a catalog.

00:02:25: It is the core distribution infrastructure for modern B to B technology.

00:02:29: Okay To put this scale into perspective.

00:02:31: look at the milestone.

00:02:32: Courtney McShane shared She led team service now just crossed one billion dollars in AWS marketplace transactions.

00:02:40: A billion Just through the marketplace.

00:02:42: One billion, and she didn't do it by just listing the software and hoping for clicks.

00:02:46: She executed a very specific operationalized one-one hundred one goal.

00:02:51: Okay let's unpack the mechanics of that.

00:02:53: What does a one hundred gold actually look like in practice?

00:02:56: So the framework is brilliant in its focus.

00:02:58: The first one was making AWS their absolute number-one public cloud priority, right?

00:03:03: So full alignment there.

00:03:05: exactly then.

00:03:06: the hundred was an aggressive push to drive a hundred plus distinct high value transactions through that specific channel.

00:03:13: Okay

00:03:14: And the final ones

00:03:15: the final one was the ultimate revenue target which was one billion dollars.

00:03:20: Wow.

00:03:20: Yeah, and it required relentless alignment between their direct sales teams in the AWS Co-Sale motion just to orchestrate those hundred plus deals.

00:03:29: It was a very active outbound strategy layered on top of marketplace infrastructure.

00:03:34: Well, a billion dollars through the marketplace platform is certainly not like small and medium business credit card swipes.

00:03:40: I mean that's serious enterprise procurement.

00:03:43: It

00:03:43: really is!

00:03:44: And Dominant Garabedean backed it up by pointing out that Salesforce recently crossed five billion dollars on the AWS Marketplace.

00:03:50: Five

00:03:51: billion?

00:03:51: Yeah so take away.

00:03:52: here is marketplaces aren't just for specialized security apps or infrastructure developer tools anymore.

00:03:58: Core line of business software is thriving there.

00:04:00: The buyers are already in building

00:04:02: But... Here's the massive hurdle we hear from channel partners all of time.

00:04:06: The fees.

00:04:07: because they say, you know if we transact our software through a hyperscaler marketplace We get hit with a three point five percent fee on that new business

00:04:15: right?

00:04:16: Three point five per cent

00:04:17: yeah.

00:04:17: And there like we are literally just handing our margin over to the cloud provider for a deal We sourced ourselves.

00:04:23: and I mean If you look at the transaction in a vacuum i totally understand the frustration.

00:04:28: but Shannon Hanley shared a breakdown that completely reframes this math.

00:04:33: How so?

00:04:34: Well, you have to look at it through the lens of the buyer.

00:04:36: So Say An Enterprise Customer has signed an enterprise discount program agreement in EDP with AWS

00:04:43: Okay and EDP Right

00:04:45: And In This Scenario They Commit To Spending Ten Million Dollars On Cloud Infrastructure.

00:04:50: Because they Make That Massive Commitment AWS Gives Them A Fifteen Percent Discount.

00:04:55: So that's one point five million dollars in hard savings for the customer.

00:04:58: Exactly!

00:04:59: The buyer is highly incentivized to hit that ten-million dollar threshold.

00:05:03: just keep their discount

00:05:04: precisely now imagine That same enterprise customer needs to buy a five hundred thousand dollar third party software solution from you.

00:05:11: if they Buy it, the traditional way on your paper It doesn't count toward there ten million dollar cloud commit They might fall short of their quota and lose that entire One point five Million Dollar Discount.

00:05:23: Wow, but if they buy your software through the AWS marketplace aws counts that five hundred thousand dollars toward their cloud commit.

00:05:31: It burns down there quota.

00:05:33: Oh

00:05:33: I see the mechanism now.

00:05:35: it's not a tax It's a toll booth on a massive enterprise highway.

00:05:40: Yes, you pay the seventeen thousand five hundred dollar marketplace fee.

00:05:43: That's the three point five percent toll.

00:05:46: but it bypasses months of procurement traffic and protects A one point five million dollar discount for your customer.

00:05:51: that is The exact leverage points.

00:05:53: Shannon makes it clear that the investment Is absolutely worth the return because You are speeding up procurement?

00:05:59: vendor budgets, and you're aligning yourself with the hyperscaler's own sales reps.

00:06:03: But Chad Kaiser and John Yu both added a critical caveat to this strategy—a marketplace listing does not equal magic inbound

00:06:11: pipeline.".

00:06:15: Yeah, and John Yu specifically warned against this defensive mindset where partners refuse to co-sell with hyperscalers just because they might have like a competing product.

00:06:25: Oh!

00:06:26: Like fearing the overlap?

00:06:27: Exactly The biggest marketplace winners companies like Snowflake & Datadog.

00:06:32: They embrace that competitive overlap...they don't hide their pipeline from AWS or Azure.

00:06:38: ...They lean into the Co-Sell motion Because the distribution leverage is worth the competitive risk.

00:06:43: Which means While the marketplaces provide this incredible digital infrastructure, you still need a human engine to drive the deals.

00:06:54: But if drivers don't know where they are going... nothing moves!

00:06:58: And right now, nowhere is that human engine being overhauled more drastically than in the Microsoft channel.

00:07:03: Oh

00:07:03: absolutely!

00:07:04: Diego Rodriguez shared a hard truth about this... ...that perfectly encapsulates the current reset.

00:07:09: He noted that simply going to market and saying we're a Microsoft partner it means absolutely nothing by itself anymore.

00:07:16: The label has just lost its inherent value.

00:07:18: It's like buying a gym membership and bragging about it.

00:07:21: Having the plastic card on your Keychain or, you know the partner badge on your website doesn't mean You're actually in the gym doing the heavy lifting The badge.

00:07:30: Doesn't give you the results?

00:07:32: The workout does.

00:07:33: that's a great way to put it and Microsoft is actively changing the definition of the work

00:07:38: out.

00:07:38: Okay How so

00:07:39: well?

00:07:39: Jack Watson noted That the entire microsoft channel Is restructuring around what he calls frontier credentials.

00:07:45: wait Frontier credentials.

00:07:47: we hear these buzzwords all time.

00:07:48: What does that Actually look like operationally For a partner trying to get certified today.

00:07:54: It means moving away from general surface-level competency.

00:07:58: Microsoft doesn't need more partners who can do basic office.

00:08:01: three sixty five tenant migrations, right?

00:08:03: That's commoditized.

00:08:04: exactly frontier credentials are deep specialized certifications in emerging technologies.

00:08:09: think highly complex Copilot deployments or advanced security architectures

00:08:14: got it.

00:08:14: Jack points out that the channel is shifting away from generic day-rate consulting and moving toward productized managed services, an outcome based pricing.

00:08:23: And...the financial upside for partners who can execute those specialized plays is staggering!

00:08:28: I mean, Nitin Sharma highlighted Microsoft's Q-three FY-twenty six results showing a thirty seven billion dollar AI run rate.

00:08:35: Yeah The enterprise demand for partners could bring verticalised industry specific solutions rather than just general IT support is off the charts.

00:08:45: It is, but capturing that demand requires operational discipline which is where a lot of programs just fall apart.

00:08:52: George Vidco pointed out very painful reality for channel leaders.

00:08:55: so having partners does not mean you actually have a co-sell motion right.

00:09:00: he sees countless programs with dozens of signed partner logos and packed schedules of quarterly business reviews But absolutely zero registered deals in the pipeline because

00:09:09: they skip the actual workout.

00:09:10: They do the networking the twelve critical co-sell plays across sourcing, qualifying closing and post close.

00:09:18: Exactly!

00:09:19: And let's zoom in on the qualifying and closing stages because Rob Moyer shared a highly actionable detail for fixing this specific bottleneck.

00:09:27: Okay what is it?

00:09:28: He argues that channel teams must mandate a twenty minute pre call brief before bringing any partner into an active deal with account executive.

00:09:37: That makes total sense.

00:09:38: I mean if the AE doesn't prep their partner on the specific outcome they want from that call.

00:09:44: The partner is just gonna default to what their comfortable with, yeah?

00:09:47: They will show up take over the meeting and just pitch there own

00:09:51: product.".

00:09:51: And that completely derails the AE's carefully mapped out discovery process...the buyer gets confused about who was selling.

00:09:59: The AE swears they will never bring a partner into their territory again, trust is broken instantly.

00:10:07: Yeah so the pre-call brief isn't just a polite check in.

00:10:09: it's a strategic alignment session.

00:10:11: yeah you have to define the trigger like why is this partner on this specific call exactly?

00:10:16: are they there to provide industry credibility?

00:10:18: Are they doing technical validation of the architecture?

00:10:21: The AE needs to find exactly what the partners should say and honestly

00:10:28: And once you actually close those deals and start generating channel revenue, there's a huge strategic element to how you handle the rewards.

00:10:36: Raceberry brought up a brilliant rule for dealing with Microsoft incentives and back-end rebates.

00:10:42: He noticed that a lot of partners treat these incentive checks as found money.

00:10:47: Oh, yeah.

00:10:47: They win the funds and The Finance Department just absorbs the cash into the bottom line to boost the quarter's margins.

00:10:54: It just disappears under the corporate ether Exactly

00:10:56: which Reese argues is a massive missed opportunity.

00:10:59: You should never let finance Just absorb those funds.

00:11:03: You need to treat those incentive dollars as a dedicated growth budget.

00:11:07: The strategy is sit down with finance before the money lands, forecast the expected rebate and mandate that it gets reinvested into compounding

00:11:15: activities.".

00:11:16: So you take the payout from a successful marketplace deal?

00:11:19: And immediately deploy it in like market place specific demand generation or advanced seller enablement.

00:11:25: get those frontier credentials we just talked about?

00:11:27: Exactly!

00:11:30: It's all about building sustainable mechanics, but I mean think about the complexity we've just discussed.

00:11:36: You mandate twenty minute pre-call briefs you forecast and reinvest back in rebates...you align on frontier credentials.

00:11:45: it sounds great for a boutique program with a dozen partners But how on earth do you manage that friction when you have a thousand partners globally?

00:11:53: Yeah if the human element is that messy The revenue operations team is going to drown trying to keep track at which means a brilliant co-sell strategy completely falls apart without a rigorous operating system to manage it.

00:12:07: Orlando Nato spoke directly to this failure point.

00:12:10: He said that partner-led go to market motions usually stall out, not because of strategy on the whiteboard is bad or because the market opportunity isn't real.

00:12:18: They stall because nobody built an operating system.

00:12:21: There's no clear ownership of next steps No automated triggers for when a seller should bring a partner in And zero shared visibility and pipeline between two companies.

00:12:31: It's classic case all good intentions and zero execution infrastructure.

00:12:37: Jodi Dalvi and Aisha Kind really hammered this home in their posts.

00:12:40: Yeah, they noted that recruiting partners is just a top-of-funnel numbers game.

00:12:45: You can get fifty impressive logos onto a slide deck fairly easily But activating them getting those fifty partners to consistently create register And progress pipeline That it's a profoundly difficult people game.

00:12:58: and to win that people game at scale without burning out your channel managers you have To be disciplined.

00:13:04: Barrett King laid out a framework for scaling partner output without just endlessly scaling your internal headcount.

00:13:10: Okay,

00:13:10: his core rule is to segment your partners ruthlessly on day one.

00:13:14: How does he break that down operationally?

00:13:16: He argues at the top twenty percent of your partners The ones actually driving revenue should get white glove human-to-human service.

00:13:23: They get the dedicated channel managers and the strategic planning sessions

00:13:26: okay in the rest.

00:13:27: The middle sixty percent, however should be managed entirely through automated systems and scaled programs.

00:13:34: And here is the brilliant part.

00:13:36: he says you need to turn your best partner's pitches into enablement content.

00:13:41: Oh that is smart.

00:13:42: Your top twenty percent already know how handle buyer objections Exactly.

00:13:46: They exactly what trigger events are that make software relevant?

00:13:50: So instead of hoarding knowledge package their successful talk tracks and distribute them to the middle sixty percent through your systems.

00:13:58: Right,

00:13:58: it creates a rising tide but... It raises a very uncomfortable question about the systems we actually use to manage that middle of sixty percent.

00:14:06: You have

00:14:06: a tech stack?

00:14:07: Because companies routinely spend thirty, sixty sometimes one hundred thousand dollars per year on PRM partner relationship management portals yet so often partners absolutely despise using them.

00:14:17: I

00:14:17: mean if you are listening this and looking at your PRM dashboard right now think about user experience.

00:14:23: does it take your partners forty seven clicks just register as single deal?

00:14:26: usually yes.

00:14:28: Do they have to fill out twenty redundant fields just to get a duplicate account error?

00:14:32: Because Atindra Mukherjee issued a stark warning about this exact friction.

00:14:37: He says, your partner experience is your new product

00:14:40: and his data proves the stakes at.

00:14:42: Indra cited that fifty percent of channel firms have dropped a vendor simply due.

00:14:49: If your portal is clunky or you're deal-reg process feels like a DMV application, partners aren't going to fight through it.

00:14:56: They will just take their buyer into competitor who makes the process

00:14:59: frictionless.".

00:15:00: It's crazy that we somehow expect partners to endure terrible UX for the privilege of selling our software and Raul Azak took this frustration step further.

00:15:10: regarding those massive software bills for these portals He predicts PRM pricing models are gonna face severe reckoning.

00:15:18: Right now, vendors pay based on the number of partners granted access to the portal regardless whether those partners ever sell a single license.

00:15:26: Oh yeah!

00:15:26: The per-seat model.

00:15:28: RHEL argues it must shift toward value-based pricing.

00:15:31: Channel tech needs to be tied to actual revenue outcomes.

00:15:35: You should only pay hefty software fees when partnerships actually work.

00:15:38: Pipeline is generated and deals are closed

00:15:41: But you know... How do we actually fix that friction today?

00:15:44: If PRMs are clunky and manual data entry is killing partner activation, what's the

00:15:49: alternative?".

00:15:50: Well this leads us into our final area of insight.

00:15:53: which is the shift toward AI-native partnerships.

00:15:56: Because of the ultimate way to build a highly efficient ecosystem operating system, Raul and Atindra are demanding... ...is through the integration of artificial

00:16:04: intelligence.".

00:16:05: Okay so AI's finally coming for The Channel?

00:16:08: AIs poised completely change how these ecosystems function at the infrastructure level.

00:16:12: Pablo Hanono put together a fascinating list next generation AI native tools built specifically for partnerships.

00:16:19: We're looking platforms like Airstride, PartnerOS & Sharkdom.

00:16:24: These are not just static clunky databases where deals go to die.

00:16:28: They're utilizing AI agents to handle automated deal registration, proactive partner matchmaking based on account overlap and real-time COSEL pipeline management.

00:16:38: Wow it feels like a glimpse into much faster future.

00:16:41: but if these tools so powerful why aren't they everywhere yet?

00:16:46: because we have to be realistic about the present bottlenecks.

00:16:49: Mayank Singbawa provided a very necessary structural critique of where partnership AI is right now, he pointed out that AI in partnerships is largely stuck inside the protective walls of individual

00:17:00: companies."

00:17:01: Wait so you're saying it's hitting a firewall?

00:17:03: Like company A might have an amazing AI agent analyzing their CRM but the second it tries to register a joint deal and Company Bs portal The door's locked because the data architectures refuse to speak the same language.

00:17:15: That

00:17:15: is the exact mechanism holding this back.

00:17:17: Company A's internal AI cannot see what company B knows.

00:17:21: It can not automatically submit a referral or receive an acceptance across the boundary Because Alliance teams and IT departments treat their customer data as sacred Myang argues.

00:17:30: this isn't a vendor trust problem, it is fundamental architecture problems.

00:17:35: So

00:17:35: as an orchestration failure we have the intelligence but refuse to let agents talk with each other?

00:17:40: Precisely!

00:17:41: And until we allow AI agents safely cross company boundaries and act upon shared pipeline data, AI adoption in partnerships will max out at saving a channel manager like for few hours of week drafting follow-up emails.

00:17:54: It won't actually transform how the COSEL engine runs.

00:17:57: But you know, while the software integration side is still fighting over API architectures and data privacy.

00:18:02: The financial side of AI distribution is making massive structural moves that bypass those problems entirely.

00:18:08: Oh

00:18:08: for sure.

00:18:09: Roman Kirstenov shared an update That completely changes the board For how enterprise software reaches the market.

00:18:14: It's a profound shift.

00:18:16: Roman highlighted that the major AI labs aren't just selling their models to individual enterprise companies anymore.

00:18:22: They are bypassing the traditional one-by-one sales motion and partnering directly with massive private equity

00:18:28: firms.".

00:18:28: Yeah, he noted open AI partnered with TPG And Anthropic announced a massive joint venture with Blackstone.

00:18:36: So they're effectively using the private equity firm as hyper scale distribution channel.

00:18:41: Private equity portfolios are becoming the most powerful distribution engine for enterprise AI.

00:18:47: It's wild!

00:18:47: Let's look at how this works mechanically.

00:18:50: A PE firm doesn't just invest money, they have dedicated operating partners.

00:18:55: These operating teams have the authority to mandate and standardize technology playbooks across dozens of portfolio companies simultaneously.

00:19:03: So instead of a software vendor having to convince fifty different CIOs at fifty different mid-market companies To buy their AI tool They just convinced one operating partner Blackstone Right.

00:19:13: And Blackstone mandates The adoption from top down Across the entire Portfolio.

00:19:17: Exactly!

00:19:19: level adoption engines.

00:19:21: If you are a go-to market leader, you have to realize that PE owners

00:19:39: We aren't just talking about a regional IT reseller or boutique consulting firm anymore.

00:19:43: The new channel partner is a global private equity firm deploying models across fifty portfolio companies with the single stroke of a

00:19:51: pen.".

00:19:51: And if you connect all these pieces together, distribution is everything, and the mechanisms of that distribution are being fundamentally rewired.

00:20:02: Whether it's an enterprise buyer using a AWS marketplace transaction to protect or a PE firm standardizing Anthropic across its holdings, the way B-to-B technology reaches the end user looks nothing like it did five years ago.

00:20:18: Which leaves us with a really provocative thought to chew on.

00:20:21: yeah if hyperscalers are starting use their own AI agents to search evaluated procure software On behalf of enterprise buyers and massive PEE portfolios.

00:20:30: our acting is automated.

00:20:31: top down distribution channels.

00:20:33: Are we approaching?

00:20:33: A future where they're traditional human channel manager is bypassed entirely?

00:20:38: It's a

00:20:38: huge question.

00:20:39: Think about it, does your future ecosystem growth depend not on taking a partner out to a steak dinner but solely

00:20:55: When the ecosystem moves from being relationship driven to being entirely data and agent-driven, The skill sets required to manage it have to evolve just as fast.

00:21:10: Definitely something to mull over as you look at your own partner strategy and log into your PRM this week.

00:21:15: If you enjoyed this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks!

00:21:19: Also check out our other editions on account-based marketing, field marketing AI in BDB Marketing, MarTech Go To Market & Social Selling.

00:21:26: Thanks so much for joining us on a deep dive into the channel.

00:21:28: Don't forget to subscribe So never miss an update.

00:21:31: See

00:21:31: ya next time.