Best of LinkedIn: Channel Marketing & Partner Ecosystem CW 29/ 30

00:00:00: Provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant LinkedIn post about channel marketing in partner ecosystem.

00:00:06: In calendar weeks twenty nine and thirty.

00:00:09: Frenness is a B to be market research company that supports enterprise marketing teams in unlocking the full potential of their customer data with the help of AI.

00:00:18: you can find more info in the description

00:00:21: And welcome to The Deep Dive.

00:00:22: so if your building a b-to-b partners strategy right now You know things are well It's getting pretty wild out there.

00:00:29: Oh, completely it feels like the whole ground is shifting under our feet today.

00:00:33: we're unpacking The top channel marketing and partner ecosystem trends that are actively reshaping B to be strategies Like right this second

00:00:42: yeah And we're pulling This directly from the folks living on the front lines sharing their insights On LinkedIn.

00:00:47: no fluff just you know what's actually working in.

00:00:49: What's falling apart

00:00:50: Right.

00:00:50: And what's falling apart is basically the old playbook, like the major hyperscalars Microsoft AWS open AI they are fundamentally changing the rules of how partners get recognized and more importantly How They Get Paid.

00:01:02: Exactly I mean there completely rewiring their co-sell ecosystems for The AI era.

00:01:07: it's a massive pivot There moving away from these Old activity based metrics Basically saying we're only going to heavily reward built AI capabilities.

00:01:16: Which is

00:01:16: huge and Reese Berry shared a really good example of this, Microsoft has apparently quietly retiring PUAR for fiscal year twenty-seven which I mean for anyone not totally in the Microsoft weeds.

00:01:28: PIAR was their sort of older back end system?

00:01:31: For tracking partner influence on deals.

00:01:34: right it was.

00:01:34: um It's been more manual yeah.

00:01:36: And now they're making marketplace The primary mandatory path to get COSEL credit at scale.

00:01:42: Wow, mandatory.

00:01:43: Yeah so think about that.

00:01:44: if your entire operational foundation was built around manually claiming deals in that old system uh That Foundation just vanished.

00:01:51: they want automated transparent digital transactions.

00:01:54: If it doesn't flow through marketplace It basically didn't happen.

00:01:57: That is going to catch so many people off guard, and it's not just the technical plumbing either.

00:02:02: Deidre Jones brought up a foundational shift in how they even talk about this stuff.

00:02:07: Microsoft is replacing the internal term solution plays with conversations across their entire GTM framework

00:02:14: which sounds you know like Typical corporate jargon at first glance.

00:02:18: Yeah,

00:02:18: like just a rebrand.

00:02:19: right but it's actually a total shift in posture.

00:02:22: They want partners to be advisory-first.

00:02:25: so advising client on AI agents before they even touch the technical delivery

00:02:29: Oh absolutely

00:02:30: It's.

00:02:30: uh its honestly like a gold rush where The platforms have stopped paying for pickaxes, you know?

00:02:37: Like they don't want the tools anymore.

00:02:38: They are only paying for the refined finished

00:02:41: gold.".

00:02:41: That is a great way to put it because selling the tech is easy.

00:02:44: now getting the customer to actually use It Is the hard part.

00:02:47: and so Elf Larson pointed out that OpenAI's doing the exact same thing...they just launched their open AI partner network

00:02:53: or OPN.

00:02:54: Oh right with that massive investment.

00:02:56: Yeah!

00:02:56: A hundred fifty million dollar ecosystem investment.

00:03:00: And they're offering these specific paths for partners to build, get enablement and co-sell directly with them.

00:03:06: A hundred fifty million is a lot of money to throw at a partner ecosystem.

00:03:09: but you know just throwing cash around doesn't mean the actual mechanics of the program are good totally.

00:03:14: Evelyn Shia actually analyzed this using The New Blue Thread AI Partner Program Index and she gave OpenAI's program a forty six out of one hundred.

00:03:23: Ouch!

00:03:23: A forty six That's not great.

00:03:26: No, it's really not.

00:03:27: and it wasn't the tech that failed.

00:03:29: obviously It was a complete lack of tiering transparency like they didn't publish exactly what you need to do To hit the next year

00:03:36: right?

00:03:36: And if I'm a partner trying to figure out where to put my engineers i need to know The math

00:03:39: Exactly.

00:03:40: Evelyn actually contrasted this with anthropit.

00:03:43: You know the Claude models.

00:03:44: Anthropic published exact completely transparent thresholds.

00:03:48: And because of that, they reportedly pulled in over forty thousand applicants and just three months.

00:03:53: Forty-thousand?

00:03:54: That's insane!

00:03:55: Right.

00:03:56: Transparency literally drove their entire recruiting velocity

00:03:59: Because partners run on risk and reward... ...And speaking of reward, Stacey Floyd brought up this huge point about AWS.

00:04:07: For the longest time The AWS ecosystem was just about hoarding certifications right.

00:04:12: Oh yeah Just rack up badges on your website

00:04:14: Exactly.

00:04:15: But Stacy says certifications might open doors, but outcomes close the deals.

00:04:20: She noted that AWS partners are seeing like six dollars and forty cents back in ecosystem value.

00:04:26: for every dollar they sell

00:04:28: Six dollars and fourty cents.

00:04:29: That's a serious multiplier

00:04:31: right?

00:04:32: But the partners who were just relying purely on their technical certs instead of real GTM outcomes They're falling behind.

00:04:38: It's all about proving actual revenue now which

00:04:41: ties perfectly into what Troy Macisse was talking about with the capability gap because the hyperscaler incentives are getting crazy.

00:04:48: Cian Harrington pointed out Microsoft announced a hundred and thirty percent increase in co-pilot investments,

00:04:53: right?

00:04:53: The funding is absolutely there

00:04:55: it is.

00:04:55: but Troy says those incentives reward built capability like actual use cases in production.

00:05:01: not just slapping the word AI onto your home page.

00:05:04: yeah that's not going to cut anymore.

00:05:05: so okay if the hyper scalars are demanding this hard revenue and real capabilities That pressure inevitably rolls downhill.

00:05:14: Partner leaders everywhere are suddenly having to prove their own hard

00:05:18: ROI.

00:05:19: Yes, we're basically entering this new era of partner economics and hard attribution.

00:05:26: Soft metrics are dead.

00:05:27: Good riddance,

00:05:28: honestly Right.

00:05:29: Amelia Taylor shared this perfect example.

00:05:31: She said partner programs don't stall out because you have a bad enablement deck or the wrong certifications.

00:05:37: They stall because of attribution.

00:05:39: Oh!

00:05:39: The dreaded pipeline review.

00:05:40: Exactly If internal sales can see that our partner actually influenced the deal on CRM That deal just dies in the pipeline review.

00:05:47: It doesn't matter how much they like their partner.

00:05:49: if math isn't there it's gone.

00:05:51: Yep

00:05:51: And Jared Byrd hit on this exact reality too.

00:05:54: He said, COSEL fails for a really boring reason.

00:05:58: It fails if it doesn't make the partner reps quarter easier.

00:06:01: Honestly

00:06:01: that makes so much sense.

00:06:02: Right You have to fix the incentive at the rep level not just the logo level.

00:06:06: If you do big handshake deal with CEO The front line seller does not care.

00:06:10: They have a quota to hit.

00:06:11: Yeah they have a mortgage.

00:06:13: Hacha's sheriff echoed this perfectly.

00:06:15: For cloud deals.

00:06:16: he says COSELL DOESN'T RUN ON BEING LIKED YOU CAN BUY ALL THE STAKE DINNERS YOU WANT Doesn't matter.

00:06:20: No It runs on two things, retiring a vendor seller's quota and draining the customer's committed cloud spend.

00:06:29: Draining the committed spent is the magic bullet right there?

00:06:32: It

00:06:32: really is.

00:06:33: but wait let me play devil's advocate.

00:06:34: for second sure if we only focus on this immediate transactional quota crushing behavior Don't we risk losing the long-term strategic trust of the ecosystem?

00:06:46: Like how do you balance the short term rep greed with Long Term Partner Alignment.

00:06:51: That is The Million Dollar Question.

00:06:53: Yeah, and Greg Courtney and Craig Patterson basically said You balance it by taking these numbers straight to this CFO.

00:06:59: Oh go over everyone's head.

00:07:00: well yeah because the c-suite they Do not care about.

00:07:02: portal logins right.

00:07:04: They don't care About How Many Enablement Webinars You Ran

00:07:06: Right.

00:07:07: They Tear About the Money.

00:07:08: They care about ROI, they care about CAC to LTV ratios.

00:07:13: The cost-to-acquire customer versus their lifetime value... Yeah!

00:07:17: ...they want measurable.

00:07:18: ARR.

00:07:19: Patterson and Portnoy pointed out that partnerships are actually moving under the CRO now.

00:07:23: Wow yeah.

00:07:24: so they have to prioritize revenue over those software activities

00:07:27: which makes sense.

00:07:28: I mean Steve and Emma made this point that partner pages full of inactive logos they only survive because nobody is actually counting the production.

00:07:35: yep

00:07:35: the vanity metrics.

00:07:37: You have fifty logos on your site, but if forty of them haven't closed a deal in two years Why are they there

00:07:43: exactly?

00:07:44: and hey just a quick reminder for you listening?

00:07:46: If you were navigating this stuff and figuring out these GPM shifts Definitely subscribe to the feed so you don't miss our future deep dives.

00:07:53: The rules are changing fast.

00:07:54: definitely hit Subscribe.

00:07:56: So looking at all this is hard attribution as required now And the economic models or shifting under our feet.

00:08:02: the actual job of partner marketing has to change.

00:08:05: Oh completely.

00:08:06: It's not just an administrative function anymore.

00:08:08: Its becoming a strategic powerhouse.

00:08:10: Yeah, Sahar Koreshi talked about this and Kathie Buoy supported it too saying that partner marketing basically got a promotion to a mini-CMO role.

00:08:19: A mini CMO?

00:08:20: I love that Right!

00:08:21: It spans so much now its Partner Economics, its Enablement the actual sales motion The measurement all at once You aren't handing out flyers in swag any more

00:08:30: And completely shifts how we have look at enablements.

00:08:34: Leila Kupal Patel made this fantastic point.

00:08:37: She said partner enablement has become synonymous with product training,

00:08:41: which is a huge mistake

00:08:42: and massive mistakes because what partners actually need is commercial enablement.

00:08:46: Yes, knowing how to reliably make money selling the product.

00:08:50: I don't need you to show my engineers where the settings menu Is?

00:08:53: iIneed You To Give My Sales Rep The Battle Cards To Defend Your Pricing Against A Competitor.

00:08:58: Exactly If The Partners Rep Is Sitting In Front Of A CFO And They Can'T Prove The ROI of your tool they lose a deal.

00:09:05: and if they Lose Enough Deals They're Going To Stop Pitching Your Product.

00:09:09: Pure Economic Survivor Yeah,

00:09:11: and Glenn Robertson added to this saying that enablement isn't just content delivered once.

00:09:16: It's not just a PDF dump right?

00:09:18: He says its confidence earned continuously through the cycle of listening in communicating

00:09:23: which brings up operation side things.

00:09:26: Pamela Johansson had really stark warning about partner ops.

00:09:31: She said they're breaking down because They were built for a transaction era, not an outcomes Era.

00:09:36: Oh the friction.

00:09:36: The friction she said friction is the silent deal killer.

00:09:40: if your portal requires six clicks just to register lead?

00:09:43: The partner isn't going to call you to complain.

00:09:45: There are just gonna take their business To a competitor whose portal works better.

00:09:49: yep

00:09:50: They just quietly walk away.

00:09:51: Yeah, and you know dealing with that friction is interesting because it also changes who You should actually be partnering with.

00:09:57: oh this is will Schnabel's point right?

00:09:59: Yes Will said It's so natural to want to chase the Goliaths those massive global systems integrators

00:10:06: Because the logos look great on the slide deck

00:10:08: Right.

00:10:09: But he argues that smaller nimble partners are Actually The ones delivering faster integration.

00:10:15: they give you dedicated mind share And you get direct executive alignment.

00:10:18: That makes total sense.

00:10:19: We're basically moving away from being like the cheerleader of a partner program to be in general manager for franchise network.

00:10:27: Okay, I liked that break down.

00:10:28: well cheer leader just hikes everyone up but a General Manager of a Franchise Network has make sure individual franchise owners partners actually have profitable frictionless operating model because if their individual unit economics don't work your whole franchise collapses.

00:10:47: Wow

00:10:47: Yeah, you have to ensure their business actually functions.

00:10:50: It's not just about you

00:10:51: exactly.

00:10:52: so with all this shifting especially with AI changing the value of these partners where do we go from here?

00:10:57: Well

00:10:58: I want to leave you with a final really provocative thought on this.

00:11:01: ETI.

00:11:01: David and John G brought up this incredible insight as AI agents become the primary consumers of software

00:11:08: which is happening fast

00:11:10: very fast he says.

00:11:11: The unit-of-value shifts From logo count To workflow debt work

00:11:15: flow depth.

00:11:16: yeah

00:11:16: Because AI commoditizes the generalist.

00:11:19: Yeah, if you just have broad shallow knowledge about say cloud migration and a agent is going to automate you away.

00:11:27: Oh absolutely

00:11:28: But AI amplifies the specialist.

00:11:30: so the question You really need to ask yourself this Is your partner ecosystem full of generalists who are about to go extinct?

00:11:37: Or is it full as specialists were going super deep into very specific workflows?

00:11:42: That is a scary but totally necessary question to ask right now.

00:11:46: The specialists are the only ones who're going to survive this shift.

00:11:49: Yep, generalists are on their way out!

00:11:51: Well on that note if you enjoyed this episode new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:11:56: also check our other editions field marketing martech ai and btb go-to market abm social selling.

00:12:03: thanks

00:12:03: so much for diving in with us today.

00:12:04: everyone.

00:12:05: yeah

00:12:05: thank you.

00:12:06: remember hit subscribe.

00:12:08: Keep evaluating those partner ecosystems and we'll catch you on the next deep dive.