01 - How to Select the Right Platform to Manage Your Channel Sales

This production is brought to you by Magentrix. Magentrix is a pioneer in platforms for partner ecosystem management and partner relationship management. This is Partner Relationship Management, the ultimate channel sales podcast. Welcome to another episode of the Ultimate Channel Sales Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Bird. Whether it's a tech stack involving multiple technologies or just a single platform, having tools to manage your channel sales with is part of forming a channel strategy and one not to be overlooked. The right tools can produce significant ROI as they help with streamlining your current channel management structure and operations, saving you a considerable amount of time previously spent on doing these things manually, and ultimately closing more deals. Equipping your channel partners with some of the best technologies out there can really advance them towards achieving the goals you've set for them. There are a number of things to consider when selecting the tools you should use for managing your channel sales. You want to make sure that the tools you select are suitable for the job and provide the performance and functionality you expect. And once you've figured that out, you've got to decide which tools to use to manage your channel sales. No easy feat considering the multitude of options out there. We'll discuss this and more on today's episode. Our guest today has had a successful career driving business growth through partnerships for nearly a decade. From developing strategic partnerships to roles focusing on partner enablement and partner marketing, today he's the VP of Global Alliances and Partnerships at Comforte AG, a data security company. He's a member of Comforte AG, a data security company. He's also the VP of Global Alliances and Partnerships at Comforte AG, a data security company. He's here with us today to discuss how to select the right platform to manage your channel sales. Please welcome Jonathan Devereaux. Welcome to the show, Jonathan. Thank you for taking the time. You got it, Paul. Thanks for having me. So let's talk about your career, some of the highlights as a channel chief so far. What have you seen? Wow. Talk about my career. Okay. It started off as a paper boy and then worked my way up. No. You know, it's been a funny ride. So I'm sure many other people that are. You know, leaders in the channel space maybe have had a similar situation. But at Comforte, we've basically started from scratch. So it's a bit different in that aspect where we've always had partners, and most of those have been tech alliance partners. We've always engaged with channel partners. Most likely, most of those activities occurred on a one-off basis, like, oh, let's close a sales opportunity. And it was only about a couple of years ago that we decided to go full on. And make it strategic, where we have objectives that say, "Let's make channel partnerships part of our revenue objectives." So that happened at Comforte two years ago, right when COVID happened. So it was a kind of a decision where we were scratching our heads, wondering if we were able to meet our objectives for the first year. And sure enough, we were able to do it. So I think in regards to channel in general, I personally have had multiple roles at the companies I've been at. Yeah. And I think it's important to somehow touching the channel. At Comforte, I've been having channel and partnership relationship responsibilities for the past six years. At my previous company, my last role was both in business development and in product management. So I was a global product manager for an IT company. And the objective there is build by our partner, right? So there's always some aspect of partnership and either selling or getting your products out through a channel. So I think other leaders in this space. These probably have that diverse portfolio as well, where probably now many companies that are revenue focused are going to focus on how can we get the most out of our current channels. But they're also looking at what else can we add to the pie of channel management in order to get more revenue. So yeah, it's been a pretty decent ride. Yeah. Great timing. Starting during a global pandemic, that really puts you to the test, that's for sure. So here's a question. Now that you've started from scratch. You've gone from ad hoc to more strategic. Obviously strategy comes into that. A big thing that I love to talk about is tech stack and channel. So what best practices did you employ when considering the type of platform you should implement? Was there a methodology you followed? Was there any kind of research that you did? Where did you go to get the idea of where you'd start your tech stack? Yeah. So that's pretty interesting, the technique that we chose and there's a couple of different routes we went while exploring this. But what I did was, one approach was I looked at external usability. What did I want my channel partners to be able to do? And then I looked to see which solution providers in the channel management space were able to do that easily or represented that they did that component easily. So the main thing with channel, like anybody that's managing channel is partner engagement. You want the partner to access that portal, get virtual training, or get documents or assets that they need, if they're pricing, whatever it is, and then go to their market and produce results. That needed to be a seamless process or it needed to be easily formed by my channels. And we're talking global channels, by the way. So any company from around the world needs to be able to access that. So external usability was one consideration. Another one was integration. Not only was at Comforti, were we looking at moving from the spreadsheet management style or the ragtag management style of channel management, but to look at a tool set, if you will, or a platform to consolidate that effort. But other departments within Comforti were also looking at tool stacks. So we had to make sure what we were doing with our channel platform was compatible. The integration capabilities of our channel management solution had to be compatible with other departments that were going on. We had our marketing and I've come from companies that have used things from Marketo and HubSpot. Whatever companies choose, there needs to be some sort of integration or potential integration with that. We also have a business development or SDR group, and they're looking at additional sales tools that reach their market and goals that they have. So integration was another big key aspect that the channel management solution that we selected needed to be compatible. We also wanted to consider and have excellent capabilities for integration. And I'll tell you this, during the search for a solution, I put on their X factor. I was like, "Hmm, what else?" On the tin, right? You read what things do, they all sound the same. So I wanted the channel solution to identify some different things that they brought, that they added value that I thought would be compatible with our channel management business as an X factor. Like, "Hmm, I'd love to be able to do that." And I included that. And then my selection as well. So I think those are the things. Always look at external usability, who's going to be using it. And if it's easy for your partner network integration, for the reasons I stated, even internal integration with the other departments are doing, and then any X factor capabilities that the platform can bring, I think are super important. What was the tipping point? You've gone from ad hoc now to structured. You've kind of laid out what you're going to look for, the integration points. But what was that tipping point? Talk about spreadsheets. And I think everyone that has ever been in a channel management role, they've all had to use spreadsheets at one point in time. But was there a point where you said, "We really need a tool to manage this," as opposed to being able to do it manually? I think it was, you know, look, you're right exactly on the spreadsheets, and there's probably still people using spreadsheets and Google Docs to do some aspect of their business management. I think it wasn't even, "Oh, I can take what's in the spreadsheet and move it to a channel platform." It wasn't even that. I think for us, it was really the feel, and I don't know how to describe it anywhere beyond that. Did it feel like me or my team would have to do a lot of administration in order to get this channel management platform up and running and to manage it every day? You know, if you look back at all the technology we're accessing today, just think about even the video platforms many of us use today, six or seven different ones, right? So we didn't want to spend a lot of time. We didn't want to spend a lot of time in a channel management solution where we'd have to configure, and I'd have to scan through things and figure out how to do it. It needed to be presented simply where we can achieve what we wanted to or find what we wanted to do in a knowledge maze. And to be honest with you, a lot of that was based on feel, which I highly recommend doing some sort of test drive where you can point and click, and you can, you know, view how things are ergonomically set up in a dashboard or where things are available. So that was a major. Like tipping point for us, because like I said, there's a lot of quality products out there. There's great vendors out there that are doing a lot of really good things. So it was a tough choice, but I think at the end of the day, it was look and feel was compatible for us, giving us a good notion that we didn't have to spend a lot of time in the solution. Now you mentioned that, you know, you're running a global channel, right? Do you think that there is a certain size of organization that you need to be in order to adopt these tools? Do you think that there is a certain focus from a market perspective, or do you really their program should start looking into tools to help manage their channel? I mean, you know, I can answer it in a couple of ways. What are other companies doing? The large partners that we engage with, the large resellers, I mean, I know some of the large resellers that, you know, their last annual reported revenues over $1.5 billion, they actually have departments that all they do is deal registration, right? So through some sort of platform or portal, and they manage that between the hundreds of vendors they have. So a lot of these large organizations, many of them have this. So what about the smaller organizations? I actually think it benefits the smaller organizations as well. And that's where we fit in. Our goal isn't to have hundreds or even thousands. And, you know, there's some organizations that have tens of thousands of partners. Our goal isn't to have that. We want to have dozens and dozens of partners based on our I think we're ideal for a platform because we want to scale. And we also want to look big, like the big partners that we interface with. We want, we need to look official to our partners who are, you know, going to represent us in the field. So I do think it works for a range of companies in size, whether it's somebody like us, we've got over a hundred, you know, 130 employees or companies that have, you know, 10,000 employees. You better have some sort of channel solution. You better have some sort of solution. But, you know, it works for all company sizes, in my opinion. I actually use the example that when it comes to technology and things like, you know, having a good technology stack, you know, imagine if you went to a bank and, you know, opened up an account, you ask, well, okay, what's your online banking address? They're like, oh, we don't have one. Well, what about telephone banking? It's like, no, we don't have one. Would you even consider them to be a real bank? And the answer is probably no, right? So, you know, that's one of the challenges. What about the challenges that kind of top challenges that the, you know, partner management system has been able to solve? Are there any kind of, you know, top one or two that you can see where the pain has been alleviated by having a good platform in place? I think one that stands out is a channel management platform that has an LMS, a learning management system built in. You know, what are the top two, one, two or three things that partners ask for that? Channel partners ask for it. It's training, right? They want training of some sort. So for us, when we're scaling that business up, what didn't scale was people. I didn't have enough people to train the number of partners I was bringing on board. And with a global company, imagine, I mean, I literally had this problem with doing a training session in India, which is 12 and a half hour time difference from California where I am. So imagine you're screwed, right? The timing doesn't work for anybody. And then asking that same training person to do that same training for a partner in Germany. So my people didn't scale, but being able to record them, put, you know, most of their training in a virtual setting, letting the partners come in and consume it when they're ready, when they want to during their timeframe, and then just handle the questions and partner managers really, really fixed a lot of the scalability issues. And then it made my training plug in capable. Oh, that's old. Or we've added, you know, something new. We can re record that video, insert it right back into the course. The learning management system was, was a top deliverable in my opinion, that helped reduce some of the problems that we had in, in our channel. I would say just visibility, overall visibility, to opportunities. Yeah. I don't know. I, I kind of suspect many other sales organizations or organizations with channel sales has a problem with, you know, the quality of data that the different salespeople would enter into a system. So, you know, I was able to ensure that our regional channel teams, when they work with the sales teams, were able to ensure that data put into the system, you know, had quality data in it. And I think that was also another point, right? It's, it's, it's hard for people that are in a revenue position to forecast what they may or may not sell. Many of them don't want to do it, right? Because, you know, sales leaders will pin them to it. But having a solution that provided that consistent look and feel that our management can go to and rely on, I think also helped reduce that stress a little bit with the sales aspect of, of channel management. So you're talking about kind of the reduced headcount, so you're saving some costs, but also having the good accurate data helps you to forecast better and ideally make you some more revenue. One of the challenges that I think a lot of people struggle with is engagement. So keeping partners engaged. So any recommendations that, that you could share to talk about, you know, using these channel management platforms and how that relates to partner engagement? Yeah, I think that's a tough one. I think, like I said, initially it's, it's consuming, you know, the learning aspect, the training of what we as a, as a vendor have to offer. And as we, as we go on, as we, you know, come up with new interfaces, we came up with a new interface last month. We were able to quickly move that video and the supporting resources for it into a course like that, and then put it up for, for our partners, which I think was really, really important. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's really special. So that's really key. You know, I am early in, in the expansion of, of this channel program that I've got. So I haven't been able to fully utilize a lot of the other capabilities that many channel management solutions have. They do event management really well, and I'm fortunate that I'm able to, to work with our marketing team that does that. They do it manually today. There are some tools that, that are helping them in that regard. So there's a level of automation that's happening there, but I am looking forward to being able to do a level of event management and tracking from within the same tool, right. Without having to use a separate tool to do that. And then there's also you know, we, we talk about, I think the term is gamification, right. The rewards and redemption aspect of, of that. So I, I want to be able to challenge, you know, my teams, but then also challenge my external partners, you know, to, to meet goals. And I think I know there's some sales organizations that, that are, that are really, really, really, really, really, really good at that, that we partner with that do that for themselves. And, and those programs have been received really well with those organizations. So I think we want to do that as well. And I just haven't had a change. So I think these are, these are some things that will, will help keep partners engaged, help us stick out from other partners, because we, you know, we try to put ourselves in our partner's shoes. We're not the only vendor they're signing onto. So, you know, they've got other channel management systems that they're also signing onto, um, with other, with other vendors. So we've got to stick out a little bit more. And I don't always want to give points away to do that. Right. Uh, you know, you can get more of a discount. We received less, less revenue and we've got to hedge all that. So I think it is valuable to look to see what else we can do from an engagement point of view, even as simple as like certifications, you know, there there's, you know, some benefit of having a really nice learning path for, uh, for partners. And at the end, they get a quality certificate, that, you know, many of them promote and say, look, you know, look, here's what I got. You see it on LinkedIn, right? Here's something I received. Um, so we're, we're going to follow, you know, the, the Amazons of the world, the AWS is that, you know, everybody's looking to achieve those certifications. So that's something we're going to do. And then, um, one more thing is asset availability is, um, having a library of documents, I think has been, you know, that's, that's like a top two or top three requests that we get as well as like, Hey, I want to get all of the documents that you have. Okay. That's easy. Put them up in folders now. Hey, I want to merge, you know, I want to put our logo on it and, you know, do some joint marketing of that. So it looks like it's coming from, you know, from one company. And I think that has, um, a lot of potential to keep partners engaged with our solutions because it's co-branded, right? So, um, I think that's also another, uh, another key factor is it helps reduce the need for them to do additional work outside, you know, put their own stamp and their own logo on it. It's all done from it. It's already delivered. I mean, that's, that's invaluable. So I think those are some of the things that I see would, um, that help expand, you know, engagement and keep, keep, um, our partners engaged. I think of, you know, when I was managing channel, um, you know, almost a decade ago, I guarantee you every single channel manager had different sales and marketing collateral, you know, nothing was consistent. There wasn't a single repository unless you went to marketing and asked them for the latest and greatest. So having that in one place, but then you talk about certifications. I used to list all of my VMware sales and technical certifications on my LinkedIn profile, you know, my IBM Top Gun, all of this, it was a badge of honor, uh, because that VM technical sales cert was a difficult one to get, you know, but going through all of that, you're right. Being able to have that promotion, but then it comes to, you talk about that co-branding, element. And I can say that I did co-brand a number of documents. I am not a graphic designer. I shouldn't be allowed near anything that allows me to manipulate what your platform looks like, or maybe even try to recreate your logo. So, you know, these are some of the kind of controls of having those in place that really kind of come into play. And yeah, for sure, absolutely help drive engagement. So let's start looking at results, right? Everyone wants to look at benefits, results. If you were to think of, you know, kind of top three when it comes to kind of your organization on the benefits of having a good platform in general, what kind of three would you pick? So top three benefits, yeah. I would say that initially it would be instant access to data. And that's for our organization, right? Benefit for our organization. Why? So instant access to data. I had access to the spreadsheets, right? I could, you know, instantly see it. But I think collectively, and I'm thinking at scale now, I have, you know, whatever today's data is, I've got, you know, we're a small company, but we have, you know, over $25 million in pipeline and, you know, over 70 opportunities identified already in the, you know, let's just say under, a year in getting everything established, which is great hockey stick growth for us, right? For pipeline and closing events are a little bit different. But, you know, having access to that data helps us make fact-based decisions, right? I don't have to manipulate the data or look at it or process it and then start to do it. I still do a little bit of that, but I do less of that. So I think having access to data helps me make fact-based decisions. And I think, that is valuable. I'm looking forward to being able to do more of that. And one example is a closed, lost analysis. So I want to know where an opportunity was and what sales stage it was. And I want to compare that to the lost reasons. And those are facts based on those opportunities that I can do analysis on and understand where are we losing before, you know, proof of concepts? Are we losing because we didn't do proof of concepts? Are we losing? After it? Are we losing because XYZ group was not involved? And what was the reason? Oh, budget, you know, could we have pre-qualified those things better? So instant access to that data and being able to make those decisions, I think is, is, is one of the top three. Another one is, I mentioned earlier is the ability to scale training and why? Because I don't have to queue up people in order to train partners, which means the partners are waiting in the queue to, to be trained. I can scale that training so they can hit the streets sooner at the same time, rather than be in a queue and wait for that training. They could miss opportunity. So I think that's a top benefit is the sooner you get them on the ground selling or representing our solutions or your solutions. I think that is, you know, immensely beneficial. I think the third would be, you know, lead and opportunity management. As we scale, there's risk. That I'm going to have multiple partners trying for the same thing. I'm going to have channel conflict, right? So I worry, it's a good worry, right? You want people talking to, you want partners talking to, to prospects, but I also don't want prospects to, to play that against us or play that against each other in order to drive, you know, potential revenue down. So, nor do I want to turn off partners from being partners with us because I've had in the, in the partner recruiting process, I've had a lot of partners that have been partners with us. We've had partners that say, you know, my, my top concerns working with vendors is I've had some vendors that don't honor their deal registrations. You know, we registered for a deal that they promised this or that, and it doesn't happen. So I think having a lead, a confident lead and opportunity management process is very beneficial is a top three benefit as well. So that you don't have to, you take it out of the equation. Don't worry about it. Lead management system, there's an approval process. It's got an expiration date. You're locked in. You know, boom, done. So I think that's where the three would be for me. Perfect. And you know, your actionable data, your first one, I would have to agree with you, you know, that, that closed loss analysis, everyone, no one likes to lose a deal, right? But if you know why you lost it, if you know when you lost it, now you can start putting in strategies to make sure that doesn't become a common event, right? And the end result is the sales team makes more money. The, the organization makes more money because you're being more strategic as you engage people, you know, training, getting them quick to being dangerous. That's always going to be a benefit. Yep. And just to, just to key off of that is because if I have it in the same system, the LMS plus the access to fact-based data. So imagine this, I can also see if that data or determine if that training course or courses were effective or not. So I can move all down the line of like, Hmm, every single one of these sales opportunities did not have ABC training course, or it did. And I can also make decisions across that. I can determine if the feedback we were getting about those training courses, right? In the LMS, the LMS could have a like button, right? This is a great course, or we could add feedback at the end. And I could see that close lost the, they lost interest or didn't see the benefit. Huh? They all did X, Y, Z training or, huh? This was not. This was not included in the training. Normally you have to, you scratch your head. You got to, did that your partner get trained on the, you know, no longer need to, you know, question those things because you can use fact-based data to collect what you need. So I think it's very important for reasons that you said as well. Yeah. So now the opposite side, you know, what are the big pitfalls if you don't have a system in place, right? Are there, you know, limitations? Does it, you know, limit growth of an organization? Does it start, you know, fueling channel conflict or, you know, just misrepresentation of your brand in the market? You know, can you think of some of the pitfalls that people potentially fall into if they don't have a platform in place? I mean, look, I'm a, I'm a realist, right? You know, we, we think we can't live without our mobile phones, but, you know, people were making phone calls and communicating and doing what we did, you know, when we did it. So it kind of puts me in that age category. Right. So, you know, but, um, you know, look at the end of the day, I think what's at risk really is, is revenue and time to market. So if a tool, or I hate to call it a tool, a solution can, um, help teams. And we're talking multiple people achieve or exceed revenue goals in a shorter amount of time than they normally would. Then that's, that's a no brainer or the company, accepts that risk. Oh, we understand without something like this, that we're gonna have to wait two or three months for this team to be trained up or whatever it is. That's their acceptable risk as well. So each organization is different. I've, I've been fortunate at Comforte that the management team there, they've recognized that, you know, this is something we'd rather do from the start rather than let it get out of hand and then spend more time and energy and people's, you know, effort in order to pull it back into a system. So I'm super happy that our management team made the right decision in that, in that regard. So there is a risk that it can get out of hand. There is a risk, you know, the, the, the management of, of all of it can get out of hand. There is a risk that, you know, some revenue won't be achieved. You know, it's a lot of factors, but you know, at the end of the day, it's also about the people that are responsible for on both sides responsible for, um, their roles. I mean, how do you expect a partner to represent your solutions if companies aren't adequately training them? I mean, you know, there are some solutions that they can go to YouTube and train themselves or, you know, they can go to a knowledge base, but they're piecing it together rather than, you know, something organized, um, from a company. So, you know, it can happen without tools, but it just doesn't make sense. And if you can come up with a cost effective channel management platform that has, you know, a lot of benefit, I think it totally makes sense. Perfect. This has actually been great. Any final thoughts as we start to wrap up? I'd love to hear, um, how your audience feels about channel management platforms and some of the benefits that they're also reaping from, from these tools. I, you know, I'm looking forward to being able to do more with our solution and, you know, just, just really also measuring the value that we get from it and whatnot. I'll tell you this, just to tie in what I mentioned at the beginning with an X factor capability, um, something that's not tied to revenue. I hate to always sound like everything's tied to revenue, although obviously channel management or channel platforms, that's what you're looking at. An X factor solution that we were able to get from our channel management platform was also being able to extend training to internal employees within the company. So at Comforte, you know, we've got global presence, so we have employees all over the world. So that need to train employees needed to scale as well right so we've got a headquarters and we've got to train people in singapore different regions in the us blah blah blah so that's that's also harder to do that with internal employees so this solution was able to do that and it also blocked out those internal employees who just needed to consume internal onboarding training but didn't need to see the channel side you know of the organization right they don't need to see what's going on with opportunities so having something that does all of that right and and like i said in a simple manner that we don't need you know research and development teams to code all this stuff to happen i think that was immensely available so that was a great x factor so my departing shot would be also think about what else you could do with a channel management platform what other benefit can other people possibly in a non-channel position what what could they benefit from and if if it's there explore it and see if that's worth um bringing it on board so yeah i'll leave with that so look for the x factor all right so if somebody wants to find you they want to connect with you where are your coordinates pointing i'm in san diego california so we've been work from home for prior to pandemic for years so who knows where i'll be in the next five years but look i'd love to hear from other professionals in in the channel and partnership space so feel free to reach out to me at jd comforte.com it's comfort with an e.com um or look us up if you have a data security need um you know for your enterprise we're at comforte.com so it's really simple yeah you can look me up there look me up on linkedin as well perfect well hey jd it has been fantastic talking to you you have yourself a great afternoon and enjoy that sunny southern california weather and we'll be in touch again real soon thanks paul always good to talk to you take care um you