Channel Marketing: A Sales-Side Perspective, with Dialpad

Hello, fine listener of excellent podcasts and welcome to a brand new episode of Channel Marketing Champs brought to you exclusively by Sharpubby to be marketing. As always, I'm your host, Russ Powell. And on this episode, I'm joined by a dynamic duo, a tag team to tangle with of Rushjack and Nick Slater of Dialpad. Now, Russ and Nick both hold sales-based roles. We'll let them tell you exactly what they are when we get into the recording. So it's really interesting to hear from them since sales-perspectives on the channel on partner marketing and also the role that AI is going to be playing in the future. So here we go, Rushjack and Nick Slater on Channel Marketing Champs. So it is my absolute pleasure to welcome onto the channel marketing champs podcast. For the very first time, a tag team duo, we have Rushjack and Nick Slater from Dialpad. Russ, Nick, how the devil are you both? Right, thank you. Fantastic. Thanks for having us. Yeah, wonderful. Thanks very much for giving up your time. So for those listeners out there who don't know who you guys are, could you each give us a brief-potted history on who you are, where you come from, and what do you know about channel marketing? I'll jump in there for, so, Rushjack VP for Channel Across the Mail. I've got a couple of histories you said across the channel across the Mail, working at various different resetters and vendors over the 28-year period by 5-T and Combs. The dominant over the last two positions looking after the channel at MyTel and dominant in the channel for ET Househava. Fantastic. And I'm Nick Slater. I'm Chief Revenue Officer at Dialpad, based in the US on West Coast. Been a Dialpad for about three years now. Over those three years, we've grown about 200 million in ARR. So we've enjoyed pretty fantastic growth, mostly on the back, partnering with our channel partners around the world. It's very excited to be here, be able to talk about it. Yeah, wonderful stuff. Then, don't forget, we haven't forgotten about giving our guests. We've been giving our guests a suitable rest in nickname. We've agreed that our two guests, the tag team today, are not going to be known as the Kings of Connection, which I think sits very nicely in terms of Dialpad's positioning, but also in terms of what the channel is all about as well. So, not to lead you guys into things anyway, but obviously two heavy hitters in terms of sales and channel activation. So, what's your view, what's your perspective on channel marketing from that sales viewpoint? What do you think, let's start off with the positives. What do you think is going really well in terms of channel marketing right here and now? Let me start. Yes, fantastic. Well, I'll say first I'll take channel in general and then go to specifically to channel marketing. What we've really found here at Dialpad is channel and ecosystem selling is the way to sell here and going forward. Having folks that are already trusted advisors in those prospects and customers, brings an added level of trust and information and inspection that sets up us of our success well to convey the dialpad value. What we have seen is when we partner with the channel, we work typically larger deals, more strategic, we win at a significantly higher win rate. And those deals also turn at a lot lower rate, which makes a whole lot of sense. You know, there are now multiple parties invested in the success of that customer versus just one. And so I think everything we do tends to be a channel first focus, including our marketing efforts. When we look at what's really working well, one is consistency, making sure that these aren't one off flash in the pan, but that we have a very prescriptive calendar of how we are tackling from multiple channels of marketing, not just going single threaded and making sure that we're. Hitting certain milestones were consistently in front of the right partners and going to market with them. I think it's having a clear and concise story and being able to act as advisors and coaches to the channel community so that they're able to verbalize the value that dialpad brings as well. And then third, I think it's showing up in what we do with professionalism and polish and making the lives of our channel partners easier through our market and our go to market efforts. Really, we found success in that in the channel as a whole as well as channel marketing and. Yeah, there you go. No, certainly, especially when you look at from a mirror perspective, obviously from my domain, if you will, there's a lot of other vendors out there that talk about channel and partnership and channel marketing with the impartial ship, but there's a lot of crossover where that may sit. The whole thing is very much channel first and however you're probably do believe in that partnership, we don't have a direct sounds team from that perspective, where we think we do do easy and hand in partnership with our channel team on what we look to drive opportunities through with them, work opportunities with those guys and adapt to the role where we go along with what our proposition looks like as well. So we take feedback on as well and think it has to be that two-way street everything that Nick mentioned there and how we support and developer move forward. Maybe certain instances where you know, this like market space is the one I've gone after will we can also tailor adapt to help them moving forward. So I think it's showing the shoulder in true partnership, which is the key to form what we can deliver. Yeah, nice, ugly stuff. And obviously, you never lose the either win or you learn. So what what learning opportunities have there been in terms of building that channel approach, do you think for not just dial pad, but I guess that you guys have seen in your your histories in the channel. Yeah, I would say the biggest one, both at dial pad as well as you know, prior company spending about a decade at a travel and expense company and before that many other companies that sold channel first or channel primary is you can never go away. You need to constantly stay in front of the channel. Sometimes vendors can take for granted, well, the channel's got to be thinking about me, even when I'm not here, and not understanding this this large bag of products and solutions that they are attempting to position in front of their very value customers. And unless you are consistently and constantly in front of the channel, singing the praises of your product and the value that that can offer you stand to get lost in the shuffle. It's all about making your channel partners live easier and making them more money. That's ultimately what we're in this for. And you need to do that consistently and constantly. And the second you take it for granted is when it tends to slip between your fingers. So I would say if I could spell out one, it is understanding as a vendor that you are one solution in dozens or for some partners hundreds. And unless you have found a way to stand out and consistently solve your channel partners problems, you're probably going to get lost along the way. I think to add on to that as well, it's around the adaptability and what I mean by that is from a channel partner channel vendor is around the ecosystem that they have that you mentioned, but you're not able to understand where we sit within that ecosystem. And that could be anything from you look at what Donald Padd doesn't in particular. It could be a little talk of your serial number, it could be anything else that really doesn't fit within our sphere. So we work alongside for integrated to so again, it's explaining to that channel partner where we sit in the wider piece, what sits within their portfolio keeps on that relevance and moving forward. Absolutely. And one of the words that you guys have both mentioned which has come up a lot on this podcast is that of ecosystem. And really the shift away from those linear vendor to partner to end market relationships and now it's something that is a lot more messy, I guess, but in a good way. Like how have you guys seen seen that shift over the previous years and how do you see that developing further in the future? Well, I'll grab all of this one first, that's right. So taking it from a UCNC perspective, obviously, where Donald Padd sits and what we provide. There has been a massive shift over the last five years and obviously longer, but more so, the last five years as technologies move forward. The used to be that you'd go in for a channel partner that have one particular contact that dealt with different sectors, you know, the voice guy, the IT guy, the mobile guy. That's now kind of complex, down you're talking more into a few days, you're talking to more into a child people. So the elements of where those things have changed around what the ecosystem looks like, the actual topic we're mentioning around that perspective is different people now being involved in its technology changes, but also the methodology how business operates has changed as well. And we need to be able to help our channel partner is be able to adapt to that and what that goes back obviously into the podcast regards to marketing, how that resonates out. It's not just around the end user, not around the FDs, not around the HR person, it's not around obviously the CRO, it's combined those elements, those C-Each individual part of the solution coming across and how that works for them in their business. Yeah, I would add to that that, you know, it can be muddied to the extent that you let it, but I think. the job of individuals such as myself is to try and make order out of the chaos. And what I mean by that is if you have a very clear point of view and strategy on how to attack the market, there's plenty of opportunity to create wins for all involved, for the TSD, for the agency, for even new partners such as we are a strategic partner with Google being offered on our Google marketplace. And it is routine that we will win a Google marketplace deal with a TSD through an agency, and everybody will add value along the way as long as we have all partnered together. And then when you win that deal together and now you have the strength of four very invested parties that have all explicitly stated their value to that customer, it's almost impossible that that's going to turn and not be set up for success. So I think it takes some extra effort to again take that chaos and bring order to it. But when you do, I think you can find a win for a lot of departments involved. So Ross Nick obviously we've now shifted to this ecosystem world in terms of the partner and channel relationships. And I guess especially in an organisation like Thalpad where you guys are partner only, the channel only, there's no direct to market activity. If you've got a new partner that's coming in, they're just part of that ecosystem. What are you guys doing as a vendor or what do you think vendors should be doing to get that partner unborted, upskilled, activated and an out-of-market earn in revenue as quickly as possible? Yeah, I love the question Ross. Because the onus is not just on us as the vendor to be able to show value to the prospect, to the customer, but show that same value to the channel, to the partner. And one thing in the AI craze that we currently find ourselves and Dialpad is very much an AI company. We have been since 2018 and we love to be able to come in confidently and say, look, we have almost two dozen PhDs in AI on our staff. We have papers written, we have patents in AI. And so in those murky waters, if not knowing where to tread in this AI boom, we have really found a sweet spot being able to come in and advise and educate and enable our channel partners to go in confidently about how to speak to AI, how to position real value from it versus all of the bells and whistles, how to shift tangible. ROI savings, whether you're calling on CIO, CFO, CRO. And we take pride in that as a vendor, not only showing our value to prospects and customers, but giving a level of confidence and security to our partners to go out and speak to our solution as well. So there's really a known sun upskilling of partners there as well then. Absolutely. Yeah, just to follow on to that, you know, if you're new, mention bringing somebody a new partner is also understanding what sits within their ecosystem, other solutions that they sell both to complement what we do today, and in the same space and both the complement in other areas, we don't get them to give the example with us bringing. And things like that we're able to advise and regards how they can add things into the existing ecosystem that adds value to what we provide for them and they can provide for the producers as well. So it's taking our skillset as Nick mentioned there with regard to AI and what we've done with other things that sit within those binary ecosystem. And obviously we've touched on it there as well, but the one thing that is everyone's talking about at the moment, some people talk about it with a bit more authority than others, let's say. But how do you see this AI wave playing out? Like where do you think this is going in terms of not just channel and partner activity, but I guess in terms of a broader theme across tech, across business, across life in general. Yeah, well, I got to get my crystal ball out for that. And every other person you meet has their version of where we see this thing going. And I can tell you in general how dial pad is planning for this to go. And it's really meeting customers where they're at on their AI journey. So we do believe that there will be plenty of areas where AI can replace repetitive kind of low value tasks for a lot of these companies where AI and specifically a gentsic AI can take the workload off of human beings to be able to reallocate those to more advanced tasks, maybe tasks that generate revenue or protect profitability. And then I think there will be a whole host and probably a much larger segment where AI will be used to really create superheroes, if you will, out of agents, out of sales people, out of employees doing their job to enable them to get 2x 4x 10x the output that they used to get to make their lives easier to make them more confident, more informed. So I think there will be 2 worlds where we will see this agentic be able to take more and more tasks fully away from human beings, allowing those to take more advanced. And I do think most roles will see AI uplevel their abilities, be able to build their skill set, be able to fast ramp their enablement into businesses. I don't know that there will be many areas, certainly in the technology industry that won't be touched by some form of AI. Both just to sunrise, the NICOM is a good overview, but our kind of strapped line to that is to aid in assist humans, lots of replies. That's the essence of this and you know, as mentioned there will be some mundane tasks that can normally be taken over by AI 100%, but used to aid in assist and give that value into the humanized evidence. So Ross Nick has been brilliant chat with you guys, really appreciate it. And I think I've survived the tag team on the floor, as best as I could, as a one man against two. But with this podcast, we always like to leave people with some top tips and some key takeaways from the conversation. So I've plucked out four, let's see what you make of these. So the first one is the, as a vendor, you need to show up consistently and clearly in everything you're doing to help build trust with your partners and those you work with in the channel. And actually doing so has seen the generation of larger deals that are more strategic and with lower chance, so win-win for everybody. And the second that in doing that, you can't ever go away like you have to stay present in the channel, you have to look at how you're raised, building mind share and ensuring that you're on the tip of the tongue of any partners that you're working with. The third is that as we kind of now shifted to an ecosystem model that we all need to be much more adaptable, but we also need to make sure that there's a mutual understanding of what everybody's place is in that ecosystem so we can collaborate, work together better to achieve more. And then the final one is that we should all be embracing AI as a superpower and we should be using it to aid and assist rather than replace copyright rush jack 2025 on that one to help everybody achieve more together. So what do we think of those for Chaps, are we happy with this? I love it. I think that's a great summation and I'll just say in general that if you are a channel partner that has not partnered with DialPet before we would highly encourage you to give us a look. We offer a lot of value and we show up professional polished and ready to work with you and we are definitely a channel first business at DialPet. We always knew the CRA was going to get a sales pitch in there right at the end didn't we always there was always going to happen. It was always going to happen, but I'm here for it mate. I'm here for it. So Ross Nick the Kings of connection. Thank you so much for joining me on Channel Marketing Chaps. It's been an absolute blast. Thanks for your time. Thank you. There we have it then lovely stuff from the Kings of connection, rush jack and Nick Slater of DialPet wonderful wonderful stuff. I'm sure you will agree. So that is your lot for this episode of Channel Marketing Chaps. I hope you enjoyed it. We will see you very very soon for the next one. But if your interest is peaked, if you're thinking hmm I could use some fresh ideas and firepower for my own channel and partner marketing then all you need to do is get in touch with Sharper. Just head to the website SharperBtb.com or drop us an email at [email protected]. See you soon.