SaaS Connect - SaaS Partnerships & SaaS Leaders

On this episode, Pravin Arokyaraj, Director of Strategic Partnerships at Zoho Corporation, shares his perspectives on navigating partnerships with competitors and collaborators alike.

Pravin believes in the power of cross-product partnerships. Partnerships in a multi-product landscape come with intriguing challenges. It’s vital, then, to foster alliances with competitors while also competing against them.

There are common obstacles that many will worry about, like the fear of cannibalizing customers, legal complexities, and hesitations from both internal and external stakeholders. Zoho tackles these challenges head-on, utilizing leadership commitments, collaboration mindsets and targeted processes.

Zoho’s secret recipe for success is the “compete yet collaborate” mindset, championed at every level of the company. The team’s underlying strategy is based on showcasing partner products to customers, thereby promoting mutual growth.

Building strategic partnerships with larger companies requires a long-term perspective. In the end, there is value in investing in these relationships and watching them blossom over time, creating mutual benefits and growth.

Resources mentioned:

Zoho

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Sudhir Nambiar, Co-Founder and CEO of xAmplify, talks about the prevailing discussions on effective partner programs and engagement strategies within the SaaS industry. With a rich background in partnerships, including owning a boutique analytics company, Sudhir understands the nuances partners face in their collaborative journeys.

Misalignments can arise between strategies companies employ and the realities that partners experience. A partner’s reduced activity often isn’t due to a lack of willingness but rather a disconnect in the approach.

The elusive art of revenue forecasting is behind some of the challenges companies face in accurately predicting revenue flows. Channel conflicts, while common, could significantly hinder the collaborative process if not managed adeptly.

Sudhir dives into the partner’s perspective on the deal registration process, emphasizing the delicate balance partners must strike between sales influence, customer qualification and coordination with direct sales representatives.

The partner’s journey is filled with complexities due to partner payouts and the trust dynamic between partners and companies. The intricacies of local geographical constraints and their influence on partnership dynamics added further complexity.

In the end, empowering partners through effective sales enablement creates a solid foundation that will address numerous challenges and drive collaborative growth.

Resources mentioned:

Sudhir Nambiar -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudhir-nambiar-1846511/

xAmplify⁠ | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/xamplify/

xAmplify | Website -

https://xamplify.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, George Kyriakis, Sr. Director Business Development and Partnerships at FreshBooks, talks about his experience in partnership-based business development over the last seven years, a time spent learning from both successes and failures.

George emphasizes the importance of securing buy-in from executives for partnership strategies. His lessons in this area stem from past experiences, particularly when he faced resistance from an executive who didn't support his efforts in a previous role.

George is a big believer in maintaining focus, and he gives an example of how he streamlined FreshBooks’ payment partner list to improve leverage and collaboration. He’s found that having too few or too many partners can be a problem, and maintaining two or three strategic partnerships is generally optimal.

At one point, FreshBooks capitalized on an acquisition by a partner, demonstrating the importance of being agile and prepared to take advantage of unexpected events.

Looking ahead, George considers complementary partnerships and combining efforts between partners for more substantial outcomes. He also weighs the opportunities and threats in the evolving landscape, including economic concerns and shifts in market demand.

Resources mentioned:

George Kyriakis⁠ -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgekyriakis/

FreshBooks⁠ | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/freshbooks/

FreshBooks | Website -

https://www.freshbooks.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Bill Lipsin, Managing Partner at The Brody Group, explains the importance of aligning with leadership. He dives into the challenges of translating great ideas into successful executions.

Bill understands the familiar frustration of brilliant ideas that falter along the way. Creating a solid foundation for idea realization is important.

A comprehensive business plan is a must. An idea, no matter how ingenious, needs a robust plan to thrive. This entails adding depth and substance to the concept to enable seamless execution.

Actionable information and KPIs are critical. Relying on data is essential, but it's equally crucial to convert data into relevant, actionable information. Success hinges on stakeholder engagement, moving beyond participation to genuine entanglement. Ensuring all stakeholders are committed, feel ownership and share in the journey is vital for collaborative success.

The linchpin of success is effective communication. Consistent communication tailored to different audiences, keeping them engaged and motivated, is a key to success.

By following these principles, individuals and teams can overcome challenges, engage stakeholders and steer their ideas toward exceptional outcomes.

Resources mentioned: Bill Lipsin -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/billlipsin/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at⁠https://ContentAllies.com⁠.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Nikunj Sanghvi, VP, Alliances and Business Development at Caspio, a leading low-code development platform for online database applications, talks about attracting partners to your program.

It’s critically important to start with an ideal partner profile, akin to an ideal customer profile, to identify partners that align with your objectives. It’s also vital to continually refine this profile based on interactions with potential partners.

The “good partners” category includes those already familiar with low-code / no-code platforms, fostering smoother conversations. In the “best partners” category, focus on vertical specialization and geographic expansion aligning with your goals. The “not a potential good partner” category encompasses red flags such as diverting leads to competitors or subpar project delivery.

Ecosystem tools can help form solid partnerships through shared customer connections. Nikunj incorporates research on LinkedIn and utilizes tools for efficient outreach and personalization.

Make it easy for partners to succeed by providing collateral, partner portals, certifications and a visible partner directory. Nikunj also highlights the role of marketplaces, co-marketing initiatives and webinars in driving partner and ecosystem growth.

Caspio transformed skepticism about partnerships into a valuable asset, with partners acting as an extension of the sales team and contributing to the company’s success.

Nikunj offers up actionable strategies for organizations seeking to cultivate strong and effective partner relationships.

Resources mentioned: Nikunj Sanghvi -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikunjsanghvi/

Caspio⁠ | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/caspio-inc/

Caspio | Website -

https://www.caspio.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Christine Li, VP of Partnerships and Enablement at G2, discusses the importance of reviews and social proof in the software industry. G2 is a platform that gathers social proof through customer reviews to help buyers make informed decisions.

G2 has a unique role in the marketplace ecosystem. They function as a marketplace themselves, as a vendor in other marketplaces (such as Salesforce AppExchange and AWS Marketplace), and as a syndication partner for marketplaces. Its syndication program helps amplify reviews and social proof for vendors across multiple marketplaces, making it easier for buyers to find valuable insights.

Christine shares three key takeaways from their syndication program: Firstly, B2B review collection is challenging, but G2 has invested in AI and human resources to ensure the authenticity and reliability of reviews.

Second, negative reviews are essential as they provide valuable insights and build trust with buyers. Responding to negative reviews professionally is crucial for addressing concerns.

Finally, offering syndicated reviews for free didn't yield desired results; monetizing the service helped drive partner prioritization.

The discussion highlights the significance of customer reviews and social proof in the B2B software industry, and how G2's approach to review collection and syndication benefits vendors and buyers alike.

Resources mentioned:

Christine Li⁠ -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinerli/

G2 | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/g2dotcom/

G2 | Website -

https://www.g2.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at⁠https://ContentAllies.com⁠.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Stu Richards, CEO at Bredin, shares valuable insights on selling SaaS solutions to SMBs.

He and his team conducted a survey of SMBs focusing on the decision-making process regarding which SaaS solutions to purchase for their business. They discovered there is some variation depending on the size of the business.

Very small businesses (under 20 employees) rely mostly on articles and search to learn about products. These can be on your website, syndicated articles or blog posts.

There aren’t as many small businesses (20 to 99 employees) as very small businesses, but from a revenue standpoint, they’re significant in the SMB space. For these companies, search and the product section of your website are crucial during the research and purchase stages.

Mid-sized businesses (100 to 500 employees) prioritize articles, general news sites and research reports. Security is a top concern for bigger companies, so emphasizing it in your messaging is essential. Reliability, functionality and integration are also vital message points.

Resources mentioned:

Stu Richards⁠ -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sturichards/

Bredin⁠ | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/bredin/

Bredin | Website -

http://www.bredin.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Sue Fernand, Sr. Director of Business Development and Alliances at 8x8, talks about building an ecosystem marketplace.

Taking inspiration from the trailblazing success of Salesforce, Sue outlines the fundamental principles and best practices for developing a thriving ecosystem. By carefully selecting partners whose products complement and enhance the core offering, businesses can create a cohesive ecosystem that truly addresses customer needs.

While navigating the intricacies of establishing an ecosystem, Sue advises starting with a lightweight and simple program. Avoiding complex integrations in the initial stages allows businesses to identify successful approaches and areas for improvement, paving the way for a more comprehensive ecosystem later on.

Sue also emphasizes the importance of nurturing a culture of collaboration within the ecosystem community. Encouraging partners to work together, especially when their solutions complement one another, can lead to mutually beneficial collaborations and bolster customer satisfaction.

There is immense potential for ecosystem marketplaces to drive innovation, enhance customer experiences and foster mutually beneficial partnerships. By implementing Sue’s practical advice and strategic insights, businesses can successfully navigate the ecosystem landscape and thrive in today’s interconnected business world.

Resources mentioned:

Sue Fernand -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/suefernand/

⁠8x8⁠ | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/8x8/

8x8 | Website -

https://www.8x8.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Matt Moore, Associate Manager of Product Marketing at impact.com, hosts a discussion on B2B affiliate marketing with guests Keemia Ferasat, Manager of Global Affiliate Marketing and Partnerships at Microsoft; Tye DeGrange, CEO at Round Barn Labs; and Zoe Mackay, Strategic Partnership Manager at Technology Advice.

They explore the differences between B2B and B2C affiliate marketing, how it fits into the revenue mix for publishers and the various types of publishers they work with. They discuss the importance of long-term partnerships, content-driven approaches and the growing influence of influencers and brand ambassadors in the B2B affiliate space.

The participants discuss the success metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for affiliate marketing in the B2B space. They highlight the importance of a full-funnel approach, including upper and lower funnel partners.

Publishers play a crucial role in driving brand awareness and educating potential customers, while lower funnel partners focus on driving conversions. Mixed compensation models, such as flat fees, reward different types of affiliates and acknowledge their contributions throughout the buyer's journey.

Building strong relationships with affiliates and using data-driven insights will continually optimize these programs. Starting a successful B2B affiliate marketing program takes time, patience and investment in measuring and analyzing KPIs to improve performance over time. 

Resources mentioned:

Matt Moore⁠ -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-moore-productmarketing/

Impact.com⁠ | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/impactdotcom/

Impact.com | Website -

https://impact.com/

Keemia Ferasat⁠ -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/keemia/

Microsoft | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft/

Microsoft | Website -

https://www.microsoft.com/

Tye DeGrange -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyedegrange/

Round Barn Labs | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/round-barn-labs/

⁠Round Barn Labs⁠ | Website -

https://www.roundbarnlabs.com/

⁠Zoe Mackay -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/zoerosemackay/

Technology Advice | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/technologyadvice/

⁠Technology Advice⁠ | Website -

https://technologyadvice.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Sunir Shah, CEO at AppBindand President ofCloud Software Association, discusses high-impact partnerships and the importance of customer-centricity in partnerships. Rather than focusing on who owns the customer, it’s more crucial to understand who the customer is buying from.

It is critical to have clear positioning statements in partnerships, to ensure that both parties understand how they impact the other’s story and improve customer outcomes. Sunir highlights the importance of creating impactful partnerships that deliver value to the end customer.

He discusses the importance of understanding the customer lifecycle and aligning partnerships accordingly. He emphasizes that partnerships should focus on helping customers advance through their lifecycle and solve specific problems.

Sunir provides an example of a company’s successful agency program, where partners deliver value by addressing customer needs and enhancing the customer experience. He highlights the need for clear positioning statements and outlines four main types of partnerships: communications, service, tech and distribution.

It’s important to align key performance indicators (KPIs) with the underlying revenue teams’ and partners’ KPIs to ensure successful partnerships. This will increase the value of customer-centric partnerships and the importance of understanding partner needs to build successful collaboration.

Resources mentioned:

Sunir Shah -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunirshah/

AppBind | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/appbind/

AppBind | Website -

https://www.appbind.com/

Cloud Software Association | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloud-software-association/

Cloud Software Association | Website -

https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Kenny Browne, Founder and CEO of Partner Fleet, gives a masterclass on building an ecosystem business model.

To boost revenue effectively, understanding customer ecosystems and collaborating with partners is crucial. These ecosystems are shaped by customer needs and their interactions with partners. Kenny advises businesses to join existing ecosystems, map customer behavior and prioritize ecosystem-led growth.

It's essential to recognize customer needs and choose ecosystems that match those requirements. Targeting the largest cluster of potential customers and utilizing partnerships to reach them efficiently is key. Kenny says that building an ecosystem strategy is an ongoing process. By gathering comprehensive information, you can avoid the trap of survivorship bias.

Focusing on post-sales ecosystem partners allows businesses to extend customer lifecycles, reduce churn, and explore new markets, leading to significant revenue impact. Kenny gives real-world examples to demonstrate the success of this approach, emphasizing the need for continuous analysis and adaptation in a dynamic market.

Customers play a defining role in the ecosystem, and businesses should engage with prospective customers beyond those who submit leads. Leveraging partnerships and influencers makes it easier to enter new markets and capitalize on your existing ones.

Resources mentioned:

Kenny Browne - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennybrowne/

Partner Fleet | LinkedIn -https://www.linkedin.com/company/partnerfleet/

Partner Fleet | Website - https://www.partnerfleet.io/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

⁠Kelsey Gernert Aina, Principal Head of Startup Growth and Partnerships-Americas at HubSpot, joins this episode to talk about the startup partnership program at HubSpot.

The program offers exclusive discounts to startups through channel partners like venture capital firms, accelerators and incubators. The goal is to provide startups with access to a mature tech stack at an affordable price while the partners benefit from a continuous stream of ecosystem-qualified leads.

Kelsey outlines six reasons companies should consider launching a startup partnership program. These reasons include enabling faster scaling, accessing the startup market with fewer barriers, increasing product loyalty, enhancing brand awareness, breaking into new markets and potential strategic investments and acquisitions.

Kelsey explains how to determine if a startup partnership program is the right fit for a company, considering factors such as whether startups are a core user group, if the product supports key moments in a startup's evolution, and if the company follows a product lead growth strategy.

It’s important to involve internal stakeholders early on and gain their buy-in to ensure successful program implementation. Kelsey highlights the need to build trust with sales teams and align the program with their KPIs to secure support.

Resources mentioned:

⁠⁠Kelsey Gernert Aina -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelseyaina/

HubSpot | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/hubspot/

HubSpot | Website - https://www.hubspot.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Rachel Collie, Director, Technology Partnerships and App Marketplace at Unanet, hosts a MasterClass on the ABCs of technology partner management. She emphasized the importance of repeatable enablement processes to scale their program. She shared her extensive experience in managing technology partner programs and highlighted the value of partnerships in finding innovative solutions for customers.

Rachel identified three significant challenges in their partner program: lack of partner visibility, inability to scale the program using manual tools like OneNote and spreadsheets, and a lack of executive buy-in.

Monday.com was the right choice for their team, considering factors like existing internal usage, read-only licensing, task assignment capabilities, integrations with other tools like Slack, and reporting features. The adoption of monday.com varied among partners, with more active usage reflected by new partners compared to established ones.

Rachel digs into how she uses monday.com and emphasizes that it is the right tool for her specific challenges and needs. Others may find different tools that are more appropriate for their particular situation.

Resources mentioned:

Rachel Collie - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelcollie/

Unanet | LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/unanet-technologies/

Unanet | Website - https://unanet.com/

Monday.com - https://monday.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at ⁠https://ContentAllies.com⁠.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Sue Fernand, Sr. Director of Business Development and Alliances at 8x8, and Ashi Aber, Head of Technology Partnerships at Gong, host a roundtable discussion to talk about tech integration marketplaces and building out an ecosystem with all key business partners.

Ashi talks about opening up APIs so their customers can get more value out of them beyond just revenue, including marketing and product engineering purposes. If customers have more integrations, it naturally creates more stickiness and customer satisfaction.

The roundtable discussion touches on consumption-based models, the struggles and challenges involved in managing partnerships and the different ways people think about building marketplaces.

The group gets into a spirited conversation about metrics and how companies measure the profitability of their features. It’s a tricky subject, and even large companies sometimes struggle with it.

The group wraps up with a discussion on the magic number of integrations needed to achieve maximum stickiness and customer satisfaction.

Resources mentioned:

Sue Fernand - https://www.linkedin.com/in/suefernand/

Ashi Aber - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashi-aber-923341108/

8x8 | LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/8x8/

8X8 | Website - https://www.8x8.com/products

Gong | LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/gong-io/

Gong Collective | Website - https://www.gong.io/
Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Rob Spee, SVP, Global Channel and Alliances at BeyondTrust, a worldwide leader in privileged access management, is joined by Lana King, who was most recently Vice President, Partner Programs, Training and Enablement at Mitel. The discussion centers on partner strategy, partner experience and customer experience.

Lana recently took some time off and brings a fresh perspective to the conversation. She is digging deep into the current state of the industry as she looks for her next opportunity. She has spoken with many leaders about developing a partner strategy, which she and Rob agree is more than just expecting more sales.

Many companies are embracing the partner experience discussion, which is sometimes blended with customer experience. The treatment a partner experiences in a relationship has a direct impact on the customer experience. This means measuring the partner experience is critical for success. 

Lana says that it is essential to do a partner journey map in a similar way a company would do a customer journey map in order to have the strongest possible partner relationship. This involves determining what can be measured and analyzing those measurements to create the best experience for partners and customers.

Resources Mentioned:

Rob Spee -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertspee/

BeyondTrust | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/beyondtrust/

BeyondTrust | Website -

https://www.beyondtrust.com/

Lana King -

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanaking1/

Mitel | LinkedIn -

https://www.linkedin.com/company/mitel/

Mitel | Website -

https://www.mitel.com/

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Kelly Sarabyn and Desmond Russell join us to discuss the partner journey and experience. Kelly is the Platform Ecosystem Advocate at HubSpot, a company that develops software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service. Desmond is Chief Partnership Officer at Partner Elevate, an enablement platform to help businesses grow more investible partnerships.

Desmond explains the difference between partner experience vs. partner journey. The conversation centers on how to think about the customer experience as applied to the partner experience. For example, in the customer experience, you put the customer at the center. Everything else revolves around that. But when we think about the partner experience, SaaS doesn’t typically put the partner at the center.

In addition, an important component of building trust and having a positive partner experience is making sure you understand your partners. Desmond shares the best ways for partner organizations to do that, especially ones who are somewhat strapped for resources.

He says that only 30% of the 1300 partners who have been through their programs actually make a profit. He goes on to explain how to deal with the leftover 70% and how to reactivate dormant partners.

Organizations that use partner technology drive more revenue from their partners, and Desmond describes the role of technology in facilitating the partner experience and partner journey.

Resources mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Mark Brigman, CEO at PARTNERNOMICS, and Brian Hattaway, Founder & Innovation Leader at IOLITE Solutions and Owner of ProCore Resource Group, discuss growing partnerships through integrations and building efficient partnership management systems to increase revenue.

The discussion centers on reference architecture (what’s needed to make partnerships work), partnering systems and concepts around the theory of partnerships.

Mark and Brian go into detail about which systems should be the anchor point for partnership data and why. They also talk about the problem of CRMs not being built for partnership management, and why they don’t work for partnership management when used out of the box.

They dig under the API hood and discuss third-party tools which aren't capable of providing the nuanced information needed to efficiently manage integrations — essentially, it becomes a data modeling question: “Do we have the right data that we can exchange between these partners?”

Mark and Brian chat about the difference between unidirectional and bidirectional APIs, and the advantage of bidirectional footing.

Mark Brigman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/markbrigman/

PARTNERNOMICS - https://www.linkedin.com/company/partnernomics/

Brian Hattaway - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-hattaway-7850761/

IOLITE Solutions - https://www.linkedin.com/company/iolite-solutions/

ProCore Resource Group - https://www.linkedin.com/company/procore-resource-group/ Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Cody Sunkel, Co-Founder & VP of Growth at Partner Fleet — a platform that powers partner marketplaces — and Katy Spalding, Product Manager, Developer Platform and Ecosystem at Clari — a revenue platform that improves efficiency, predictability and growth — talk about building an app marketplace.

This is a pertinent discussion because integrations are fast becoming one of the top buyer considerations. In fact, a company’s marketplace is often one of the top three most visited web assets.

Cody and Katy speak about why ecosystems matter, how to build an app marketplace and the three phases of building ecosystems on top of open platforms. They also discuss why it’s worth it for companies to build an ecosystem and then consequentially an app marketplace.

Other topics covered are: getting buy-in, tactics for building a marketplace, the right time to platform, technical prerequisites and business considerations, best practices for building a marketplace, marketing your marketplace and managing partnerships.

Cody Sunkel - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cody-sunkel/ Partner Fleet - https://www.linkedin.com/company/partnerfleet/

Katy Spalding - https://www.linkedin.com/in/katy-spalding-81497191/ Clari - https://www.linkedin.com/company/clari/

Resources mentioned:

Snowflake - https://www.snowflake.com/en/ Gainsight - https://www.gainsight.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us at admin@cloudsoftwareassociation.com for information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Andrew Porter, Principal — Alliances & Ecosystems at Pariveda, and Sophie Zugnoni, Senior Director — Cloud Sales at Hazelcast, talk about tips and strategies for partnering with cloud providers.

Pariveda is a consulting firm that solves complex technology and business problems, while Hazelcast is a real-time stream processing platform for building applications for taking action on data immediately.

The discussion focuses on the three partnership angles, co-selling with an ISV, cloud marketplaces, which roles should work with partners, integrations from a SaaS perspective, co-marketing and metrics for measuring how effective co-marketing is, standing out from competitors, and executive alignment.

Andrew Porter - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsporter/

Sophie Zugnoni - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiezugnoni/


Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#cloud #saas #software

On this episode, Dannielle Sakher, Executive Member at Cloud Software Association – a SaaS partnership network – and former Team Leader of Partner Management at Zapier – a platform that connects web apps for small businesses – shares how she created intentional wow partner experiences at every tier on the 4,000+ Zapier partners program.

Dannielle explains the challenges she first encountered and how she turned them into positive wow experiences for partners.

Setting up intentional ‘celebrations’ created moments of positivity and engagement. Instead of partners encountering frustration and feelings of lack of trust during delays, they were instead turned into raving fans.

She explains the three major themes of her ‘Celebration Playbook’, and what the wins and rewards look like in reality.

Dannielle Sakher - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danniellesakher/

Cloud Software Association - https://www.linkedin.com/company/cloud-software-association/

Resources mentioned:

Text Expander - https://textexpander.com/

Slack - https://slack.com/

Teams - https://www.microsoft.com/en-za/microsoft-teams/log-in

Sendoso - https://sendoso.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.


Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Nicolas Grenié, Developer Advocate at Typeform.com — a company that specializes in online form building and surveys — speaks about the Developer as a customer persona, and how they should be viewed by SaaS businesses.

For example, for certain SaaS companies, such as Twilio, Developers — including no-coders — are the main audience. It pays to put someone in charge of Developer relations in order to build better partnerships.

Nicolas demonstrates how Typeform delivers the Developer experience and the benefits that come with that.

He discusses how SaaS companies can bring value to the relationship through the Developer experience, API features, building a gold standard, thinking of the platform as a product, and viewing Developers as customers, and the ecosystem as a long-term plan.

Resources mentioned:

Notion - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=notion.id&hl=en_ZA&gl=US

Ask Your Developer by Jeff Lawson | Book - https://www.amazon.com/Ask-Your-Developer-Software-Developers/dp/0063018292

The Business Value of Developer Relations | Book - https://www.amazon.com/Business-Value-Developer-Relations-Communities/dp/1484237471

Devrelcon - https://developerrelations.com/devrelcon

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#cloud #saas #software

On this episode, Ryan Lunka, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Blended Edge, and Cody Sunkel, Co-Founder and VP of Growth at Partner Fleet, discuss setting up the user experience to drive success in integration programs.

Blended Edge is a platform that helps SaaS companies set up integrations faster, and Partner Fleet makes it easy for SaaS companies to go to market with partners and drive adoption of integrations and partner services.

The No. 1 reason for churn today is non-existent integrations, and Ryan and Cody offer valuable and practical advice that will help you drive major value for customers and the sales and marketing areas of your business.

The ultimate goal is to minimize any friction for customers so as to avoid low conversion rates and churn.

Ryan Lunka - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlunka/

Blended Edge - https://www.linkedin.com/company/blendededge/

Cody Sunkel - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cody-sunkel/

Partner Fleet - https://www.linkedin.com/company/partnerfleet/

Resources mentioned:

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#cloud #saas #software

On this episode, Patrick Cleary – Director of Strategic Partnerships, US at Wayflyer – a financing provider for e-commerce companies – shares how Wayflyer developed the partnerships team and won deals with companies who had been around a lot longer.

Today, just two years after launch, Wayflyer gives out $150 million on a monthly basis and boasts over 500 employees.

Patrick describes how the partnerships team started and how everything they do is focused on

One year after Wayflyer launched, they received a message over LinkedIn from Adobe. This goes to show how strong their brand and partnerships had grown in such a short time.

Getting in front of the partner teams, showing them how they treat their customers and how they provide value to them, was really what helped Wayflyer win the big deals.

Patrick Cleary - https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-cleary-903b16105/

Wayflyer - https://www.linkedin.com/company/wayflyer/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Walla Oriqat – Director at Talkdesk AppConnect*  – shares the AppConnect partnership strategy, lessons learned and secrets of the past, present and future.

The AppConnect marketplace allows Talkdesk customer center customers and sellers to connect apps with Talkdesk.

Walla explains the 4 Ps of the AppConnect strategy core values, which are people, process, product and pipeline.

She delves into each of these in more detail and shares challenges and examples of how they embody these values, including what these values looked like in the past, what they look like today, and what the company is planning for the future.

Walla Oriqat - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wallaoriqat/

Talkdesk - https://www.linkedin.com/company/talkdesk/

Resources mentioned:

The Ideal Team Player - https://www.amazon.com/Ideal-Team-Player-Recognize-Leadership/dp/153186385X

Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

*Since recording the interview, Walla Oriqat has moved to Wind River where she is the Director of Marketplace Partnerships.

#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Alex Glenn, CEO at Partnerhub, and Sunir Shah, CEO at AppBind, discuss the keys to successful agency partnerships in 2023.

Partnerhub is a purpose-built platform for digital agencies and tech solutions to find one another and grow together.

AppBind is a subscription manager to set up clients without the hassle or expenses.

Marketing dominates the conversation. The top pain points addressed include not being able to fill the pipeline, activating dormant partners and avoiding the partner “friend zone”, practical methods of building pipelines for an outbound and inbound strategy, as well as strategies to identify shadow channel partners and incentivizing sales teams.

The discussion offers practical insights, such as providing great service to agencies and what that really means.

You’ll exit the discussion with tangible ideas, no matter the size of your business.

Alex Glenn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-glenn/

Partnerhub - https://www.linkedin.com/company/partnerhub-app/

Sunir Shah - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunirshah/

AppBind - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sunirshah/

Resources mentioned:

Treble.ai - https://www.treble.ai/

AB Tasty - https://www.abtasty.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#cloud #software #saas

On this episode, Nick Valluri, Head of Partnerships at Coda* — a collaborative all-in-one doc platform — shares how he came to switch his three tech partnership philosophies when working at Coda.

His first philosophy brought to trial was that you have to build momentum and a business case and have a ton of developers before you hire a team.

The second philosophy was that you need really big-name partners to make a launch splash.

The third philosophy was that you should measure success by the number of participants in an ecosystem, the number of integrations, the number of partners, and so on.

Nick explains the lessons he learned and how they changed these three previous beliefs.

Nick Valluri - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickvalluri/

Resources mentioned:

Product Hunt - https://www.producthunt.com/

MaiChimp Developer Fund - https://mailchimp.com/developer/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

*Since recording the interview, Nick Valluri has moved to Dropbox where he is the Director of Strategic Partnerships



#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Samrah Khan, Global Head of Industry Technology & Data Partners at Google, explains how to win with Google in a partnership scenario.

Google partners either co-market, co-innovate or co-sell, and they can also leverage Google’s sister companies.

When you would like to partner with Google, it’s important to understand the culture, and Samrah explains their core culture elements, which include talent, strategy, structure, environment and innovation. It is these core drivers that lead to producing innovative solutions.

As far as partnering goes, Google always focuses on the user that's going to utilize that particular solution and they also consider how the solution (including partnerships) will scale to 10X.

The partners that are most successful with Google are those that leverage Google’s culture of innovation, take a transformational approach, have a narrow focus and come with a firm business plan.

Samrah explains the framework they use to drive joint success with partners and shares the fully or partially-funded opportunities to partner with Google.

Samrah Khan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/samrah-khan-34b6364/

Google - https://www.linkedin.com/company/google/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Neeti Gupta, Head of Hyperscaler Business Development and Alliances (Microsoft) at VMware — a cloud computing and virtualization technology company that runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS — shares partnering secrets about approaching and navigating the 300,000-employee conglomerate that is Microsoft.

In summary, she advises that before approaching Microsoft, you must have clarity in your own purpose and start by speaking to your own network to find the right employees. Your aim should be to find out who at Microsoft has commitments that align with your goals because the value proposition of the partnership is key.

You won’t get anywhere if you think that all it takes is a quick phone call or two. To win with Microsoft, as it is such a huge company, requires structured follow-ups and persistence in systematically pursuing the right employees.

Neeti says, “With Microsoft, you have to follow the system to navigate the system. Help other people and they’ll help you.”


Neeti Gupta - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neetigupta/

VMware - https://www.linkedin.com/company/vmware/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Francois Grenier, Head of Platform Partnerships at Laika — an all-in-one compliance solution — speaks about the real value of tech partnerships from the viewpoint of two very different companies he used to work for: Typeform and Sendoso.

Typeform is an online form-building and surveys platform while Sendoso is an internet gifting platform.

For Typeform, the value of tech partnerships came from integrations that gave their customers what they wanted; the joint positioning that facilitated the decision to buy; the confidence customers got knowing that the platform would play nicely in their stack; and the insights they received from usage data.

In comparison, Sendoso’s partnership approach was for the purpose of influence, which was accomplished with strong co-marketing, developing a proven co-sales playbook and influence tracking.

Francois shares the lessons learned about partnership programs at both Typeform and Sendoso.

Resources mentioned:

Francois Grenier - https://www.linkedin.com/in/francoisgrenier/

Laika - https://www.linkedin.com/company/heylaika/

HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/

Salesforce - https://www.salesforce.com/eu/

Zapier - https://zapier.com/

Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

Reveal - https://www.reveal.co/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Bernhard Friedrichs, Founder of PartnerXperience and Rob Rebholz, Co-Founder and CEO at Superglue, speak about succeeding in the European partner ecosystem.

PartnerXperience helps B2B SaaS businesses unlock the power of partnerships. Its founder, Berhard Friedrichs, has spent the last 15 years building partnerships globally.

Superglue is a partner engagement platform. The co-founder, Rob Rebholz, has built and scaled MarTech companies, and now drives over 70% of revenue via partners.

The discussion centers on the primary differences between partnering in Europe vs. the US.

Europe consists of 27 countries and cultures, and as such, Bernhard and Rob discuss the challenges involved. They address topics such as opportunities, misconceptions, legal regulations, identification of local champions, onboarding partners and building loyalty in a European environment, as well as entry point strategies.

Says Rob: “Partnering opportunities in Europe are massive, if you do it right.”

Resources mentioned:

Salesforce - https://www.salesforce.com/eu/?ir=1

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, James Huang, SVP Alliances at Copado — a low-code platform that helps companies deploy Salesforce faster — explains how the company has effectively strategically partnered with Salesforce. James provides insights about how other companies can do the same.

Copado experienced explosive growth by partnering with Salesforce. Three years ago it had 30 employees and this year it ended with 700.

James explains the keys to success when partnering with Salesforce:

Firstly, the product must work and solve a problem. Once that’s done, some things can be done for quick wins, such as focusing on a few key verticals and creating a very simplified message that sales reps can understand. Be very clear on the pain point you are solving and how it differentiates in the market.

James Huang - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-huang-18343a/

Copado - https://www.linkedin.com/company/copadosolutions/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Lauren Salanitro, Co-Founder of Women of Customer Success, and Partnerships Lead at Vanta, an organization that helps companies achieve compliance quickly and easily, talks about laying the foundations of a partnership program.  She also expands on identifying strategic partners, the important questions to ask when vetting partners and measuring the effectiveness of strategic partners.

Lauren offers advice for SaaS businesses wanting to start a partner program. She recommends the following for the foundational stage: a deep understanding of their niche, laying out the lifecycle of customers, identifying when a customer needs their solution and determining partner categories.

She elaborates on identifying the first strategic partners and provides a partner discovery question formula, sharing how Vanta vets strategic partners.

Lauren explains the metrics that matter and talks about what has really worked for them, treating partners like customers and how to do it.

Lauren Salanitro - https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-salanitro-4a7aa99a

Vanta - https://www.linkedin.com/company/vanta-security/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.



#cloud #software #saas

On this episode, Charles Yang, Senior Director of Product Management at ScreenMeet, and Tehsin Daya, Head Of Partnerships at Groove, share their journeys with Salesforce, the leading CRM platform, and how their partner program AppExchange accelerated their kickstart.

AppExchange is an enterprise cloud marketplace with more than 7000 apps and certified consulting organizations that work with Salesforce.

Charles and Tehsin speak about how they got started with Salesforce, how AppExchange accelerates the journey, and they both offer suggestions for those considering their own path with Salesforce.

They discuss the main outcomes of the program, which are essentially networking, good connections and co-marketing.

For those wanting to get started on AppExchange, Tehsin says, “First understand Salesforce and their strategy, then align within that strategy in a way that makes sense to you.”

Charles Yang - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckyang/

ScreenMeet - https://www.linkedin.com/company/screenmeet/

Tehsin Daya - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tdaya/

Groove - https://www.linkedin.com/company/groove.co/

Resources mentioned:

Qualified - https://www.qualified.com/

Test Drive widget on AppExchange - https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxContentListingDetail?listingId=a0N3u00000PtX4aEAF

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #cloud #software

On this episode, Tarik Dwiek, Head of Technology Alliances at Snowflake — a single, global platform that powers the data cloud — speaks about lessons learned building their ecosystem from scratch.

The mission was to make partners successful and create mutually beneficial relationships.

Tarik says that from an ISV perspective, it all starts with an amazing product innovation, and the first step is solid product integration.

The team began documenting their requirements, and what they could give partners who met those requirements.

Tarik goes over the steps they took, the major lessons learned and explains how the business does things today, having built from seven alliances to 113 partners today.

Tarik Dwiek - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarikdwiek/

Snowflake - https://www.linkedin.com/company/snowflake-computing

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#cloud #saas #software

On this episode, Maria Pergolino, Chief Marketing Officer at ActiveCampaign, speaks about finding differentiation and what ActiveCampaign did to create a difference in the market.

ActiveCampaign’s SaaS platform is a CRM and customer experience automation platform. The platform was launched in 2016 and boasts more than 150,000 customers, with an ARR of $200 million.

Maria explains what she means by differentiation and says that it is not your typical start or approach with things like sales and marketing. ActiveCampaign built-in differentiation from the beginning with ten keys for hypergrowth and success.

She says, “We created that customer experience in places where others weren't, which gave us this viral motion and allowed people to spread the word.”

Maria Pergolino - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariapergolino/

ActiveCampaign - https://www.linkedin.com/company/activecampaign-inc-/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#cloud #software #saas

On this episode, Amy Gorman, Vice President ISV Sales at Salesforce, shares her journey at Salesforce starting in 2004 and the lessons she’s learned.

Salesforce provides CRM software and applications with a focus on customer service, marketing automation, analytics and app development.

When Amy began at Salesforce, there were 500 employees. She says, “It was a really exciting time to be part of this innovative but very scrappy company.”

Today, of course, Salesforce is a 78,000-strong global company, known as the world’s No. 1 CRM.

Amy explains how the company’s core values helped guide them through a lot of changes and how they are still guided by their core values of trust — which leads to customer success — sustainability and innovation — which is fed by equality.

Resources mentioned:

Ron Huddleston- https://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/pioneering-former-salesforce-microsoft-channel-exec-ron-huddleston-dies

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Amelia Kirby, Global Head of Technology Platform Partnerships, Work Products at Meta, speaks about the three key learnings building Meta’s first Workplace partner program.

Workplace is Meta’s SaaS enterprise technology for organizational communication.

Amelia describes the challenges of their first partner ecosystem, sharing key lessons to help others build a partner ecosystem for the first time.

She outlines the decision-making framework that helped her team evaluate opportunities for investment.

Amelia demonstrates what version one of their program looked like, saying, “We thought we had successfully launched but realized we'd built something that didn't really benefit our partners as much as it benefited us.”

She explains what they added and adjusted, how they structured it, what version two of their partner program looked like, as well as the end results and plans for the future.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Alex Glenn, CEO at Partnerhub, a platform for digital agencies and tech solutions, talks about whether partner commissions attract and retain digital agency partners.

Alex provides sources of information to answer the question of whether digital agencies are attracted or retained by commissions. A poll on LinkedIn found that 75% of agencies said they would still refer if the partner stopped paying commission.

Because the data and feedback reveal that agencies are not motivated by commission, Alex offers advice on how the commission could be repurposed to create a better program.

Towards the end of the episode, he gives some hard truths about channel, including the fact that commission is not a factor in a digital agency's decision to send clients to your product. Marketing and product have more to do with partnership success than the partnerships team. If your CEO does not believe the company is reliant on partnerships to be a category leader, you probably won't succeed in partnerships.

Teaser: … “Yes, you have a B2B relationship with a company that is contractual, but when you're partnering, you are dealing with a person.” - Alex Glenn

Resources mentioned:

Airtable - https://www.airtable.com/

Databox - https://databox.com/

Webflow - https://webflow.com/

Smith.ai - https://smith.ai/

HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/ 

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#cloud #software #saas

On this episode, Amit Sinha, President at WorkSpan — a platform for automating and scaling co-selling businesses — talks about getting ecosystems to sell together.

Amit starts by explaining that organizations that lack internal structures, mechanisms and policies to govern their ecosystem involvement can easily fail. He outlines the challenges surrounding business ecosystems, such as using risky tools (e.g., spreadsheets, emails and presentations), disjointed processes, inconsistent data as well as culture and mindset.

Amit discusses the ecosystem operating model and adopting the flywheel by co-selling and investing to serve customer needs, co-innovating in order to develop and refine partnering offerings, co-marketing in order to share resources and reach in order to identify and create markets together.

He displays the results WorkSpan achieved by adopting this model, including $47 billion in the pipeline through its network last year alone.

Amit characterizes the key capabilities required for ecosystem management, such as processes, data hubs, access control, intelligence and multi-party ecosystems. And he details the six ecosystem best practices and trends.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #cloud #software

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Sunir Shah, President of Cloud Software Association, speaks about upcoming plans and events by Cloud Software Association, a SaaS partnership network. Sunir is also CEO at AppBind, a platform that solves the tricky problem of how partner resellers can buy SaaS and bill it to their clients.

The Association plans to build a single place where people can gain knowledge about tech partnerships and find answers to important questions on the topic. They will also be working with other important voices such as Jarred Fuller, Bader Haberman, Peter Lai and Rob Spee.

Members can also expect more networking, both digitally and in person. Sunir advises what to expect with upcoming events and provides resources for those interested.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #cloud #software

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Alexis Petrichos, Director, Technology Ecosystem at Chili Piper, an inbound lead conversion and scheduling app, shares the partnership experience as a showcase of the actual initiatives between Chili Piper and their first partner, Clearbit.

The goal was to find and build a relationship with their first successful partner and then replicate the “formula” to build a successful department.

Alexis provides the background of both companies, and how they fit together in a partnership.

He goes on to explain how the key to converting a partnership to an established bi-directional revenue flow was the cross-departmental approach, and the initiatives and results for each team. For example, the SDR team booked five meetings in the first week of testing out the cadence.

Overall, their first partnership - with Clearbit - in Q1 resulted in more than $100,000 in the pipeline with closed-won deals of $50,000.

Finally, Alexis circles back to the ultimate goal of the showcase: replicating the “formula”.

Resources mentioned:

- Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

- Cloud Software Association - https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/

- Salesforce - https://www.salesforce.com/eu/

- Gong - https://www.gong.io/

- Cosmic - https://cosmictechnologies.net/

- Meta - https://about.meta.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#cloud #saas #software

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Allan Knabe, CEO and Co-Founder at apiable.io, and Michael Leppitsch, Head of Data Strategies and Alliances at Ascend.io, discuss fueling API ecosystems with data products for monetization.

Apiable.io allows the building of an API developer portal in less than an hour and Ascend.io is a data automation cloud that speeds up workloads 10x faster than ever before.​

The conversation starts with a definition of data products and Michael explains that Ascend.io builds datasets that are delivered to customers and users through APIs. Data products together with the API create a way of reaching the customer.

Allan likens an API ecosystem to a digital supply chain.

Allan and Michael explain how companies build data products and ecosystems and how to get started:

In essence, you need to speak to potential customers to find out what pains they're having and loop that back to data you have and whether that data can solve that specific problem.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#cloud #software #saas

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Rachel Collie, Director, Technology Partnerships and App Marketplace at Unanet, speaks about how reporting structures can blur strategy and how changing them up has the potential to benefit the whole ecosystem.

Unanet’s ERP and CRM technologies drive bottom-line growth by connecting their client’s projects, people and financials with greater efficiency and improved decision-making.

The company’s biggest question was, “How do we recruit partners without recruiting partners?"

To address this question, they needed a technology partners evaluation strategy, which became getting customers to adopt more functionality via technology partners.

Unanet’s new organizational chart is based on the tech partners’ value to the customer and Rachel has moved from Sales into Product, now reporting to the Chief Product Officer. The improved structure means she now sits with the decision-makers that impact the ecosystem.

Moving from Sales to Product enabled her to be a much better advocate for partners.

Rachel also discusses the company’s next goals.

Resources Mentioned:

Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#cloud #saas #software

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Swaroop Kolli, Founder & CEO of Pronto, shares lessons learned from a career in Business Development Partnerships and then becoming Founder of Pronto, a platform that was birthed from the pain points of BDP.

Swaroop reveals the challenges of working in Business Development Partnerships, such as tracking via spreadsheets, sharing pipeline data without sharing a system of record, launching joint solutions and accelerating GTM, internal and external alignment, measuring and reporting and repeatability.

Interviewing and brainstorming with 300+ subject matter experts provided options to resolve the challenges but also brought cons.

It was this which led to the birth of Pronto.

Swaroop shares the lessons learned:

1. Take an outside-inside-out approach.

2. Organizational support and alignment are key.

3. Start small then scale.

4. Socialize internally.

5. Incentivize and enable sellers.

6. Measure, measure, measure.

7. Be human and build meaningful relationships.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Bob Moore, Co-Founder and CEO at Crossbeam, a partner ecosystem platform that helps companies build more valuable partnerships, talks about what's really happening with the data that's coming out of the emerging class of software products.

The presentation centers on the modern SaaS innovation cycle:

Step 1: New technology is developed, which leads to Step 2: New data comes out of the new technology, which results in Step 3: New product integrations.

Bob explains the latest dimensions of context and action: traditionally, your CRM silo vs. the new ecosystem CRM, shared pipeline, real-time updates, partner attribution and actionable insights.

He explains how new ecosystems are born. New data for new technologies breeds a new ecosystem and the most important ecosystem of all: the meta-ecosystem. It is made up of all the tools used by partner teams and those they support.

The data is as complex as the opportunity is vast. Bob explains how to solve the problem by hiring experts who can wrangle these systems and drive productive outputs.

This is where partner ops come in. They ultimately make partner data useful, actionable and scalable. They put the data and the playbooks it enables in the hands of the right people, in the right places, at the right times.

Resources Mentioned:

Stitch - https://stitch.money/

Looker - https://www.looker.com/

Google BigQuery - https://cloud.google.com/bigquery

Salesforce - https://www.salesforce.com/eu/

Sigma - https://sigmaconnected.com/za/

Fivetran - https://www.fivetran.com/

PartnerPortal.io - https://www.partnerportal.io/

Terminus - https://terminus.com/

Slack - https://slack.com/

Partnered - https://partnered.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Steve Stewart, Head of Global Channels at Smartsheet — a project and work management and collaboration platform — speaks about how Smartsheet went about building their SaaS partner program journey.

When they first started fleshing it out, they only had resell partners. Today they invest in high-value-add solution partners.

Smartsheet boasts 185 professional services partners with YOY growth of 284%.

They have grown this type of partner in a big way because not only is it core to the value proposition but also core to having a fantastic ecosystem of services delivery for both the company and the partner community.

Step number one was asking the right questions and interviewing a lot of partners and then defining what it is they wanted from their partners.

Steve explains the Smartsheet partner strategy and partner types and goes through their ideal partner profile and how their channel OKRs align with strategy.

He also discusses the Smartsheet partner ecosystem with best-in-class partner support, new partner learning pathways and selling channel value-add internally.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Eric Chan, Head of Global Partnerships at Chargebee, talks about how the company matured their partner program between 2019 and 2022.

Chargebee was launched in 2011 and the partnerships team was created in 2019. However, because most of the partnerships were due to integrations they were passive and not operationalized.

The first step to partnership maturity was to understand what partners wanted.

The next was to define what kind of partners they had and understand where they wanted to go with the program.

Eric outlines the necessary steps to building a mature partner program and goes on to discuss the importance of a management operating rhythm. He explains how to identify inefficiencies and why it’s important to have rules of engagement. He also expands upon why it’s critical to regularly update processes and procedures.

Finally, Eric talks about leveraging your influence and creating a culture of celebration to get people excited about working with you.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, John McCabe, VP of Worldwide Channel Sales at SafeGuard Cyber, talks about building a 100% channel sales program in SaaS.

SafeGuard Cyber is a platform that protects business communications through NLU (Natural Language Understanding) for cross-channel protection.

John has scaled four companies, helping them move to become 100% channel sales organizations. He shares how the moves increased the pipeline by 200% and reduced sales cycles.

Included in the conversation is what to expect as you move to 100% channel. For example, it’s important that executives see the value in it and the sales team should be open to it. The technology should also be easy to understand and embrace by partners so they can sell more.

John also discusses how to secure executive sponsorship to move an organization to 100% channel led, finding and attracting channel partners and whether the 100% channel business still requires a marketing and sales team.

Resources mentioned:

Pronto - https://www.gopronto.io/

SuperGlue - https://ccctechcenter.org/projects/project-glue

Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Gloria Castillo, Sr. Manager, Partner Programs at Loopio, discusses how Loopio built their partner program, outlining five key features as well as lessons learned.

Loopio is Request For Proposal software that streamlines and automates the RFP process and allows for easy team collaboration.

Particularly interesting is that in 2019 when Loopio wanted to get started building their partner program, Gloria, from a marketing and process improvement background, came aboard to help but had no real partner program experience.

However, the numbers demonstrated their success, and by 2021, just a year later, 17% of the company’s revenue was a result of the new partner program.

Loopio’s goal was to build a successful and certified network of partners and their first step was to define what success looked like to them.

Five key features of Loopio’s partner program are:

1. Partner onboarding

2. Partner Portal

3. Partner Academy

4. Co-marketing

5. Co-selling

Gloria explains how each of the features work, and overall, the presentation provides valuable insights into what a successful partner program consists of.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas  #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Scott Pollack, Co-Founder & CEO of Firneo, a professional community for business development and partnerships professionals, discusses the paths that lead to impactful partnerships and how to facilitate growth as a SaaS leader.

The crux of the matter is that in the SaaS partnership sector, most have “fallen” into partnering and have never received any formal training and mentorship.

Scott discusses the growth and future of the SaaS community and the confluence of partnerships as a core strategy in the organization to align all varying go-to-market motions, channel marketing, sales, etc., as well as product and all the other components that make a partnership into an ecosystem.

The conversation also covers the common mistakes that Scott typically sees when somebody is creating a partnership model in a company.

Essentially, the key to building impactful partnerships is understanding the value that is being delivered to every level of the organization and individual at every stage along the process and having alignment of that value. It's also the path to a successful partnership career.

Resources mentioned:

Cloud Software Association - https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com/

PartnerHacker.com - https://partnerhacker.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Brittany Wroblewski, VP, G2 Track & G2 Investor Solutions at G2, discusses what the G2 data shows about the state of the partner stack.

G2 is the largest B2B SaaS marketplace and Brittany reports that all Fortune 500 businesses use the marketplace.

Brittany shares the 3 trends that G2 is seeing with regard to partner stacks:

  1. Partnership teams need budget, and not just for headcount.

  2. Integrations no longer start at implementation but during the sales phase.

  3. The tools being created now are mostly for SMBs. It’s also SMBs that are driving reviews and SMBs that are leveraging partner technology.

Resources mentioned:

- Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

- Partner Fleet - https://www.partnerfleet.io/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Jake Jorgovan, Founder of Content Allies, a marketing agency that helps B2B tech companies launch revenue-generating podcasts and content marketing campaigns, discusses building co-marketing partnerships through podcasting.

Jake talks about the value of co-marketing partnerships through podcasting for small businesses compared to larger businesses, as well as the different angles that each uses to meet different objectives.

He says that before creating a podcast, it’s critical to understand your objective, as well as the process around that. For example, some use podcasting for account-based marketing, to build relationships with new customers or partners, or as a showcase of thought leadership.

Some of the tips Jake provides are around gathering ideas, what to do to sustain podcast partnerships after the show, ways people are collaborating together on podcasts and how to create awareness for podcast shows as well as outlets for podcasting content.

Resources Mentioned:

Leaders of B2B podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leaders-of-b2b-interviews-on-b2b-leadership-tech/id1541181625

Content Allies podcast agency - https://contentallies.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

On this episode, Daniel Ewing, West Channel Leader at Trend Micro, a security services platform for the cloud, shares how Trend Micro made the transition to building for SaaS sales while maintaining traditional revenue. He talks about how others can build for today’s needs while also building for the future.

Daniel explains the difference between the traditional sales model vs. a SaaS model.

He provides use cases of why it's the business leader’s responsibility to educate channel partners to make them more agile. For example, by teaching one partner how to sell cloud services and provide deep technical competency at the same time they created 260% YoY opportunities. Their partner also closed a new cloud deal in the first 6 months and they experienced broader engagement rates with other partners and customers.

Daniel also explains why national deals take time to scale. He says that if you can increase the deal sold and then increase that to a larger deal while also helping a partner to maintain value, everyone is happy and it leads to more opportunities.

Resources:

- Daniel Ewing Twitter https://twitter.com/TheDataCenterAE (@TheDataCenterAE)

- TrendMicro LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/trend-micro/

- TrendMicro Website - https://www.trendmicro.com/

- TrendMicro Twitter - https://twitter.com/TrendMicro (@TrendMicro)

- TrendMicro Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/TrendMicro

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode, Cory Snyder, VP of Partnerships at Sendoso, shares his methodology for launching a partner program in less than four weeks.

Sendoso provides a platform for companies to send the right gift to the right person at the right time to increase customer loyalty.

Cory speaks from experience; he’s launched his own partner program in three weeks while building out an entire PRM, generating 1.3 million in the first year.

He explains how to launch fast and what makes it a viable idea.

Included in the episode are detailed case studies of companies that have launched their partner programs within one month, how they did it and the impact.

For example, one business started a partner program in three weeks, onboarding 100 partners within the first month.

Cory shares additional tips such as ways to get quick wins, executive alignment, what to do once you’ve launched, and how to grow your partner base.

Resources mentioned:

- PartnerStack - https://partnerstack.com/

- Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

#saas #software #cloud

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode, Renee Bergeron, Senior Vice President & General Manager AppSmart at AppDirect, discusses how the two-year pandemic accelerated channel transformation.

AppSmart is a B2B technology ecosystem powered by the AppDirect platform.

Renee speaks about four key elements from the pandemic that fast-tracked channel transformation as businesses needed to reinvent themselves in the digital sphere.

Along with transformation into the digital sphere is the trend where businesses want to be provided with end-to-end solutions and this is resulting in a shift to ecosystems.

The impact is on the channel partner who then needs to navigate these different marketplaces to bring together end-to-end solutions for their end customers. In order to do so, channel partners are embracing technology-agnostic multi-category marketplaces to bring together solutions from different categories.

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud

In this episode, Dustin Howes, Sr. Affiliate Manager at PeopleConnect, discusses scaling a SaaS affiliate program.

Dustin has 12 years affiliate marketing experience and recently joined PeopleConnect which provides better ways to explore, find and manage information about people.

Dustin explains the keys to performance marketing and discusses:

Resources mentioned:

Research resources - https://dustinhowes.com/how-to-create-an-affiliate-program/ 

Affiliate program checklist - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HW7tQvZUtkseTgfrQElyXfIIMxlMF27D/edit#gid=661753672 

Impact- https://impact.com/ 

PartnerStack - https://partnerstack.com/ 

HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/ 

Grovia - https://grovia.io/ 

Salesforce - https://www.salesforce.com/eu/ 

Jasper - https://www.jasper.ai/ 

SEMRush - https://www.semrush.com/ 

YouTube Channel Crawler - https://channelcrawler.com/ 

TubeBuddy - https://www.tubebuddy.com/ 

Afluencer - https://afluencer.com/ 

Gorgias - https://www.gorgias.com/ 

Onlinejobs.ph - https://www.onlinejobs.ph/ 

Octopus - https://octopuscrm.io/ 

EveryDay Dreamers - https://everydaydreamers.ca/ 

Hunter.io - https://hunter.io/ 

StreamYard - https://streamyard.com/ 

eWebinar - https://ewebinar.com/ 

ShaneBarker.com - https://shanebarker.com/

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

On this episode, Bryn Jones, Co-Founder and CEO, and Tyler Calder, CMO, both at PartnerStack, discuss future-proofing your business with partner ecosystems.

Businesses no longer need salespeople to sell their products. And that, to a large extent, is what this conversation is about.

The following points are covered:

Resources mentioned:

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Allan Adler, Managing Partner at Digital Bridge Partners, explains why ecosystems are the best way to grow as well as the best way to help the world.

Allan says the term “go-to-market” is broken, and here’s why:

Allan also talks about what happens when you get it right, how to get there, maturity model foundations, stages and the following roadmap:

Launch Prove Scale Leverage

Resources mentioned:

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, we welcome Laura Padilla, Head of Global Channel, Platform Sales and BD at Zoom at the time of this presentation and now VP, Global Partners and Services at Airtable.

Laura discusses:

Product Program Partners People

Resources Mentioned:

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Scott Brinker, VP Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, discusses consolidation vs. aggregation and what makes ecosystems great.

HubSpot, one of the first Martech tools on the market, offers software products for inbound marketing, sales, and customer service.

The lessons presented by Scott span the last ten years, from the start of Martech:

Resources Mentioned:

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

#saas #software #cloud #saaspodcast #cloudsoftwareassociation #ecosystem #martech

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, David A. Yovanno, CEO at impact.com, a partnership management platform, and author of “The Partnership Economy: How Modern Businesses Find New Customers, Grow Revenue, and Deliver Exceptional Experiences”, speaks about how partnerships revolutionize SaaS sales:

Compatibility. Shared customers and audiences. Desirable customer experiences. Accurate tracking and measurements to see if the partnership is working. Motivating value exchange. Shared partnership success plan.

The most important question is not, “how can I get somebody else to sell my products?” but rather, “how can I be part of the information or the experience that my target customers are sourcing?”

Resources Mentioned:

Note: SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode, Bryn Jones, Co-Founder & CEO at PartnerStack, shares lessons learned from building a collaborations platform and failing, then going on to build a successful partnership program based on real partnership insights.

PartnerStack was created to connect businesses with software companies; It’s the only partnerships platform built for B2B SaaS that supports affiliate, referral and reseller partnerships.

What they learned from the failure of their first business venture equipped them for the success of their second, PartnerStack. The lessons learned resulted in them speaking with more than 500 software companies. In doing so, they gained an understanding of the challenges they faced, which included:

They called the first 10,000 partners that signed up and learned the following:

Note! SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us at admin@cloudsoftwareassociation.com for information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Sunir Shah, CEO at AppBind, shares lessons learned going from zero reseller signups to hundreds.

AppBind, created in 2020, is a subscription and service billing management tool for agency owners. The software produced no sales at first. Today, by listening instead of selling, they have hundreds signed up.

Here are some of the lessons learned:

Essentially, AppBind was sending out the wrong message, “buy software and sell it to your customers”. Here’s why it proved ineffective:

Tips:

Resources Mentioned:

Note! SaaS Connect 2023 will take place in San Francisco April 19th and 20th. If you would like to be a sponsor, please contact us atadmin@cloudsoftwareassociation.comfor information.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Dustin Howes, Sr. Affiliate Manager at PeopleConnect, who boasts more than 12 years experience in the industry, shares the pillars for starting a SaaS affiliate program in 2022.

PeopleConnect is a company that develops tools to connect people.

The conversation includes:

Resources mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Cristina Flaschen, CEO and Founder at Pandium shares her experience about how to build a tech partner program.

Pandium is an integration marketplace that provides a service to help launch integrations six times faster and with 70 percent less engineering.

In this discussion, the following points are covered:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Dominic Dinardo, CEO and Co-Founder of Aforza, shares his wealth of experience in becoming a successful SaaS company.

Aforza, leveraging the Salesforce platform, helps consumer goods businesses sell more and grow faster through a suite of cloud and mobile apps built for the industry.

The conversation centers on how world-class and visionary entrepreneurs think, as well as tips and tricks about becoming a successful SaaS company. Topics include:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Andrew Porter, Principal - Alliances & Ecosystems at Pariveda, and Christy Dockendorf, User-Device-Service (UDS) Business Development Partner Manager - Cloud & Software at Lenovo, discuss building SaaS partnerships with services firms.

Pariveda is a consulting firm that solves complex technology and business problems by aligning people-development with client objectives.

Lenovo is, of course, a global technology company. Christy and Andrew met when Christy worked in her previous role at a machine learning artificial intelligence company that successfully partnered with Pariveda.

The two partners focused on the whole customer journey, evaluating the touchpoints that made the most sense. They built a lightweight framework from demand gen, sales, implementation and onboarding, customer success, advocacy, KPIs, and so on.

Christy and Andrew discuss:

Resources mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Shreyas Sadalgi, Chief Business Strategy Officer at BetterCloud, explains how to build SaaS ecosystem partnerships and overcome hurdles.

Shreyas has spent the last 15 years building partnership ecosystems primarily around product and technology integration and, in this episode, offers lessons, strategies, and tips to build mutually beneficial partnerships.

Listen to:

Resources mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com. 

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Paul Magnaghi, Global ISV Program Leader at Zoom, shares how partnerships rocketed Zoom’s growth and explains that ecosystem-led is the next stage in growth for many technology companies.

Zoom is a digital platform that powers communication, such as online meetings, chat, phone, webinars, and online events. Pre-Covid, the software company had about 500 partner applications on its marketplace and, at the time of this podcast, it was up to a whopping 1,600 applications.

This show is beneficial to those trying to build a marketplace to scale fast, just as Zoom experienced.

Discover:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com. 

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Sunir Shah, CEO at AppBind and President of Cloud Software Association, discusses the value of partnerships and solving SaaS challenges together.

Cloud Software Association is a nonprofit trade association; a SaaS partnership network that helps partnership people develop relationships, close deals, and learn from other people inside the network.

AppBind, created by Sunir Shah, solves one of the biggest partnering challenges by creating a shared email and password to allow partners to sign up on behalf of customers.

The presentation demonstrates the value of getting involved with Cloud Software Association:

By driving demand - more signups, more subscriptions at the top of your funnel. Adoption and retention to keep your customers. Upselling and cross-selling other people's products.

Selling other people’s products as integrations. Leveraging other people's marketing, which is distribution. Leveraging other people's sales, which is reselling.

Teaser Tip: … “The more we share our stories and experiences, the faster we overcome and solve our collective SaaS gaps.” - Sunir Shah, CEO at AppBind & President at Cloud Software Association

Resources Mentioned:

Please note: this presentation is from a 2018 SaaS conference.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com. 

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Jimmy Riordan, Chrome Strategic Partnerships Manager at Google, shares how the Chrome Enterprise team is building out a brand new ecosystem of partners for Chrome Enterprise Recommended Apps and Solutions.

Chrome Enterprise Recommended is Google’s partner program for third-party solutions that have been optimized and certified on Chrome OS.

Listen to the following discussion points:

Resources mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, we dive behind the scenes of the journey of LastPass, a very hot startup. Rachael Stockton, at the time Senior Director of Product Marketing at LogMeIn (that acquired LastPass) and now Senior Director of Product Marketing at Transmit Security, shares what worked well, what didn’t, how partnerships were so critical to their strategy moving forward, and tips for getting organizational buy-in to the partnership concept.

LastPass is an all-in-one password manager that was founded in 2008 and has 30 employees.

An interesting discussion, the presentation covers:

Resources Mentioned:

Please note: this presentation is from a SaaS conference in 2018.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Shilpi Kapoor, CEO of BarrierBreak, discusses how SaaS can make business accessible to everyone — even those with disabilities, and why that’s important.

BarrierBreak is an accessibility consulting firm that provides end-to-end accessibility solutions for SaaS companies, whether it is doing a one-time audit on your product, or creating dedicated teams of accessibility professionals that work with you and your teams.

The discussion includes the following points:

          - Making your own products accessible.

          - Digital accessibility for your partner network.

          - Digitally accessible processes.

          - Communication internally and externally; it makes good business sense to communicate that your company has a culture of inclusivity.

          - Define your accessibility vision

          - Take stock and prioritize

          - Identify skills, resources, and partners

          - Conduct accessibility audits

          - Embed accessibility into processes

          - Create VPATs for products

          - Monitor progress

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Erik Harbison, Chief Marketing Officer at AWeber Communications, Inc. at the time of this presentation and now Co-Founder and President at The Marketing Help, shares lessons from 15 years of driving growth through affiliate programs.

Aweber is an email service provider started in 1998 with three people. It was one of the first of its kind on the market. At the time of this presentation, it had grown to 220 employees. Its affiliate program was born out of its customers being super passionate about finding success using the tool.

Here’s the backdrop for the show: Aweber’s affiliate program took off robustly and then simmered down due to lack of nurturing. Mistakenly, they believed that it would grow organically. That was lesson number one learned.

Erik Harbison shares other lessons learned:

Resources mentioned:

Please note: this presentation is from a 2018 SaaS conference.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Sophia Sithole, Head of Customer Success and Partnerships at CloudApp at the time of this presentation and now Senior Partner Marketer, Platforms at Zapier, explains what made a small startup abandon tradition to develop a channel sales strategy; how they did it; what worked; what didn't work.

CloudApp, an instant video and image sharing platform for companies, had 25 employees at the time, all of whom juggled many tasks; Sophia explains how they handled setting up a channel when they didn’t even have a dedicated marketing team.

Discover the steps and processes CloudApp went through and the tips they offer, based on their experiences:

Teaser Tip: … “The great thing about every lost opportunity is that you get an idea of what your ideal partner looks like, and how to scale.” - Sophia Sithole

Resources Mentioned:

Please note: this presentation was from a 2018 SaaS conference.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Alex Fala, Chief Executive Officer at Vend at the time of this presentation and now Chief Executive Officer at Syft Technologies, presents a conversation on how to win a vertical, and shares some of the successes, failures, and observations of their partners and what’s worked for them at Vend.

Vend, a company that provides point of sale software, works with small and medium-sized inventory-based retail (stores such as fashion giftwares, homewares, etc.). At the time of this presentation, Vend boasted 20,000 global customers and partners such as Apple and Xero.

What you will come away with from this presentation:

          - They asked themselves, “What is the solution that customers need that goes beyond the product?”

          - They began to speak with prospective partners,  just having conversations with people.

          - They asked themselves, “How can we scale to $100 million in ARR?”

          - Think long term but act now.

          - Act bigger than you are.

          - Beware of the anti-bodies.

               - Decide on your approach (either big play or build gradually).

Please note: this presentation is from a SaaS conference in 2018.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Herman Man, VP of products and partnerships (Americas) at Xero at the time of this presentation and now chief product officer at BlueVine, talks about cloud and services and how SaaS can enable the success and transformation of SMBs.

Xero, cloud accounting software, is very focused on small businesses and looks particularly at how to be the bridge that helps make small businesses successful. It’s helped more than 1.2 million small businesses and boasts more than 600+ integrations.

At Xero, when they talk with small business owners, they are always presented with two primary questions:

Will my business survive? How do I actually grow my business?

These are valid questions because statistics show that after five years, only 50% of businesses survive.

Herman addresses how SaaS can help SMBs not only survive, but thrive. The discussion includes:

Teaser Tip: “To enable small businesses, we in SaaS need to build the interconnectedness between the apps that they use.” - Herman Man

Resources Mentioned:

This presentation is from a SaaS conference in 2018.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, we’re joined by Cory Snyder, VP of Sales and Partnerships at Maropost, and Bob Moore, Co-Founder and CEO at Crossbeam. Crossbeam raised $76 million for partnership tech, even though it had not written a single line of code yet, nor did it have any customers.

Crossbeam, founded in 2018, helps companies build more valuable partnerships; it’s essentially an Escrow service for data.

On this show, Bob talks about:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Ross Garrett explains how to become a profitable platform with the superpowers of the network economy. At the time of the recording, which occurred during a 2018 SaaS conference, Ross was the Chief Product Officer at Cloud Elements. Today, he is Head of Product at Volkswagen Automotive Cloud.

Here is what’s included in the presentation:

          1. Magnetic (understanding the value your company provides, and turning it into something others can leverage).

          2. Real time (reacting to change).

          3. Infinite (removing the limitations of a single-sided business model).

          4. Intimate (adapting and personalizing personas to customers, giving you a competitive advantage).

          1. Flexibility (allowing other companies to leverage your platform).

          2. Longevity (delivering long-term value).

          3. Integration (the foundation of making your platform strategy work or fail).

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Sandeep Srinivasan, Evangelism and Presales - Reseller Partners at Talkdesk at the time of the recording, but now Senior Product Manager - AI at Amazon Web Services, shares how Talkdesk got their PS (Professional Services) to break even.

Talkdesk specializes in delivering contact center software. When Sandeep joined the company in 2016, they only had 15 employees. Today, in 2021, they’ve grown to 1958 employees.

Talkdesk was named a visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant — the youngest company to ever show up in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, in the CKF category.

Here’s how they got their professional services to break even, and how they recommend other companies can do it too:

Sales alignment and predictability Quality of implementation (being mindful of your customer’s needs) Capacity and utilization

It is even better when you can turn the above three levers into a process.

        - Types of partners (channel partners, value resellers, and ISV partners. ), and different phases: phase 1 is education, 

          phase 2 is field engagement shadowing, and phase 3 is going direct and giving partners projects to do on their own.

Operations Partner strategy Sales strategy

Resources Mentioned:

This presentation was recorded at a SaaS conference in 2019.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connectby Cloud Software Association, Jeff Gardner, head of platform partnerships at Intercom at the time of the recording, and now VP of product and partnerships at api.video, shares Intercom’s journey making the transition from a product-first company to a platform-first company.

The following points are shared:

          - Know your audience and serve them in the right order.

          - You can offer great apps but if your audience either doesn't know about them or doesn’t know what value they offer, they will flop. 

            Make improvements based on user feedback (once they educated their users, they experienced an upsurge in usage of about double).

          - It takes a lot of product thinking to get a platform right. You must understand the value it provides from a user’s point of view.

          - It’s not product or platform, it’s both. The competitive edge comes from the entire structure and how each thing connects with the other,

            and it is that which becomes difficult for any competitor to duplicate, unlike products alone.

         - Know your audience. Focus on providing value to others first, before yourself.

         - Understand your goals and where you want to head to and then focus, instead of jumping around from one thing to another.

         - Build relationships.

This presentation is from a 2019 SaaS Conference.

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Avanish Sahai, global VP, ISV and technology alliances at ServiceNow at the time of the recording, and now a member of the board of directors at HubSpot, shares a decade’s worth of experience around building platform ecosystems.

Discover:

Listen to the show for more of a decade’s worth of lessons and myths.

Teaser Tip: … “Myth: Enterprises don’t buy from startups.” - Avanish Sahai

This presentation is from a 2019 SaaS conference.

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Jamie Tharp, vice president of partnerships and business development at Justuno at the time of the recording, and now head of partnerships, Americas at Amazon Pay, provides a high-value presentation on how to understand your ideal agency profile in order to be more effective at marketing and sales in the SaaS space.

Ideal agency profiles are the companies looking for the solutions you offer; they're a fit for your products.

Jamie provides a roadmap to understand your ideal agency profile:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Zach Svendsen, Senior Director of Alliances and Business Development at Tipalti, and Simon Bouchez, CEO & co-founder at Reveal, share their combined experience in SaaS partnership programs.

Zach built his partner team at Tipalti, an accounting software financial technology business, from scratch starting in 2019 when there were only two people. Today, they boast more than 25 partners.

Simon has been in SaaS for the last 10 years and is CEO and co-founder at Reveal, a business intelligence solution that is purpose-built for the embedded analytics market.

The discussion centers around partner commission. The conclusion is that if it is focused on commission alone, the program will fail because success means building trust and engagement with your partners beyond a paycheck.

Included in the discussion:

In summary, “At the end of the day, commission is a tool to get the bigger pie.” - Simon Bouchez

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Stu Richards, CEO of Bredin, shares some of the research they've conducted in the small to mid-size business space, specifically around how companies feel about SaaS-based applications.

Bredin focuses on providing businesses with original research to understand, engage, acquire, and retain SMB customers, and it conducts a monthly survey.

The feedback is helpful for SaaS businesses to know how to effectively sell to SMBs.

Side note: For the sake of clarity in this presentation, very small businesses are those with under 20 employees, small businesses are classified as those with 20–99 employees, and mid-sized businesses have 100–500 employees.

This particular survey asked for feedback from SMBs about what keeps them up at night and what challenges they face.

Discover:

The information in this episode was presented at a SaaS Conference in 2019.

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Rob Belcher, managing director of SaaS Capital, shares findings from a B2B SaaS survey that the company produces, which details data on the state of the market and channel.

SaaS Capital helps SaaS businesses fund their growth without selling more and more equity. To ensure they remain on top of B2B SaaS trends, metrics, and benchmarking data, they conduct an annual survey with their database.

The data Rob shares on this show is from their eighth annual survey, reflecting findings from 2018. With more than 1,000 respondents, they received data around performance benchmarking—for example, revenue, growth rate, and retention rates—and answered the hottest questions that companies in the B2B SaaS space are asking, such as, “Should I start a channel? How should I do it? Who should I partner with? Is it worth it?

Some of the data presented in this episode includes:

Note: This presentation took place at a 2019 SaaS Conference. The data presented is from 2018.

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Naresh Venkat, head of ML/AI Product Partnerships at Google at the time of the recording, but now co-founder and COO at Osmos, discusses how SaaS can supercharge with Google AI products.

Google is an AI business, and this presentation covers the unique value of machine learning within partnerships as well as Google AI opportunities:

            1. Google Translation

            2. Google Photos

            3. Gmail Smart Reply

            4. AlphaGo

            5. Google Cloud AI

            6. Contact Centre AI

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Nam Le, head of sales, Embedded Platform at Workato, an expert in partnerships and getting executive buy-in, explains how to get buy-in into the idea of partnerships.

Nam Le is a salesperson who's met every stakeholder, every objection, and every motivator that you can imagine. The reason he’s our guest on this show is that he only deals with the people who are successful enough to talk to him, so he knows what they've done on a practical level to achieve success. And hopefully, listening to his input will give you a roadmap to your own success.

Points of discussion include:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Nikita Zhitkevich, Director of Channel Partnerships and Alliances at PartnerStack, and Tyrone Lingley, Head of Partnerships at Ally.io, enjoy a conversation about what partnerships look like today and how to scale them.

Some of what you can look forward to hearing about:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Sachin Agarwal, principal product manager at LaunchDarkly at the time of this recording and now senior product manager at Google, shares from the product manager’s point of view the best methods of getting PM buy-in for partnership initiatives:

Don’t surprise product managers. They are information junkies; they like to know everything. Make it easy for the product manager. Being able to think like a product manager is really helpful. Certain documents are helpful to get the product organization to buy in. Understand the PM’s motivation. You can play into their need to deliver value.

PMs are people too. They have egos. They're motivated by recognition. If they were motivated by money, they'd be in sales. If you can make the product manager who fought for your thing famous, then you can get your job done.

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com.

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Craig Klemp, who was Sr. Director of Global Partnerships at Evernote during the time of recording, and is now VP of Strategy and Partnerships at EZ Texting, shares the lessons learned from international partnerships.

Evernote, a productivity tool with 60,000 installs a day, boasts 225 million users worldwide, with 80% of those located outside the US.

Their global partnership ecosystem is made up of four layers:

Tech/integrations App stores (distribution) OEMs (distribution) Resellers (distribution)

In this presentation, Craig highlights partnering with massive Japan-based consumer brand NTT Docomo, which is on the same scale as a merged AT&T and Verizon, with 50% of the Japanese market share.

He offers valuable considerations for companies thinking about international partnerships:

Teaser Tip: … “Make sure you’re set up for success.” - Craig Klemp

Resources Mentioned:

The Culture Map (book)

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Kyle Jenke, who at the time of this presentation was working in Global Partnerships at Intuit and is now Director of WhatsApp Partnerships at Facebook, talks about the three main things Intuit does within the partnering sphere that is different to other companies.

A bit of background: Intuit poured massive amounts of resources into partnerships, launching them with great fanfare. But they fell flat, leading to multiple go-to-market failures, almost bankrupting the company.

In this presentation, hear from Kyle what they do differently as a company that makes partnerships work for them today:

Kyle shares the lessons learned around what made certain partnerships fail. These include not over-investing in partnerships too early, and not going into too many partnerships too soon.

Resources Mentioned:

The Lean Startup Methodology (Book)

Quickbooks

ADP

ATT

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Rajiv Ramanan, Director - Startup Program and Technology Alliances at Freshworks, shares how the company turned its tech partnership strategies into a predictable revenue machine.

Rajiv is joined by Jake Wallace, who at the time of the episode was Head of Strategic Partnerships at SignEasy and is now Head of Global Technology Partnerships at Trustpilot. Jake was responsible for SignEasy’s reseller referral program and maintaining their key partner relationships, of which Freshworks is one.

The discussion centers around Freshworks wanting to acquire and retain more customers and how they used integrations to achieve that.

The following topics are discussed:

Teaser Tip: … “We wanted to acquire and retain more customers, and integration was the way we achieved that.” - Rajiv Ramanan, Freshworks

The data showed that if a customer used one integration, their chances of churn decreased by more than 50%.

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, guests Patrick Oborn, co-founder and CPO at Telarus, and Michael Sterl, president at Mobile Solutions at the time of this interview and now SVP of Sales at Intelisys—talk about how the telecoms industry really knows how to sell complicated, variable cost subscription digital products, and how SaaS can learn from the Telecoms channel.

Points covered in the conversation include:

Teaser Tip: … “If you can design the model to educate and train master agents on where they need to go and how your product or platform or solution can get them there, you ultimately have a win-win and a pretty smooth process, though it still takes time.” - Michael Sterl

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Kyle Porter, CEO of Salesloft, provides rich information about how organizational health, values, mission, vision and alignment are the greatest competitive advantages a company can have.

Kyle shares how he never used what he was taught from his wise mentors and ended up running his business into the ground, burning $250,000 of investors’ money.

He decided to reboot the business and start up again from scratch, this time making the choice to focus entirely on organizational health, mission, vision and values. Five years later, the business experienced dramatic growth in revenue, expanding at the rate of 120% annually.

Today, with 350 employees, Salesloft is the seventh fastest growing company in North America. What changed? Here are the lessons any company can implement:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Ryan Walsh, Channel Chief and Chief Product Officer of Pax8—with its 3,000 partners, 200 employees, 20 vendors, and 900 supported products—shares how the company grew when it added the channel, and how you can, too.

Some of the points that are discussed in this profitable presentation include:

Commit long-term to the IT channel, i.e. 18 months. Don’t walk away because it’s not profitable immediately. That’s not to say you won’t make money during that time, but things start happening at the 18-month mark. For instance, they noticed that they were helping channel partners sell their products to their customers. 18 months is the amount of time that lets the channel community know you're in, you're committed, and you're staying positive. Build a partner management console. Support a monthly billing term. Stay away from anniversary billing. Make it simple. Provide APIs for provisioning and billing. Partner with channel experts, such as channel communities, cloud marketplaces, integration partners, and new distribution partners.

          - What made Pax8 successful while others struggled?

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them athttps://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, we interview Amelia Kirby, Head of Global Technology and Platform Partnerships, Facebook Workplace. We discuss the partnership program which was launched earlier this year; their plans to grow the platform by integrating with vendors; and what they are looking for in technology partners.

Facebook Workplace, currently boasting around 80 partners, is not just another collaboration tool. Instead, the goal is to provide end-to-end organizational communication to improve the employee experience for all employees, not only the desk workers.

Amelia explains that when organizations look after their frontline employees—by providing better support and tools for those workers to not just do their jobs, but feel like they're part of the company that they work for—employee churn is reduced, ultimately saving companies money.

What Facebook Workplace prospective vendors can expect from this exciting conversation:

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by the Cloud Software Association, Emily Litwin, then from Strategy and Partnerships, and now Head of Business Development at Squarespace, discusses how the company, an all-in-one website building platform and product-centric company, thinks about and executes partnerships.

Emily explains some of the best practices they learned along the way and how they consistently adhere to three key principles which drive all their business decisions, from Product Marketing to Development to Partnerships, and everything in between:

All-in-one: the founder of Squarespace built a platform he would have liked to have used as a customer; at that time, an all-in-one solution was not available. Product centric: the company makes decisions based on the context of how the product will be received by their customers. Design forward: their original target audience were creative people with an eye for good design; the brand has permeated that value throughout their business so that all branding is the same monochromatic theme.

And when Squarespace decides to offer a solution that is not their core offering, they utilise partnerships.

Inclusion criteria for their apps panel:

Holding dear Squarespace’s three key principles (where it makes sense), plus Product fit, demand, market size, monetization, and strategic interest.

Partnership tips for startups:

Have a clear product strategy from the get-go that outlines what you care about owning, be that data, functionality, or something else. And then for everything that doesn't fall into that very privileged set, look for a partner. Trust that if your core product is as sound as you think it is, people in companies in adjacent technologies will want to align and build to you.

Resources Mentioned:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com

In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Daniel Saks, Co-CEO and President of AppDirect uses his many years of experience to share with you how to build, monetize, and scale your ecosystem.

A value-packed episode, here are some of the points about what’s covered:

Thank you to our amazing podcast team at Content Allies. Want to launch your own B2B revenue-generating podcasts? Contact them at https://ContentAllies.com