SaaS Connect - SaaS Partnerships & SaaS Leaders
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Available episodes
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2 days ago
Putting the Partner Experience at the Center
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:
* Kelly Sarabyn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-sarabyn/
* Desmond Russell - https://www.linkedin.com/in/desrussell/
* Hubspot - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hubspot/
* Partner Elevate - https://www.linkedin.com/company/partner-elevate/
* Reveal - https://reveal.co/
* Crossbeam - https://www.crossbeam.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
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Apr 25, 2023
Growing Partnerships Through Integrations
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
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Apr 3, 2023
Building an App Marketplace and Why It Matters
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
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Feb 28, 2023
Strategies for Partnering With Cloud Providers
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 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_.
#cloud #saas #software
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Feb 16, 2023
Creating Intentional Wow Partner Experiences
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 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 #cloud #software
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Feb 14, 2023
Developer Evangelism Boosts Partnerships
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 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_.
#cloud #saas #software
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Feb 9, 2023
Building Better UX Practices for Your Integrations
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:
* _Blended Edge blog post__
_
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_.
#cloud #saas #software
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Feb 7, 2023
Winning Partnerships With Companies That Have Been Around Longer
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 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 #cloud #software
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Feb 2, 2023
Talkdesk Partner Strategy and Secrets of the Past, Present and Future
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 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_.
*Since recording the interview, Walla Oriqat has moved to Wind River where she is the Director of Marketplace Partnerships.
#saas #cloud #software
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Jan 31, 2023
The Key to Successful Agency Partnerships in 2023
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 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_.
#cloud #software #saas
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Jan 26, 2023
Nick Valluri - Switching 3 Tech Partnership Philosophies
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 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_.
*Since recording the interview, Nick Valluri has moved to Dropbox where he is the Director of Strategic Partnerships
#saas #cloud #software
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Jan 24, 2023
How To Win With Google
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 su…
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Jan 19, 2023
Navigating Microsoft Is an Employee-Based Network Approach
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 t…
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Jan 17, 2023
The Value of Tech Partnerships From Two Viewpoints
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 Gr…
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Jan 12, 2023
Succeeding in the European Partner Ecosystem
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 y…
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Jan 10, 2023
Salesforce Partnership Keys for Success and the Power of Simplification
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 20t…
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Jan 5, 2023
Building a Strategic Partner Program and Using CSAT as a Benchmark
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 i…
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Jan 3, 2023
Our Journey With Salesforce AppExchange as an Accelerating Kickstarter
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.linkedi…
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Dec 15, 2022
Lessons Learned Building Snowflake’s Ecosystem From Scratch
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 at _admin@cloudsoftwareassocia…
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Dec 13, 2022
Creating a Difference in the Market for Hypergrowth and Success
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…
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Dec 8, 2022
How Salesforce’s Core Values Encourage Trust and Innovation
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 i…
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Dec 6, 2022
Building the First Workplace Enterprise Partnerships Ecosystem
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 an…
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Dec 1, 2022
Do Partner Commissions Attract and Retain Digital Agency Partners?
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…
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Nov 29, 2022
Getting the Ecosystem To Sell Together
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 cap…
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Nov 22, 2022
Cloud Software Association - Upcoming Plans & Events
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 at _admin@cloudsoftwareassociation.com_ for information.
#saas #cloud #software
Thank you to our amazing podcast…
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Nov 17, 2022
Building and Replicating a Successful Partnership
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 showca…
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Nov 15, 2022
Fuel API Ecosystems With Data Products
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 202…
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Nov 10, 2022
How Reporting Structures Can Blur Strategy
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…
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Nov 8, 2022
Birthing the Pronto Platform From the Pain Points of BDP
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.…
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Nov 3, 2022
How a Revolution in Partner Tech Is Changing the Whole Game
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 hi…
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Nov 1, 2022
Building the SaaS Program Journey at Smartsheet
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 ecosyst…
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Oct 27, 2022
How We Matured Our Partner Operations at Chargebee
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.…
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Oct 24, 2022
Building a 100% Channel Sales Program in SaaS
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 - ht…
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Oct 20, 2022
5 Key Features of Our Partner Program at Loopio
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
Glori…
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Oct 17, 2022
Paths That Lead to Impactful Partnerships
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 indi…
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Oct 13, 2022
What the G2 Data Says About the State of the Partner Stack
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 at _admin@cloudsoftwareassociation.com_ for information.
#saas #software #cloud
Thank you to our amazing p…
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Oct 10, 2022
How To Build Co-Marketing Partnerships Through Podcasting
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…
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Oct 5, 2022
Building for SaaS Sales While Maintaining Traditional Revenue
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…
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Oct 3, 2022
How To Launch a Partner Program in 4 Weeks or Less
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/
- C…
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Sep 28, 2022
Shifting Channel Strategy for a Post-Pandemic World
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…
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Sep 26, 2022
My Keys to Scaling a SaaS Affiliate Program
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:
* What performance marketing is.
* Establishing realistic expectations and goals, and understanding that affiliate marketing is a long-term approach.
* Why research is the foundation of success, and what to include in your research.
* Why focusing on the fundamentals such as your partner signup page, network description, SEO and email automation is critical.
* Building a recruitment list.
* The partnership funnel and what makes it a long process.
* Tools to use at every affiliate program stage.
* Examples of companies doing exceptional affiliate marketing (e.g. Thinkific and Loom).
* Types of SaaS partners to recruit. Tip…
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Sep 22, 2022
Future-Proof Your Business With Partner Ecosystems
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:
* Why partner ecosystems are important, and why businesses should put serious investment into them.
* The very tangible results when companies invest in this area properly.
* Know who you are building for in order to increase engagement.
* Why centralizing partnerships is advantageous.
* What to expect in terms of a timeframe for return.
* Starting with an inbound strategy is the best way to go to market. Outbound is successful only when you know exactly who to target.
* 20-25% of people that you recruit will be successful, however, don’t expect to magically generate 30-40% incremental revenue. There's a deliberate investment required in partner progr…
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Sep 20, 2022
Adopting the GoToEcosystem Framework
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:
* Digital technologies are transforming markets because of evolving technologies, networks of actors that work together, and powerful platform business models and their network effects.
* If you’re in go-to-market mode, you’ll miss out on awareness and understanding, differentiation and competitive advantage, retention and loyalty, value, growth and societal contribution.
* SaaS growth depends on GoToEcosystem transformation (programmatic and business model change is required).
* You need to find a way to build atomic networks around parts of your business. Create a flywheel: community, partner, customer.
Allan also talks about what happens when you get it right, how to get there, maturity…
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Sep 14, 2022
The Power of Partnerships for Scale and Hypergrowth
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:
* The explosive success of Zoom during the pandemic and how to build for scale and hypergrowth.
* Zoom’s growth: in 2019 the company had 74,000 customers and 1,700 employees. After the pandemic, it had grown to 500,000 customers and more than 6,800 employees. Zoom’s partner team grew 670% and, today, 30% of its current revenue is attributed to partners.
* The 4 Ps of partner ecosystem success:
* Product
* Program
* Partners
* People
Resources Mentioned:
* _Ben Thompson’s Aggregation Theory__ _- https://stratechery.com/aggregation-theory/
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_ fo…
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Sep 12, 2022
Great Ecosystems Make Tech Stacks Anti-Fragile
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:
* Disruptive innovation happens.
* One chapter closes, another opens.
* Categorization is hard.
* It’s hard to know what will go viral.
* Everybody has opinions.
* System dynamics rule everything.
* There’s an app for everything.
* People don’t realize how many apps they depend on in their daily lives.
* Great ecosystems are not fragile.
* Growth of the Martech landscape over the last 10 years (5,233% from 2011 to 2022).
* App explosion and adoption - on average, each company uses 300 SaaS apps.
* Difference between consolidation and aggregation.
* Layers…
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Sep 7, 2022
Partnerships Revolutionizing SaaS Sales
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:
* Why traditional sales methods no longer work well.
* Don’t rely only on your sales team. Instead, you need an army out there speaking about your products.
* Types of partners and the value each provides.
* Benefits of working with referral partners.
* Case studies such as Canva, which quadrupled its revenue.
* Six key principles of referral partner “fit”:
* 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.
* Tips to get started with a referral program.…
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Sep 6, 2022
Reimagining Partnerships as the Future of SaaS
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:
* Underperforming sales teams.
* Reps that come and go.
* Increasing marketing costs.
* Unpredictable algorithms.
* Barriers to going international.
* Finding and keeping the right partners.
* Audience attention.
* Not understanding ecosystems.
They call…
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Aug 31, 2022
Lessons From Zero Reseller Signups to Hundreds
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* Agencies sell services, not software.
* People look for solutions, not software.
* The focus should be: what is the client’s problem and what service can we provide that will solve that problem?
* Keep the messaging, the offering and pricing simple.
* Business is not just about words. AppBind changed not only their words, but also the product, and this resulted in signups.
Tips:
* Your best partners are those who can incor…
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Jul 25, 2022
Pillars of a SaaS Affiliate Program in 2022
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* The first step when acquiring a new program.
* Determining whether a business is ready for an affiliate program. Tip: a good indication is revenue. For example, Dustin says he would never take on a client in the ecommerce space unless they make $50,000 in revenue each month because brand recognition gives power to an affiliate program. However, for SaaS companies, they should be making $10,000 per month in revenue.
* What is a listicle and how it can help when you’re considering setting up an affiliate program.
* The roadmap to setting up a new affiliate program.
* Recommended affiliate program networks for SaaS.
* Getting company buy-in…
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Jun 16, 2022
How To Build a Tech Partner Program That Works
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:
* The most important metrics dependent on organizational goals and the stage of the business.
* Core elements that go into building an effective program.
* Ways to get strategic alignment in your organization.
* Data that shows that integrations impact retention and where you need buy-in. A good place to start is to cite the data until you can get your own data.
* Ways to align with product engineering, as well as marketing and sales, and the expectations of your partners.
* How the customer success team plays into the tech partnerships program, and how to leverage their knowledge. [Hint! Encourage the…
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May 20, 2022
Accelerate Success: Learn Best Practices from Aforza's Visionary CEO
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:
* How Dominic came up with the Aforza idea and how the founders went about validating it. A key point is that, from the research conducted, they knew that their target market was underserved by industry technology.
* Essentially, Aforza’s mission was to create a mission. Dominic says, “When you create a mission and you give a sense of purpose to your company, people don't just work; there's a passion and enthusiasm and energy, a deliberate sense of purpose.” An event i…
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Apr 28, 2022
Leveraging the CS Journey to Accelerate Partnerships
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:
* The opportunities that crossed the entire customer journey and what…
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Apr 12, 2022
Establishing Mutually Beneficial Partnerships With Major SaaS Players
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:
* Gifts and gadgets when building some partnerships.
* What leaders should know in order to budget effectively.
* How generating value to the end customer is of primary importance.
* Defining the value between partners and ensuring promises are being delivered.
* How to start off with micro wins, scaling them, and then marketing them for bigger wins.
* Why it’s advantageous to attend partner conferences, and maximizing opportunities for wins.
* The importance of businesses building a partnership culture.
* The lifecycle of new prospect op…
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Mar 24, 2022
Tech Partnerships Are the Rocket-Fuel for Growth
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:
* How Zoom transitioned and is still transitioning from a killer user app to a tool that allows third parties to integrate Zoom into their DNA in a lot of different ways, such as messaging applications, HR applications, and so on.
* How the business structured its launch process based on customer feedback and data.
* How it defines su…
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Feb 22, 2022
Solving SaaS Partnership Gaps Together
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* The value of Cloud Software Association and its members, and how they come together to solve partnership challenges.
* What’s happening in partnerships today:
* There are only three main ways that a partnership can drive revenue:
* By driving demand - more signups, more subscriptions at the top of your…
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Feb 17, 2022
How the Chrome Enterprise Recommended Team Is Growing the Partner Ecosystem for Contact Centers
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:
* Benefits of using Chromebooks for contact centers and the education space, and how they’re taking those same benefits into the mid-market, and to the enterprise. The top three benefits are speed (easy to deploy), simplicity (easy to use), and security (as of today, Chrome OS has had zero ransomware attacks in its history).
* Their biggest focus areas for the next year.
* What kind of partners they are looking for (agencies, consultants, and channel partners that are focused on contact center, 500–1,000 employee companies). For…
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Feb 9, 2022
The LastPass Roadtrip to a Timely Success Story
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:
* The history of LastPass.
* The company’s early struggles; balancing the need for revenue and rapid use adoption, as well as its early wins.
* How to sell the concept of partnership internally when the benefits are not immediately seen. It seems to be a lot more difficult to sell the concept internally than to sell externally and the larger the company, th…
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Feb 7, 2022
Digital Accessibility - A Differentiator & Must-Have in SAAS Ecosystems
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* What is digital accessibility, and why it matters.
* How we tend to think about disabilities and people living with disabilities. For example, we often consider people with disabilities as a permanent condition, but what about when someone breaks their arm, it’s in a cast for six weeks, and they can’t do their work? Or situationally, for example, when you are driving and you can’t use your hands to access your mobile phone’s map app to use it a…
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Feb 2, 2022
Lessons from 15 Years Driving Growth through Affiliates
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:
* The framework that allowed Aweber’s affiliate program to scale: step one was to create a great product; step two was to p…
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Feb 1, 2022
Building Channel Sales From the Ground Up at CloudApp, a Small Startup
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* What does partnering look like to you? For example, are you going to share your revenue? Are you going to sell your solution through a reseller or a distributor? Are you going to offer volume-based discounts or any discounts on your product?
* How CloudApp figured out the answer…
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Jan 26, 2022
Building Partnerships to Own a Vertical
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:
* How Vend built their partnerships strategy:
- 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…
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Jan 25, 2022
How Cloud and Services can Enable SMBs
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:
* Why small businesses matter (95% of companies in the US are s…
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Jan 19, 2022
Raising $76M for Partnership Tech, How it Happened and What We Learned
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* Why raise money? It depends heavily on the nature of the business you're building, the amount of capital risk that exists, how big it gets if it all works, and so on.
* Evolution of partnerships and how they looked 10 years ago.
* Crossbeam’s mission and the background to its story of raising $76 million.
* The different formats for raising money other than Silicon Valley, the hybrid hedge fund, or bank debt:
* The least-diluted form of capital is revenue; if you can just sell more of your stuff…
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Jan 17, 2022
Superpowers of the Network Economy - Becoming a Profitable Platform
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* Integration should be thought of as a product.
* If large organizations struggle to get their APIs adopted, it's even harder for smaller, lesser-known product companies to drive adoption and awareness.
* In order to be a platform, you need to be able to offer new, better experiences on top of your APIs.
* Platforms allow companies to integrate in order to provide more value.
* We are moving away from a single-sided business model to a multi-sided business model. This enables other businesses to build products on your technology, as well as use third party integration to cre…
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Jan 12, 2022
Getting Your Professional Services to Break Even
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:
* They implemented three important levers for service operations:
* Sales alignment and predictability
* Quality of implementation (being mindful of your customer’s needs)
* Capacity and utilization
It is even better when you ca…
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Jan 10, 2022
Transitioning From a Product Company to a Platform Company
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _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:
* The problem with products, and the problem with platform-first companies.
* Lessons learned from transitioning from a product-first to platform-first business:
- 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 under…
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Jan 6, 2022
Lessons & Myths From a Decade of Building Platform Ecosystems: From Salesforce to ServiceNow
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:
* Avanish’s career journey; how he got to where he is today. How he watched Salesforce grow in five years from five to 120 people. Year one saw the ecosystem generate about a million dollars, and in five years, five billion.
* Lessons and myths about platform ecosystems, such as it’s not always about the money (what it's really about is a high-scale, high-leverage model to get more offerings, more applications in the hands of customers to broaden the value and innovation. The money is secondary, even though oftentimes people get tripped up on that.) Another myth is that, “If you build it, they will come.” (This is not true. Instead, you have to put in place a marketing pl…
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Jan 4, 2022
Selling Through Agencies: How To Understand Your Ideal Agency Profile
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:
* Critical foundational elements, such as barrier to entry, agency-friendly set-up, and so on.
* An ideal agency profile; you need to know which companies are the best fit for you so that you can more easily find them. How Justuno found their ideal agency profile, and what they all had in common.
* Why it’s important to define your ideal agency profile. Six valuable tips for SaaS companies to think about when creating their id…
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Dec 20, 2021
Do Partner Commissions Really Matter?
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:
* The benefits of commission structures depend on your objectives with partners. For example, at Reveal, they are looki…
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Dec 15, 2021
Selling SaaS to SMBs
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 greatest challenges of small businesses vs. mid-sized businesses.
* Familiarity with cloud terminology. For instance, the survey found th…
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Dec 13, 2021
Your Hottest Channel Startup Questions Answered by Data
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:
* How many companies have channels.
* Growth of c…
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Dec 8, 2021
Supercharge Your SaaS With AI From Google
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:
* There are only around two million machine learning experts who really know what they're doing, but the vast majority of people who use applications are developers and business users, so Google wants to help pass on what they know to them.
* Google AI products include:
1. Google Translation
2. Google Photos
3. Gmail Smart Reply
4. AlphaGo
5. Google Cloud AI
6. Contact Centre AI
* Because there are so few people who can create custom ML…
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Dec 1, 2021
How Do I Convince My CEO To Invest in Partnerships?
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:
* What people in different positions need and how to approach them based on their particular needs. For example, the difference between what engineers, product managers, and VPs of marketing are looking for, and how to get their buy-in (as well as that of the C-Suite) for partnerships based on those needs, and what drives them.
* How partners…
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Nov 22, 2021
Scaling SaaS Partnerships in the Modern Era
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:
* Challenges in partnerships and obtaining quick growth.
* Partnership program innovation and trends over the last few months.
* What a modern partnership team looks like.
* The value of building a “beast call marketing machine,” and how it makes it easier to acquire partners to get to market.
* Types of partnerships, alliances, and influences across the organization within every team, and tying their success to partnership success.
* The role of technology in partnership programs and how it differs from organization to organization.
* Strategic advice for someone building a partner program with a team of one or two, and how to set you…
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Nov 17, 2021
Hacking the Product Function to Get Things Done
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:
* What to know about good product managers, e.g. they are motivated by solving problems, they are not motivated by any particular solution. As a partnership leader, what motivates them has implications for you.
* How product managers see partnership people.
* How to get product managers to support your partnership efforts.
* Three tactics to get product manager 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.…
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Nov 15, 2021
Launching And Managing International Partnerships
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:
* This kind of partnership can’t be managed remotely.
* Culture has to be taken into account. Evernote’s CEO, Ph…
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Nov 10, 2021
How to Actually Acquire New Customers
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:
* Partnerships must be a company-wide mindset.
* It is important to discover what really matters to your partners, and then allocate resources to that.
* Avoid hiring generalists. Put effort into thinking about the skills people need to really solve the problem on your partnership team.
Kyle shares the lessons learned around…
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Nov 8, 2021
Shifting To Tech Partnerships For Predictable Revenue
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:
* The shift Freshworks made to achieve its revenue goals.
* What Freshworks does now to drive qualified leads.
* How SignEasy started partnering with Freshworks.
* How they got teams to talk to each other about leads.
* Motivating salespeople to make int…
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Nov 4, 2021
What SaaS Can Learn From the Telecoms Channel
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:
* How the telecoms model works.
* In telecoms, how new software programs go to market.
* The reality of breaking in as a new vendor.
* What agents do in an initial sale, and then the renewal to support the customer and earn payment forever, and how to set up agents so that they create value.
* Getting customers to renew and the importance of the customer experience.
* The deal registration process, which opens customers up to the vendor’s direct sales reps.
* The role of trust and relationship between customers and partners.
*…
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Oct 26, 2021
$5 Million to $25 Million in Under Two Years, with Kyle Porter, CEO of Salesloft
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:
* Everyone at the top needs to be the first to take organizational values to heart and inject them into every element of the business.
* Tactics…
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Oct 21, 2021
Pax8 - A Cloud Distributor That MSPs Actually Use
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:
* Why do you need a channel? There are a few reasons, the primary one being scale and reach, and other reasons such as the shift to the cloud which is being driven by customers. IDC (the global market intelligence firm) found that MSPs with >50% revenue from cloud offerings outperform those with less.
* Channel cloud opportunities and where they’re coming from.
* The definition of a channel (essentially, this is a route to market for IT products or services).
* Five lessons from tapping into the channel, and what you can learn from them:
* Commit long-term to the IT channel, i.e. 18 months. Don’t walk away because…
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Oct 19, 2021
Facebook Is Building Products for the Workforce, and It's Betting on SaaS Partners
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:
* Facebook Work…
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Oct 14, 2021
Partnerships in a Product-Centric Company
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 thei…
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Oct 12, 2021
So, You Want to Build Your Own App Ecosystem?
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:
* How to enable ecosystems around content training enablement, so your customers can get value from those partners and start adopting.
* How to convince your company to strategically invest in building an ecosystem.
* The one core similarity between all of the AppDirect clients that are successful versus those who are not.
* The pitfalls and what makes it hard to build an ecosystem.
* Lessons learned. For example, those who focus on segmentation do best.
* Billing integrations.
* Tips for building a rich ecosystem include:Start small. AppDirect found that those that fail are those with a very ambitious business case, with no sense of value prop to the end user, and essentially they miss…
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Oct 7, 2021
Gamification Approach for Success in Ecommerce
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Sree Menon, then Head of Strategy but now Chief Operating Officer at Tophatter, shares a presentation on using gamification in ecommerce.
Tophatter is “the world’s most entertaining mobile shopping experience,” achieving profitability just three years after being founded, and today sells more than three million items a month and boasts 80 employees.
The company has built a shopping destination for the mobile era, incorporating personalization and gamification to do it. Here’s what’s discussed:
* The difference between the Amazon shopping experience vs. Tophatter.
* Data is the merchandiser: an algorithm selects the products the customer sees as they open the app. Personalization is also a big factor.
* Gamification drives unparalleled conversion rates: more than 15% of daily visitors make a purchase the same day.
* Gamifying the mobile experience and how Tophatter puts it all together.
* The snackable…
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Oct 5, 2021
Do's and Dont's When Partnering with Ecommerce Platforms
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Jan Soerensen, General Manager North America for Nosto—a personalization platform for online retailers to increase engagement and revenue—shares the “do’s and don’ts” when attempting to partner with ecommerce platforms such as Magento and Shopify.
With more than 100 employees, this B2B2C company has learned what works and what doesn't, and Jan offers the secrets they’ve cultivated over the years:
* Where to slot in your technology with personalization tools.
* Strategic trends and tips with regards to ecommerce platforms, and how Nosto got into the good graces of big ecommerce platforms like Magento:
- How big platforms approach ecommerce.
- Treat them like an ecosystem.
- They want dedicated products.
- When you can expect to start seeing ROI and the level of commitment required.
- They won’t commit to marginal revenue increases, and what they will commit to.
- App stores are usually business un…
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Sep 30, 2021
What a Reseller Truly Cares About When Picking SaaS to Sell
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Amon Prasad, CEO of Network Remedy Inc., shares valuable inside information about how the business chooses which partners to work with, and what makes some more attractive than others.
Network Remedy Inc., a Managed Services Provider (MSP), becomes the IT department for other companies, ultimately owning the entire IT lifecycle.
Because of the trust they’ve built up with their clients, they have a lot of resellers constantly getting in touch. In this presentation, Amon explains how they select SaaS partners:
* The driving force of how they decide who to work is that the vendor has to have the right product for what their clients need. If it doesn't match their needs completely, they want to know whether the solution can be customized enough to become exactly what their clients require.
* How difficult or complex will it be to implement?
* What the company wishes all vendors would think about and plan for to make…
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Sep 28, 2021
Digitally Transforming Business from Optimization to Disruption
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Rick Witham, Director, Go-To-Market Team Lead at Microsoft, shares a presentation on what sort of digital transformation is happening in the market and where Microsoft is investing. Rick also talks about collaboration and partner opportunities.
The three main areas covered are:
* Digital transformation and the three main areas in which Microsoft has seen these innovations happening from a technology standpoint:
- Multi-device and multi-sense.
- AI.
- Server-less.
* Go-To-Market with Microsoft opportunities for partners:
- Microsoft is looking for partners in the four key areas of digital transformation: empowering employees; engaging customers; optimizing operations; and transforming products.
- How to connect with Microsoft and get started.
- What Go-To-Market Microsoft engagement is: four areas partners can tap into and what the journey looks like. What Microsoft does to help partners.
- ISV partner succes…
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Sep 23, 2021
Grow and Win New Revenue for Subscription-Based Businesses
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Omar Nawaz, Chief Product Officer at Chargebee—a subscription management platform—provides a value-filled presentation on growing and winning new revenue in your subscription-based business.
The lessons come directly from what he has learned at Chargebee, which today boasts more than 230 employees, with 1,700 customers from 53 countries around the world.
Discover nuggets throughout the talk about the following topics:
* The organizational design for a subscription-based company or a SaaS company, and how it’s different from a traditional business. For example:Subscription-based customers' needs are dynamic and ever-changing, so your model needs to be dynamic in order to react to requests in real-time, across all your teams, and throughout the lifecycle.
Processes and systems must align to the customer experience you want.
* Some of the key business levers that are available, whether customer adoption, expansi…
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Sep 21, 2021
Building High-Quality Platforms
In this episode of SaaS Connect by the Cloud Software Association, Russell Smith, tech guy, ops lover, CTO and Co-Founder of Rainforest QA, speaks honestly about the elements of high-quality platforms. He provides real examples to learn from, and explains what makes a platform high quality.
Rainforest QA was started in 2012 by him and his partner, and today the company has grown to 130 employees and 300 customers.
In this worthwhile, value-packed presentation, learn about what makes some platforms such high-quality, and how you can emulate them in your own business. Also, learn about:
* The universal challenges platforms experience while delivering value and quality.
* The definition of a quality platform.
* Why measuring the quality of your platform is critical.
* According to Russell, examples of good platforms are AWS, JIRA, Segment, Zapier, GitHub, Stripe, Twilio, Salesforce, CircleCI. He also explains what makes them good. For example, AWS works well, provides good docu…
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Sep 16, 2021
It’s 2021. Your Integration Strategy Is Too Slow
In this episode of SaaS Connect from the Cloud Software Association, Fraser Davidson, CEO of Cyclr, is joined by Daniel Twigg, Cyclr’s Marketing Manager. They speak about the complexities of seamless connections, scarce resources, and the different approaches to getting things done.
Join us as we discuss the options and challenges, what's been done in the past, what's been the status quo, and the new schools of thought. Discussion points include:
* Becoming more agile and adding extra value when you don’t have deep pockets and you have other priorities.
* Integrations: monetizing vs. adding value vs. cost.
* Dealing with friction between commercial and development departments.
* Building an integration yourself as opposed to iPass.
* What a day in the life of an iPass integration looks like.
* Dependencies and why they need to be thought through carefully.
* The upside and downside to owning everything.
* Not all integrations are templateable or standardised.
*…
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Sep 14, 2021
Making It Easy to Partner
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Adam Johnson, Senior Vice President of Sales at ActiveCampaign, discusses their philosophy around partners, which are a big part of their revenue.
ActiveCampaign help 70,000 small businesses connect with their customers. They boast 5,000 partners and 400+ employees, and 75% of their customers have an active integration with ActiveCampaign.
Learn how ActiveCampaign help their partners get customers and go to market using the tool as a primary part of their own solutions:
* They make it easy to partner with them, for example,Fast online signup.
No-restrictions white labelling.
Well-documented APIs.
They provide recipes (pre-built automations).
They allow snapshots (they give partners the ability to take a snapshot of an account that's fully customized to a particular industry or use case, and then redeploy that as they acquire more customers, saving them setup time and lowering their margins).
Using stacks (providin…
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Sep 9, 2021
Using Ex-FBI Lead-Kidnap-Negotiator Tactic to Build Powerful and Lasting Alliances
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Michele Albanese, Partner Programs Manager at Drift—a revenue acceleration platform utilizing conversational marketing—shares how Drift used the tactics of an ex-FBI lead negotiator in international kidnappings. Drift employed the ‘Black Swan’ method that Chris Voss describes in his book Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, to build three powerful integration alliances.
But first…
What is ‘Black Swan’? It’s the thing that you discover through conversations with another company that neither party is aware of and that can help bring that company to your side of the table.
The three alliances that Michele uses as examples of ‘Black Swan’:
* Marketo - With the two-way integration between Drift and Marketo, clients can automatically personalize conversations with existing leads and then sync that engagement data back to Marketo.
* Sales Navigator - The two-way integr…
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Sep 7, 2021
Learning From FreshBooks to Build A Partner Integration Strategy
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, George Kyriakis, Senior Director, Business Development & Partnerships at Freshbooks, who at the time boasted 12 million global users, gives a presentation about how to go about building an integration partner program, and why you should bother.
George explains why it’s hard convincing CEOs of the importance of partner integrations, and how providing numbers persuades them to buy in. Presenting metrics such as higher long-term value and cost of acquisition are very helpful, because they align with what’s important to the CEO.
After 30 years of “doing it wrong”, George offers 12 steps to building an integration program to “do it right”:
* Define the need
* Get executive buy-in
* Define the categories
* Building an API library
* Website structure per amount of partners
* Value propositions for developers
* Target integrations and prioritising
* Negotiate value with partner
* Consider outsourcin…
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Sep 2, 2021
The Journey to Success Is Never a Straight Line
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, we hear from Manoj Ramnani, Founder and CEO of SalesIntel.io about the mistakes the company made early on and what led to its eventual success.
At the time, the company—then branded CircleBack—solved a well-known problem (with software that automated updates to contact info of business contacts), had a great team, served a big market, and had raised $30 million. As such, you would think they would have succeeded in building a billion-dollar company, but they made a few big mistakes, even though they had put in maximum effort.
Plan A didn’t work, so they moved on to Plan B and, after implementing their new strategy, the company went from zero to $one million in five and a half months. Plan A was not a total failure though, as it served to teach them many lessons which they can now pass on to you:
* An ecosystem is essential, but from the right location, or it may fall flat. They initially based the business in an…
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Aug 31, 2021
Partnerships as a Key Global Driver for Growth
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _Cloud Software Association_, Rajiv Ramanan, Director of Startup Program and Technology Alliances at Freshworks, shares how the company concentrated on partnerships to grow the business, implementing a marketplace that resulted in 400 more integrations within two years.
At the time of the presentation, the company boasted 200,000 customers across seven offices, with nine SaaS products and more than 600 integrations.
Revamping their growth strategy meant setting up a marketplace, and the vision for this was twofold:
* Grow their customer base, and complete retention of customers.
* Work with companies that are innovators.
Within two years after setting up the marketplace, they had an extra 400 integrations. Rajiv provides valuable strategic information:
* After getting rejected by approaching big brands, they rethought their strategy to find the right partners, and what that meant in terms of growth. For example, people started taking them m…
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Aug 26, 2021
How IoT Opened New Doors with Resellers and Distributors
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Kalon Welch, EVP of Business Development and Co-Owner at FastSensor, shares how after working with big companies like Accenture and Novell, he jumped into working with a small agency, taking it from about $4 million to around $100 million, primarily through partnerships.
The presentation is all about how FastSensor uses IoT and different types of alternative partnerships to build business and to understand how to go into a space that's very traditional in some senses and flip it on its head.
A presentation jam-packed with value, listen to:
* How they built something that was smarter and better and resold the same product.
* Using partners to solve a problem.
* How complementary technology can be used to integrate and be stronger in taking partner products to market, which means those partners will always drag you to market too. Tip: Look for the partners that you compliment and make stronger; if you can give first…
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Aug 24, 2021
Solving the Biggest Problems in Distribution
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Kevin Kent, Director of Channel Development at POS Portal, a ScanSource company, presents solutions to the biggest problems in distribution.
The discussion centers around:
* Software driven ecosystems and the challenge as they get bigger, with more users.
* It’s tough to evolve your business model; people resist change, and there are risks; you run the risk of going out of business, or alienating your customers, or alienating your employees.
* Regional distribution and how hard it is to get it to users, and how ScanSource renamed this as ‘routes to market.’
* CAPEX vs OPEX, especially with people who are used to building expertise around premise systems and then migrating those to the cloud.
* In the real world, what is working and what is not. (Examples of what’s working are from Microsoft and Clover.)
Resources Mentioned:
* Cisco
* Slack
* Toshiba
* IBM
* Shopify
* AppDirect
* Microsoft…
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Aug 19, 2021
Solving the Partnership Prisoner's Dilemma: Emerging Tech For Partner Success
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Bob Moore, Co-Founder and CEO at Crossbeam (essentially an escrow service for data), gives a presentation on how the technology markets in and around partnerships have matured and evolved over the last several years. He also addresses the common dilemma of partners wanting to protect their data in collaborations.
In this information-packed show, the following is covered:
* When partners protect their data because they don't want to face the risk of data breaches or oversharing, it makes partnerships less effective than they could be.
* The market demands a new generation of solutions that break down the walls and build up a new framework for how we all work together.
* Our goal as partners is to create value, not destroy it.
* Game-changing tech innovation is the result of new instances of product-market fit, and the rise of the API economy.
* The impact of SaaS and how it is taking over how all companies operat…
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Aug 17, 2021
Rethinking Partnering in the Digital Economy
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Daniel Saks, President and Co-CEO at AppDirect, shares how the digital economy will look in the next ten years, and what that means in terms of the types of companies we partner with, and the partnership opportunities that we can take hold of.
Using a commission digital economy report, Daniel analyzed the cloud maturity of different industries and businesses, and he presents that data in this show:
* The evolution of the digital economy and what it is; how the digital economy has taken over the traditional economy. For example, holiday accommodation may traditionally have been thought of as a hotel but is now an Airbnb, and how this evolution from traditional to digital provides an opportunity for partnering.
* Examples and case studies of digital transformation in traditional industries such as: a manufacturing plant and how ecosystems have been built around the device to speed manufacturing cycles; radiology and how…
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Aug 12, 2021
Getting Others to Build on Your Platform: Lessons Learned from HubSpot's App Accelerator
In this episode of SaaS Connect by the Cloud Software Association, Scott Brinker, VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, shares lessons learned from HubSpot’s App Accelerator.
HubSpot started as an inbound marketing company to help marketers use inbound marketing successfully as a methodology, and their offerings included HubSpot Academy and software. Today, it has evolved into a full CRM platform.
Scott’s role at HubSpot is to build out the app platform ecosystem. He is the mastermind of a lot of the work that’s been done, and someone who's been able to have a major influence in the development of that ecosystem for HubSpot.
This is what you can expect to hear about in this episode:
* The mechanisms of building an ecosystem on top of the HubSpot platform.
* Lesson learned, and how App Accelerator built and cultivated a cohort of integrations from zero. They started with eight participating companies and by the third accelerator, they had 60, eventually learning that 25 com…
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Aug 10, 2021
SaaS Growth Trends from Real World Data
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Daniel Stevenson shares trends from Blissfully, a SaaS management platform that helps companies discover, and then manage their SaaS applications, giving Blissfully access to a large amount of real world data about how people are using SaaS applications.
Some points in the presentation include:
* We are still in a SaaS explosion, with companies spending on average $343,000 on SaaS applications.
* The data allows us to start to drill into and understand the relationships between users and the applications themselves.
* The average number of SaaS applications each employee uses, and how each application has relationships that come with ramifications in terms of spend, privacy, security, and compliance.
* The numbers (spend, turnover, SaaS growth, ownership, churn) for companies that have 1–50, 51–100, and 201–500 employees, and the complexities and inefficiencies as the company grows and the impact on subscrip…
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Aug 5, 2021
How Salesforce Takes ISVs from Idea to AppExchange in Three Months
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Leslie Tom, Senior Vice President at AppExchange Salesforce, conducts a discussion between Mike Kreaden, MD of Salesforce Accelerate, Jason Briggs, Co-Founder of Diffeo (which was acquired by Salesforce in 2019) and Jennifer Mercer, Co-Founder and CEO of Metazoa, a current AppExchange partner.
A multifaceted conversation, the focus is on how Salesforce takes ISVs from concept to AppExchange with Salesforce Accelerate, which aims to help ISVs get to market sooner. The discussion includes:
Salesforce conversation
* The start of AppExchange and what was then called the Incubator; both launched in 2006. The Incubator was for the purpose of progressing from only a handful of apps to hundreds; two years later Salesforce boasted 800 apps and today, hundreds of thousands of apps. The purpose of the Incubator was to help businesses ultimately build thriving businesses around the AppExchange.
* In 2016, the Incubator was reboo…
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Aug 3, 2021
iPaaS Is Not Enough To Survive The Cloud App Explosion
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Matt Graney, VP Product Management at Celigo, provides a presentation on why iPaaS is not enough to survive the explosion of Cloud apps, and how critical the integration user experience is becoming.
The presentation includes:
* Consumerism of enterprise software has undergone a power shift due to freemium models, and the shift has led to a need for specialisation, leaving the iPaaS business with a lot of need for integration.
* With specialization has come an increase of apps. For example, SMBs that had three apps five years ago now have, on average, more than 20.
* Consumers need all the apps they use to connect, and they want the freedom to choose which apps they want, and how they are to be integrated. On top of that, they need simple interfaces from a consumer point of view, not from an IT point of view.
* Why iPaaS in the first place?
* The goal should be that integration be as simple and intuitive as the a…
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Jul 29, 2021
From PR to Partnerships: What I've Learned Working on the AppExchange with Hana Mandapat, Senior Director, AppExchange Program Marketing at Salesforce
In this episode of SaaS Connect brought to you by _Cloud Software Association_, Hana Mandapat, Senior Director, AppExchange Program Marketing at Salesforce, shares the three most important concepts she’s learned in public relations and how they apply to partnerships.
Her presentation includes:
* The importance of relationships in general, and how relationships are really at the core of all partnerships.
* How to build relationships by understanding customer needs and leading with trust and transparency:
* Understand customer needs - in partnerships, it´s customers who drive integrations. Acting on customers' needs will preserve the relationship.
* Lead with trust and transparency; this is what makes an ecosystem work the best because it builds trust, and success is built on trust. Don’t lie! Lie just once and be found out, and all your truths become questionable.
This show is brought to you by our podcast sponsor Content Allies. Content Allies helps B2B companies lau…
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Jul 27, 2021
How Typeform Grew Their Integration Marketplace from Zero to Hero
In this episode of SaaS Connect by _Cloud Software Association_, Kabir Mathur, Head of Product Partnerships at Typeform, shares the company’s journey to kick-starting its integration strategy in 2018 with a Hackathon: Every department went all hands on deck for a week to build priority integrations. And in the second week, they created marketing initiatives to get the word out.
Starting from zero, today Typeform boasts more than 100 partners.
How did they do it? The conversation centers on:
* How they picked the initial integrations, and how customer needs drove the project.
* The specifics of the project, such as leadership buy-in and the role of marketing.
* Lessons learned from the project, such as continually measuring, listening to customers and conducting research, as well as dealing with curveballs.
* The high-level process to get to market.
* Budgeting and who builds what and who pays for what, and how the bigger organization generally takes a step back from…
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Jul 22, 2021
Infusionsoft’s Partner Journey: The Five Things I Wish I Had Known at the Start with Clate Mask, CEO and Co-Founder of Keap
In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, we bring you the talk by Clate Mask, CEO and Co-Founder of Keap which took place at SaaS Connect 2019 in San Francisco, CA.
Just in case you don’t know, the background of this talk is that Keap used to be called Infusionsoft until it was rebranded.
Clate Mask gives a presentation about how to manage change with partners, and what was learned through the process. He speaks about change in general and what it means for you as you work with partners—to help them, serve them, and in turn to grow your business as they work with you.
As Infusionsoft, the company ran off a model of onboarding all customers itself, and 20–25% of its revenue was service revenue. After the change to Keap, about 3% of the revenue is now service revenue, and partners do over 80% of that onboarding work and a ton of the service work in their customer base. That's just one of the many ways that the company has expanded the role of partners in it…
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Jul 20, 2021
What Stops SMB Consultants From Reselling SaaS
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah, President of Cloud Software Association, interviews Ray Sidney-Smith, President of W3 Consulting, Inc. to discuss what makes SMB consulting companies hesitant to resell SaaS.
If you own a SaaS business and are trying to grow your reseller program, this show will add value for you. It provides an in-depth perspective from the other side, on how to make your product more desirable to prospective partners.
Ray Sidney-Smith explains what W3 Consulting does, and their mission to help small business owners understand how to use the internet, market and manage on the web. He reveals how best to use mobile and social media technologies, as well as how this fills a gap between SaaS and their customers.
The discussion includes:
* How W3 Consulting went from zero to where they are now.
* What stops them from going beyond their five core products, even though their customers use many other tools.
* How W3 Consulting fills a gap betwe…
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Jul 15, 2021
The Raw Truth about Effective Partnership Management, by Someone Who’s Run a $5 Billion Partnership Deal
This episode contains a wealth of information with your host Sunir Shah, President of Cloud Software Association talking to Mark Brigman, CEO and Lead Partnerships Coach at PARTNERNOMICS. They discuss the $5 billion partnership deal Mark ran with Ericsson, and the raw truth about managing partners.
In this value-packed conversation, find out:
* Information about the biggest and most complex partnership that involved over 6000 people.
* Why Mark decided to take the partnership route.
* The difference between high and low performing partnership managers is that great partner managers really understand their partner's strategy, and find a way to set and lay their own strategy over the top of that path. They are effective communicators so that as their partner executes their strategic plan, the partner manager is naturally going to be helped to accomplish theirs. It’s natural alignment.
* Mark’s definition of partnering.
* How to identify the right strategic partner.
* Ch…
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Jul 13, 2021
Revenue or Ecosystems to Convince the CEO to Invest in Partnerships?
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah, President of _Cloud Software Association_, speaks with Adrienne Coburn, Partner Program Manager at Shopify, and Brian Jambor, who at the time of this show was Head of Partnerships at Sendoso (he is now Head of Partnerships at Nacelle; see his _LinkedIn profile_ for more info.)
These two SaaS partnership leaders have built partnership teams from nothing by convincing leadership to invest more and more. What makes the discussion particularly fascinating is that the responses from the two are so varied.
Brian Jambor (previously from Sendoso, now at Nacelle) has over ten years of experience building partnership programs. He convinced Sendoso to invest in partnerships by laying out a strong case for additional revenue.
Adrienne Coburn of Shopify built the service partner program at Uberflip and recently joined Shopify to scale their strategic partner program. At Uberflip, she found success focusing on what customer problems partners…
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Jul 8, 2021
Bold Partner Program Change that Paid Off
In this episode of SaaS Connect your host Simon Church, VP of Content at Cloud Software Association, interviews Asaf Fradkin, Head of Business Development & Partnerships at Monday.com, a work collaboration program.
Monday.com has over 70,000 paying companies in over 140 countries across 200 business verticals, with over $80 million in ARR.
Their partner program brings in 10% of their total revenue, but they didn’t have a clear picture of what each partner was contributing. To change that, the program required some significant alterations. In this interview, Asaf talks about the bold decision he made for the partner program to take it to the next level, and the impact it had on the overall business.
In this fast-paced discussion, learn:
* How the sales team is set up.
* What kicked off the channel program.
* The split between revenue from Monday.com’s 40 partners.
* The typical profile of a Monday.com partner.
* The four things partners bring to the table besides reven…
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Jul 6, 2021
How to Build a Successful ISV Partnership with a Hyperscaler Like AWS
In this episode of SaaS Connect your host Sunir Shah, President of Cloud Software Association, speaks to Rohit Gupta, Partner Strategic Initiatives Leader at Amazon Web Services (AWS)—otherwise known as a partner hyperscaler—to get answers to the most pressing questions of prospective partners.
The discussion centers around:
* The ISVs that are more successful than others.
* The roles of partners—for example, solution consultants, tech consultants, ISVs, and distributors.
* ISV partner paths and how they help new partners to get started, and how to get started with AWS with what really matters.
* How to create your unique value proposition to get attention.
* The process and criteria of becoming an AWS partner.
* How to stand out on AWS.
* Getting a response from AWS.
* How many partners they manage, and the role of relationship building.
* The AWS marketplace model and how to structure deals.
* What the best partners do that make them the best partners.
*…
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Jul 1, 2021
How SpaceIQ Transformed Their Partner Engagement
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Evan Radisic from Cloud Software Association speaks with Daniel Graff-Radford (CEO at Allbound) and Danielle Moore (Director, Channel Marketing at SpaceIQ) about what SpaceIQ did to transform partner engagement.
Allbound is channel partner collaboration software and the tool that SpaceIQ uses in its partner program.
In the year when Covid hit and things weren’t easy for most, SpaceIQ experienced tremendous partner revenue growth, and the discussion revolves around this.
A note before we dive in: Daniel mentions that SpaceIQ has a very advanced multi-tiered program with over 100 partners, and says that if you're thinking about scaling your partner program, it's probably not a great idea to start with everything SpaceIQ is doing.
On to the conversation which covers:
* Moving from an old partner portal to a new portal that is easier to navigate.
* One of the greatest problems SpaceIQ was experiencing was its lack of regular communicat…
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Jun 29, 2021
What’s Coming In The B2B SaaS Channel
In this exciting episode of SaaS Connect your host Sunir Shah, President of _Cloud Software Association_, leads a discussion with Jay McBain, a Forrester Analyst, about what's in the future for the B2B #SaaS channel.
McBain humbly calls himself an Analyst, but no one in the industry has spent so much time over so many years, with so much depth, talking to so many players.
Included in this discussion that revolves around McBain’s trends report, are the following topics:
* Where the information from the report came from.
* Software market numbers, and more specifically, SaaS market growth.
* The biggest software companies’ market growth.
* What’s happening in the influencer channel.
* Partnership tactics and influencer channel impact.
* Digital transformation.
* Channel conflict.
* Routes to market and being adaptive.
* The trend in channel technology.
* Managing the channels attached to every buyer moment.
* The people element within the channel.…
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Jun 24, 2021
How Formstack Maximized its Partnership with Salesforce (200% YOY Growth)
In this episode of SaaS Connect your host Sunir Shah, President of _Cloud Software Association_, leads a value-packed discussion between Gabe Caldwell, Director of Partnerships at Formstack and Joe Ondrejcka, ISV Partner Account Manager at Salesforce.
The conversation centers on the journey that Formstack took to take their Salesforce integration from level one to level 10, ultimately resulting in more than 200% year-on-year growth.
Included are the following topics:
* How did Gabe get executives to buy in to what needed to be done?
* How to stand apart so that Salesforce will notice you.
* Tactical marketing opportunities within Salesforce.
* What Formstack did to meet Salesforce requirements.
* What you can expect from Salesforce and tips to partner with them.
* Formstack’s most effective content strategy.
* The value of taking a big partner’s advice and getting the basics right.
* Are the results that Formstack experienced typical when partners get into…
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Jun 22, 2021
Selling Through Game-Changing Partnerships
If there’s one podcast episode you don’t want to miss, it’s this one. Your host Sunir Shah, President of _Cloud Software Association_, interviews not one, but two of the best partnership executives to explain what it takes to get game-changing partners.
Bill Wade is Founder and CEO of Company.com, a massive distribution platform reselling SaaS to over 100,000 SMBs.
Drew Quinlan is VP of Strategic Alliances for RingCentral, one of the most successful SaaS companies entering a telco and telephony channeled market.
Both guests are exceptionally experienced high level SaaS partnership experts and in this episode, we hear exactly how they negotiate, package up, and execute distribution deals at this level.
Some of what’s on discussion includes:
* Examples of existing partnerships
* What they look for in partnerships
* The lifetime value of the customer, and how churn shifts with types of partners
* How they communicate, support and sell to the customer through partne…
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Jun 17, 2021
Building a Partner Program Flywheel
In this episode of SaaS Connect your host Evan Radisic, MD of Cloud Software Association, speaks with Matt Irving, Senior Manager of Global Partner Programs and Strategy at WP Engine. WP Engine boasts 6,000 global partners, grown with the 7-stage bow tie funnel framework they created, and which has driven around 50% of year-on-year growth for the company in the last 3 years.
Irving takes us through a presentation, discussing:
* How to scale everything, from spreadsheets to systems, and creating a partner-first organization.
* The key questions to address internally and from which to build on.
* The 7-stage bow tie funnel framework the company created and where to start building from first. This includes things like:
- How to grow a partner program.
- Buying motions and typical engagement patterns of partners.
- Educating partners on how they can work with you.
- How to attract big advocates.
- Understanding partner adoption.
- Partner specializations and where the third…
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Jun 15, 2021
How to Build a $30M Partners Channel in Three Years with Bold Decisions
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah of _Cloud Software Association_, speaks with Asaf Fradkin, Head of Business Development and Partnerships of Monday.com. (If you haven’t heard of Monday.com, you obviously don’t frequent YouTube…) Monday.com built a $30M partners channel in less than three years with bold and controversial decisions.
The platform was introduced in 2014 and today boasts more than 650 employees, serving 115 global customers. The partnership channel was started late 2017, and today has more than 100 active partners that they engage with weekly. That excludes the smaller 5–10 potential partners who reach out to them daily.
In this discussion, Sunir and Asaf discuss:
* What partners are worth working with
* Starting a new initiative and learning fast
* Generating revenue fast via partners
* Commissions and what matters to partners
* The importance of radical transparency and how to incorporate that with partners
* Celebrating p…
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Jun 10, 2021
Taking Aircall from 10 to 60+ Integration Partners in a Year
In this episode of Saas Connect hosted by _Cloud Software Association_, Raphael Assaraf, App Ecosystem Manager of Aircall, provides a presentation on how the company grew to over 6,000 customers and 380 global employees since they started focusing on partner growth in 2016. An ecosystem is a core part of their strategy, with more than 80% of their customers using an integration.
The following topics are covered in this podcast:
* How they got started, their milestones, and a summary of their journey
* The right foundations and steps to take before executing your ecosystem
* Building partner apps
* Lessons learned
* Aligning product and business and what that entails
* Tools to use
* Recruiting your first partners
* Choosing the right partners
* Getting partners to build with you
* Taking the ecosystem to the next level
* Types of partners
* Caring about developers
* Which KPIs to track
Resources Mentioned:
_Oracle_
_Salesforce_
_Zendesk_
_Hu…
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Jun 8, 2021
How This Company Drives 40% of Global Revenue Through Agencies
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host _Sue Fernand_, Channel Director-Alliances/CPaaS at _8x8_, leads a value-packed presentation from _Henry Prevette_, Director of Channel Partnerships at _Impact_, about how the company drives 40% of global revenue through agency partners.
Impact, founded in 2008, currently employs 620 people globally, who work across 13 offices. They handle around $25 billion in e-commerce sales for their merchants. About 35% of their enterprise brands work with agencies which bring in, on average, 50% of Impact’s global revenue.
In this frank and open presentation, listen to how Impact grew their partner channel, and get helpful advice to set up or expand your own based on what this company did. Topics covered:
* What type of partnerships are the best fit
* How they dropped the ball, and what they learned from it
* Staffing an agency channel
* Sourcing new partners and learning from mistakes
* What they did to improve their partnership channe…
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Jun 2, 2021
How Zach Svendsen Built a Best-In-Class Partner Organization at Tipalti
In this episode of SaaS Connect, join your host Evan Radisic from _Cloud Software Association_ as he guides a value-packed conversation with Zach Svendsen, Senior Director of Alliances and Business Development at Tipalti. Zach built a team from one to 17, and a partner program of 650.
Listen to the in-depth conversation around how he did it, including:
* Aligning sales and partner expectations
* Building up a BDR
* Picking the right projects and partners
* What should be partner deals
* Key metrics to determine which partners are the best
* What partners bring to the table
* Three stages of alliance/BD maturity
* Partner reseller models
* Resources for partners and helping them with marketing
* Partner segmentation
* Who partners report to
* Ideal partner profiles
* Breaking up with partners
* What marketing campaigns are the most effective for recruiting partners
* How to make a partner-centric organisation
Resources Mentioned:
* _PayP…
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May 31, 2021
Hitting Sales Targets from Partnerships
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah, president of _Cloud Software Association_, chats with Simon Bouchez, CEO of Sharework, about transforming partnerships into revenue.
In his career, Simon has had plenty of experience with tech integrations. He’s found that the more integrations, the more opportunities to go to market to identify leads to connect with integration partners. Sharework was only founded in the beginning of 2020, and integration partnerships have become their structured approach, leading to great results.
Today, Sharework boasts roughly 2,000 companies in their network.
The discussion addresses:
* How to help partners align with the sales motion
* Examples of marketing campaigns and automations that worked
* How a partnership drove 15% of Sharework’s revenue
* Account mapping a partnership strategy
* How to hit revenue and sales targets from partnerships
* At what stage to approach targets
* What to do with partner data
Resou…
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May 25, 2021
What It Takes For a Venture Capitalist to Invest in a Partnership
In this episode of SaaS Connect, listen to a profitable discussion between your host Sunir Shah, president of _Cloud Software Association_, Tomasz Tunguz, MD of Redpoint and Bob Moore, CEO of Crossbeam. They address one of the greatest pain points of partnerships: how to convince the boardroom and VCs to take partnership seriously and invest in it.
The following questions are answered:
* What is important to a VC when they look at a company, and how do they evaluate SaaS companies?
* What are the most important metrics of a business?
* When is there enough scalar momentum that it starts to actually be a needle mover in the investment decision?
* What were the personal lessons learned?
* What are the differences between the types of partnerships?
Also under discussion are technology ecosystems, as well as what makes partner loyalty fall under the same lens as customer value.
Resources Mentioned:
* _Stripe_
* _Twilio_
* _Dremio_
* _HashiCorp_
* _Looker_
* _…
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May 20, 2021
How Chargebee and Mailchimp Brought Partnership Teams to Scale
In this episode of SaaS Connect, listen to your host Sunir Shah, president of _Cloud Software Association_, interview Eric Chan, who runs the partner program at Chargebee, and Joni Deus, who runs the Mailchimp partner program.
Chargebee and MailChimp are two successful SaaS companies with two successful SaaS partnership leaders, even though both have differing circumstances and partnership organizations.
Eric needed to build a partner team from nothing, and was hired to solve problems across the tech partnership ecosystem and channel partners. Joni, on the other hand, started at MailChimp with a mature partnership team that required significant revaluation.
The discussion on this podcast includes:
* In what state they found the partner programs when they first started working for each respective company, and the reason they were hired
* How they determined what third-party services their clients were using
* Who their partnership teams report to
* How they align partner…
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May 17, 2021
Learning To Build a SaaS Platform Through Mergers and Acquisitions
In this episode of SaaS Connect, Siddharta Aggarwal of _Cloud Software Association_ and Google Cloud, interviews Chris Byers, CEO of Formstack.
Formstack was very successful at acquiring companies in order to extend their platform. Although mergers and acquisitions are risky, Chris Byers figured out how to win repeatedly and build a thriving business from many companies.
Find out how Chris got started, and the lessons the business learned:
* How to move from one phase to another
* What Formstack discovered about their customers and its impact
* What it would take for Formstack to achieve their first $100 million, and how understanding they needed to be part of what customers were doing before and after they used forms was part of increasing their revenue
* How they delivered value by becoming part of the customer's workflow to effectively automate some part of the process for them
* How they decided which acquisitions would be right
* Their biggest challenges with a…
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May 13, 2021
Zero to Thriving: A Cloud SI in the Microsoft Ecosystem
Microsoft has a $1 trillion dollar ecosystem, and 96% of the revenue comes from partners.
They're moving to the cloud. All of us are trying to figure it out, which is why in this episode of SaaS Connect, Sunir Shah of _Cloud Software Association_, interviews Chaitra Vedullapalli, Co-founder and CMO of Meylah, to extract answers on how their Systems Integrator business went from zero to thriving in the Microsoft ecosystem.
Chaitra says that the key if you’re trying to break into a big brand as a partner, is to understand that they look for solutions that are most advanced, yet approachable for customers.
In this value-packed episode, Sunir and Chaitra discuss:
* Where Meylah drives most of their customer demand from, and how they got their first clients to go from zero to thriving.
* Who else they work with beyond Microsoft.
* How an ISV can engage with SIs like Meylah to partner and go to market.
* Whether they make service packages that are consistent from client to c…
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May 13, 2021
Partnering with Google from Across the World
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah from _Cloud Software Association_ interviews Punit Thakkar, Founder of Shivaami Cloud, one of Google’s top 20 resellers who’s raking in a cool $30 million a year.
Punit shares how he built the company 16 years ago, and how he’s managed to become a top Google reseller by building a trustworthy brand in the Indian market.
His company provides management and migration services; 70% of the revenue comes from licensing and 30% from services.
The discussion goes into detail about what makes their customers buy from them, and how Shivaami Cloud solves their customer’s three greatest challenges. (Hint: their customers can’t just phone Google for assistance, but they can get support from Shivaami Cloud…)
Find out how the company of around 300 staff members organises themselves to provide efficient service, and what makes them particularly valuable to their clients.
Resources Mentioned:
* _Google
_
* _Chrome
_
* G-su…
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May 11, 2021
The Magic of Connecting Passion and Purpose
A realistic re-evaluation of the passion and purpose mantra, this episode of SaaS Connect is a frank and open conversation between your host Cody Jones from _Zapier _and Leslie Tom, Senior Vice President of AppExchange Marketing at Salesforce.
The discussion focuses on both individual and team fulfillment, and Leslie answers the following questions:
* How do you sift through all the information available about purpose and passion?
* How would you define purpose versus passion?
* How did purpose and passion impact your career?
* Myths of purpose and passion:
* If I focus on what I'm really good at, and I can make some money doing it, I'll be successful.
* Sometimes your passion shouldn’t be your job.
* I can't start a new job and take a pay cut to do something different.
* It’s irresponsible to take a work sabbatical.
Leslie opens up about "ikigai", a Japanese concept her father passed down to her about purpose, fulfillment and actions. She also talks about…
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May 10, 2021
How to Engage a Partner/Channel During a Pandemic
In this episode of SaaS Connect, Ty Lindley, Head of Partnerships at Ally.io and board member at _Cloud Software Association_, interviews Danielle Price, Head of Partnerships for Channel Sales Enablement at Intuit about engaging a partner or channel during a pandemic such as
Covid-19.
Danielle comes with 25 years of experience in partnerships with companies like Apple Computer and Nextel Communications.
Their discussion centers around five key topics:
* The Price Partnership Principle, and tips for building trust
* Radical resourcing and how to get it right
* The Covid pivot and how online tools played a substantial role in innovating change that will stay
* The four E's of partner sales, what they mean, and how to use them:
* Engage
* Educate
* Execute
* Evangelise
* The five elements in what can be considered a “danger zone”
Make sure to tune in to learn more.
Resources Mentioned:
* _Verizon_
* _Salesforce _
* _Nextel_
* _Sprint_
* _ADP…
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May 3, 2021
Rapid Scaling Your Partnership Program from Zero to Hero, with Stacy Carlson, TextExpander, and Madelyn Wing, Callrail
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah of _Cloud Software Association_ tailors a discussion with Stacy Carlson, Partner Manager at TextExpander, and Madelyn Wing, Director of Product and Customer Marketing at CallRail.
TextExpander is productivity software that uses keyboard shortcuts to automatically insert frequently used text for repetitive tasks.
CallRail is marketing software for businesses that rely on phone calls to grow and succeed.
At TextExpander, Stacy doubled partner revenue quarter by quarter by rebuilding the partner program and relaunching, seeing huge results in a matter of months. Madelyn from CallRail quickly grew their partner program to 1,600 service partners, so both companies boast impressive results from recent strategies they implemented. We’ll discuss these on the show.
In this podcast session, the conversation focuses on turning a partner program into a masterpiece, covering topics such as:
* The difference between affiliates and partne…
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May 3, 2021
Christian Owens (Paddle) and Tim Metzner (Coterie) discuss how "Your API is your business."
In this episode of SaaS Connect, your host Sunir Shah of _Cloud Software Association_ leads a value-packed discussion with Christian Owens, CEO of Paddle, and Tim Metzner, Co-founder and CSO of Coterie Insurance.
Paddle is a software company that integrates the entire checkout process, including payment, subscription management, and financial compliance, into one single unified platform.
Coterie Insurance employs a tech-based approach to business insurance that uses data-driven automation to simplify customer-facing processes.
This episode is packed with nuggets from Paddle and Coterie, two companies that both focus on utilizing technology and partnerships to provide a magical customer experience.
For example, what’s the Amazon approach to selling a product or service, and how do you automate processes with an API?
For Coterie, it’s an embedded experience that asks one or two questions as opposed to 30. For Paddle, it’s starting from the end and working backward, building th…
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May 3, 2021
Bob Moore, Crossbeam, on the The State of the Partner Ecosystem 2021
In this episode of the SaaS Connect podcast, your host Sunir Shah of _Cloud Software Association_ sits down with Bob Moore, Co-Founder and CEO of Crossbeam, a partner-ecosystem platform that helps companies build better partnerships.
The discussion centers around the results of The State of the Partner Ecosystem 2021 report.
The report reviews the findings from a survey of 173 respondents; out of the respondents, 98% work in B2B, 79% are ISV, and 72% work at companies consisting of 100 employees or more.
The survey generated five key findings which are reviewed:
* The average salary of partnership professionals, (from associate/analyst, to manager, to director, to vice president and finally C-suite). Also discussed is salary by location.
* The most popular KPIs, and how much is partner-influenced revenue.
* How Covid-19 impacted partnerships, how the headcount changed as a result of the pandemic, and whether Covid impacted annual promotions.
* Reporting structures, who p…
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