How to fix your imperfect partner marketing program? Find out in this deep dive with Claudia Byrnes and Tina Semple of Splendid Group

Join your host and Executive Creative Director Barrie Seppings as he ventures into the ‘imperfect world’ of Partner Marketing with two expert guides: Claudia Byrnes and Tina Semple of Splendid Group. We’re diving deep into the opportunities, challenges and sometimes tensions that arise when partner marketing programs hit the turbulence called ‘reality’. 

Welcome back to this month’s “Plugged In, Switched On” podcast from Splendid Group. 

This ‘deep dive’ episode of Plugged In, Switched On takes us into the world of partner marketing. Some say It's a dark art. Some say it's an intricate web. We say all of those things. (And we should know). 

Splendid Group has been working on partner, disti and vendor management for over 10 years and this episode with a couple of leaders from our business will shine a light on the current state of partner marketing: what’s working, where the opportunities are and why diplomacy is the single greatest skill you can have. 

So, if it's an area that you work in or an area you think you'd like to move your career into, stick around. This episode is going to be great for you.  

Claudia Byrnes is the Group Account Director at Splendid Group, a Global B2B Technology Marketing Agency. As part of her role, Claudia helps both tech vendors and their partner teams to build their company’s brand, grow demand for their products and drive market outperformance. LinkedIN 

Tina Semple leads the partner and media team at Splendid Group, a Global B2B Technology Marketing Agency, helping both tech vendors and their partner teams to build their company’s brand, grow demand for their products and drive market outperformance. LinkedIN 

Barrie Seppings is the Executive Creative Director of The Splendid Group and the host of Plugged In, Switched On. Connect with Barrie on LinkedIN. 

Thanks for listening!

If you want to learn more about Splendid Group , see some of our work or meet any of our people, visit splendidgroup.com

Transcript

Claudia Byrnes (00:00): 

It's so important to give them that support and have the project manager on those campaigns. They can call, they have a weekly check-in with, make sure they've looked at the copy of the assets they need to look at, make sure everything's in place for the campaign to launch and just really be an execution support or guide along the way. 

(00:18): 

But also, another thing we found works really well is being really upfront with the expectations for the partners. Because obviously, with these programs, the vendor funds, in essence, a campaign for them. We find if you're really clear on expectation, "Yes, you get those funds, but this is what you are committing," being upfront about that, it gives them as well the opportunity to say, "You know what? I'm really up for that. I want to do that." 

Barrie Seppings (00:46): 

Welcome to Plugged-In, Switched-On, the podcast where we bring you into the conversations that matter in B2B tech marketing. I am your host, Barrie Seppings. I'm the executive creative director at Splendid Group and the quote that you heard at the top of the show was from Claudia Byrnes. More from Claudia and Tina Semple in just a moment. Now, if you are new to the pod, welcome. Let us show you around. 

(01:08): 

We try and do three things here at Plugged-In, Switched-On. First is we bring in expert guests and we do a deep dive. We talk to them about why they do and how they do the things that they do, look at their background and get them to tell us a few stories, get to learn a lot from the top marketers in the field. Second of all, sometimes we do a deep dive into an area or a specialty of the business. Spoiler alert, that's what we're going to do in this episode. 

(01:33): 

I'll reveal that in just a second. And our third type of episode is a behind-the-scenes look at how high performance teams, remote teams and hybrid teams are managing their workloads, what tools they're using, what management styles they're using, how they maintain motivation, collaboration, cohesion in this new world of work. But we don't try and do all those three things in one episode. We like to focus here on the pod. 

(01:56): 

Today's focus is a deep dive issue. We are going into the world of partner marketing. Some say it's a dark art, some say it's an intricate web, and we say all of those things. Splendid Group has been working on partner disties and vendor management for over 10 years and we've learned a lot. We're going to have a chat today with a couple of leaders from our business here at Splendid about the current state of partner marketing. 

(02:23): 

So if it's an area that you work in or an area you think you'd like to move your career into, stick around, this episode is going to be great for you. One of my guests for this special episode of the Plugged-In, Switched-On podcast is Claudia Byrnes. She has been with Splendid for some time. We brought her into Lighthouse Studios here in Bali where we are recording. Claudia, how do you find yourself in this particular area of tech marketing? Because you are a bit of a partner specialist. This is something you've been doing pretty much exclusively for a while now. 

Claudia Byrnes (02:54): 

About 20 years ago, actually, with the founder of Splendid, we both worked on the Microsoft account back then. I wasn't the director. It was not in the partner side of things. And then Microsoft followed me around a bit in my career. But I had a little bit of a break as well and I started my own small business and also did a lot of consulting for small businesses. 

(03:15): 

So when I started with Splendid, my background with Microsoft as a vendor and having had my own small business lent itself really well to the partner marketing side of things, because a lot of partners are indeed small businesses and they also market to small businesses. So it was a nice fit. Think about two years ago, Microsoft briefed us on a very small campaign to start with, with three partners at a time. It went from there and it's now a huge program with hundreds of partners. 

Barrie Seppings (03:45): 

That Microsoft program, is that just Australia or APJ? How wide has it gone? 

Claudia Byrnes (03:50): 

It started off in Australia, only ANZ actually. And then now it's across APJ, India, Southeast Asia, and Greater China as well. 

Barrie Seppings (03:59): 

Obviously, Splendid, we're fully remote. You're managing a remote team, we're not an office. You don't get to go into clients' offices all of the time. Is that a challenge or is that a benefit for you? 

Claudia Byrnes (04:10): 

It's definitely a benefit. As a mum of two, flexible working is really important for me and I get to live in one of the most beautiful places of the world. Not Bali. Bali's not bad, but near Byron Bay. So I'm very, very lucky to be able to work in the tech space and obviously tech space enables people to work remotely via Teams. 

(04:31): 

So obviously the flexible part is a big part, but also on the partner side of things, I love working with small businesses and so many different people and the diversity of the partners, it's just really interesting. So I really enjoy that. 

Barrie Seppings (04:43): 

Yeah, that surprises me a little bit that partners of these really large technology platforms, we're talking Azure, we're talking Teams, these are big licensing deals. How small are some of these businesses that get involved in this space? 

Claudia Byrnes (04:56): 

When I say small businesses, I shouldn't say... There's not only small ones, there's obviously really big ones as well. We've got the big system integrators as well, which are probably more like when you deal with those guys, it's a bit more like you're dealing with the vendors themselves. So it's bigger marketing teams. 

(05:08): 

But it goes down to your two, three people resellers and it's really small or the small MSPs in regional areas. So we cover really the whole range from tiny MSPs, all the way up to system integrators. And that's what I really like. It's such a diversity around it. 

Barrie Seppings (05:25): 

And when you are looking for people to join your team, what are the qualities you're looking for? Is it the ability to work remote and independently is the major one? Or is it the experience with B2B tech? Or is it something to do with that partner, small business sphere? Which one of those are more important? 

Claudia Byrnes (05:42): 

I think it's all of the above really. That's the ideal case, but I think being able to work remotely, I don't think it's very hard for a lot of people. I think a lot of people would like that, especially if you're a parent. The flexibility is just a great thing. I think it's definitely the attitude and being able to work with just a really big variety with people and be able to put yourself in another person's shoes or in a partner's shoes and knowing that there's so many differences between the small partners and the big system integrators. 

Barrie Seppings (06:10): 

Also, on the podcast with us today, Tina Semple. Welcome. For you, what's the biggest difference having worked direct with brands but also working in the partner ecosystem as a marketer, as an agency person? 

Tina Semple (06:22): 

I think working in a direct sense, you have a little bit more control of what you're putting out there, whereas when you're working with partners, you have to prepare a lot of campaign kits and you're letting go of some of that control to the partners to execute. So I think the responsibility of an agency there is to prepare them so that they can take the campaign to market. At the same time, also deliver on what the vendors want to get out of it. 

Barrie Seppings (06:51): 

So it's a bit more enablement education, helping people to help themselves. Is that what happens in the partner space more? 

Tina Semple (06:58): 

Yeah, that's right. And I think Splendid is very much a bridge between the vendors and the partners and helping the partners go into market quickly and easily. 

Barrie Seppings (07:08): 

Talk to me about the different types of skills or attitudes you might need for those roles. What do you think the skills that are necessary to work in one or other of those areas? Are the skills transferable, or do you find it's different types of people working in direct, working in partner land? 

Tina Semple (07:22): 

No, I think the best market is that you come across that the skills are transferable. I think when you work in the partner space, you have to be more of a collaborator and you're not having all of the control as much as you do in a traditional project management sense. So more of a collaborator and sometimes a bit more of a diplomat too in terms of making sure that everyone's needs are being met. 

Barrie Seppings (07:46): 

Can you talk me through broadly the structure? Where do distributors fit in? Who's who in the zoo? 

Claudia Byrnes (07:53): 

Well, the disties, they still play a really central role obviously because the sheer volume of partners, it just doesn't allow Microsoft to have a direct relationship with all these resellers. So all the MSPs and all the partners, that's why they have such a crucial role. 

(08:09): 

But to Tina's point as well, they almost take on more of an enablement role rather than a distribution role in the traditional sense. And obviously there's also in the back-end there, things like the licensing and so on that goes through the disties. So in that sense, they still have that traditional wholesale role. 

Barrie Seppings (08:28): 

They're still almost shipping something even if it is a digital thing. 

Claudia Byrnes (08:29): 

Yeah, exactly. 

Barrie Seppings (08:29): 

Yeah, okay. 

Claudia Byrnes (08:30): 

But in terms of how we are concerned from a marketing point of view, we see them as another team member really and they are just like us, enablers. And we work closely with them. Especially when we deliver partner programs, we work closely with them to identify the right partners to run the programs with. They obviously know their partners better than us and better than the vendors as well. They know which partners lend themselves to the programs we are running and the campaigns and to put them forward. 

Barrie Seppings (09:07): 

Tina, I wanted to ask you about this idea of the ideal partner or perhaps even the imperfect partner. Through years and years of trial and error in refining the model, the Splendid model has arrived at this moment of clarity where we accept the truth that the world's not perfect. Talk us through the imperfect partner. 

Tina Semple (09:27): 

I think from both vendors and partners' perspective, obviously an ideal partnership is transparent and aligned and mutually invested. You have performance tracking and you have great visibility, and the partner gets loads and loads of leads. But yes, we know that doesn't really exist, and the ecosystem tends to be quite messy as we've talked through before as well. 

(09:53): 

And so this really is where Splendid comes in. We very much started out, we're purpose-built to power that imperfect partner network and very much tailor how we work with everyone and can be that bridge between the vendors and the partners and make sure that vendors can go to market through the partners in a very easy way. 

Barrie Seppings (10:16): 

Have you found vendors are responsive to that? 

Claudia Byrnes (10:19): 

Some more than others, I think. A lot of the time the vendors want to do the right thing by the partner, like coming from a good space, and they put out a lot of materials for their partners. But what we've been finding, a lot of vendors put out a lot of material content, bill of materials, but it's almost too much. So then you have a partner there. It doesn't make a difference if it's a two-man shop or a bigger partner, but they don't have time to sift through a massive partner portal, find the campaigns that are right for them. So I think that that is a challenging part. 

(10:54): 

The vendors do want to give them materials and help them market. But yeah, I think there's that gap between what the partners then really need or can do with their time as well because a lot of them don't even have marketing resources. Most partners, if you think as a tech person starts up, their company, he or she becomes an MSP and then in terms of marketing, it's all been word of mouth so they're not going to sit in front of a big partner portal and download their assets. 

Barrie Seppings (11:25): 

In response to that reluctance or the difficulty that partners have of self-serving, going to these giant portals and having to figure it all out themselves, Splendid's developed a concierge service almost like a helping hand or somebody to be there to walk people through it. Talk to me about the origins of that and where it's got to now. 

Tina Semple (11:45): 

Yeah. So that's very much evolved through vendors such as Microsoft, for example, who are looking to go to market with lots of partners. And exactly what Claudia was talking about, they don't necessarily know where to even begin when it comes to content. So Claudia and the team actually use a lot of the content on the portal, create base kits for campaigns and put together a whole program of different packages that the partners can go to market with very easily and very successfully. 

Barrie Seppings (12:18): 

And Claudia, is there support? Can they ring somebody? Can they send an email and somebody can actually walk them through this stuff? 

Claudia Byrnes (12:22): 

Exactly. Yeah, I think that makes a big difference. So we're simplifying the assets for them, which is one part of it, but a bigger part of the concierge program is almost the support we're giving them on top of it. We have weekly check-ins with the partners, keep the campaign top of mind because again, if you just hand them over the assets, they're busy, they've got a lot on and then throwing an end of month or end of financial year, nothing happens. 

(12:44): 

So that's why it's so important to give them that support and have the project manager on those campaigns. They can call, they have a weekly check-in, make sure they look at the copy of the assets they need to look at, make sure everything's in place for the campaign to launch and just really be an execution support or guide along the way. But also another thing we found works really well is being really upfront with the expectations for the partners, because obviously with these programs, the vendor funds, in essence, a campaign for them. 

(13:17): 

We find if you're really clear on the expectation, yes, you get those funds, but this is what you are committing. Being upfront about that, it gives them as well the opportunity to say, "You know what? I'm really up for that. I want to do that." And we've had that as well. We've had partners who are like, "I love the program, love the sound of it. But you know what? Right now, I don't have the capacity." And that's better than a vendor giving away funds to a partner who's ultimately not using it. 

Barrie Seppings (13:42): 

What sort of lift do you get in terms of the partners participating in marketing or putting more campaigns in market? Is it effective? 

Claudia Byrnes (13:51): 

Yes, definitely. So we have seen great numbers, like an increase in the ROI with one of the big partner programs we're doing. When we started the program, they saw an insane uplift in uptake from 30% to 87%, something like that. 

Barrie Seppings (14:05): 

Yeah. Wow, that's a big shift. 

Claudia Byrnes (14:08): 

So a significant uplift. And even those partners, as I said, we onboarded some and they were like, "No. Okay, we can't commit to it right now." But then sometimes they'd say, "But we would love to be considered for next quarter when we have a bit more capacity." 

Barrie Seppings (14:18): 

How much of it is just straight up helping them and how much of it is educating them so that next time they can actually do a bit more themselves? 

Claudia Byrnes (14:25): 

It's definitely enablement as well. So we train them while we do those campaigns with them. And when we give them the assets as well, we give them the design assets and everything so they can reuse them for further campaigns as well. But it's definitely an enablement part to it as well because we have our project managers, they're all experienced B2B tech people in the marketing space and we guide them along and they learn through it obviously as well. 

Barrie Seppings (14:50): 

I imagine there's a bit of staff turnover on the partner side as well. You train someone else, they're not there next quarter or they've moved on. 

Claudia Byrnes (14:55): 

Actually, I haven't seen it that much, interestingly. 

Barrie Seppings (14:57): 

Really? 

Claudia Byrnes (14:57): 

No. 

Host: Barrie Seppings (14:58): 

Yeah, okay. 

Claudia Byrnes (14:59): 

Not that much in the MSP space, to be honest. And we've had quite a few partners, which actually defies what you just said, but they came back again for when we had a different campaign and they really enjoyed working with us. So it's a good sign. 

Barrie Seppings (15:14): 

Tina, talk to me about what are we making, or what are we actually doing and what are the vendors providing? What sort of assets are available for these partners to use? 

Tina Semple (15:24): 

So it could be anything from emails to LinkedIn posts, landing pages and things like that. So we take the assets that are available and create a base kit and then we also customize each asset so that it really feels like the partner's asset as well, which is another important part. So it doesn't necessarily feel like just vendor content. It actually feels like the partner's own content. 

Barrie Seppings (15:49): 

And I suspect there's an element of our job, as Splendid, is making sure even though we modify it, it's still compliant with the vendor brand, right? 

Tina Semple (15:55): 

Exactly. Yes. 

Barrie Seppings (15:56): 

Otherwise, what are the consequences when you put something in market that's not compliant? Is the funding at risk? Do things get knocked back? 

Tina Semple (16:02): 

100%, yes. We have to be compliant and we won't get paid unless we are compliant. So there's big stakes. We need to know our stuff. 

Barrie Seppings (16:11): 

Yeah. Right. Upstream, there's a real task for us at Splendid is to maintain our knowledge of those vendor brands because we're guaranteeing for the partners that, "Don't worry, we've got this. This is all on brand, this is the current messaging." How much work does the agency put into keeping up to date with those kind of guidelines and that kind of compliance? 

Tina Semple (16:34): 

You have to stay abreast of it all the time because it changes all the time. Claudia and I were talking about it today- 

Claudia Byrnes (16:40): 

On the way here. 

Tina Semple (16:42): 

... just on the way here actually, how things were changing and how we had to update copy that we wrote three months ago. We have to change because things are changing so quickly. So we need to be on top of these things. 

Barrie Seppings (16:53): 

And do you find the vendors are good at providing that training or do we have to go hunt a little bit to make sure that we're staying up to date? Or do we sit there and wait for them to update us? 

Claudia Byrnes (17:03): 

Oh, we definitely have to do it proactively as well because our clients, the vendors, they're busy as well, right? We've got amazing clients but yet they're busy as well. And the other thing as well, yes, we get the updates from the vendor, which is great, but also the partners are the ones who are really close to the market, they really know. 

(17:24): 

So it's also not just what we're getting from the vendor, but it's also what we're hearing from the partners, what they need and what their customers need. So it almost goes both ways where you have to stay up to date with what's happening. 

Barrie Seppings (17:36): 

Are you talking in terms of stuff coming from corporate and it's a little too high level or it's a little too American-centric or it's a little bit not tuned to particular audiences? 

Claudia Byrnes (17:45): 

Partly. As Tina said, sometimes the materials just don't look like a partner campaign. They look like a campaign from the big vendors. Sometimes they look quite product-led rather than solution-led. But I think in terms of being proactive for us as well, or if you run a program and I hear from five partners they have the same issue with clients or their customers all demand training, say, for a certain adoption or something like that, then it's us. We're like, "Oh, actually." So we feed that then back up to the vendor like, "We've heard from five partners this seems to be an issue. Is there anything, or can we create something proactively and fix that?" Which we've done as well. 

Barrie Seppings (18:28): 

Yeah, yeah. Tina, I want to talk about the media element of it because that surprised me a little bit that partners, particularly the smaller ones, want to get involved in media because it seems like a bit of a lion's den. What are we doing there to make that easier for partners if they want to spend some media money or spend the vendors' media money to reach more people? 

Tina Semple (18:45): 

Yeah. We created a couple of different media packages that are specifically developed for partners to make it a lot easier for partners to run media campaigns easily. So they're quite affordable and they are outcome-based, which is important because it means that we're not focusing on vanity metrics. We are focusing on outcomes and delivering actual, say, for example, either leads, awareness or demand, so MQLs. And we're very focused on the results and partners know what they get when they buy these packages. 

Barrie Seppings (19:22): 

Do you still find people want to sign agencies or partners up to guaranteed leads? Is that still a thing that people are demanding? And is there such a thing as a guaranteed lead of any quality? How do we thread this needle? 

Claudia Byrnes (19:37): 

I wouldn't say they're demanding, but again, we are very clear setting expectations with the partners, what they're getting, and we do lead generation for them as well, so we do SDR outreach. And again, we are very clear with the partner upfront, we're guaranteeing the number of calls, the number of days we are calling. But we are not guaranteeing. We give them projections obviously based on certain budgets, we can give them an estimate of how many leads they can expect within that budget. 

(20:08): 

But there's a very specific reason why we're not promising them a certain number of leads, is because for us it's all about the quality. We don't want to have some SDR opting in leads just for the sake of opting in leads to make a target. And I think the partners really appreciate that upfront and we are always very clear with them about it and I actually have never heard a partner say, "No, you got to guarantee it." 

Barrie Seppings (20:35): 

Really? 

Claudia Byrnes (20:36): 

No. 

Barrie Seppings (20:36): 

Yeah. Okay. They're starting to understand. 

Claudia Byrnes (20:37): 

Because when we explain it, our SDR teams are like an extension of their team rather than some random SDR just calling. They are like an extension. They are tech experts as well. So I think they do understand when we explain it in those terms and why we are not guaranteeing leads, but then also I think we really want to hear from them as well what they need because they might want to have top of funnel leads. 

(21:02): 

And they want the quantity, maybe they need to fill, and have a nurture program. So then it might be better to go with a media partner like, say, content syndication where they have guaranteed leads but a large number of leads. But again, we are quite clear- 

Barrie Seppings (21:18): 

The quality is variable. 

Claudia Byrnes (21:20): 

... the quality can be compromised. And it depends on the resources, the partner at the time as well. Because when we do, say, an SDR outreach campaign with them, the best campaigns we do is when the partner works with us very collaboratively, but it's quite high touch for the partner as well. They get daily reports from us, they sit in weekly WIPs with us. We optimize the campaigns as we go. So there is some involvement from the partner there. So if they want set-and-forget leads, then SDR outreach is not for them. 

Barrie Seppings (21:49): 

Right, right. Careful what you- 

Claudia Byrnes (21:51): 

Content syndication where they get a list of leads and the work starts after the campaign for them where they need to nurture. 

Barrie Seppings (21:55): 

Right. Tina, talk to me about the top four or five things that you think are indicators of a successful campaign from either a partner perspective or agency perspective, if you see these things happening in a campaign, you're looking at it and going, "I think this one's going to work." 

Tina Semple (22:12): 

If there is a clear outcome-based brief in terms of what a partner, or a client for that matter are looking for, that would be one thing. Also, their willingness to perhaps think a little bit more out of the box in terms of maybe not being so set in, say, for example a certain channel. Having a bit of flexibility in terms of our options for what channels might work would be one thing. 

(22:39): 

When it comes to lead generation and say, for example, tele campaigns, verticals are hugely important. So in terms of being focused to one vertical, meaning that we can be more focused in our messaging and talking to the business problems that that particular vertical is experiencing is another indicator whether we're going to have a successful campaign or not. 

Barrie Seppings (23:02): 

And I've seen that targeting as well in terms of not just verticals but geos. So how important is the geo targeting particularly for those regional partners? Is that stuff working? 

Tina Semple (23:10): 

Yes it does. Anything that you can do to be more relevant to your target audience is going to make for a better campaign. 

Barrie Seppings (23:21): 

Are we seeing a bit of a shift in the partner world as well, because we know we are indirect, in terms of being just a bigger buyer cohort for technology purchases? All businesses are now technology businesses. We used to be able to just sell to the CIO or the IT manager. Is that happening in partner land as well where you have to consider a lot more different roles and a lot more different audiences that buy it or can we just hammer on the CIOs still? 

Tina Semple (23:48): 

There's now up to 16 people in each buying committee. 

Barrie Seppings (23:54): 

Wow. 

Tina Semple (23:54): 

Which is a lot. So that is absolutely the case, I think, even in partner marketing as well. 

Barrie Seppings (24:00): 

Yeah, okay. 

Tina Semple (24:01): 

But that's where media can play a good role in terms of who you target and what messages you serve to each persona that is in your buying group. 

Barrie Seppings (24:14): 

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Last question before we go and have a quick review of some of our special guests that have been on the episode in the past year and a half. What's coming down the pipe? Have we started to look at how AI tools are going to impact how partner marketing works? Even though it is high touch human, a lot of it's customized. Is there a role for AI to get involved in there? 

Tina Semple (24:39): 

Yes, absolutely. Without trying to not sound like a cliche, everyone is talking about how exciting AI is. But absolutely. And I think there is a role of talking from an agency point of view in terms of what we can provide to partners with the help of AI in terms of getting them an end-to-end product and using that together with our media packages in terms of targeting the right people at the right time. So with the help of AI, we should be able to provide a full solution with creative and targeting and media which will very much benefit the partners specifically. 

Barrie Seppings (25:21): 

Are we expecting to see the work get better or just more efficient or a little bit of both? 

Claudia Byrnes (25:21): 

Probably more efficient, mostly. 

Tina Semple (25:22): 

Probably more efficient, but I think that's where the experience of an agency like Splendid can also play a very important role because someone needs to check and someone needs to ensure that the quality is still good. 

Barrie Seppings (25:41): 

Yeah, okay. 

Claudia Byrnes (25:42): 

I do wonder if you see a similar thing, like with the partner portals you mentioned before, right? 

Barrie Seppings (25:45): 

Right. 

Claudia Byrnes (25:46): 

Everyone's like, "I can do this, I don't need an agency. I'll just use AI for the marketing." 

Barrie Seppings (25:50): 

Full circle. 

Barrie Seppings (25:52): 

That's back where we started with. 

Claudia Byrnes (25:54): 

I think there might be an element and we haven't seen it yet, I have to say because again, that still doesn't make a difference, they still don't have that much time, the partners, to do that. But there might be some shift where we see like, "We tried to do on our own, and then it's not happening." And then you still need that extra help of the concierge to come along. 

Barrie Seppings (26:13): 

Now, on the pod, we have had quite a few guests who are partner specialists. We've had people who are partner consultants. Want to play back some of those clips and just get your reaction to some of the commentary that we've heard. Let's start with Kat Yon of Harness Consultancy. She laid out a pretty robust plan for helping partners and resellers focus on their business to improve the way they operate. Let's hear from Kat. 

Kat Yon (26:41): 

Our focus is guiding resellers towards crafting a customer-centric business model that goes above and beyond expectations. So we'll focus on five core areas of the business that are foundations for delivering exceptional customer experience. We'll review the strength of a reseller's go-to-market strategy, their customer knowledge, strategic marketing plans, sales enablement, and most importantly, particularly for this conversation, vendor management. 

(27:08): 

These strategies really need to be built with the customer at the center of each of them. And when all of these are firing in perfect alignment, a reseller is really able to cultivate an unparalleled customer experience, which will set them apart from the rest of the industry, ensures they get returning customers, repeat business, gives them the ability to build business on referrals as well. 

Barrie Seppings (27:29): 

Sounds like Kat there is talking a lot about business strategy. Do you notice when you're dealing with partners that have actually had their businesses set up correctly versus the ones that are just scrambling or just winging it or maybe they're much earlier in their journey towards business maturity, do you see that turn up in the partners you work with? 

Claudia Byrnes (27:49): 

Yeah, certainly. There's such a huge, big difference. You have the smaller partners. Some of them might have grown organically quite big, but they've never really looked into a business strategy as such. And then we work with partners obviously who have done all of that. And for me, again, that makes it so interesting to work with the partner ecosystem because it's so different. 

(28:11): 

I can talk to a partner who has never heard of a business strategy or haven't done that, and we still guide them. And even if they don't have that though, I find it so interesting because when you talk to them, they still know their customers really well, they know what they need. It's just us helping to extract that information and help craft the message for them. But obviously it's harder to craft a message for a partner who has never done a business strategy or a partner who has it all nutted out, but that makes the job very varied and exciting. 

Barrie Seppings (28:46): 

And then in those situations, would you refer them to somebody like Kat, a partner consultant like that who's got that expertise if they were looking to scale up and get some discipline in? 

Claudia Byrnes (28:55): 

Yeah, certainly we would. Yeah, we definitely would do that. But again, I think one of the things as well, it's also sometimes the partners are not there yet. They're not ready, so you need to meet them where they are. 

Barrie Seppings (29:07): 

Where they're at. 

Claudia Byrnes (29:07): 

Where they're at. 

Barrie Seppings (29:09): 

Another guest we had on the pod was Kimberley Marlay from Kyndryl. She's a friend of the pod, friend of the agency, she's head of alliances. And this was her approach to collaborating with people and getting a team of really different individuals who may even work for different organizations to align around a common goal. Let's hear from Kimberley. 

Kimberley Marlay (29:29): 

I think you really need to A, spend a lot of time with your people to understand their strengths and weaknesses and B, know yourself very well to understand your strengths and weaknesses. Because I do truly believe that to go further, to your point, you really do need to deploy a team mentality because everyone's going to bring a different strength to get you to accelerate. Because the whole world we're living in at the moment is pretty much everyone's got the same group of skills in some capacity. It's who can deploy it in the most efficient way to make you better, faster, more focused than the five other people that are doing the same thing in your market. 

Barrie Seppings (30:14): 

Sounds a lot like Kimberley's talking about that alignment piece. Do you ever find yourself in the Splendid role having to bring vendors and partners to the table to really nut something out, like if they fall out of alignment and they're heading in different directions? Or is that something we do in the background? 

Tina Semple (30:28): 

No, I think we do and it comes down to collaboration again and being able to employ those diplomatic skills that we need to have sometimes and make sure that we can deliver something that actually makes sense to everyone. 

Barrie Seppings (30:42): 

Yeah. And do you use that third-party role to deliver the bad news and save face for the partner who's like, "Can you go tell the vendor this"? Or vice versa, are you that piggy in the middle sometimes? Is that the diplomacy you're talking about? 

Tina Semple (30:57): 

Yeah, I think that happens. I think that happens. 

Host: Barrie Seppings (31:00): 

Our conversation earlier in the year with Sonya Aboudargham, what it means for your career as a marketer to be focused on the partner ecosystem, here's what she had to say about her motivation for the role. 

Sonya Aboudargham (31:14): 

In my role, I get the privilege of being able to work with Microsoft, the vendor, and being able to interact and engage with some really smart people there, but ultimately servicing partners. And we have a large number of partners who rely on Dicker Data for operational support, for licensing support, for go-to-market support. And it's really being that heartbeat of the industry and that's what I love and that's what motivates and gives me the passion to do what I do. Being at a distributor, you really are that center of everything for the vendor and for the partner, and you get the opportunity to collaborate and team with lots of different types of partners and with the vendor. 

Barrie Seppings (31:58): 

That sounds like there are a lot of parallels that you're talking about between the distributor role and the agency role. Do you find that relationship's probably the strongest in the ecosystem between disties and the agency? Or is it across the board you're building strong relationships? 

Claudia Byrnes (32:13): 

I feel like it's across the board, but I think when I hear Sonya talk about it, there's definitely parallels and you can see as almost an extension of the distributors to some. And hence we have great relationships with them because we are helping them as well. They usually have limited resources as well, so that's where we come in. 

Barrie Seppings (32:35): 

Yeah. Because the disties, they're managing multiple vendors as well, right? They're in the same boat as us as an agency where they've got vendors coming at them. Is there a little bit of a fight for attention do you think? 

Tina Semple (32:47): 

I'd say so because they would have just as many vendors vying for their attention as a partner would really. So yeah, I'd say so. 

Claudia Byrnes (32:57): 

I find at the partner level sometimes that we have partners that are very popular with vendors and there's an issue where they're like, "Actually, we're getting MDF funds from three, four vendors and I don't want to take their money." So, when I first started working in that space, it was like, "You're getting free- 

Barrie Seppings (33:15): 

Free money. 

Claudia Byrnes (33:16): 

... a free campaign. Why are you not doing it?" 

Barrie Seppings (33:17): 

It's just bandwidth. 

Claudia Byrnes (33:19): 

Bandwidth, yeah. 

Barrie Seppings (33:21): 

What would you suggest to a partner that's really just starting out or has no traction, who's not getting much love? What have they got to do to get noticed to be one of those sought-after partners that's getting courted by the vendors? 

Claudia Byrnes (33:33): 

I think you really need to find your niche in the market and also what Tina said earlier, you have a vertical, you have a specialization. I think the most successful resellers and MSPs are the ones who a lot of them have grown from word of mouth. The ones that are good and successful, they almost grow organically up to a certain point and then they get to the point where like, "Wow, there's potential in this," right? 

Barrie Seppings (33:59): 

They're getting noticed. 

Claudia Byrnes (34:00): 

And that's when they're like, "Oh, maybe we should get a marketing resource." They start hiring a marketing coordinator, not quite ready for a more senior marketing role, but then they would get someone like us involved to help them grow further. 

Tina Semple (34:14): 

I think also just the partners, they need to have a bit of a willingness of putting some skin in the game and I think that's a successful part. 

Tina Semple (34:22): 

And be responsive because if it's MDF funds and you're running a campaign and you know you're going to get something for it, but when you have a really successful relationship, that's when the partner is actually following up on the leads, nurturing the leads. 

Barrie Seppings (34:39): 

Right. Totally. 

Tina Semple (34:39): 

And that's when it actually creates actual opportunities for them further down the track. 

Barrie Seppings (34:44): 

Is the free money then a bit of an issue? Does it dampen their motivation sometimes like, "I don't care either way because it wasn't my cash"? 

Tina Semple (34:51): 

Yeah, sometimes it can be. And a lot of vendors have an arrangement where they do have to actually put actual skin in the game, as in a portion of the campaign has to be funded. 

Barrie Seppings (35:05): 

Right. Oh, they've got a co-fund as well. 

Claudia Byrnes (35:05): 

I think that's where the distributors play a really important role as well. They have the numbers. They put forward the partners that they feel like are worthwhile investing as well. The partner ecosystem is huge. So obviously there's only a small number distributors and also the vendors can ultimately invest in. 

Barrie Seppings (35:23): 

Here at Splendid, we also collaborated with Ingram Micro to produce their B2B Tech Talk podcast. I had the pleasure of co-hosting that show with Natalie Burke, who also has so much experience in the industry. It was great to get her insights on what the disties do, where they fit in the ecosystem between vendors and partners. 

Natalie Burke (35:41): 

It depends also on the level of the customer. If they're a well-established partner, they've been selling for years and years, they have their own technical resources, they will leverage us slightly. They don't leverage us in the same regard that a smaller business will. 

Barrie Seppings (35:56): 

Yeah, okay. 

Natalie Burke (35:57): 

But we're here to help, doesn't matter. And a lot of  the time, even the larger companies, whilst they've got SEs, they're trained in specific regions. They don't just sell HPE, they sell multiple different vendors. So their SEs might be trained on a different or a competitive product. And feel free to come to our place to help. That's what we're here for. We're just here to be an extension of your company. 

Barrie Seppings (36:20): 

How do you deal with the idea of having to work with what, on the face of it, seemed like a lot of competitor brands, but there's actually a lot of competition and collaboration within the industry. Is that your experience? 

Claudia Byrnes (36:31): 

Yeah, it definitely is. I actually had that question from a partner the other day when we do our introduction and we show a nice slide of all the vendors we work with. The tech world is a small world and vendors can be competitors but collaborators at the same time. So it is navigating that. 

Tina Semple (36:49): 

The other thing to mention is if there is a conflict of interest, then we have measures. We can silo a team off and make sure if it's an actual conflict of interest. But other than that, I think that there is quite a lot of collaboration and a lot of synergies across the different accounts. 

Barrie Seppings (37:11): 

It strikes me that because the ecosystem is so complex, people want to deal with Splendid because we know it, we've done it for 10 years. They don't want to be educating a generalist agency about that. 

Claudia Byrnes (37:23): 

They come to us for the B2B technology. Now, it's easy to work with us. We know the ecosystem. They don't have to explain how a distie and a partner work together and the vendor. A disty doesn't have to explain what a two-partner communication is because we know it all. So I think not all, but... We know it all. 

Barrie Seppings (37:43): 

We know most of the know-it-all things, right? 

Claudia Byrnes (37:48): 

No, but in the B2B techs, it just makes it easier for the partner and also for the disty and the vendor as well if they brief us and we are familiar in that space. So yeah, the partners do know we work with their competitors and I think sometimes they like it as well, they actually like talking to each other as well, the partners, and learn from each other. 

Barrie Seppings (38:09): 

Got it. Yeah. 

Claudia Byrnes (38:10): 

So I don't think the partners with each other are necessarily that competitive. They know that there's a lot of them. 

Tina Semple (38:17): 

And I think also because we spend time with each partner and customize all of their assets to be unique to them in terms from a visual point of view and from their core messaging point of view as well. So their own company still shines through in the assets that we create. 

Barrie Seppings (38:33): 

Yeah. We've talked a lot about the partner perspective, and a little bit about the disty perspective. Just the last quote that I want to play for us comes from Harris Schneiderman. He was also on the Ingram podcast. He works for HPE and we were talking specifically about the fallout from the VMware acquisition that happened not too long ago and how that sent shockwaves through the industry and a lot of people had to figure that out. What was good about that answer is he gave us some pretty specific insight as to how the vendors view the partner ecosystem. 

Harris Schneiderman (39:02): 

We knew that we could not be successful with this product if we didn't enable and lead with our channel partners because the VMware industry is enormous. As HPE, we have some direct business, but obviously a very small direct business relative to our channel business to get to the scale that we need with VM Essentials. It has to be partner-led, and that's one of the reasons why the sales motion for the VME SKU is a channel SKU only. 

(39:33): 

It can't be sold by HPE directly. It's only sold through partners. And so my focus has been working with Ingram and our partner community to make sure that they're aware, that they're trained, that they know what resources that they have available and that they have an escalation path to us if they have a complex situation. 

Barrie Seppings (39:50): 

Well, that's interesting that the vendors seem to be acutely aware of how important this whole partner ecosystem is to them. You're talking a little bit about that feedback loop as well. Are you part of that loop to go back to vendors and say, "Look, here's what's working, here's not what's working"? And are they receptive to hearing from further down in the market? 

Tina Semple (40:10): 

Yes, very much so. We hear a lot from the partners and take that back to the vendors and provide them with that feedback. 

Claudia Byrnes (40:20): 

Yeah, they're definitely our ears on the ground. 

Tina Semple (40:22): 

Yes. 

Claudia Byrnes (40:23): 

Just listening to that quote, I found it interesting as well. We do find a bit of a trend. It swings around like the pendulums, goes both ways. At the moment, it seems like the channel is very important, the two-partner marketing, a lot of vendors invest a lot in the channel. There's times when they just fund directly the partners and then it goes a bit all over the place. And then it comes back a bit too, where we are at the moment with concierge programs, "Hang on. We need to put a bit of guardrails around this." 

Barrie Seppings (40:54): 

I just wanted to ask, Claudia, what's hot on the docket for you? This concierge program is about to scale up massively. Is that where we are right now with your work with Microsoft? 

Claudia Byrnes (41:04): 

Yes, that's right. So we've started with one solution area and it's now scaled up in a number of solution areas and it's scaling, as I said earlier, into APJ as well. So exciting times. 

Barrie Seppings (41:17): 

And for Splendor outside of Microsoft, there's plenty of movement with the other vendors. Do you see in general, Tina, that there is that awareness of how important the partner ecosystem amongst the other vendors as well? 

Tina Semple (41:28): 

Currently, yes, there is a huge focus on the channel from pretty much all of the vendors that we work with. They see the significance and the importance of the partner networks that they work with. 

Barrie Seppings (41:39): 

If someone was out there listening to the podcast and they wanted to know more about what Splendid can do for them in the partner space, what should they do, Claudia? 

Claudia Byrnes (41:50): 

Contact us, send an email to claudia@splendidgroup.com. We'll do a general introduction about Splendid, obviously who we are, give them a bit of background. We can share case studies like partner program, but we also do bespoke campaigns for them as well, lead generation campaigns as well. And then for distributors especially interesting or vendors as well, we do two-partner campaigns too. 

Barrie Seppings (42:17): 

That was a special deep dive episode of the Plugged-In, Switched-On podcast where we took a look at what is sometimes thought of as the dark art of partner marketing. Those guests who took us deep into the partmosphere were Tina Semple, client director, and Claudia Byrnes, partner lead, both of Splendid Group. But before I let them go, I asked Claudia and Tina about the movie that they would take with them on a desert island. 

Tina Semple (42:42): 

I recently watched Amélie de Montmartre with my 14-year-old daughter, and it was so much fun. She loved it so much, and she loved the whole quirkiness about it. So, I'd bring that just for the good memories of watching it with my daughter. 

Claudia Byrnes (42:59): 

It can only be one? 

Barrie Seppings (43:00): 

Yeah. 

Claudia Byrnes (43:01): 

Must be Point Break. 

Barrie Seppings (43:03): 

Today's episode also featured a selection of wisdom and insights from some of our previous podcast guests, including Kimberley Marlay of Kyndryl, Sonya Aboudargham of Dicker Data, and Kat Yon of Harness Consultancy, amongst others. If you've enjoyed hearing from these wonderful B2B tech marketing leaders and wonderful humans, I must add, I recommend you check our back catalog of Plugged-In, Switched-On episodes available wherever good podcasts are sold. 

(43:30): 

If you want to learn more about Splendid, see some of our work or meet any of our people, just point your interwebs at splendidgroup.com and we'll take it from there. I have been, and remain, Barrie Seppings, the executive creative director of Splendid Group in what has been a special deep dive episode of the Plugged-In, Switched-On podcast looking at the entire partner marketing ecosystem. This is a podcast about the conversations that matter in B2B tech marketing. Hit subscribe in your pod helmet and you'll hear us again automatically next month. 

(44:03): 

Thank you so much for having us in your ears. We'll see you again very soon. Plugged-In, Switched-On is generated by Splendid Group. Thank you so much to our executive producers, Ruth Holt and Anna Isabelle Canta, who is here. Come on over. Come onto the couch. This is a rare moment. 

Tina Semple (44:21): 

Hi, Anna. 

Barrie Seppings (44:21): 

Yay. We've got Anna with us. Anna, what's the funnest thing for you about producing the pod? 

Anna Isabelle Canta (44:29): 

It's really fun because I've got to meet several people, like our clients and learn some stuff about what we're offering in Splendid. So it's really nice. 

Barrie Seppings (44:37): 

And is it more fun to do it via Riverside or to come into somewhere like Lighthouse Studios here in Bali? 

Anna Isabelle Canta (44:43): 

Of course, Lighthouse Studios, because the place is really nice and it's really professional. 

Barrie Seppings (44:48): 

When you work with people via remote and then get to hang out with them, it's always a little bit special. 

Anna Isabelle Canta (44:51): 

Yeah. 

Barrie Seppings (44:52): 

And I want to thank you for all the work that you put into help getting the podcast on air every month. 

Anna Isabelle Canta (44:57): 

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. 

Barrie Seppings (44:57): 

It's remarkable. We shall see you next time on Plugged in... 

Anna Isabelle Canta (45:02): 

Switched On.