22 - Live: The State of Partner Engagement and Partner Portals in 2023 & Beyond - Rob Rebholz, Aaron Howerton, Paul Bird

•  The current state and future of partner portals (do we even need them?)
• Partner engagement challenges: How partner management tech is changing to meet partners where they already are (outside the portal) 
• Hear about what other partner tech providers are doing to meet expectations partners have in the current landscape

For a video version of this episode, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FkPi5I5wdI
 
The conversation started on these threads. We’ll be addressing the major points brought up by others from these threads https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adampasch_partnerships-partnerexperience-partnersuccess-activity-7039629574317490176-vIDU and https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aaronhowerton_partnerexperience-prms-activity-7039950524846067713-MrpM

Then we decided to give it a bigger platform to continue the discussion since these have been long-circulating thoughts in the partnerships space.

Hear insights from:

1. Aaron Howerton from Atlassian on why partners don’t want to log into your partner portal and other current challenges partners face with PRMs
2. Rob Rebholz, CEO of Superglue on how to create better partner experiences and drive portal adoption
3. Paul Bird, Head Portal Wizard at Magentrix on:
   • the root causes behind a lack of partner engagement with your portal and what you can do about it
   • What Magentrix is doing to enable you with partner engagement tools both inside AND outside the portal
   • And how Magentrix has pioneered AI-powered PRMs and is leading the way to an AI-powered future in partner management tech

This production is brought to you by Magentrix ✨💜
Magentrix is a pioneer in platforms for partner ecosystem management and partner relationship management 🤝

If you haven't already, please like 👍 & subscribe! ✅ And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ https://apple.co/3HcqSsm See instructions to do so at the end of the episode.

To learn about Magentrix PRM, please visit www.magentrix.com

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Podcast Credits:
Host: Paul Bird
Executive Producer: Fereshta Nouri
Content & Research: Fereshta Nouri
Graphics & Branding: Fereshta Nouri

Chapters

• 0:00 Topic and panelist introductions
• 2:39 Context behind the discussion: Aaron Howerton's meme "Where we're going, we don't need partner portals"
• 6:25 Rob's perspective on partner portals and rethinking how we use them
• 9:24 The current state of partner portals: portals are still relevent
• 10:33 Misconception about the usefulness of PRMs
• 11:03 The benefits of a platform as a service (PaaS) model for your PRM as opposed to a SaaS model
• 12:37 A lot of the challenges with partner engagement starts with the partner experience (PX)
• 13:53 Aaron's pov on personalizing the experience for his channel network at Atlassian
• 17:16 Rob on what we should be doing with partner portal, what to avoid and crafting a better experience
• 19:42 Why vendors don't provide good partner experiences
• 20:43 How vendors can elevate the partner experience
• 28:24 Aaron: Partner experience is not a new idea, it just doesn't get talked about enough
• 31:41 Addressing the comments on LinkedIn from Adam & Aaron's posts
• 46:10 Q & A begins
• 47:24 How do you measure the success of your partner engagement efforts within your partner portal?
• 53:15 What advice would you give in crafting a strategy around serving different partner types across multiple media? I'm thinking about using a portal to drive activity around certification for service partners, and a more "youtube" like drip experience for
• 57:35 How do you ensure that your partner portal is user-friendly and provides partners with the information they need?