Do you have what it takes to run a global channel?
Learn from someone who actually does. Before stepping in as Chief Revenue Officer at RiskOptics, Tim Maloney ran the worldwide channel organization for LifeSize.
Sharing memories from his extensive experience, Tim takes you through the early courtship of channel management — think of it like dating — where the foundation is laid for successful long-term relationships.
Tune in for answers on:
_________________________
Connect with the podcast hosts 👇
Connect with Channext 👇
https://bit.ly/channext-demo-request
Watch on YouTube ►
https://www.youtube.com/@channext
#partnerrelationshipmanagement #channelmarketing #partnerenablement #Throughchannelmarketingautomation
Do you have what it takes to run a global channel?
Learn from someone who actually does. Before stepping in as Chief Revenue Officer at RiskOptics, Tim Maloney ran the worldwide channel organization for LifeSize.
Sharing memories from his extensive experience, Tim takes you through the early courtship of channel management — think of it like dating — where the foundation is laid for successful long-term relationships.
Tune in for answers on:
_________________________
Connect with the podcast hosts 👇
Connect with Channext 👇
https://bit.ly/channext-demo-request
Watch on YouTube ►
https://www.youtube.com/@channext
#partnerrelationshipmanagement #channelmarketing #partnerenablement #Throughchannelmarketingautomation
Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries around partnerships and channel on a weekly basis. My name's Alex Whitford, I'm the VP of Revenue here at Channex and I'm really pleased to introduce our special guest, tim, who is both a friend and mentor. Tim, welcome to the channel. I'd love for you to introduce yourself.
Speaker 1:Thanks, alex. Thank you for having me here today. My name's Tim Maloney. I'm the current Chief Revenue Officer at RiskOptics, and before that, though, I've had my own company. Which really taught me how to run my own business and that's invaluable is, as I became a channel leader, really being able to put myself in business under shoes. So I ran the North American Manufacturing Channel for Autodesk. It was about a quarter of a US billion dollars. I ran a worldwide channel organization for LifeSize, and we did about $100 million globally. I was at Zoom, ran their US National Partner Program, and then moved on to RiskOptics. So a little bit of channel background.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for the uninitiated, Tim has created quite the wave across the channel. I think our relationship goes back four or five years at this point, but Tim's been instrumental in building some of the largest sort of video players. Lifesize was really really doing some great damage in the space. Right, I'd love for you to spend a little bit of time. What was that like? Building a global channel organization?
Speaker 1:Alex, it was super fun and I really learned a lot. I think not to over-romanticize it, though there's a lot of work that goes into it, but my takeaway from running that global program was world-class MBA and how to run a business. There's no better experience in going out and doing it. The positives here I love being around other people that hang it out there every day to make their own dollar right, like they are out there trying to create, and it was exciting to go around the world and really understand how these different business units make a dollar, whether you are in Taiwan or Germany, south America or even in the US. It was phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I think what most people don't understand or miss about running the global channel when you get that title, I think it's exciting, kind of a big deal. But then there's the other side is you have to go to the edge of the empire. I mean it requires a lot. You mentioned I worked for video collaboration companies when I had those roles, and these are amazing technologies, I think, personally to maintain relationships to get them going. But what I found incredibly valuable was when my team and I would go visit partners to go to their location, to go learn their businesses. I think it's a critical element to anything. When we started revamping the LifeSize channel, it had been years since anybody had talked to their partners. I mean, I think if you were back in time and asked our partners, community at that moment, they would have said LifeSize went out of business or they went direct and they don't need us anymore.
Speaker 1:And so when we started that partnerships again, you have to eat a lot of red, meaning you. There's no easy way to do it, alex. You get on a plane, you go visit these people and you sit there and you explain like look, I know I wasn't responsible for those decisions but, given the role I have, I have to wear this company and the things that were happening in the past before I got here. So phase one of that rebranding and firing the channel back up is you have to clean up the mistakes or decisions or the conversations of your past yours or your company. And I think most people, when they show up to partners, sort of want to believe like, hey, tim Maloney's the new guy, that's stuff for the past, alex, that shouldn't matter.
Speaker 1:And you, on the other hand, as someone who have lived through this whole journey, like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Your company hey, you might be a new name, but it's your company that we're talking about and I think people need to understand that is. The things that came before me are still relevant Now, good or bad. I think some channel partners out there have memories forever, but that was a key learning is everything's the same globally, but different. Going to Tokyo is very similar to going to the US, but it's just different and they're all different and when you go and learn the nuances, I think the takeaway was how valuable those channel partners in those regions are to your business. It was an amazing experience. I learned a lot. I learned a lot what to do and not to do.
Speaker 2:I love that in terms of reputation right, because from my side I always entered a new partner or a new partnership almost in the negative right. Because if someone before had done an amazing job, then they're like, hey, who's this new kid, alex, and hopefully he's not going to mess up the whole relationship. Or if I was working, walking into an absolute hand grenade, right, regardless of whether it was me or the team before, it's me right. And so I always find that those first few sessions, those first few months, the first, the real fast start of that relationship, that's going to be the reputation that stays on in the long term. And I have for me I've always been able to sell really, really quickly. How good is your program, how good are your salespeople, how good is your partnership? Because if the partners heavily invested early, we're going to do well. If they're not heavily invested, they're going to churn right, it's just guaranteed. They have to be bought in. They have to be bought in aggressively so we can be successful.
Speaker 1:You're spot on. I teach all my young cams and even my more experienced ones the simple way to think about the channel is thinking about dating. Everything I've learned about channel management I've learned from dating. And if you really feel it that way, it kind of puts in perspective everything you just said. Like hey, the new person's rolling in. You're immediately being compared to the past, good or bad. You have to overcome those things, good or bad, right. If it was a bad relationship, maybe you're not casting the best light To your point. If the previous person was amazing, you're starting from the deficit because you have to prove again.
Speaker 1:And I think people, my cams who see maybe senior people at it, like I'm just going to jump in and I'm going to get to the meat of the matter and he got to earn that right. And that's gets back to getting on a plane and visiting those edge of the empire for me, going to places where you know. I went to Guadalajara to meet a partner and they were like, are you sure you want to come here? Like listen, narcos hadn't come out yet. I wasn't sure I was getting into, but at the end I was like look, I will come here because nobody else will. And in my business we're going to win because we're going to be easy to deal with. I will do the things to develop this relationship that maybe others wouldn't, and in turn, we're going to build a mutual business because, alex, you're my partner, not my franchise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and to me, channel partnerships. They're starting to become interwoven and I love the name partnerships. My advice to any sort of young budding salesperson is get into channel quickly, because what I found as a 23 year old who, frankly, had no idea his arse from his elbow right, had no idea how the world worked. Suddenly, I was having meetings with business leaders, managing directors, ceos, and all I'm doing is asking questions to understand how their business works, to understand can we play a role in that growth? Right. And like you say about, hey, mba on steroids? Right. That's what I found within a year.
Speaker 1:I was like hang on a second.
Speaker 2:How am I being trusted as, frankly, just outside of being a teenager and not knowing the machine mechanics of how the world works in terms of business, how am I being trusted to have these conversations and some of those relationships I still have today? Right, and I think that's really accelerated my pathway. And why I think channel is one of the most interesting and diverse places to work in the world because, while relationships broadly are the same, while people are broadly the same, it's the micro nuances between cultures, between businesses, between programs that really set everything apart.
Speaker 1:I mean absolutely, and you're right, it's the nuance. Life is about nuances and those subtle differences were met. But it's not surprising to me, alex, based on what you just said, that you're successful, because if we go back and think about that, let me frame it differently. Hey look, I'm going to go understand your business. I'm here to learn from you. I'd like to understand how you make a dollar. What are the challenges you face?
Speaker 1:One of the things we talk about to my cams are like when you go visit a partner yeah, it's not about you, no one cares about you. Two who do you think your competition at that partner is? Is it truly someone in the space that I'm in, or could it be that huge manufacturer like a Microsoft or Cisco that pays the bills? Who really is your competition? How are those people paid? How do you and your solution impact their life?
Speaker 1:And the mistake that I think sometimes cams make are they don't take the Alex approach and ask, ask, ask. If you go to the doctor's office, alex, and you say I don't feel well, and that person takes out a prescription pad and starts pickling off things, you'd be nervous and think about what we do with our business partners. I don't know you and yet I'm prescribing a solution to how I'm amazing. Back to dating. You rolled into someone and like, let me tell you how great I am, let me tell you how funny I am. They'd be like, get away from me and same thing. And two, though what I and you just hit it.
Speaker 1:What I, what I love about cams, what I love about the channel, is that there really is an opportunity to separate yourself and be great. But you have to have the right attitude in yours and some other people will talk about later. When it's data, when it's factual, when it's that's the core, you can build off it. But I have run into too many channel account managers that think, hey, it's the happy hour, it's the beer, like let's go do that stuff, when in fact I think that's a nice bow and hey, it is an important part of relationships. But I think where sometimes bad reputations come from, or like that's all I'm going to do? Solid channel leaders. This is a business. These are for product companies, right? Not just for the product part For sure, right?
Speaker 2:I? You know I've always been someone that prioritized the mechanics over the relationship, which is maybe in my slightly more mathematical head. I don't particularly mind if you don't like me, if you know, this is really productive, right? If you think, hey, I'm going to make a lot of money off the back of Alex because he's going to do great work and he's going to enable my business. But the guy down the road, ah, he seems like a great guy and he's going to take us for beers. That will get you somewhere in the short term, but in the long term, people care how they pay in their mortgage, right?
Speaker 1:And so fundamentally.
Speaker 2:Fundamentally, it becomes down to how productive a relationship and I've always loved the ones and zeros of like let's discuss how we can be successful together, and that's really where that partnership comes into. Channel right it's not, you're not my channel, you're not facilitating business. We're building it together. So let's talk about how we do that most successfully.
Speaker 1:That's right and that's why I'm here today is by directional. A franchise is omnidirectional. I tell you why have a channel, that's your direct sales organization, that you can tell and prescribe Channel partners. Value is that unique, independent view of their local market and if you can understand why they're still alive, why they're successful and leverage that like I'm not here to change you, I want to plug into you, so I'm here to understand it. The other stuff is important as a part of a data driven organized.
Speaker 1:Why are we even talking, alex? Close your eyes and tell me a perfect world. What does this relationship look like for you? Why are you even talking to me? What value do I drive for you in your mind? And we don't understand those things, especially when you talk about global businesses. I'm an American. I bring a certain thing with me. When I roll into a meeting in other places, people have the predescribed notion of what they're going to get with me. And when I don't do those things, when I ask about their business, when I seek to understand, it's a power Because people those preconceived notions like they fall apart. Like OK, like wait a minute, you're someone who wants to learn. Who came all this way to talk to me about how they helped me, so I think those are important elements.
Speaker 2:And you've spoken about sort of going to the edges of the world, right in terms of especially that US footprint right, tokyo is quite literally the actual world Into the empire for me. Yeah, yeah yeah, correct, correct, american-centric.
Speaker 1:But yeah from.
Speaker 2:HQ right? How does running a global channel or running a global program differ when we talk about, say, europe versus the US, right? And I'm constantly hearing that American businesses are struggling to land successfully when they hit Europe. What are the challenges you think that they're facing? What are the mistakes that they're falling into?
Speaker 1:Well, that was at life-size, you know one the sheer size of the United States and the fact that we all speak English and even though there are just as many subcultures the West Coast, the South, the Northeast, where I live it's unified as America and one language. When you get over to Europe, as an American, I think people want sort of expect like, hey, an American, this is how we all do things. And when you're like, no, no, no, I'm a guest in a different country, they do things different. The language, right, you know, your team in the Nordics is way different than your team in the Spanish-speaking world. Right? The tempo, like, depending on what you're selling. Sometimes there's a gradient. I found that the teams in the Nordic region were really advanced, really data-driven, and then my teams in Southern Europe, while still driven, it was a different cultural tempo. We're gonna work till this time. We're gonna take a long lunch and we're gonna do work after In some places. Hey, we're gonna talk to each other first and get to know each other first. You go to Germany, let's do some business. Right, and there are so many important nuances language, culture, how things are done that it's so different here and I think in the US people are like, oh, that person's from New York sort of aggressive, we'll just deal with it.
Speaker 1:I think most Americans don't realize you could damage your reputation, your company's reputation, when you careen into new markets and are not sort of aware that they are different. And the reason you're talking to your channel partners in those regions is because they're experts at it, and that's, of course, there's always like change and opportunities, but I think that's it sort of like my view of the world. This is how we do it here and I'm gonna bring that view somewhere else. And when you get to somewhere else, that's not how we do it. We follow these rules and that's, I think, a challenge, right? Is that sometimes like, hey, you know when you're in Asia who you have and what country manager you have, matter based on history, things that don't have to do with technology, right? So I think those are the nuances of running global, being very aware of how really different I think people are. The same and they're different.
Speaker 2:That makes sense at all, yeah, 100% In terms of how would that affect any? Are there any program choices, strategy choices, tooling choices that you then make as a difference to manage, say, a US versus Europe or an APAC versus a US? How would that work?
Speaker 1:I found, certainly in Europe and Asia, versus the United States. In the US we have a lot of companies that have direct sales organizations and channel organizations and they run sort of in parallel. My experience has been largely when US companies go to Europe, it's a channel driven organization. Right, it's a channel market for Americans because I'm going to tap into the local relationships, the local nuances, and that's my business partner.
Speaker 1:So you have to have partner portals that are multi-language based. You have to have materials and content that are multi-lingual. You really have to if you're gonna do it, because the other mistake people are like hey, I get it, I do a lot of business in the US. I've never had to think about other things and all my contents in English, so I'm just gonna purpose it over there and use it in English again. Then I had a CRO that once said hey, I got it, Mark, and you don't want to translate this stuff? Cool, we'll just use the Japanese stuff in America. That's cool, which is cool. We'll just use it in a Japanese symbol, publish it in the United States. And they were like but that's silly. And he's like interesting, why is it silly coming this direction? But it's not silly going the other one, and that's a challenge, right. So time I don't think of.
Speaker 1:What I did not know, alex, was the time commitment. I'm in the Northeast part of the United States, but you are up at ODark 30 to catch your European business as they're working. Then the clock rolls to the US, you catch the East Coast, midwest West Coast, and then around 11 o'clock at night, eastern Standard Time, asia wakes up and now you're like on the phone at 11, 12, and one repeat back at six. So to be effective, you have to drive communication and to be dry that communication. Are you going to ask your people to bend to your schedule or are you going to go work there? It all comes down to. I'm going to visit you, I'm going to understand your business, I'm going to work my life to adjust your life and I'm going to make it easier for you to do business with me, because you won't know that I'm somewhere else and my team does that. Well. At least I get myself in a shop to be successful.
Speaker 2:I don't know the guarantees it, but you don't get to brush me off, alex, at the beginning for being a nubblet, right, you're like I love your Japanese content in the US, right, because as a European right, I get mind blown how often it's like, yeah, but they speak English, right, you're just we'll chuck the content out and I'm sure it'll work. And it's like well, how much Sony marketing have you seen in the US that's in Japanese. That's a perfect analogy, because I think marketing has almost, and I think it will fast become the most critical role to scale the channel Absolutely, because we're talking about sales messaging, delivered one to many, but as you touch on, if it's not in local language, striven to the right entities effectively in tract, you're just losing right, and so English content you might as well produce no content, unless you're talking about the UK, right, for mainland Europe, it's got to be local language. I'd love to get your understanding on where you think marketing has a role to play to support the channel grow.
Speaker 1:I think it's incredibly important. So, first off, I think when you get into it, one nuances the problems that companies have when they go to this is they develop this marketing content that I'll talk about. But then the temptation is should we just keep this? Should we give our channel partners the old stuff and the new stuff stay with us right? So I think, at the end of the day, the role of marketing for channel partners is incredibly important because only one company has subject matter expertise in the solution.
Speaker 1:Only one company probably has resources geared at market awareness points of view why we win customer references and one organization does not. One organization is paid to create, to build demand, to draw out latent pains. One organization does not. And that doesn't mean that the reselling channel community is invaluable. My point is just like it's like my salespeople do I wanna train you, alex, to be as good as my people, or should I create a program that says it'd be easier to teach you the basics and then call for help? And my people are? My program is geared to come save you 100%.
Speaker 2:That's such a I just wanna double click on that point because this is so often overlooked To me. If it takes six months to get a part of fully self-sufficient right as good as my salesperson and it's never six months, but let's optimistically say six months what if I can get a partner good enough to raise their hand in two months? That means I could have three times the amount of partners right, and then you start to really understand scale, right, and this is where I think your program strategy, your marketing strategy, comes together. People, you need to think what's going to help you win. And if I can have three times as many partners all hand raising when they need, and then I've got just a team of killers who are their closing deals left, right and center. I've built and paid for a team of BDRs who all understand their local market, who all understand their local language and who are out there hunting for my closes right. And that is how the channel should be designed and working.
Speaker 1:I totally agree. I totally agree. What is the purpose? Solve the problem right. That curve, that intro to revenue curve, is probably the same. Yeah, we can affect it with enablement. But what you and I are talking about is how do I just slide that in Time distance? That block is the same eight weeks. But if I could get at it now, then I pick up eight, seven on the other side, and same with marketing.
Speaker 1:Our goal at LiveSize is how do I create a campaign in the box? How do I be more nimble, how do I be more responsive and how do I be easier to deal with? I don't have the dollars that some of my competitors have. I couldn't fight them in the open market because I lose, and in fact that's where they wanted me to come out. They're like Timmy come out of the open market and let's have a spinoff and I'll beat you Versus. I won't go fight you there, but what I will do is use your giant bureaucracy against you and I will do things that you probably won't I will do. I will dedicate a sales team to you, I will move my direct team to a channel-based team and I will create campaigns in a box. Here's everything that we believe that you might need.
Speaker 1:After interviews and talking Like Alex, you double click on this and here's your outbound. Here's the reason, here's the talk trick and, by the way, here are the actions. When you get a lead, Call us, call my people. I got a 30 minute SLA Mind. People will get on the phone with you. My people get you a sales person within 30 minutes. I will make your life easier, alex, because I'm just gonna put money in your pocket Because, at the end of the day, remember when we solve our customers' problems, they pay us.
Speaker 1:Some of them lose sight of that, right. So how do I get from there to here? How do I do that easy? You have a lot of choices. You have a lot of different directions, but if my marketing is in-territory or in-geo specific because you've helped me but if I do the heavy lifting and if I'm the one, like I'm, pushing this global campaign, alex, and I want you to drive the local one in your region, and all these leads are gonna come to you, and I've got a team of people backing you up as subject matter experts, and all you would have to do is know these five questions and then take this one step, which is call Tim's team, we'll help you. Marketing is huge. Without it, it's air cover, it's the battle space right. Without it, you're gonna go out of business fast.
Speaker 2:One. I always love your amateury, tim. This is why I enjoy these conversations so much. But the piece that I think this is the gem that most people, I feel misunderstand when they build programs. The first there is no channel leader on Earth that wouldn't like to bring forward 12 weeks worth of revenue right, they all know. Hang on a second I'm not worried about the total amount of revenue, I'm worried about the timing of revenue. Everyone has a speed issue, and so how do we improve velocity? We bring pipe forward right, and that's where local resources executed well are gonna help you drive velocity. The second piece that you've touched on there is so perfect, which is design a global program, design global marketing. Distribute that content out so that local specialists can hand raise effectively at scale. And then the third bit is remove all the friction that you can, because sometimes it's not the biggest brand, sometimes it's not the most money, most of the time it's the person that's easiest to do business with.
Speaker 1:You know you're spot on. In fact, in my current role, it is our actual go-to-market strategy. When you're at a startup, when you're at a company that's growing, you have to choose how will you grow your revenue. And again back to there are a couple choices company makes and I think a company is making. I think one choice is we're gonna go big and splashy and I'm gonna fight the big players in the open market. We're gonna show those salespeople that customers want us. Okay, that's amazing. And if you have zoom level marketing dollars, you pull that trick off. But if you do not, where else can you go hammer? And our strategy is Alex, I'm gonna hammer the weakness, I'm gonna go after big company bureaucracy.
Speaker 1:Having been at big companies, the direct team doesn't like the channel team. The channel team doesn't like the ops team. They're all independent companies and they have forgotten purpose, return, shareholder equity, drive, profitability, but instead it's fiefdom. I don't like that person, they don't like this person, and the result of that is the channel gets hammered. I don't care about your internal politics. What I care about help me drive deals together. That's why we signed up.
Speaker 1:So our strategy is like hey, I'm not gonna use a partner portal, I'm not gonna force you to do stupid things. I'm not gonna waste your damn time. You, the rep in the field and I think there's a key learning for me from my experiences the rep in the field ultimately makes the choice. We can align to the top, we can have amazing structures, we can have great executive relationships, wonderful marketing, but if you do not engage the person at the point of performance, you're doomed. And I'm going right after that, hey Alex, instead of having to learn yet another partner portal where you enter more information about yourself, where you feel really insecure if you don't know anybody, and all I'm doing is telling some other company everything about the crown jewel and I'm hoping, how about this? Hey Alex, I'm gonna teach you five questions and when you understand those five questions, you call me. My people have a dedicated team. They'll do the work for you, they'll fill it out for you, they'll get you deal protection right away, 25 points. I'll get you the sales rep right now. I'll introduce you, I'll be on that call with you and we will go to winning with you.
Speaker 1:30 minute SLA We'll get. Your quote will be nimble and will be faster. And, alex, all you have to know is one when you call me. We'll ride or die together. We might not win or we will win, but what will happen is we will build a meaningful relationship. You will know that I'm easier and I'm going to. I will throw down to help you win a deal, because when I do that and you realize money in your pockets easy with me and your customers are super happy because my solution is great. But back to the first step is I never get to that answer. If it's not easy, like Tim Maloney is just going to choose, do I really want to go log in and create yet another partner portal stuff? I'm just at a point. Revenue wise, I can get this. I could pull this off. But that is my strategy is I will not fight where my competitors want. I'm going to go right after where the nobody owns it no man's land of Trouble.
Speaker 2:See, I saved myself from screaming yeah, yeah, thanks, yeah For the uninitiated. We don't swear on this podcast, which, if you've spoken to me and Tim offline, you know that's challenging for both of us. I think the piece in there that's really critical and I've seen cams make this mistake over and over again. They walk into a partner. It's a great meeting with a sales director or CEO of the partner, and then they don't speak to the account managers and then they say there and go, we've got the right senior relationship. They're really bought in. It's like, yeah, but they don't speak to customers. Who is controlling the flow?
Speaker 2:I wanna, I wanna know the person that diverts the river one way or another, because that's the most important person, and I want them to understand how, when you direct the water my way, we both win better than you're ever gonna win anywhere else, and that that has nothing to do with brand, there's nothing to do with program, that that's due to you sitting down and understand the mechanics of how the business should operate and then, just being honest, right to say, hey, this deal will work. And here's the reasons why this deal won't work is the reasons why and if you've got that integrity consistently, you're going to win.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think you're spot on that. My take away on it's integrity. Just, we will win here for these reasons. We cannot win here for those reasons, and it's okay. But we're still business partners because when we're honest and open and we built a solid foundation of understanding which leads to trust, you can have that because it's business now Right and people can appreciate that as opposed to I don't know you now, you're being squirrely. I want to do this anymore.
Speaker 2:There we go, there we go. Now I can't be a, I can't be confronted with leading the witness, because you've already dropped in a couple of pieces of information around portals and globally and you've run a program. You've obviously had a partner portal deployed to help you. What do you say to those program leaders, to those channel leaders? See our rows or even cams. We're telling their partners to look at and log into partner portals. And how effective do you think that is?
Speaker 1:I am. So here's my summation partner portals it's where things go to die. They're very rarely maintained. It's a front end project. So we look at a curve of a partner portal. It's a really steep bell curve in the beginning, where everybody's excited we put all this amazing content and it's the greatest thing that's gonna save us, and then that work is not sustainable and we can't put a new content every other day and then suddenly start changing the weekly to monthly and then like who's gonna not do that anymore? They're convoluted. When run effectively, though, what's their purpose? In the US there's something called mission creep, started with point A before I know it. I just slowly start doing this other stuff and the purpose is why.
Speaker 1:I want to know what deal you're working on. Can you tell me a little bit about information about it so I can guarantee you margin, I can guarantee you support that I just make sure that I don't inadvertently start a new sales cycle on something right, perfect, you get some content about you, okay, but man, most times they die. Most times are given to a side junior person who has minimal experience in the channel. There's almost no communication with your partners around what they need. How about this simple question, alex. Hey, I was two questions for you real fast. Can you tell me the top three things you like about a partner portal and who's isn't? And can you tell me the top three things you hate about a partner portal and who's is man? Hey, pay your value set for me real fast.
Speaker 1:But no, in general I understand the concept. How do you manage a global business? We have to know where the deal rich. It gives you all this insight. Okay, I'm pretty sure I can get that insight differently and I don't have to create a graveyard where people I it's this statement. It's probably in the partner portal. Would you know where can you tell me? So those are the things I very much dislike, because for CRS channel executives, worldwide things, I think it's sort of like if you never done it or you don't like a playbook. So I'm gonna give you this checklist check, all right, what report check, but nobody said what's in it, what's its purpose, what's its business value, how you justify that expense, how many clicks what do you do?
Speaker 2:yeah, I know, I know of a brand and they have launched five parts, five part of portals in seven years and and each time they thought, well, it's the actual, it's the partner portal that's broken. And I mean me and me and the guys here at channel is we always laugh right, because it's not a partner portal. So vendor portal, the whole point is for the partner. It's not for the partner. Right, it's the conduit to get information. You are correct. Deal registration is critical. Right, you need to be able to track deal registration. That that is the purpose, which is great. If you need something to track deal registration, don't buy something that tracks deal registration. But that doesn't need to be this huge, convoluted thing where we promise that the value is provided to the partner when actually all we really want to be able to say is hey guys, we're really sorry, but we just need to track deal. Right, this is where you look at them, which, by the way, most partners will be like yeah, fair enough.
Speaker 1:For 25 points and guaranteed support and no confusion, and I never want you to think I'm running a sale cycle against you. Can you just can you fill out five things and I'll call you square different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there we go. There we go, tim, it's been an absolute pleasure for, for those who don't know Tim, reach out to reach out to him on LinkedIn. He's been hugely influential to my career. He's been wonderfully helpful Even as recently as Christmas, and he's always a font of wisdom and absolutely understands the channel. However, tim also comes with a lovely black book of other channel gurus. Tim, we always like to bring or ask a guest to invite the next guest onto the podcast. Who do you have in mind?
Speaker 1:Yeah, arguably outside of you and I mean this outside of you or I on your level, I think the other person like you. I go to another leader, david Schaefer. David and I worked at life size together and now he's at zoom and watching David go from a sales person who sort of knew the value of the channel at life size to running my global hundred million dollar business 41 countries, 78 distributors, hardware, software, managing both Globally nuances and now at zoom doing the same thing on a global scale. There are none better. If I can't reach you, it's Schaefer, and in my mind you are very much similar. So David Schaefer brings in an amazing insight of where I was leading it and Dave was my business partner meeting and they did a lot of the work. They brought a lot of great Tactical, structural things and I think your listeners would get real probably more value of listening to a Dave Schaefer than Tim.
Speaker 2:Dave's a great great guy, deal maker, deal orchestrator, just wonderful human being. Dave, we're coming to find you and because, luckily great assets and podcast ch flow.