Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Hans Nipshagen - How to Build a Business Development-Led Channel Team
This week on Partnerships Unraveled, we’re joined by Hans Nipshagen, longtime Akamai channel leader and incoming VP of Channel at edge data center company Enlighten, for a masterclass in scaling new logo acquisition through the channel.
Hans shares how he rebuilt Akamai’s EMEA partner ecosystem from the ground up, prioritizing quality over quantity and zeroing in on the right partners for the right markets. We dig into the real mechanics of driving a partner-led pipeline: aligning AEs and partner managers, embedding business development DNA into your team, and changing the culture from “relationship keepers” to “pipeline creators.”
This episode is especially valuable for channel leaders focused on net-new growth. Hans pulls back the curtain on the tactics that worked, including outcome-focused incentives, clear partner tagging, AE education strategies, and why BD-first hiring transformed his channel team’s performance.
If you’re in the business of building high-performing partner programs, this conversation delivers the roadmap.
Connect with Hans: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hansnipshagen/
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about partnerships, and channel on a weekly basis. My name is Alex Whitford, I'm the VP of Revenue here at Chanix and this week I'm very excited to welcome our special guest Hans. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm doing fine. Thank you for having me on this podcast. Very interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. I know when we did the prep call you have a real sharp vision on the keys to sort of building channels. Maybe, for the uninitiated, you could give us a little bit of a rundown of who you are and what you do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, the last almost 14 years I've worked for Akamai Technologies, where I run various regions ranging from Benelux to Middle East and Eastern Europe and where I leverage the channel to actually now in our go-to-market motion. And since 2019, I was running the channel for EMEA in Akamai and by 1st of May I will join Enlighten, which is an X data center company, as the VP of channel for EMEA.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So continuing your vision for EMEA channel domination Correct, which is exciting. Well, congratulations on the new role and maybe we can double click on that 2019 position. So, when you took over channel leadership for Akamai, what was the landscape that you sort of landed in and what are some of the key challenges that you sort of faced in driving a channel-first approach?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. So the first thing I came across was an ecosystem that actually organically grew and consisted of many, many partners that you know basically only had done one deal or basically two deals, which sometimes happens, you know, when a general manager is very eager to become part of a deal. So the first thing I've noticed is that we need to clean up the ecosystem and actually get an ecosystem, a robust ecosystem, that is active. I also noticed at the time there was a strong focus on both cross-and-up sell and new business, and my vision is that the channel should lead the new business motion and goes cross cross and upsell with good reps on an account. That will happen anyway. So that's something I noticed and you know, channel is evolving. Often, you see you know that's a bit from the past that partners were dealt with as if they were a customer. But you know, a partnership needs to be balanced, it's give and take. So there were some business development perspectives lacking in, you know, finding new ways to actually get new business going.
Speaker 1:Those are the three major points. So new logo acquisition, which I think is both well, it literally is the hardest function when it comes to direct sales, and maybe is the hardest function when it comes to direct sales, right, maybe even the hardest function when it comes to indirect sales. Talk to me about what are the specific tactics and programs you used to drive that partner behavior, when new logo is the thing that requires the most effort? Wow, galvanizing effort from a channel can be challenging. What did you do to intensify? Correct, correct.
Speaker 2:First and foremost, you know, when we redesigned the ecosystem we looked at, you know which partners bring a scale in areas where you know we lack the scale ourselves.
Speaker 2:And second, you need to be crisp and clear with the partner on which areas to focus Because, especially, you know, be crisp and clear with the partner on which areas to focus because, especially when having a very broad portfolio and you want to go wide in a partner and every day numerous vendors are knocking on their door, so you need to be brave and start to focus with a partner on a certain market, a certain geo and a certain product and that helps them to focus. That actually will increase the speed of them getting enabled. And you know, when you strongly believe in a partnership and you feel the commitment, just award them some opportunities. So give them opportunities to get the train rolling and, on the way you know they learn how to sell and then you see them picking it up. So that was nine out of ten our strategy. You are with with with the majority of the partners that were fairly successful in closing new business.
Speaker 1:Awesome, because I think one of the things that is interesting I think about that channel go to market is there is how do you incentivize the behavior and sort of drive performance, but also how do you educate on behavior? Were there pieces that you used as an enablement function to sort of teach partners how to go through that, especially when we're talking about a broad portfolio?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, if I understand your question correctly, I mean, of course, you have the rebates. I, to be honest, I don't really believe in them. Yeah, because often they end up in the pocket of the cfo, yeah, and not in nothing, and actually the sellers, yeah, not always see like a part of it.
Speaker 2:So, um no, what we, what we were trying to do, is to make the margins attractive for new logos. So get, you know, additional discounts, which often in partners, reps are being paid on the margin they make on a deal, so for them it becomes attractive one to spot the opportunity first and in the end that will lead to a better commission for them if they close the deal right. That will lead to a better commission for them if they close the deal right. And what we also did internal, because often you see the channel is working with partners and in case help is needed, you know one of the reps will chime in to help. We changed it around. So basically we actually created an atmosphere that everybody's channel. So, meaning reps just pay visits to partners it's not always only the channel people doing that. So in that way a partner has multiple relationships and learns how to spot opportunities. So it's that combination.
Speaker 1:You touched on one of those things which I think is what everyone is aiming for, which is how do you line AEs and channel teams and partners together in this wonderful Venn diagram that I think, if you get it. It works extremely well, However hard, to drive that behavior. So first, how did you educate the direct sellers in the value of partnering and then how do you then sort of encourage and drive that behavior over time? Because I think there's an education and there's an encouragement, yeah you mean from an internal perspective? Basically have the.
Speaker 2:AEs to become active. So, basically, you know there are two ways to do this. One, you need to have the buy-in of leadership that they actually believe in that motion. So that basically becomes part of the strategy. So then it's embedded in the strategy and the strategy needs to be executed.
Speaker 2:But still, you know, I mean there's a big gap between actually the strategy and how people behave in the field. It's actually to show them the value and also to be crisp and clear on what reps can expect from a specific partner. So you actually tag them and saying, okay, you know, listen when working with this partner, you know, keep in mind, it's a fulfillment partner, but you can leverage their existing paperwork they have with many customers. So to be crisp and clear on that. So then the expectations of the reps are being set. So you don't get into this discussion what's the value of the partner? And I'm the ae, I can actually do it myself, right? Uh, so, and that's, we actually put every single partner in a certain bucket and set the right expectations to the teams and with that expectations in mind, uh, um, this noise about what's the value of the channel actually disappeared.
Speaker 2:This noise about what's the value of the channel actually disappeared, yeah, and that actually resulted in, you know, a strong appetite to engage, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so you're sort of building value messaging towards the AEs as to why, hey, this is valuable here and we can scale your time. I always hear cases where there have been some challenging instances where AEs push back very hard. Right, some people just prefer to be a lone wolf. What did you do in those more challenging times where you had to yeah behavior in a very significant way?
Speaker 2:you need to, you need to teach, and it's it's not something you can do like in a small amount of time, right, it takes, it takes like a couple of years. You need to teach AEs that if they do an effort towards the customer and it's not something you can do like in a small amount of time, right, it takes like a couple of years you need to teach AEs that if they do an effort towards a customer and they do that similar effort to a partner, then their activity can actually be multiplied 10-fold, 20-fold, 30-fold, 40-fold. And not everybody is getting it, I agree, but the majority does. And what is very important and this is what I always have to tell my people is it's in the sales and channels DNA to become part of a win, right, I mean this win mail going out.
Speaker 2:I always told my team let's have direct sales, put them on the stand. They get all the recognition, but we know that his effort or her effort will start in more deals moving forward, so keep that always in mind, right? So give them the stand. The recognition is going to direct sales, don't worry about it. In the meantime, it helps us to actually grow our business, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think those direct AEs, hopefully the ones who are humble enough know deep down hey, this wouldn't have happened without the partner.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:This domino effect where that AE comes back and wants to work more.
Speaker 2:And over time you build that influence. I saw that changing over time because in Windows you actually show shout-outs to the channel people and so, yeah, we changed that culture big time.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So you've talked in the prep call, which I thought was a really interesting way of framing it. You mentioned shifting your team's focus from partner satisfaction to business development, which I think a lot of channel people by nature are more in the hey, how do we build a great environment and how do we have lots of fun? And how do we, you know, build a great environment and how do we have lots of fun and how do we build great relationships and maybe less of the full ruthless bd function? How do you structure your team to drive that more bd focus?
Speaker 2:yeah. So what we did when we had like vacancies or were expanding teams, uh, um, we hired people with a BDE background, not a channel background. So we actually, when they came in, we had to learn them the channel program and you know what is a program, what is MDF. But they came in with a business development mind and the good news is that by having business development people in the channel, you see that they actually, you know, they influence the, I would say, the good old channel people, right? So that changed the whole atmosphere in the team. Instead of becoming a management role, it became a true BD role.
Speaker 2:So it was basically the hiring. So we hired a different type of person for a channel management role.
Speaker 1:And the great thing there is obviously you're focusing your partners on also being BD-minded, right, it's all about legal acquisition, and so if you've got your internal incentives and culture and your external incentives and culture, suddenly those two things really work in conjunction incentives and culture.
Speaker 2:Suddenly those two things really work in conjunction, yeah, and and also we said so, apart from, you know, this cultural change and, uh, hiring new type of people, we also changed the kpis also, instead of looking at revenue and across an upsell uh, you know, renewals we had we were relentlessly focused on new customer logos, some so bookings and the percentage of those bookings that come via deal registration. So that's a key metric. I mean that shows how active the channel is right. So, basically, in all my forecast calls I never touched on cross-lump sell. It was always new customer bookings and the percentage of deal registrations and how that is growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're really tracking sort of partner sourced pipeline there, right, correct? It's a function of how well is our channel helping us acquire new logos, understanding that cross and upsell will happen intrinsically. Did you separate that and you did also analyze it, or you really didn't look at cross and upsell at all?
Speaker 2:Of course it's a metric in the dashboard so you track it because of course you know if you grew, if you grow new customer logos and you don't watch the existing accounts and they disappear, then you know the net net can be negative for zero. So that we looked at it. But when I talked to the uh, the, the channel reps, it was always around new customer logos and the company I worked for you know every single account had a rep assigned and they watched it as well. Right, so I always I also look at the people you know work an opportunity, bring it to this channel rep and then move on to the next step. Right, your job is over when the opportunity is there.
Speaker 1:So you hired channel teams who were more BD focused. I think what I see today in the market is that the role of partner reps is changing. Partner reps is changing. Talk to me about what the key skills and traits that today's you know, the real top partner managers or channel account managers need to be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they need to be. They actually need to have like hunting DNA, so hunting sales DNA, so being used to high activity. So do not rely on marketing or pr. I mean, that's the ice on the cake. You know you need to bake. You need to bake the cake yourself, um. And they also need to come from an environment where they have the patience to, uh, to come to a certain stage of a replication of deals after deals after deals, or opportunities after opportunities, because it takes time, right.
Speaker 2:So it's not, you know, you sign up a partner and the next month all the opportunities will start rolling. No, you need to build it. It's nothing different from trying to sell to an end customer. So you need to, and you need to also, you know, be able to discuss on higher levels. You know where do you fit in the bigger scheme of things within a partner right and where do you tie to other technologies. So you need to have an understanding of the entire technology landscape as well. For example, you know many partners are very successful with Palo Alto Cisco and you can actually tie into that motion by leveraging their install base to upsell other types of products, but in order to identify that, you need to have an understanding of the landscape. So it's both you need to understand the sales process and what it takes to actually bring in new business, but you also need to actually have an understanding of the technology landscape.
Speaker 1:Awesome. So product expert, tech expert, alliance expert, sales expert yeah, got it, got it it's not for nothing that they call it the channel chief, right?
Speaker 2:So it's really a multidisciplinary role.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you know I really view. I think people have superpowers right, but channel people have to be excellent generalists. Right Now skew towards BD, I think. As a sales leader, I hate hearing people are relying on other departments to generate revenue. It just annoys me. But I think the view is it is important that channel people, especially channel leaders, understand the context of you know what the CRO cares about, what the CFO cares about, what the alliances leader cares about, because all of those things matter when it comes to building program strategy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you need to identify, you know where is the strength of the partner and which areas which protocols and build your plan around that Right and sync it with direct sales. And which areas which protocols and build your plan around that right and sync it with direct sales. Because the one thing I came across when I started was that Channel actually had their own strategy, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because I see Channel as supporting sales right in their success in a market or in a vertical. So you always need to sync with direct sales leadership. Okay, you know what do you want to achieve and how can we assist.
Speaker 1:And then you start building right. Yeah, yeah, I, you know you have to walk back from what I think is a revenue strategy right and that that sales, marketing and channels yeah, those three things you know. A marketing strategy that doesn't sit in, sit aligned with sales makes sense, but I often see channel, or channel marketing, even more particularly, isn't also aligned with sales and if that doesn't come together, that's just where people lose their jobs. There's huge misalignments. You get. You get massive misses come the end of the year. But if you're in that, if you're in that sinking motion, then everyone's rolling in safe.
Speaker 2:so initially we so initially we had like an independent channel marketing role, but that was kind of integrated with field marketing. Yeah, and the advantage of doing that is that when you do your own direct marketing you know what works and doesn't work. So channel marketing can perfectly align from that and use best practices when having talks with uh with partners about marketing so in that way, you optimize the roi perfect so 14 years at akabane yes, one hell of an achievement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk me through what the biggest lessons you learned across that 14 year period. In the whole 14 years you mean, yeah, really around how you build effective channels. I know I might I think my career is 10 years old, but I can pull together two or three real key learnings that I know still steer me today as you sort of flow into your new role building channels yeah, I mean 14, 14 years in in it is like a right yeah.
Speaker 2:So you always need to prepare to change. So you need to see change coming and make sure that you, in an early phase, start to adjust, because you know channel is not as fast as you know when it comes to change as direct sales, because you know you need to find new partners, you need to change the ecosystem or you need to do more training so you're always a bit slower. So you need to see change coming and be prepared. The second is that you need to hiring the right people is really key. So when there is a vacancy, don't do a rush job Often you are being rushed to actually get the position filled but make sure you hire the right folks.
Speaker 2:That's truly important and what I learned is that you know you need to over-communicate internally. Apart from, you know your job when you know engaging the partner, because that's so obvious. But you need to understand where is the technology side of the house going, where is sales going, where is marketing going, all those functions. You need to get an understanding because that helps you addressing it with partners who set their expectations and also see the opportunity that partners can address in in a year's time, two years' time, three years' time. I think those are the most three important topics.
Speaker 1:I think that communication is critical, right, because it's about asking for help and directing flow to ensure that the team achieves its objectives. I deeply care about this podcast objective, so I also like to ask yeah, and directing flow to ensure that the team achieves its objectives? I deeply care about this podcast objective, so I also like to ask cheating questions, hans, we always ask our current guest to recommend our next guest.
Speaker 2:Who did you have in mind? Have you ever talked to Michael McCullough? I haven't, no, so I think he would be um um a great guest and uh and I say that because I consider him as uh as my mentor so he learned me all the um the details of uh of of channel. He's really awesome, he. I think in the us he's widely recognized as a true channel chief.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, we're coming for Michael Hans. Thank you so much for sharing your insights today. It's been awesome.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I appreciate it.