Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Justin Bradley - CrowdStrike’s Formula for MSP Trust
Brewed for Trust: How CrowdStrike and Pax8 Build Channel Credibility
In this unique live episode, part channel deep dive, part beer tasting, Justin Bradley of CrowdStrike joins us to share battle-tested lessons on what it takes to succeed with MSPs, build trust across ecosystems, and scale a program with integrity.
In this episode, we discussed:
- Why trust is the currency of the channel and how to earn it through honest communication, transparency, and support during failure.
- How CrowdStrike’s approach to MSPs prioritizes outcome-based selling and avoids “watered-down” enterprise products.
- The role storytelling plays in enabling consultative sales and building credibility with technical and non-technical partners alike.
- Why strong enablement is about understanding the unique needs of every stakeholder, from aggregators and distributors to MSPs and customers.
This is one of those authentic, engaging conversations full of equal parts insight and inspiration.
Connect with Justin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-bradley-%E2%98%81-2a615643/
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about partnership 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 Justin. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:Doing fantastic.
Speaker 2:What is the job that you do, Justin?
Speaker 1:I work at CrowdStrike. I own the partnership right now between PAX 8 and CrowdStrike, as well as several other aggregators that are out there, so I work with Ninja One as well and Arrow Electronics. But, I'm always owning the go-to market between these aggregators and CrowdStrike.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and obviously we are here at Pax8 and you are an ex-Pax8er. Talk to me about why it's so engaging here. I'm always so fascinated. The energy in the room is unbelievable Watching two and a half thousand MSPs get excited and really attending all the seminars. They're clearly here for it. What makes that so special?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think that a lot of the partners just really appreciate that Pax8 has been nothing but MSP from the very beginning. I mean, if you go back 13, 14 years, nobody really paid any attention to the MSPs you looked at like big, traditional distributors. They would try and find a weird way to be able to work with them. They'd basically sell them reseller licenses, but then that meant the MSP didn't get to own it once. They sold it downstream to their customer and provisioning was a nightmare for any of the cloud products.
Speaker 1:So I think that Pax8 was the first one to jump in there and say look, let's build some APIs, let's make this as easy as possible, because in a perfect world, as an MSP brings on, say, one user within one of their customers, they want to be able to throttle that up. Well, in traditional distribution formats that's impossible. You have to do everything with annuals, you have POs and invoices. It's going back and forth 10 different times. You can't just add one user and take away one user. Pax8 was the one to first jump in there and do that. And then, as for why that creates this cult following, I think that they just love that these guys are. I mean, first of all, it's a pretty cool culture, um, but then also that they have just been dedicated to these msps from the very beginning yeah, and I, we, I was.
Speaker 2:I had, uh, hayley on the on the podcast, hayley mcspirit, who's a head of vendor strategy here. Um, and I sort of found it really funny because pax 8 is like the ultimate example of like automation and digital and no friction, no touch, while also being like the best community builders and those two things feel like they're in conflict but actually it's so sort of harmoniously connected. It's really awesome, awesome to see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy man. You go to Reddit and the comments about PAX 8, you'll see comments where people jump in. They'll be like are these all fake? Like is somebody on here just spoofing us and putting this in Because there can't actually be 15 straight, perfect comments within here. Like nobody has that, you can't have that about puppies and somehow PAX 8 gets it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's quite the following so you've gone from launching over 20 vendors at PAX 8 to now spearheading the sort of crowd strike strategy with the aggregators. How does that background, and understanding how you made the vendors successful at PAX 8, how's that translated to now being on the other side and sort of driving that program and success forward?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I mean, I can tell you that every vendor that came on um with pack state especially in those early days when pack state didn't really have the weight to throw around to say, no, you have to fit this like, this is the mold you have to. They just wanted anybody like we. We needed anybody that we could get on, and so we always had to like kind of make ourselves fit their vendor programs. And we got to see we had a lot of battle scars, like we got to see what it looked like when there was massive channel conflict and stuff like that, where we'd bring on, uh, some new vendor and they had a huge direct sales side and suddenly we found that we were fighting with them constantly and they were stealing deals from PAX 8. And then they felt like PAX 8 was stealing deals from them and so there was just all this animosity.
Speaker 1:And so, having seen what that looked like, that was a really good teaching moment for me. And then just yeah, how to set it up so that the pricing is right for PAX 8 to be able to go forth and do what they want, making sure that there's compensation internally at your own organization so that there isn't that infighting and everybody feels like it's a win together. There's just a lot of ways that you can. There's about 50 points of uh of failure in in a channel program that can either make or break you, and I think you got to get them all right or else you really feel it later I think a lot of people when they hear sort of the, that operational story that you know, maybe that's just me, but I get very like, yeah, yeah, but sales.
Speaker 2:Sales is about, you know, passion and energy and persuasiveness, but you've seen it firsthand like small pieces of friction. Talk to me about the changes in performance. You see like, oh well, it's all right, this pricing structure is 90, accurate or whatever, and then you fix it. What happens then in terms of, like, really smoothing out those motions?
Speaker 1:I mean it gains trust from the, the reps at pax 8. Um, I'm, I'm telling you, they all talk to each other. They, these guys all hang out together like they're it's. It's crazy they. They're all really good friends and they used to all just sit next to each other in the office. Now most of them are remote, but they all know each other and if something goes wrong, they have some issue that pops up with one of their partners that they weren't able to get help with. They tell everybody it gets around fast. And if you do stand up for them and make sure that, hey, this was a one-time thing, I found out what did it, I've got it fixed for you. It's never going to happen again. They also like to tell each other about that, like, don't worry, guys, they've got our back.
Speaker 2:And so one of the things that's, I think, challenging about your position, um, um, because you're enabling msps to you know, sell based on outcomes, sell based on solutions. We obviously heard in the keynote today, around all the agentic stuff and what's that's going to do that we're talking about a super consultative sales approach to a group of partners who I don't think will mind me saying this aren't maybe naturally consultative sellers. How do you go through that process of not just educating them on product but educating them on outcomes and how to sell outcomes?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm a huge fan of storytelling because people will remember that story and I can tell an MSP. I can get pretty far in the weeds when it comes to the technology and be like here's what we're actually solving for, and that's great. They get to take that home and now they're excited about exactly how our product works. And I can break down the LLMs that are built on these different malware that we're loading into it and these different AI models All really cool. Not really something that is going to end up at their customer on the end.
Speaker 1:But if I tell them a story about, say, one of our adversaries that we're tracking, you know this adversary is using an email spam bomb and then, once they do that, then they try and get somebody to think that they're actually the MSP. They call into that customer and say, hey, click on this RMM link, I'm going to go in there, I'm going to fix this thing for you. That's the type of story that when they get to hear that they're like I can take that to a customer and tell them not only do we need to have CrowdStrike so that we can be securing against this, but also, hey, if you ever have somebody that calls in that says they're your service folks. Can you make sure that it's actually them? Make sure that it's me? You can call my direct number if you need to, because there are people who are actually imitating MSPs now in order to be able to attack. So those are the kinds of stories that I think are really easy for them to take to their customer.
Speaker 2:So we were talking about storytelling when it comes to MSPs. I think some of that is storytelling in terms of how do you help them defend against threat and some of that is storytelling about why they should work with CrowdStrike. How do you go about sort of building that engagement and that trust? You are slightly MSP famous here. I hear a lot of great feedback in terms of the sort of brand that you've built. How did you do that? How did you go around building that brand?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think that a big part of it. I was just never selling to MSPs. They never felt like I was selling to them. In fact, a lot of times when I would present at events, I'd tell folks by the time I walk off the stage you're not actually going to know the name of the products that I have. You can come to my booth. I'll give you a pamphlet on that stuff. You guys can dig all into it. I'll show you a demo. We'll get into the weeds if you want, but what I want you to understand is what is taking place in the actual threat landscape.
Speaker 1:I want to make sure that I'm that guy that when the stuff hits the fan later on that you guys are going to call, and even if you're not buying the product from us, I still want to be that guy, so that if there is a polymorphic malware that uses chat, gpt APIs or something crazy complex like that that's new that I want the MSP to go. You know who was mentioning something like that. That's new that you're. I want the msp to go.
Speaker 1:You know who was mentioning something like that before was justin, I think. I saw him up there. I'm gonna give him a holler, because I think I might have actually just found that kind of attack very recently and uh, so yeah, I I feel like that has helped give a reputation of just being consultative, like I'm not there to try and like hound you to buy this product and this product. I want to be there to help educate you, make sure that you know everything that I know, because I do have access to just so much research on our side and we've got such an amazing research team. I want to make sure that I'm the conduit for them to be able to receive that research.
Speaker 2:And so I think one of the things that MSPs really struggle with from a product perspective is sometimes and we spoke about water MSPs just serve watered down enterprise product and it's not a great fit. Or hey, we're just going to turn off 70% of the features and we'll give you a really cheap price. One, I know that's a bugbear of you, but two, how does that affect the landscape when it comes to MSPs actually being being able to deliver value?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, I mean I I actually have have worked at companies a couple times where we had watered down versions of a product and and if you're giving a watered down version and the reason why was because you got a nice spiff or it was a really good deal for a while, or because, uh, the provisioning was a little simpler for me, that's not going to fly later on. They're not going to take that answer. So you want to give the best of the best and so, yeah, I mean sometimes these companies don't give that enterprise. That's what I'm really excited about over CrowdStrike.
Speaker 2:And so I'm noticing a lot. We're really sort of thematically, which I'd love to say was part of the design. I'm noticing a lot. We're really sort of thematically, which I'd love to say was part of the design. But we're talking a lot about trust, right, and part of trust is making sure that we're open and honest in terms of what we're providing and making sure we're not providing a bad solution. But also part of it is understanding that, hey, maybe our program isn't 100% ready, maybe we're at 95% ready.
Speaker 1:What does that 5% missing when we talk about CrowdStrike's MSP strategy look like? Yeah, so for me, I we've got the technology, that that that we're at 110 percent the when it comes to the ease of onboarding and provisioning and stuff like that. Some of that stuff that I said is just kind of that extra part. We're already really good like we've. We've got it so that in the pack state marketplace you, you click on the, it's going to spin up the shell. You're a partner, now you just click on another one for a customer and you start doling those out. So I think that that extra 5% that I'm going for is if we could have in-user, in-ui provisioning, so super easy, but then we still fed the customer data over to PAX 8 so that they could still pull that into their marketplace. That's the best of both worlds.
Speaker 2:What we're talking about there is providing the value to each part of the ecosystem that the ecosystem needs, and I think that's what's so misunderstood. Sometimes we get very selfish in terms of what's easiest for me. I'd be great if I didn't need to educate the MSPs on how to sell. I'll just tell product information. But actually Pax8 needs excellent data, msps need excellent user experience, and then you need to teach the MSP how to be successful. Having that sort of humility to understand okay, this is what is valuable. That's how you actually build a successful program. So you want to be the first person an MSP calls when something hits the fan. Why is that so important to you? Just elaborate on why that inflection moment is so important, that you are that person.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it comes back to that trust. That's when you know that you've built up that trust. I want to also be the guy that, let's say they're working with us already, but they come up and they're like hey, I'm trying to build out my CIS frameworks, I'm trying to check all these boxes. I want them to come up to me and say who do you think I should use for my email security? What should I be doing around backup? Who do you see as a good partner for me? I want to be that guy that they can come up to and I say, yeah, you should. You should talk to this one. In fact, I'm going to walk you over, I'm going to introduce you to them. There's friends of mine. I'll, I'll, I'll introduce you right now. So that's the, that's the trust that I want to build up with them. Um, and that comes with not being sold to by me, like having these open conversations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, and to me, that's the evidence, right, that's like that's actually. I always laugh because I think sales is such a great job because there's no debate. Hey, it's like how, how good a job is like, well, I, I can actually put a percentage on it. I can tell you exactly how good a job. I'm hoping more than zero, I'm aiming for 10 at least. Um, but to me, and and what I? Because I just really love this sort of justification it's like, hey, I did all this work for all this time and then this thing happened, and that's undeniable. I, I think what's great about your world is like oh, my job is actually to just help the ecosystem move forward. Hopefully that really aligns with your vendor strategy and drives a lot of revenue. But I can imagine there are instances where you go maybe we're not actually the best fit or you should go in this direction, and that's really what builds credibility.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I have definitely told people before that, look, I think that from what you're trying to solve for right now, you probably want to be talking to somebody else and let me introduce you to that group as well, and they love that. Like, oh my gosh, the next time they have a deal, I'm definitely the one that they're going to talk to at that point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, being able to say like, no and justify why it the like the biggest evidence that you can give that you're not just a sleazy salesperson trying to get a short like end of quarter deal over the line. Right, it's a to your example previously around. You know the the competitors calling customers. It just shows such a lack of integrity, right, and this is like the one industry where I think integrity matters the most. You're a perfect. You've worked at loads of vendors and Pax8 within the ecosystem, and that trust and credibility talk to me about how that follows you through your career. I can imagine when you landed at CrowdStrike you suddenly had a load of people be like hey, justin, talk to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it does follow you as long as you stay within the same area. Every now and then somebody's like hey, do you want to go be an enterprise rep or something? I'm like man, I've built up a community around me and a brand around me that I want to be able to stay with and I don't want to start that all over. But you're absolutely right.
Speaker 1:The second I got over CrowdStrike, I started talking to the PAX 8 reps started building some trust with them. They had been kind of dipping their toe in for the last year, year and a half, and now they knew that they had somebody that was going to be there in the trenches with them If something went wrong. They called me on. The security team calls me Uncle Justin. They were like Uncle Justin's going to get into the weeds with us if we need him, okay, so, so if you guys need have a big deal, let's bring it on through them, give them a shot, and so, um, yeah, it does follow you around. It's a small community, man. I mean, like everybody here knows each other.
Speaker 2:It's crazy so on to the final one. We talked about trust and credibility. It's been an excellent narrative, so I'm trusting you with a really important responsibility of recommending our next guest. Yes, who did you have in mind?
Speaker 1:uh, I want to recommend lizzy lindsey hoffman at nexus tech. She is fantastic. She actually ran a lot of the communities at pax 8, did a lot of the uh non-profit work with pax 8, so she's got a huge heart to her. She's got a ton of charisma to her. She's just gonna take over the screen for you and just a lovely person and it's convenient because she happens to be here so I can introduce you to her while we're here.
Speaker 2:Nice, Justin. Thank you so much for coming to the podcast. It's been awesome, Cheers.