Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Michelle Hodges - Build the Channel You Want
In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Michelle Hodges, SVP of Global Channels and Alliances at Barracuda, whose experience spans global channel leadership and transformational partner strategies for some of the world’s most innovative SaaS companies. With a legacy of designing, launching, and refining partner ecosystems across private equity-backed and high-growth tech businesses, Michelle shares how to build the channel you actually want, not just the one you inherit.
Channel professionals will gain clear strategic insights into how to align partner programs with board-level growth metrics, make transformations sticky through company-wide buy-in, and operationalize partner success through data, iteration, and feedback loops. Michelle delves into balancing AI-powered scalability with human connection, using emerging technologies to empower the MSP community and enhance channel program effectiveness.
If you're navigating a digital transformation, redefining partner metrics, or simply want to future-proof your indirect strategy, this episode offers a fresh perspective from one of the industry's most experienced voices. Tune in for practical frameworks and real-world strategies that help you build smarter, higher-performing partner ecosystems.
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unraveled, the podcast where we unravel the mystery about partnerships and channel on a weekly basis. My name's Alex Whitford. I'm the VP of Revenue here at Chanext, and this week I'm very excited to welcome my special guest, Michelle. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01:I am very well. As I said, I'm just 13 hours off a uh a flight back from London, meeting with partners and going to our annual tech summit in Allback, Austria. So I'm I'm I'm here.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent. We haven't quite hit peak chet lag. So maybe I'm glad we're recording it now, not in like another 20 hours. So that's good. Um maybe for the uninitiated, Michelle, you could give us an introduction about who you are and what you do.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. My name again is Michelle Hodges. I'm currently the senior vice president for Global Channels and Alliances here at Barracuda. Uh I have been in the industry and in Channels and Alliances really my entire career for over 30 years. Um, and I've done all the jobs, right? I've carried the bag, I've run countries, geos, I've lived in all three theaters. Last 10, 12 years, I've been in global roles and have somehow built this reputation of uh helping by and large equity-backed companies drive their partner transformations, right? Um we're all on this journey um to uh uh SaaS and now AI, uh, and that requires a lot of change uh for companies. I do have a couple um startups that, you know, building brand new channels for SaaS companies like Aptio and GitLab, which was really exciting, and I learned a lot. And so now I'm here at Barracuda to help help drive growth.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. So, Michelle, 13 hours off a flight. You've been managing globally uh PE or equity-backed companies, build or migrate and build channels. Sounds super simple, um, not complicated at all. Um, I imagine some of that was quite taxing, some of that mentally stimulating, some of that somewhere in between. Um, talk to me about some of those key experiences and maybe what what those lessons taught you about the role you're in today.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's it's taxing, but it's all I I thrive off of the impact. And so this is the perfect role for me to be able to wake up and look back a week ago or six months ago or two years ago and the work that we've done as a team. Um, you know, some of the key things that that that I'm certainly proud of is you take someone like GitLab. So GitLab was an open source platform or is an open source platform, fully SaaS-based. Uh, and when I started, there was really no people, no partners, no contracts, really not a lot that was in in place. And to take a look at that business and that go-to-market and to understand what is required to drive growth for that company from a partner perspective was, you know, taught me a lot, right? Um, that was a company that was on the road to a unicorn IPO. Uh, the rule of 40, um, which is efficiency to growth to profit, was uh super important. So, how do you make sure that you're in helping your customer consume the technology to the fullest of their potential while building out this channel? Um, and so we, you know, really got clear on what the board's metrics were and built a channel around that. So a lot of it was new customers, a lot of it was services growth, a lot of it was accelerating the pipeline. Um, and then you build a plan behind it. Um, here at Barracuda, you know, we have this great legendary channel, great brand, great product innovation that's coming down the pipe. You know, on paper, what why do they need me? What am I going to do for them? But the reality is we've got the you know infrastructure, all the great new technologies that we can use to engage and enable partners that need to be put in place, moving from single product sales to a platform sale, um, uh, the introduction into AI and how that's going to help our core customer who are MSPs, um, lots of opportunities for growth.
SPEAKER_00:And I think someone who's built their reputation and sort of background and talent and experience, uh, building that sort of high impact channel transformation, um, probably quite a useful time to have that skill set. Because whether your product is based on AI or influenced by AI or just AI is going to turn everything upside down, I can imagine it's like, well, we have to build new programs, new practices, new strategies. When you're sort of holistically looking at where you are today and where where are you headed or where do you want to sort of finish? How do you pull that problem apart, put it back together? What are the Lego bricks that sort of make that strategy come together?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, I'm I'm famous. I've got a couple of phrases that I say all the time. And one of those is build the channel you want, not the one that you end up with. Um, and so really starting from that vision perspective, right? We know what the board we needs, we know what the company needs, we know what our key kind of metrics are going to be. And so you take that look out 18 months, three years, five years, um, and and you get started. Some things you have to stop doing because you've been doing things to service a legacy model. So figuring out what you need to stop doing and where you need to double down and going forward. I'm not a big plan of I've arrived and there's a new program and everything's gonna be great. Um, one thing GitLab taught me was the power of iteration. And so how you can build that vision, but then create gates to help you um uh accelerate towards those pieces. Now, metrics are gonna be super important. Um, some lighthouse metrics, it's normally something around partner value, right? So it could be a point system, it could be deal-ridge, but getting clear on those top line metrics, but then also the the the tail and channel transformation is in the in the is in the trending, either forwards or backwards. So building yourself a book of metrics to see how you're doing, right? Whether your conversion's up, your conversion's down, your asserts are up, your certs are down, um, down to the lowest common denominator, so you can be super tactical about how you make your investments. Does that does that sound right?
SPEAKER_00:Does that it definitely sound right? Uh if you're if your jet lag's talking, that sounded perfect. Um I think maybe one of the things that I'm and and I love your point around iterations, it's something I really try and instill in my team here that I actually hate the word strategy. I it's become sort of a a joke on this podcast because I think we really pride ourselves on like, here's gonna be my three-year, five-year, ten-year vision, which there is a time and a place to have that conversation. But so often it's like, well, let's build the thing or let's try the thing, and then we're gonna get new data, and that new data tells us if this is a good idea, right? Like we pull this lever, did the thing happen? Maybe. Okay, then we then we crack on it. Do we pull it more? Do we pick a new lever? Um, and so I think that's a really important lesson, especially when you're talking about global programs that are never gonna be consistent, they have to be localized to a degree, and there's some nuances there. Um when you're creating some of those changes, I think one of the things that's most complicated is getting those changes or transformations to actually stick. Like that people adopt it, the people believe in it. Talk to me about some of this more softer, the cultural stuff. How do you get that buy-in through the organization?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, this is something that I've learned through age and experience that I want anybody who is wants to ever be a channel chief to hear loudly. Um, if your CEO and your board and your ELT is not a hundred percent behind you and driving these transformations, you will never be successful. That's a battle that is taxing it and you will ultimately lose. Um, so be very clear about the choices you make around um the partner outlook and the partner value before you join a company. Um, you might have a CRO that is great, but the CEO is not there and the CFO is not there. It's just a it's a it's a taxing battle while you've got all that other work to do as well. Um I think the rest uh another good portion of it is um is vision setting and storytelling uh and and bringing the entire audience along with you, right? Um so um you you'll find me super organized from a communications calendar out to the partners, internal QBR and cadences, um, partner advisory boards and and opportunities to meet with partners as a group, as well as um strategic partner QBRs, right? And driving those those conversations with vision, but also allowing for the feedback to loop into those forward conversations. So make sure you've got support, but then also get on the road, drive your vision, but listen and and build that back into um the plan going forward.
SPEAKER_00:You've used some of my favorite words already, which is sort of iteration or experimentation, uh, feedback and data. Um I think whether it's qualitative feedback, quantitative data, there is such an important need, especially, and I think this is one of the nuances that lots of people who are listening to this podcast can really struggle to understand. When you're sitting at a centralized global role and you have to build something that works everywhere, that gets that's really hard to do just from a feedback perspective, right? You're not speaking to the partners in Brazil and in New York and in London and in Paris and in Tokyo, right? So how do you build scorecards, track trends, look at data to help understand? Hey, I pulled this lever, we thought this thing was going to happen. Did it happen? Is it happening as much, as fast, as quickly as we wanted? How do you how do you contextualize all of that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, back to that scalability piece that you were just talking about down to the field. The truth lives in the field, right? So no matter how you build a beautiful plan and all the ELTs on board, um, and you've got a gorgeous score board scorecard, which we'll talk about, you gotta, you gotta listen to the field and you've got to bring them along with you. So um, but the scorecard, you know, to me it's the lowest common denominator. Um, in a SaaS leaning world, um, and I'm gonna add layer AI AI because we're learning a lot about that. In a SaaS leaning world, um uh the customer life cycle is kind of the the driving um in a sales role, so we're not talking ecosystem, kind of the the driving view of how successful you're being being from top of funnel all the way to close, wind to renew, grow, cross-sell, upsell. And so building your metrics and partner value across every stage of that life cycle and then chopping and changing it every which way, right? Ideally, you want to take it from a global to a geo level, but if you can get it down to product and rep, if not rep territory is great, you can then start to see your trending of up and down of where you're doing well. If you've optimized your MDF and your OpEx spend and your head and your headcount productivity against that, you can get a red light, green light view pretty quickly of what's working and that's what what's not working over time. Um, and then you take all the qualitative activity that you've been doing to be able to overlap it. Um, AI is pretty exciting because it can start to see things that you can't see things see, right? Um and it it when you combine that with, you know, 30 years of experience or super dark smart data scientists and what they're seeing to be able to help you see trends that you're not seeing, um, that's gonna be that is very exciting, and we've already seen it be helpful.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that and to double click on that point, because I think it's the one that's often missed with AI. I think we're also focused on sort of language models that, hey, I can use AI to be smart, um uh ask smart search questions. Whereas actually AI from a data analysis perspective is unbelievable. And I think what's amazing is I can very quickly see a world where oh, I can't get qualitative feedback from every partner because that's not possible. And you start to go, oh, but AI can, and then capture and then uh distill that information down. I think the feedback loop, the the velocity of that feedback loop, and maybe the accuracy of that feedback loop is going to get really interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's I actually makes me think we're doing a partner survey and have we explored how AI might best help us get all that unknown data out of the survey.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, one of the things that we've experimented and it works really well, is uh feeding an AI model with an objective uh outcome. And then and then it can layer questions, but based on the contextual, or so rather than asking three questions, you ask one question, but based on the answer, the AI model is able to ask a second and third question to sort of explore, but nuance dependence, you're actually more conducting an interview. And that for me, when you know my um tech brain just gets all excited because I think it's easy-driven precision questioning.
SPEAKER_01:I love it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, unbelievable. Like, like what would it be if I could interview every partner that we work with? What would that look like? And then suddenly you go, Oh, I can. Oh, this is like fundamentally possible in a way. And I just think the ability for senior leadership to make really accurate decisions based on both qualitative and quantitative feedback, that's that's exciting as well to be in. Oh, excellent. Well, Josephine Welton. Um, so um it's funny, uh, we talk a lot on this uh podcast about the three Ps, um, which in my world means uh uh products, program people. Um, and then you've got your own version of this, which is people product partners. Um why talk to us about why those three Ps matter and how they guide your day-by-day principles.
SPEAKER_01:Well well, first, um, in many ways, I curate my career um out of interest of things I want to learn and want to do. Um and then later in my career as a desire to be able to contribute. Um, we all want a legacy. This channel is sadly, not sadly, but it's gonna be mine. Um uh and so when I, you know, these transformations take two to three years, and at some point you're running the business. And if I'm if making impact and learning is kind of my guiding principles, sometimes it's time to move on. So I do look for those three things people, pro um, product, and partner. From a people perspective, uh, it's the culture. Uh, more and more it's you know, I I think an automated AI-driven world in partnering needs to be based in relationships and trust and and authenticity. And so a culture that's going to enable that was really important to me, right? Um uh the the next is product and innovation. Um, I have been looking for an MSP built-for-purpose platform um for 15 years. I mean, um and even in a SaaS environment, you know, MSP, to do that, MSP has to be customer zero. And so I was just thrilled to find Barracuda where that is our truth. We are building our products for MSP consumption, understanding where the market's going to. Um, and then a partner piece, you know, I wanted a big channel. I wanted a loyal channel, well branded. Um, I wanted a channel that needed an ecosystem expansion because that's some of where the coolest stuff happens. Um and but then again, the state of this channel, like who gets to do this? Who gets to take the Barracuda channel with all the tools and processes and innovations that are happening in our world, who gets to do that, right? Um, that combined with the Barracuda channel and the opportunity we have today. So yeah, that's what led me here.
SPEAKER_00:It's a really good answer, even after 13 hours on a uh 13 hours on a plane. Um we have uh when we were doing our prep call of a few weeks ago, um we landed on something that is sort of close to my heart. I spent a lot of time speaking to MSPs, and I get the same answer from basically all MSPs, which is uh we recognize we are not good at marketing. That is not a skill set that is in-house often. Um and so we are hoping to get more help from a demand generation perspective. And I know, Michelle, when we spoke, you talked about the importance to balance how do we create scalable demand, but also build intimacy and understand that partners are about people and relationships. How do those two worlds come together and how do you help support your partners that way?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm thrilled with um how our marketing plans are shaping up uh moving forward. It's a mix of air cover and digital combined with in-person engagement, right? And so um you'll everyone knows Barracuda from the airport, but what's the the newer way to make sure that we can help folks understand um the platform Barracuda as opposed to the product, you know, the single product that you saw in the airport? So lots of great ideas um from that perspective. Uh, and then um making sure that we're present. So we have our Discover series, which is our partner summits that are in each geography. We have our secure series, which are um in the US, NFL cities or major European cities, of local customer and partner events where we can connect um uh with uh with our folks. We have our tech summit, um, which I really hope we expand uh to the US. We're launching um in two weeks a rebranded something we call CUDACoSell, which was in a traditional call down day. But now we're using all these great tools like digital sales rooms and AI-generated data around their customer use bases, sales plays, and whiteboarding and call scripts and contests to show up to address the entire partner business. So bringing everyone into the room, not just the inside sales team, right? The sellers, the marketing, and the rest. Um, and then you've got a living, breathing digital sales room that you can measure um engagement on going forward. So we'll be doing that at pace as well, um, combined with contests and stuff to engage the individual. So I love this kind of nuanced approach to go from air cover all the way down to the individual sales reps. I think additionally there's incentives. You've got to think about hitting the partner from an incentives perspective, from the, you know, making sure the customer is get is served, making sure the business owner is served, making sure the sales team's served and the individual. So how do you organize that as well? So yeah, lots of exciting, fun things.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds really simple. Um we we touched on legacy. Um, and um, I know I was saying before I got a nine-month-old, so maybe legacy is on my mind more than it's uh uh more than it's traditionally been. Um you've been a huge advocate for driving women towards roles in the channel specifically. Um, why is that such a well-suited environment? And maybe uh to the audience out there, why should they be proactively looking to bring that talent into their businesses?
SPEAKER_01:Some of it's from personal experience. Um, you know, and and I'm gonna be super as authentic as I can be here. Um, you know, as a woman leader, um, uh particularly at middle management in your young in your young 40s, right? You get to a point you're a parent and you have aging parents, and and you're you're rising in your job, and your job is really hard, and you're trying to be perfect at that and perfect at everything else. And so many of me and my colleagues and friends get to this point of, can I really do this, right? Am I able to do that? Um, and I had the the epiphany that, hey, I put this much time into my career, I'm good at what I do, I want to double down at doing that. And as I went forward, and secondly, also decided at that time that, you know, I I want to learn more about being a woman leader and what it's gonna take for me to get to the next stage stage. So really leaned into mentorship and coaching for my own self as well as for folks in my team. And then through that journey, I found that as I've as I've talked to women in tech, I have found channel to be a great landing place, right? Channel and marketing, but channel to some degree because you get to touch every part of the business. You can have a technical role, you can exceed in sales and all of those things in an area where your unique skill sets of um multitasking and relationship building are really valued. And so I've brought a lot of women from technical roles, right? As they start to get into middle management, the culture just doesn't fit um their skill set, but also how they need to run their life, for example. Um, and so yeah, keeping women in technology uh is super important to me. And I think channel is a great, great place to land.
SPEAKER_00:Amazing, Michelle. Well, um, we started with legacy. Let's let's finish with legacy. Um, I like to cheat to build legacy, so I always ask our current guest to recommend our next guest. Michelle, who did you have in mind?
SPEAKER_01:Uh I recommend two, I think. Um, one is Nima Batti. He did technology alliances at uh GitLab as a partner. We were two in a box. Um, and he understands more about the technology alliances, particularly cloud alliances, um, and how to integrate them into the business, both from a, you know, or not both, but from product, from go to market, all of those aspects, and is just a great networker, has built an amazing network. So he would be great. And the other is Teresa Carigal, who's the CEO of Achieve Unite and the author, um forget the name, strategic partnering, I think is the name of the book. Um, and she is such a community builder and thought leader um in our industry that everyone needs to know who she is.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Michelle, thank you so much for helping build our legacy here and joining us today and sharing your wisdom. It's been awesome.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for the opportunity, Alex.