Partnerships Unraveled
The weekly podcast where we unravel the mysteries of partnerships and channel to help you become more successful.
Partnerships Unraveled
Scott Eaton - Redefining Trusted Advisors in the Modern Channel
In this episode of Partnerships Unraveled, we sit down with Scott Eaton, Senior Director of Partner Management at Lumen Technologies, for an insightful conversation about the evolving definition and strategic role of trusted advisors in the modern channel. With decades of experience on both the vendor and partner sides of the business, Scott offers a grounded perspective on how channel professionals can navigate shifting partner models, deliver real customer value, and optimize indirect revenue strategies.
Together, we explore why the role of the trusted advisor is more critical than ever, especially in complex B2B environments where customers are overwhelmed by choice and under-resourced in technical expertise. Scott also sheds light on where AI is providing the most meaningful gains today from partner enablement to customer retention and offers a sharp take on the future of partner marketing, performance measurement, and the blurred lines between MSPs, VARs, and resellers.
If you’re a channel leader, partner marketer, or enablement pro striving to stay ahead of rapidly changing partner models and customer expectations, this episode delivers clarity, strategy, and actionable insights you can use today.
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Welcome back to Partnerships Unravel, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries about channel and partnerships on a weekly basis. My name is Effa and I'm excited to introduce our special guest, Scott. Scott, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_00:Effa, good to see you. Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, thank you for joining us. I'm really excited for the conversation. Scott, maybe you could give us a bit of an introduction. Tell us who you are and where you come from.
SPEAKER_00:You bet. I am Scott Eaton. I'm currently a senior director of partner management within Lumen Technologies. I live in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States, and have lived here in Atlanta for 30, 33 years of my career.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. Great to meet you. I think the key topic that we're going to discuss in this podcast is around the role of trusted advisor. We did an episode a while ago with uh Drew Leideker from Avant, who's one of the key TSTs, and he really evangelized the role of trust advisor and especially about why this role is becoming much more critical in the ecosystem for vendors, for TSTs, but most importantly for customers as well. And I would love to hear from you why is the role of the trust advisor more critical now than ever before?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, great, great question. I know Drew well and I love his insights and his perspective, and I'm aligned with them, right? So he from you know the trusted advisor side of the house that he supports, you know, via Avant, and then me, you know, from the supplier side of the house, you know, we see both perspectives, right? So that trusted advisor is a constant in most cases. I mean, right, if we if we use generalities, that trusted advisor is just that, a trusted advisor. Where a supplier representative is singular to the supplier. And also perhaps, you know, trusted, but maybe not there consistently. Uh, as we all know, and I've been on both sides of the fence working for the large organizations, there's turnover, there's fallout, people leave, people get new jobs, uh, circumstances, life, right? But that trusted advisor traditionally is there as a constant no matter what. So they're, you know, when the, when the when the partner and the customer are evaluating needs, are evaluating solutions, are evaluating portfolios, they're independent, they're agnostic, they're generally uh incredibly knowledgeable uh and technical. And the customer sees that as an enormous advantage uh rather than going singularly to 14 different suppliers and having to deal with them individually. So there's there's a huge value equation there for that trusted advisor. And Drew and team do such a great job of advocating for that. And we are seeing more and more in the marketplace where the mid-sized business, the large enterprise business, you know, continues to see that value as well.
SPEAKER_01:One of the things that Drew said that really stuck with me was he said that, you know, when I was young, when I started out my career, you if you work with the big blue, if you work with the big companies, then you could never get fired.
SPEAKER_00:That's right.
SPEAKER_01:But he said nowadays, if you work with the big blue and you only work with the big blue, then you're most definitely going to get fired. I think the challenge that we're seeing right now is that there's so many great technology companies out there, there's so many great solutions. How does a buyer keep track of everything? And that's where the trusted advisor comes in. I think 100%. Even like people who are experts in the space, they have a hard time keeping up. It's a full-time job to be as a buyer to be aware of all the technologies and also make an informed decision on like which one to which solution to that will fit best fit their problems.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, FA, and especially in that mid-market space where if I'm a furniture manufacturer, right? Well, uh, you know, I'm not in technology necessarily, and I don't maybe have the resources or the wherewithal to have a robust IT staff that can make AI and security decisions, right? So these are still impactful to my business. Therefore, that trusted advisor, you know, becomes just that much more important as an extension of my staff, how they get paid and what they get paid and things of this nature, you know, devil's in the details. But that's where, you know, it really comes into play. And then in the large enterprise space, which you would think, well, large enterprise has, you know, endless resources, you know, the Home Depots of the world or whatever. But that's not necessarily true either, right? They're they're looking at, you know, uh efficiencies, where can I maximize? Where can I save dollars across all of my all of my biz works? Uh, and specifically that trusted advisor may have expertise in a particular area that maybe the large enterprise fills out a little light. So there's slivers of pie, maybe I'll I'll refer to it as in the large enterprise where they can provide impact and have uh benefit as well. And then lastly, uh, you know, just old school pure relationship. I mean, it's there, it exists. I know a guy. And, you know, sometimes sometimes relationships trump everything. Um, and you know, trust the word trusted advisor, right? I'm I trust this guy. Um, he may not be the smartest, the smartest guy out there, but if I trust him, then that that perhaps you know overcomes some other uh uh short shortcomings perhaps to create for you know win-win for everybody.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was actually going to say the same thing. I was going to also highlight the word trust in the trust advisor. I think that's a key part because I think especially in the channel working with partners, we are more aware than maybe any other industry that those human relationships matter so much and trust matters so much. You know, that partner, that trust advisor has been working with that customer for such a long time and they know their business, you know, they go golfing together. I think that also uh makes it undeniable that you know this partnership is a strong one. In this podcast, we talk a lot about how what we are doing to enable and you know empower these partners, whether that's an MSP, a reseller, a trusted advisor, and a topic that comes often is AI. I think we're in a weird space right now where everyone is talking about AI. Everyone has some theories and ideas, maybe some people have uh a more coherent story, but I feel like no one truly knows what it means currently and where it's going in the future. What in your from your perspective, what does a practical, meaningful use of AI in the channel, you know, working with those trust advisors really look like for you?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I'm glad you said I don't know. Uh yeah, I I I mean it's still early, early phase, and we approach it a couple different ways. When you say AI to Lumen, there's the you know the infrastructure, the you know, the true bandwidth requirements of AI. So that's that's the different conversation. But to your point around the enablement, you know, how can we use AI to be more efficient, right? And that may involve uh you know, cross-learning, that may involve uh various tools and efficiencies that that are a result of AI internally for me, operationally, and then externally, if I look at uh you know a trusted advisor and they've got the wherewithal via AI to create tools that assess their customer base as an example that says, hey, my customer base is trending to do X, Y, and Z, you know, based on product knowledge, based on I'm seeing these trends, that allows for better decision making, that allows for better go-to-market where I'm seeing X, Y, and Z. And I need to, you know, I need to motivate or accelerate my efforts in this particular area because the data that I've been able to assess, you know, outside of a manual assessment through various AI tools, whatever, whatever that looks like, right? I mean, I think the whole conversation around, you know, lots of staff or or personnel and all that is out the window. It's, you know, efficiencies of data and and what can I, how can I move faster? How can I be more customer solution centric? So if I'm landing with an existing customer or a new customer, I'm saying the things that resonate with them. I can move to a sale faster, I can solve their problems faster, and I can find solutions for them. And therefore, that makes me more effective. So that's really you know as I see it today on both sides of the house, myself as a supplier and on the advisor, it's efficiencies first, right? What you know, what can I just basically clean up in my world that makes me better and faster? Secondarily, how does it make me smarter, right? To make better uh go-to-market decisions. And then lastly, is the I don't know, is you know, what come what comes after that, right? We're seeing, you know, from the supplier side a lot more, you know, bandwidth on demand type of requirements as a result of AI, you know, um, you know, pushes and pulls and and spikes and things of this nature. So all of that is going to come into play. But to answer the question initially on enablement is is you know, tools, um in uh learning, cross-referencing of data, data analysis analyzation that it allows for a more strategic go-to-market. Uh, and then lastly, from our perspective too, which is not necessarily AI, but everything is AI, um, is an API, an API interfeed, right? So if I can feed my partners more data via an API that they can then assess via AI, well, I've now made them more effective. So that's my that's my my uneducated AI response.
SPEAKER_01:That's a great answer. I always notice, I think at the end of the day, whenever there's an AI conversation, it always makes me realize the most important aspect is the data. You have to have the right and correct data to power that AI. So, you know, shout out to our data team internally at Challenge, they're doing a great job to make sure that we can utilize that too.
SPEAKER_00:One more point there, too, FA, is that you know, partners and advisors and TSDs these days are spending a lot more time focusing on their customer retention data. So, same answer, right? Good data, right? How do I retain my customers? Because in the old days, you know, of trust advisor age and business, I sell it on the front end and I don't necessarily know what I'm losing on the back end. I haven't spent the time to analyze that. Well, now, you know, in terms of maintaining my revenue and going from a smaller organization to a larger organization, well, I'm gonna stay flat if I keep losing it out the back door. So, how does AI help me, you know, identify terms, uh cross-sell and upsell? You know, all these things that feed into retention become critically important too. And that's another thing where I think AI is gonna play an important role.
SPEAKER_01:I think also TSDs play a really important role there because they have such a broad range of data. They have data from different suppliers, a large set of partners, they can you know predict, they can uh you know identify those cross-sell upsell opportunities.
SPEAKER_00:No, no doubt. And that's the value, you know, that they have to continuously, you know, if uh evangelize and strengthen their value equation to the trusted advisor, right? So if they're doing those things and providing for those tools, they become that much more. I mean, a trusted advisor can put their business in five, six, seven different places, right? So the more value the TSD can provide through tools like you just mentioned, um, the better, you know, the better partner they become to the to their community.
SPEAKER_01:I want to talk a little bit more about TSDs and the marketing support that they they provide to suppliers and trust advisors. Without naming any names, not throwing anyone under the bus, but I feel like we have seen a transition in the marketing space in telco in Channel where historically it was a little bit more flashy events, maybe uh you know, wine and dines that didn't really drive uh demand, and maybe the ROI of these activities were not so clear both to the TSEs themselves, but also suppliers were asking, okay, what did I get out of this? I feel like we are seeing uh uh a transition, a shift in the market where there's a higher um demand for that ROI. You know, TSEs are no longer throwing flashy events, you know, with celebrities, maybe they do sometimes.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe a few of them still a few of them still do.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe, but you know, uh I'm sure that also provides value, it's just you have to look at like how uh are we driving value to the ecosystem. But in your opinion, what should real partner marketing look like in 2025 and how uh do you see TSDs supporting that idea?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, great question. Uh measurable ROI, right? I mean that you know, I can't, I don't get good measurement. Uh I mean everybody loves a big party FA, right? I mean, and and who doesn't? But does that, you know, if I sit in a room and, you know, I'm making this up, Beyonce is on stage, right? I mean, but does do I want to do business with XTSD just because Beyonce was on stage? No, absolutely not. Will I come to I come to the party? Heck yeah, I'm coming to the party. Beyonce's on stage, right? This is cool. But I don't think that truly makes me want to do business with them, right? And and can those dollars be re can and should those dollars be redirected specifically, you know, to partner activities. And for us, it's been the biggest ROI is when I can redirect dollars to get closer to a buyer, right? So in other words, I'm not, I'm trusted advisors, you know, are my world and I want to be close to them. But if I can help them get closer to a buyer and send a message, that's gold, right? So the ultimate, you know, answer or comment to your question is 100% scrutiny around these dollars, more so than ever before. And um, you know, parties are fun and nice, and and a little bit of the obligatory, let's all get together and have a nice time, and that's fine. Um, some of it's excessive, and we've seen some throttle back. And um, you know, ROI, ROI, ROI. And if I go to, you know, five different TSD uh big parties, I tend to see a lot of the same people five times, right? So because they're doing business across those TSDs. So what what measurable impact am I really getting, you know, at a big at a big event like that, um, versus the the have to want to, and then you know the ROI is is is is king. My marketing department specifically has is very actionable, measurable ROIs against these dollars. And I think that's that's more so than ever before, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I I fully agree. I hear like this is something that we talk about all the time, but especially with events, I think a lot of responsibility also falls onto yourself. I think the most important thing is that you go to an event, you shake hands, but then what are you doing afterwards? If you're not doing the proper follow-up, if you're not you know continuing these conversations that you had with all those partners, then it's leading to nowhere. Then first of all, it's not leading to nowhere, and second of all, you cannot show the ROI as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, no doubt. And right, and so then that feeds into you know what tools are you using, you know, as the supplier, I might use Salesforce, obviously, but that's not a that's not necessarily a you know a tracking tool for the right reasons, right? Yeah, but I don't have a you know, uh there's just I've got to have a tracking mechanism because if I'm working off a spreadsheet or I forget, you know, that that becomes problematic, right? So um, you know, it all needs to in the and again back maybe this is what feeds back into AI from my perspective as a supplier to you know to have advantages in tools, right? Am I am I tracking and how am I comparing that partner or that targeted partner across my products and services and what's their likelihood to be successful and all these data analytics that we can be doing via AI to better uh track, to better recruit, and to better enable uh new advisors to a program. Um if I look at my TSE's FA, you know, I mean I'm making up math again, but let's just say there's 25,000 trusted advisors out there within an ecosystem that are that are available. I'm touching, you know, 10%. I mean, there's there's a huge gap and area of growth for all of us uh from the vendor perspective. Now, again, to the point we made earlier, 250 vendors, and who do I choose, and what do I choose them for, and security and and and right? But um the opportunity still remains, and then take it one step further. You know, that trusted advisor who has the opportunity to pursue mid-market and large enterprise. I mean I mean, the growth that we've seen forecasted from a canalis or from some of these others is still extraordinary in our space. So that um, you know, hope remains hope remains good.
SPEAKER_01:I hope so as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You mentioned I want to so when preparing for this podcast, you mentioned you made a comment about the the difference between VARs and MSPs. I want to talk about that because I feel like those labels are getting really blurrier every day. And you know, sometimes it's a VAR and they put an you know label MSP at the door and they say now we're an MSV, but you're not really an MSP. So you've seen kind of like the also the TSDs are now trying to serve those different kinds of partners, MSPs, VARs. What do you see is getting lost in translation between the vendors, uh the TSDs, and those kind of new partners that they're they're trying to address?
SPEAKER_00:Great question. I think it at the core of those definitions becomes who's billing the customer, right? And who's getting paid and how, right? So if I'm a traditional agent, you know, or TSD, okay, I get I get paid a residual commission. I understand that. You know, it in Scott's terminology, when you say var, this is someone that's selling a piece of equipment traditionally in my world. And that's in or at least in my head. And that's that's a one-time payment. I got to sell a lot of boxes at a one-time payment of X percent to make my money, right? And then MSP in my head is I'm managing services, right? So I've got a multitude of different software, maybe it is hardware, services, right? And those become kind of a you know, a multi-point uh uh offering, offering to an end user. So kind of three different buckets. And at the end of the day, how does the partner, you know, who needs to get paid? They're a business, what's their method, right? Are they putting it on their own paper? Are they consolidating? Are they reselling, or are they receiving a residual commission? If we can answer those questions, I think the definition maybe kind of goes out the window. A lot of the TSDs, when they approach the VAR and MSP space, what they're saying is uh come to my residual world, right? This is how I operate. I have a residual environment for commissions. I want you to be part of this, and here's how and why. So I think what they're missing in some cases is the what if they don't want to do that? What if that residual environment is not what they want, they want to put it on their own paper, or they want to do it only on Tuesday. I mean, I'm making making stuff up, right? The creativity around something outside of just the normal residual. And that's what we think we're all struggling with is who gets paid, how do they get paid, and whose paper is it on? If we can solve for those things and create, you know, a scalable environment in those buckets, then I think we all stand to win. And we are seeing pockets of win. We are seeing VARs and MSPs who have adopted the residual commission. Great, traditional, love it. But I think they they also have the ability, based on each opportunity, to go a different route. So if I bring, I'm an MSP, I'm a VAR, and I have an opportunity. Okay, this one I can go residual. This this makes sense. I'm gonna put it over here. Well, the next one maybe not so much because the customer, the requirements, whatever. So give me options. Give me options that and flavors that say I can do it in a multitude of different ways. And if we continue to crack that code as a supplier and as a as a TSD, I think that'll prove more successful in these unique go-to-markets. Because you know, what's next after VAR and and and and MSP? I mean, you see a lot of these folks are are now delving into marketplaces like energy, like and brokering for energy as part of their portfolio. Well, I don't know what that billing looks like. I'm not familiar, I'm not an energy guy, right? So the the point around, I guess, flexibility um in terms of how the partner wants to do business. And if we can, you know, if we can eliminate the roadblocks between legal and pricing and paper and wholesale and these types of things, I think we'd have a more streamlined um trajectory to growth.
SPEAKER_01:I'm I'm gonna say something so cliche, but I guess this also comes back to like meeting the partner where they are. That's it. Yep, nailed it how they have the business then.
SPEAKER_00:And being so what we say, you know, they they come to us with something sideways like that, and we say, Yeah, we'd really like to do that. And then we try to figure it out, and you know. Um but be to be able to say yes, right? Oh, absolutely. I completely understand that. And here's our method, you know, here's here's how we get there. I mean, I've been struggling with that here, you know, at Lumen for two years in terms of just not so much being able to do it, but just kind of making it a smooth, a smooth, easy process, click the button, you know, less less conflict.
SPEAKER_01:But with with what you said, I want to get back to you know, the the distinction between the var and msp is getting blurry. What you said at the beginning, you know, traditionally var is someone who sells device. But nowadays also like because now there's like device as a service that like MSPs are offering as well. Because now it's getting even more complicated. And a lot of now partners nowadays have a more resell, like they have different business units, whereas it's like a more managed services business within the organization, and they have a reselling organization. So it does make it two times complicated for uh the TSDs and stuff as well. 100%.
SPEAKER_00:You know, and another category there that that falls into the MSP space would be TAM, right? So I see telecom expense management over here, you know, at MSP because now I have access to all the data. Ooh, once I've got access to all the data, I know gold. Like now, and so now we're routing back to AI. Well, what can I do with that data that I now have as a TAM and map it back to my offerings, map it back to my go-to-market, map it back to my expertise and my products and services and solutions, right? So it all, you know, ecosystem, baby.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, that's that's great. Thank you so much for joining us, Scott. It was a great conversation. Before I let you go, I have one last question for you. Yes, sir. We end every episode by asking our guests to invite the next guest on the podcast. Who do you think we should have next?
SPEAKER_00:I would love to invite my friend up in New York City. His name is Evan Gilman. He sits on the trusted advisor side of the house, uh, very successful with Lumen and all of his vendors and has amazing insight to the channel, uh, has a long history in the channel. Um, and I'm happy to provide his contact information. I think he'd be a great, a great guest for your show.
SPEAKER_01:Amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Scott, and thank you for your recommendation. And see you in the next episode.
SPEAKER_00:FA, thanks for having me. Good talking to you.