Channel Voices – Details, episodes & analysis

Ever wondered why some partner incentive programs drive remarkable growth while others barely move the needle? The answer lies not just in the rewards offered, but in the psychological principles that motivate human behavior.

In this thought-provoking conversation with Samer Mihyar, Channel Marketing Leader at Kodak Alaris for EMEA and SEAC regions, we decode the psychology behind truly effective partner incentivisation. Samer reveals why the traditional approach of relying solely on cash or rebates consistently fails to build lasting partner loyalty, and shares the three fundamental principles that successful programs must follow: strategic alignment, engagement beyond sales, and simplicity with transparency.

Drawing from his extensive experience, Samer takes us through the psychological theories that explain partner motivation – from self-determination theory to behavioural economics concepts like loss aversion. He demonstrates how understanding these principles allowed him to transform underperforming partner relationships into collaborations that delivered 20-30% year-over-year growth.

We explore common pitfalls that doom incentive programs from the start, including the one-size-fits-all approach that fails to recognise different partner types have fundamentally different motivations. For smaller partners, cash incentives might work wonders, while enterprise partners may respond better to co-marketing funds or lead sharing opportunities.

Looking to the future, Samer predicts how AI, gamification, and sustainability will reshape partner incentives, potentially allowing for unprecedented personalisation. But his most valuable insight might be his parting wisdom: "Channel success isn't just about sales numbers – it's about relationships, trust, and alignment." This episode provides a masterclass in building incentive programs that drive results while strengthening your most important partner relationships.

Whether you're revamping an existing program or building one from scratch, this episode delivers actionable insights for creating incentives that truly resonate with your partners and deliver measurable business results.

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You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

What happens when a partner crosses to the vendor side? Brian Hibner brings a refreshingly honest perspective on channel leadership from his journey as a former Deloitte partner who now leads Flexera's global alliance strategy.

Brian's guiding principle—"customer first, partner second, Flexera third"—stems from his firsthand experience as a partner dealing with vendors who prioritised their own interests. He reveals how this customer-centric approach has transformed Flexera's partnerships, creating genuine trust that directly translates to business growth. One European partner recently told him, "The stuff you said you would change last year based on our feedback—you actually did it. That's why we're doing more together."

The conversation explores the evolving partner ecosystem spanning traditional resellers (who face margin pressure), pure services organisations, and technology platform alliances. Brian details Flexera's investments in dedicated engineering resources for partner-specific capabilities, enabling rapid development cycles that demonstrate their commitment to partner success.

Perhaps most fascinating is Brian's insight into Flexera's recent acquisition of NetApp's Spot. Instead of disrupting the existing partner network, Flexera adopted a "don't break anything" philosophy that prioritises stability and understanding before integration. This approach has turned concerned Spot partners into enthusiastic advocates exploring Flexera's broader portfolio.

For channel professionals at any stage, Brian's journey highlights the crucial importance of continuous learning. Despite extensive consulting experience, he had to quickly adapt to the unique rhythms of software business cycles and diverse partner models. His advice? Listen more than you talk, and show up consistently as the partner who genuinely supports your partners' business success.

Subscribe now to hear more conversations with channel leaders who are transforming how partnerships drive business growth!

You can now also send us a text. 😀

Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

Ever wonder how to navigate the shift from direct sales to leading a channel strategy? Let us introduce you to Monica Walton, Senior Vice President of Channel at Evoque, who shares her compelling journey and the secret to quadrupling her team's results year over year. Monica's unique perspective on trust and integrity in channel partnerships has shaped Evoque's phenomenal success.

Monica's secret weapon? A balanced approach to choosing partners, rewarding performance and maintaining strong relationships. She leverages her experience to ensure responsiveness and accuracy, key factors in building trust with channel partners. You'll be intrigued by how Monica and her team are navigating the shift in the market towards large multi-megawatt opportunities, while incentivizing partners to bring in an increasing number of smaller deals.

As we wrap up our conversation, Monica gives us a peek into the future of Evoque, her plans for growth and her invaluable advice for those making a similar transition from direct sales to a channel strategy. You'll come away with insights into how she measures her partners' performance and how she aims to steer Evoque's growth trajectory in the coming years. Tune in for this riveting conversation and don't forget to subscribe.

Monica's LinkedIn Profile

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

In this episode, we dive into the fascinating world of creating unique joint value propositions in the channel with our guest, Philip Strange - VP Channel Sales at OpsHub, Inc., a seasoned expert in the field.

We kick things off by defining what a unique joint value proposition actually means and why it's a game-changer in the channel. Understanding this concept is pivotal to crafting mutually beneficial partnerships.

Philip shares his insights on evaluating and recruiting partners while keeping the joint value proposition in mind. Discover the strategies and tactics that can help your organization identify the right partners to create synergy and unlock new opportunities.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the channel looking to foster successful partnerships by crafting unique joint value propositions. Tune in to gain valuable insights and take your channel strategies to the next level.

Philip referred to this LinkedIn post during our conversation: "Got any good news?"

Philip's LinkedIn Profile

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

In this episode, I sit down with Frank Vitagliano, a seasoned industry expert, to discuss the evolution of channel distribution and the role of the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC). Join us as we explore the impact of cloud computing and SaaS on the IT channel distribution landscape and dive into the most innovative strategies and tactics implemented by distributors in recent years.

Frank shares his insights on the biggest trends and developments we can expect to see in IT channel distribution in the near future. We also explore how companies can leverage technology to optimize their IT channel distribution strategy and maximize their success.

Finally, Frank offers valuable advice to those embarking on their channel GTM journey, including whether going the 2-tier route with distributors is recommended. Don't miss this enlightening episode as we delve into the past, present, and future of channel distribution.

Frank's LinkedIn Profile
GTDC website

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

In this episode, we explore the importance of building sustainable relationships in the channel and moving beyond just transactional deals. We sit down with Antoine Jebara, Co-founder and GM, MSP Products at JumpCloud to discuss various strategies for fostering long-term relationships with channel partners.

Our guests share insights on how to define success in the channel beyond just closing a deal, and how vendors and their channel partners can build sustainable relationships. We also discuss how to balance short-term revenue goals with long-term relationship-building in the channel, and measure the success of a channel partnership beyond just deal registration, transactions, and revenue.

Antoine also discusses strategies for identifying the right channel partners for your business and keeping them engaged over the long term.

Finally, he offers advice for aspiring channel leaders who want to build successful, long-term partnerships.

Antoine's LinkedIn Profile

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

In this episode of Channel Voices, I sit down with Patrick Goedhart, Team Leader Channel Sales at Mimecast, to discuss the key elements of a successful channel partner onboarding strategy. Our guest also shares his experiences in implementing successful channel partner onboarding programs in the past and we dive into common challenges that arise during the onboarding process and best practices for addressing them.

Patrick also shares insights on measuring the success of a channel partner onboarding program and ensuring that partners have the necessary resources and support to be successful.

The importance of training and education in the onboarding process is also discussed, along with steps to build strong and lasting relationships with channel partners while allowing them to operate independently.

We explore the importance of technology's role in the onboarding process, along with our guest's top tips for organizations looking to improve their partner onboarding strategies.

Patrick's LinkedIn Profile

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

This is a great conversation with Kam Kaila, President at IT By Design, about the ever-changing market for MSPs, and strategies for fuelling growth.

We discuss Kam's channel background and how the MSP model has evolved over time. She also sheds light on the struggles MSPs face today and gives valuable tips for fuelling growth in the industry.

Kam also shares how IT By Design helps MSPs level up their businesses, including their state of the art corporate training program specifically designed for MSP professionals.

Make sure to stick around for Kam's top 3 tips for MSPs to focus on in the next 1-3 years.

Kam's LinkedIn Profile
IT By Design website

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

In this episode, we had a special guest who shares their career journey in developing technology alliance partnerships. Bader Hamdan explains why technology alliances are crucial in today's partner ecosystems and shares the criteria he uses to identify and evaluate tech alliance partnerships to ensure alignment with the company's overall strategy and objectives.

Bader also discusses how to measure the success of an alliance partnership and what metrics to use. He shares valuable insights on building and maintaining strong relationships with tech alliance partners over time and the approaches he uses to develop successful tech alliance partnerships.

Bader's LinkedIn Profile
Bader's 10 Partnership Commandments

You can now also send us a text. 😀

Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋

If you have listened to episodes of Channel Voices podcast before, you might remember one, two, three or maybe even more of our guests mentioning lack of education for the channel industry.

The only viable option people have to learn about partnerships, channel and ecosystems is on the job. If you’re lucky you might get to work with a great mentor but more often you just find yourself being thrown into the deep-end.

The wait for a focused and well structured education system might just have come to an end. Today, I speak with Todd Hussey, the co-founder of SEBSchool and the world-class on-demand, video-based education program designed to enable entire organizations, line-of-business teams, and individual partner professionals to build and grow a partner ecosystem GTM model. It’s the only Education System Designed Around the "Influence - Land - Expand" Partner Ecosystem Framework.

Instructors: Jason Breed, Jay McBain, Gavriella Schuster, Todd Hussey, Brian Leonard.

If you decide to enrol in this program, we would greatly appreciate if you used our SEBSchool affiliate link. It helps us keep the podcast running at no additional cost to you.

Todd’s LinkedIn Profile

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Support the show

To stay up to date follow us on LinkedIn.

You can of course contact us on our social channels or by visiting our website: www.ChannelVoices.com

Subscribe to Channel Voices Scope, a monthly LinkedIn newsletter where we provide you with additional information accompanying the podcast. We hope you find this newsletter informative and useful for your career and organisation.

Until next time 👋