Webinars are back. According to a recent report from Crossbeam, webinar utilization is now back to pre-pandemic levels and continues to grow. But as soon as I tell you that, you’re immediately reminded of the fact that your last webinar saw just 25 registrants and only a few attendees, right? If everyone’s doing webinars again, they must be seeing some success, so how do we get there? How do we drive more qualified leads from webinars, and what’s their proper place in our funnel? That’s what we’...
Mar 12, 2024•47 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Warren Buffet once said, “Partnership is not a legal contract between two equal individuals. It’s an emotional alliance between two people who are committed to each other’s success.” And that’s true, isn’t it? Whether you’re new to strategic partnerships or have been doing this for years, you doubtless understand that your most successful endeavors have been due to the relationships you forged with your partners. But as the field of partnerships has grown in recent years, so too has the challeng...
Jan 29, 2024•41 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Would your organization benefit from a global network of reseller partnerships? In a time when marketing budgets are shrinking and global economies are in turmoil, having resellers on the ground in various regions and countries who have already established a trusted relationship with your target audience is a real asset. But such a network isn’t tossed together overnight. Where do we start, and how do we grow and scale reseller partnerships to levels like what Snap has accomplished? That’s what ...
Jan 22, 2024•32 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Because events are not only great for lead generation, but also for attendees to learn about you as much as other attendees, they’re a hot bed for growth and opportunity. And like all marketing and sales motions, events are even better with partners. How can we use events to go to market with partners, and what does that even look like? That’s what we’re covering in our first episode of Partnership Unpacked, season two! Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked , where I selfishly use this time to pi...
Jan 15, 2024•33 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Every episode of the classic Western TV Show, The Lone Ranger, started out, "With his faithful Indian companion Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early west. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. The Lone Ranger rides again!" And throughout the decades since, the concept of working alone has often been equated with being a Lone Ranger. And we’ve used that phrase here on this very show. But it’s a bit of a misno...
Dec 04, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Through the first three quarters of 2023 in the U.S., over 170,000 tech workers have been laid off. Now, more than ever, it’s critical for partnership teams to be focused on the right initiatives and have plans in place to measure and demonstrate success. How do we prioritize the right partners? Where are strategic partnerships headed in the coming years, and how do we define success? That’s what Tai Rattigan is here to help us with. Tai is a giant in the partnership space having built teams at ...
Nov 27, 2023•52 min•Season 1Ep. 49
One of the keys to successful partnerships is the creation of great content. You might not always equate partnerships with content, but the fact is, the partnership space is filled with content-filled satellites such as onboarding, case studies, pitches, white papers, reports, sales introductions, books, and of course the more obvious rockets such as blog posts, eBooks and webinars. Each one an opportunity to partner with a colleague within your organization, or a partnership leader from another...
Nov 20, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 48
B2B SaaS companies all have a shared challenge: Helping their customers actually succeed with their product. You can have all the help videos and tutorials in the world, but sometimes customers want someone else to do the work and for that, they’re going to turn to an agency. Should we partner with agencies? What should that look like? That’s what Franz-Josef Schrepf is here to help us with. During the height of the pandemic and everyone’s rush to leverage online events, Franz stood up Hopin's c...
Nov 13, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Are you the only partnership professional in your organization? Are you struggling to demonstrate value to your team and organizational leadership? Are you tired of recruiting new partners only to see those relationships fizzle out? That’s what Cory Snyder is here to help us with. Cory is the VP of Partnerships at Sendoso and has been in this industry for decades. He’s seen new technology and new mindsets be developed and, all the while, maintained his commitment to excellence and successful met...
Nov 09, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 46
How do you successfully scale a partner ecosystem with hundreds of partners? We talked about starting a marketplace of partners for your business in a previous episode, but what happens when your early success translates into increased demand and a slew of new partners? There are app ecosystems in the MarTech space that have grown to thousands of partners and integrations. How did they get to that level of success? That’s what Greg Karelitz is here to help us with. Greg is the Global Director of...
Oct 30, 2023•49 min•Season 1Ep. 45
One of the key tenets of our podcast here is the fact that there are a lot of different kinds of partnerships out there. Affiliates, influencers, tech integrations… and of course sales and marketing. Which means one of the challenges facing B2B businesses is knowing which kind or kinds of partnerships to pursue. Wouldn’t it be great to learn how other B2B SaaS companies are leveraging partnerships today? That’s what Kate Skerrett is here to help us with. Kate is the Head of Partnerships for Cale...
Oct 23, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 44
In 2008, Apple launched the App Store for their iPhone product and for the first time, allowed 3rd party developers to build apps for their OS and charge associated fees. In 2022, that ecosystem generated $1.1 trillion in developer billing and sales, and has driven hundreds of billions of dollars for developers. That ecosystem is now the most lucrative aspect of Apple’s business, and a model for partnership that many businesses would love to emulate. How would something like that work for your b...
Oct 16, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 43
Have you ever vouched for someone only to have them fall well short of the mark? How’d that make you feel? Disappointed? Embarrassed? How likely would you be to recommend that person again, and, worse yet, how would your recommendation be received in the future? That’s the kind of problem that can occur when you don’t have buy-in from your internal stakeholders and your own organization when you kick off a partnership with another company. You might make promises on behalf of your company to a p...
Oct 09, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 42
If you want to become a creator and influencer today, you have a tremendous number of options when it comes to platforms and formats. Do you focus on short-form content on X or Threads? Do you spend your time crafting vertical videos for TikTok or YouTube Shorts? Or do you invest more time in long form video content for YouTube, or even podcasts like this one? And regardless of which platform and format you choose, you will have an opportunity to reach a global audience and international brands ...
Oct 02, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 41
How is your revenue team doing? Did they miss their numbers last period? Are they frustrated with a lack of qualified leads and pipeline? Are they looking to partnerships, and to YOU, for help? That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked. Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked , where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too...
Sep 25, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 40
“The Sumo Advantage is… alignment with a major market force, capability, or accelerator with the intent to generate revenue and grow market share. It’s a partnership that drives momentum and revenue growth and is, most importantly, a clear and present danger to your competition.” That’s a quote from Bernie Brenner’s book, The Sumo Advantage, and it describes a scenario where a smaller brand is able to forge a partnership with a much, much larger brand, that’s still mutually beneficial. How do yo...
Sep 18, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 39
In 2022, Google announced that their Analytics product would have an entirely new version by Summer 2023, and that all brands would need to update and change. The year before that, it was announced that the mechanism most marketers used to track website visitor activity, cookies, would be going away. In those instances, we had advance notice that change was coming. With disruptive technologies like AI, change is thrust upon us seemingly overnight, with CMOs and partnership leaders struggling to ...
Sep 11, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 38
Just like launching a rocket into space requires a tremendous amount of initial energy to achieve lift-off, launching a new influencer marketing campaign with brand new influencers takes a tremendous amount of work. But, once a rocket achieves a certain altitude, gravitational forces sheer away and the rocket can continue moving out into space on pure momentum. Influencer marketing can work the same way! What if you could leverage ongoing relationships and amplify existing content and motions to...
Sep 04, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 37
I’ve been blogging about social media and the various networks since 2011, and have had a front-row seat as change after change change was pushed upon us as marketers and we had to scramble to learn and adapt. New social networks cropping up. Old social networks shutting down. New best practices to learn. Old best practices to forget. And throughout, it’s been even more complicated for influencers and the brands who want to leverage them, as they seek to navigate these changes and more. So what ...
Aug 28, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 36
Relationships are everything. That’s been the resounding theme throughout every episode of this podcast. From developing strategic brand partnerships, to working with brilliant influencers, every guest has stressed how important it is to develop key relationships. What they haven’t said though is how important personal branding is to that endeavor. Whether you’re a seasoned marketing executive or an up-and-coming B2B influencer, personal branding is essential for establishing critical connection...
Aug 21, 2023•28 min•Season 1Ep. 35
Artificial intelligence is transforming the way brands market, advertise and partner with one another. AI platforms are disrupting traditional approaches with data-driven personalization, automation and scale. But many companies are struggling to leverage AI's full potential. Partnerships that seemed obvious on the surface have failed to generate results, while opportunities to collaborate with complementary AI providers are overlooked. Without a clear strategy for determining the right partners...
Aug 14, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 34
Every once in a while, there’s an advancement in technology so profound that it impacts every aspect of human life and productivity. Automotives. Airplanes. Computer processors. And now, Artificial Intelligence... AI. While AI isn’t new, recent developments have vastly improved and accelerated mainstream adoption of AI capabilities and enhancements - so much so that it can be, admittedly, overwhelming to keep up and understand how it’s impacting areas of importance to us, such as partnerships an...
Aug 07, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 33
85% of respondents to a recent survey by Converge reported that brand visibility is the overall goal for content amplification. At the same time, the majority of those surveyed reported they had neither the time nor the resources to accomplish what they wanted. That’s a problem. CMOs today understand the importance of content marketing for establishing brand authority and driving traffic & sales, but for some reason there’s always a roadblock between content creation and content amplificatio...
Jul 31, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 32
You have a new partner! That’s awesome! What’s next? How do we make sure that the partnership and the relationship continues forward in a positive, constructive way? How do we set this partner up for success and, at the same time, make sure that our time is spent as efficiently as possible so that we can bring on more and more partners and drive more revenue? That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked. Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked , where I selfishly use this t...
Jul 24, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 31
You’ve likely heard the phrase “Success breeds success,” but you may not have heard the full quote from Felicity Kendal where she said, “Success breeds success, and failure leads to a sort of fallow period.” I found that interesting because, often, success too can lead to a sort of fallow period. A time where we thought we should be thrilled and celebrating our victories but perhaps found ourselves even more overwhelmed. Even more stressed. And struggling even more with imposter syndrome. If you...
Jul 17, 2023•51 min•Season 1Ep. 30
By now you’ve no doubt seen how incredible generative AI can be at helping to create outlines, emails, scripts and articles. And the imagery and video that AI is capable of producing is advancing swiftly. But all of that content is based on creative work that already exists, and that could potentially include your work! Is that something you need to protect yourself against? Where do you even start? That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked. Welcome back to Partnershi...
Jul 10, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 29
CMOs and Partnership Leaders today are facing increasing amounts of pressure. Pressure to do more with less. Pressure to show their stakeholders, internal and external, real results. Pressure to take their partner programs to the next level. All the books and courses and webinars in the world can’t help if you don’t have the right mindset. So where do we begin? That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked. Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked , where I selfishly use this...
Jul 03, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 28
In the early 2000’s, when I was the sales manager for a local IT company in Ohio, I needed to meet and build relationships with other business owners in the area so that when they had an IT need come up, like upgrading their server or expanding their network, my company and I were top of mind. So I attended weekly breakfast networking meetings, and showed up at fundraisers and other community events. I spent time getting to know the people in my community. Fast forward to today and most of us ar...
Jun 26, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 27
Robin Dimond once said to me , “Partnerships are a long term relationship. You don’t expect to wife up right away. Same thing with a partnership. You have to work that relationship and really get to know them on every level.” But in today’s world of short form video and voice texting and Slack messages… how do we really get to know partners and potential partners? Are long term relationships really that important? Isn’t it easier and more efficient to focus on processes and workflows and other a...
Jun 19, 2023•44 min•Season 1Ep. 26
Imagine who a few of the biggest brands are in your industry. Got a few companies in mind? Now imagine you’re responsible for working with them on partnerships that measure revenue in the millions of dollars. Where do you start? How do you keep on top of it all? That’s what we’re covering in today’s episode of Partnership Unpacked. Welcome back to Partnership Unpacked , where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influenc...
Jun 12, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 25
