In this episode of SaaS Connect by Cloud Software Association, Ryan Walsh, Channel Chief and Chief Product Officer of Pax8—with its 3,000 partners, 200 employees, 20 vendors, and 900 supported products—shares how the company grew when it added the channel, and how you can, too.
Some of the points that are discussed in this profitable presentation include:
- Why do you need a channel? There are a few reasons, the primary one being scale and reach, and other reasons such as the shift to the cloud which is being driven by customers. IDC (the global market intelligence firm) found that MSPs with >50% revenue from cloud offerings outperform those with less.
- Channel cloud opportunities and where they’re coming from.
- The definition of a channel (essentially, this is a route to market for IT products or services).
- Five lessons from tapping into the channel, and what you can learn from them:
- Commit long-term to the IT channel, i.e. 18 months. Don’t walk away because it’s not profitable immediately. That’s not to say you won’t make money during that time, but things start happening at the 18-month mark. For instance, they noticed that they were helping channel partners sell their products to their customers. 18 months is the amount of time that lets the channel community know you're in, you're committed, and you're staying positive.
- Build a partner management console.
- Support a monthly billing term. Stay away from anniversary billing. Make it simple.
- Provide APIs for provisioning and billing.
- Partner with channel experts, such as channel communities, cloud marketplaces, integration partners, and new distribution partners.
- What made Pax8 successful while others struggled?
Resources Mentioned:
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