Grappling With Partners

This week’s entry is going to be a two-part piece that will explore Alliance Partnerships from the perspectives of both the upstart ISV (independent software vendor) as well as from that of the partner team on the Alliance side.  I’ll be tackling the ISV perspective with all of my usual grappling analogies and then I’ll be joined by my friend Jim Misuraca, formerly the Senior Director of Alliances and Channels at Oracle Marketing Cloud, who can talk about what it takes to break away from the pack when trying to achieve any level of notoriety and success with a company that has thousands of other ISVs, agencies, and other services providers all vying for their attention.   After wrapping up our Friday night comp class a couple of weeks ago our head instructor, Professor Ethan Snow, took a few minutes to share some knowledge that I thought particularly applicable to the discussion on how ISVs should engage with 800-pound gorilla Alliance Partners with whom we al...

Originally, I was going to use this week’s column to dive into some of the strategies and tactics surrounding Alliance Partners but then inspiration hit in the form of one of my favorite podcasts, “Hidden Brain.”   Last week’s episode focused on the concept of “rebel talent” and how nonconforming behaviors, when executed properly, and with sincerity of purpose, can lead to some incredible outcomes.   As I was listening to the discussion, I started to think about this concept both in terms of BJJ and partnerships and it struck me just how important this concept is to grow in both disciplines.   In BJJ, the innovators on the mats are those that didn’t conform to the rules that were set before them but who decided to take the foundation of knowledge they’d gained from their instructors and adapt that knowledge in a way that broke the rules and changed the dynamic of the way they engaged with their opponents.   Indeed, it was just such a rule-breaking...

Every week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at 1 pm Mountain Standard Time, some of the best grapplers in Colorado show up at my home gym of Easton BJJ Centennial for competition (comp) training.  During the hour that follows, and for those that are brave enough to throw their hats into the ring, you know that you're going to be physically, mentally, and emotionally tested as you go round after round on the mats against opponents who are looking to push their limits and find the outer limits of yours.  This hour is simultaneously exhilarating, exhausting, frustrating, painful, and euphoric and, on the occasions that I can make an appearance, it's easily one of my favorite times of any given week. Now, if you look at the pictures of the people that attend comp training, most observers would notice something immediately: not everyone in the room is created equal.  There are men and women; massive, physical specimens and those who are small of stature and slight of ...

While the saying in the above image is about as cliche in the BJJ world as the saying "you never lose, you either win or you learn" (I'm sure that one will make its way into a later post) it's also 100% true.  The truth is, being a white belt in BJJ, kinda sucks.  Anyone with any color on their belt is probably destroying you without a ton of effort, even the most basic moves feel like trying to solve a quantum physics equation, and your gas tank drains faster than a water through a spaghetti strainer. The good news, at least for those who persist, is that this period of sucking doesn't last long. The base of understanding you begin to build off each one of those times where things don’t go your way, as well as the ability to persist and stay patient, through periods where progression feels like it’s come to a standstill, creates the foundation upon which you build your BJJ “game.” In much the same way, building a successful partner program isn’t somethi...

This blog has been lingering in the back of my mind for some time and, now that it’s finally here, it probably makes sense to start at the beginning.  No, not at the beginning of my story, nor, Airplane-style, at the beginning of time, but at the beginning of my philosophy on partnerships and why I believe there’s a missing, and much-needed, skill-set hanging over the head of most mid-sized, marketing technology (martech) organizations and how they can begin developing a partner team that can become the strategic hub of the organization. Before we go too far, let’s quickly establish a couple of things: 1) the target audience for this blog and 2) why it’s called “Grappling With Partnerships” (GWP). First, the target audience for GWP is aimed squarely at anyone in corporate leadership who’s considering building/struggling to build a partner program, as well as anyone who works directly with partners, at the mid, to late-stage martech startups. When I refer to “startup”...