John (00:01.608)
Well, hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Partnership Path in Real Life. I am super excited to have Oliver on with us today. Oliver, it’s great to have you on our podcast. First time for you. But before we get going, let me let you introduce yourself to our audience. Tell us a little bit about who you are and how long you’ve been working with partners.

Oliver (00:22.86)
Yeah, thanks, John. And firstly, thanks for inviting me in. I want to say EQ Selling is fantastic. I’ve enjoyed the podcast. The whole complex made simple piece really resonates with me. So yeah, great to be here. So I’m the Amir channel sales leader for an organization called Lytics. So we focus on the safety of organizations through intelligent dash cam type technologies. I’ve been working in the channel for just over three years now, but have an extensive background in direct enterprise selling.

John (00:33.416)
Great. Yeah.

Oliver (00:52.622)
So this was a role that the organization put me into and it’s been fantastic for the last three years. Really, really good.

John (00:53.032)
Okay.

John (00:59.454)
So you and I have kind of a similar path here. I spent a big chunk of my career in direct as well before I got involved with indirect. So yeah, I have feeling we have some similar war stories we could tell about that in terms of that transition. All right, so this episode is, we want to talk about competitive mindshare.

Oliver (01:15.032)
Yeah, 100%.

John (01:21.278)
I know, so Tony and I just did our episode talking a little bit about the theory of growing competitive mindshare. I know you listened to it. So let’s just start with, you know, what was it in that episode that resonated for you or stood out for you and kind of made you think?

Oliver (01:21.518)
Okay.

Oliver (01:39.266)
Yeah, it was the competing priorities piece. Like that’s a huge piece for me. It’s trying to really allow the partners, the individuals you’re engaging with, see that they need to be spending more time with you when they have all of these other priorities in the background. That’s just a, it’s a huge challenge out there, right? Because a lot of the businesses that we deal with, they’re selling five, six, seven, eight different things as well as what we do. So getting to the top of the stack is always the kind of thing that you’re thinking about when you get up in the morning.

John (01:45.169)
Yeah.

John (01:55.198)
That’s right.

John (02:09.202)
Yeah, it’s really hard, right? mean, so this is exactly why we do these kinds of episodes, Oliver, is to get someone like you on and to say, okay, it’s really hard, but how do you do it? Like, what are some of the tips and tricks that you have that, I mean, it can’t just be thinking about it in the morning. So then how does that turn into action for you? What does that look like?

Oliver (02:22.936)
Mm-hmm.

Oliver (02:34.284)
Yeah, I think one of the biggest mistakes I think I made when I started this was the assumption that the partners are prioritizing everything that I’m doing, everything that I’m talking about. Like you get into these tools and they’re like spending time with you. like, this is great. And you think I’ve nailed it. No, they’re in. But they’re not, they don’t think about that. They’re thinking about average recurring revenue. They’re thinking about what elements can I sell out of my technology stack to get ahead this quarter? They’re thinking about sometimes our competitors.

John (02:43.9)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oliver (03:03.778)
right? And how they fit better into the profile of a client that they’re selling into than we do. so there’s a couple of things that I think about, it’s definitely being super aligned to the partners, business priorities, right? Just understanding them deeply and not just understanding them from a top level, understanding what they mean, but understanding what they mean to the individuals you’re engaging with, right? How does that impact you as an individual? the other thing that I learned is, channels complex.

John (03:18.035)
Yeah.

John (03:26.386)
Right.

Oliver (03:33.41)
Right. It can be super complex. So if you’re selling them a solution that doesn’t seem simple, they’re going to struggle and they’re going to go elsewhere. And they’re going to go down the road. The path of least resistance is something I always talk about to my team. They’re going to take the path of least resistance because it’s easier to do. It’s easier to say yes to the client. can do that versus trying to re-envision their mindset to take them towards what we do. And then the third piece that I always

John (03:33.928)
Yep. Yep.

John (03:39.88)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Oliver (04:03.298)
focus in on is creating this first call culture within our partnership. So regardless of whether it’s us or the competition that they are going to be positioning this deal at the end of the day, when they have a challenge relating to what we do, we better be the first people that they call. We better be giving them that confidence that we want to speak to. Yeah, exactly. okay, we’ve got this specific opportunity that pertains to something that these eight different organizations I work with

John (04:20.914)
Right? first call. Okay. Got it.

Oliver (04:32.908)
to do, but I’m going to call Oliver from Lytics because I know that he helped me on this specific opportunity before and I trust him.

John (04:33.822)
Yeah.

John (04:37.33)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it’s not something that they think of you, your solution as being tied in, right? That you’re talking about really building a trusted advisor relationship with that partner so that you’re a business advisor to them on almost everything, if possible, right? Anything that they, want to be the first guy they think of when they have a problem. Right? That’s good.

Oliver (04:54.243)
Mm-hmm.

Oliver (05:02.353)
Yeah. Yeah, it’s interesting because in our world, we are competing with vendors in the market that are also competing with vendors that are not part of the partnership, right? So there’s like, it’s like the competition that our partners work with today, but then there’s a competition that our partners don’t work with. So many times they call up and say, you know, I want you to help me on specifically in Europe, some privacy narrative to go in and sell against a specific competitor and

John (05:13.32)
That’s right.

John (05:28.616)
Yeah. Yeah.

Oliver (05:30.562)
That’s great, right? Because one, you’re learning about the opportunities and two, you’re able to start to get some of your narrative that you trust into their mindset. So.

John (05:38.172)
Yep. Right. Yeah, that’s super powerful. Look, Oliver, said we could do an entire episode on each of the three things that you talked about, right? And one of the things that just really stood out to me, given the kind of work that I do, is that so many people who are in that kind of channel role, it’s really easy to lose sight of the fact that the partner is partnering with you at all.

Oliver (05:48.728)
Yeah.

Oliver (06:07.448)
Mm-hmm.

John (06:07.752)
for a reason for their business. Like they’re running a business and they chose you for a particular reason. It’s not happenstance. And so when we treat it like it’s expected or that we don’t need to re-earn that over and over again, we lose sight. That’s when the competitors come in and take Mindshare from us because we get lazy.

Oliver (06:11.48)
Yes.

John (06:37.534)
forgetting that we need to remind the partner all the time, this is the value we bring to your business. Like this is why we’re partnering together, because it’s good for you. And it’s hard to do, it’s hard to constantly remember that.

Oliver (06:49.09)
Yeah. I can’t remember it was, I heard you speak about this or whether somebody else did. I need to figure out where it came from, but the concept. it was great. It was great. I think it was you. So it’s this concept of channel credits. I just, I’m, it stays in my mind. It’s like you’re with the partners, you’re earning credits, you’re earning channel credits, you’re going in, you’re helping them support pitch. You do it very well and you get the reactions you want from a client. You’ve earned some credits.

John (06:58.342)
If it was good, it was probably me. But if it wasn’t, OK, then it was probably me. Yeah, yeah.

John (07:07.047)
Uh-huh.

John (07:11.133)
Yeah.

John (07:19.219)
Yeah.

Oliver (07:19.394)
something goes in the wrong direction, you use some of those credits, you know, because like I did a good job over here and then you earn some more right over here because you want to deal together or whatever. And it’s stacking those channel credits up. And if you’re empty, you know, if your tank’s gone, the bank’s empty, it’s a challenge because their mind is elsewhere. So that concept of channel credits, I think is just an easy way to think about how you earn it with your partners.

John (07:23.516)
Yeah, yeah.

John (07:43.462)
I really like that. I wish I could take credit for that, but I can’t. It wasn’t me, but it will be from here forward. I am going to use that. That’s actually a really good way to think about it. And I would only modify what you said by it’s not only bad to get to zero, but it’s even worse when you over withdraw, right? When you have a negative balance, then you’re in a world of hurt for, and if we flip the script there,

Oliver (07:46.574)
Hahaha

Thank

John (08:12.518)
when we talk about trying to grow competitive mindshare, we’re looking for those other relationships our partner has who are in negative credits so that we can jump in and say, hey, maybe you want to spend that over here with me.

Oliver (08:28.27)
Yeah. Yeah. 100%. And you can do it with individuals as well. Right. If you think about managing the Salesforce of your partners, you can think about the different credits you have with each individual. Right. These guys are running a big deal at the moment. So I’m spending a lot of time with them. Am I neglecting this other team over here that may be impacting my Q3 and Q4? So you have to think about those things. You don’t want to be caught, um, short handed with your channel credits when you get into the latter quarters of the year, because you have been spending too much time with some of the individuals.

John (08:32.862)
Yeah.

John (08:46.364)
Yeah. Yeah.

John (08:56.7)
Right. Yeah, it’s a good, it’s potentially a good way to think about prioritization too, right? Like if you only have so many credits, where am I gonna spend them to get the best return off of those credits, right? Yeah. Love that. All right, what else? Anything else in that episode that kind of stood out for you that, I don’t know, that just made you laugh or, you know, whatever. Anything interesting for you there?

Oliver (09:09.324)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Oliver (09:24.812)
Yeah, well, it’s the whole farming analogy, John. I’m always interested in those sort of things, but I think it’s good, right? think just thinking about the weeds growing, thinking about the rabbits stealing the radishes. Again, you have to think about these things in a story and you have to have your mind in a place where it makes sense to you so you can react in the right way.

John (09:28.232)
Ha

Oliver (09:47.202)
And if you’re not, again, it comes back to this channel credit piece. It will escape you and you’ll be behind. then all the hard work that you’ve done to get to that point disappears very quickly, a lot quicker than in the direct world, because they have significant other options that are easier to do business with because they’ve done business with them before versus in the direct world, if they’re looking to move away from an incumbent, but they’re still monitoring the market and evaluating other businesses.

John (10:06.654)
Yeah. Yeah.

Oliver (10:15.158)
and you do something wrong, you have other ways to kind of get back in there.

John (10:19.742)
Yeah, this was one of the things for me coming out of a direct world into the indirect world that I found super transferable was this idea in the gardening analogy, I think is is we tried to stress that in the episode is that just because you can’t see the competition who’s coming after your mind share with this partner doesn’t mean they’re not there. They are. And and those are the worst ones are the ones that you can’t see.

Whether that’s, you know, using the garden analogy, whether that’s a rabbit at night that, you know, sneaks in and breaks through your fence, or it’s the weeds that are growing just under the surface or whatever. But the good ones out there, the good vendors out there, their channel sales managers, partner development managers, those guys are, they’re working hard to sneak up on you and take Mindshare away from you. So it’s not just about where can I take Mindshare? It’s also about how do I make sure and protect

the mind share I’ve already got that I can’t get lazy on.

Oliver (11:20.546)
Yeah. Yeah. You talked about, kind of differentiating the value prop, like thinking differently about the competition is saying, so we’re not just this feature feature feature. This is how we’re going to transform your organization. And this is why you should spend more time with me than the competition and figuring out what those stories are and how those stories resonate with the partner is significantly important because it’s not the same throughout every partner that you’re engaging with. And.

John (11:38.216)
Yeah. Yeah.

John (11:47.41)
Yeah, that’s right.

Oliver (11:50.23)
I would say to the team was talking to the team recently talking about like banking two or three stories that resonate with each partner that you can perfect. And you can tell over and over of they hire somebody new or if they have a new sub reseller that we need to engage, have those stories ready that are going to really quash the competition so that you can be that first call.

John (12:01.224)
Yeah. Yeah.

John (12:11.164)
Yeah. Well, it ties back to, think it was your first point, which is you have to understand the partner’s business. You have to understand what it is that they’re trying to do as a business. The only way those stories resonate is if they are relevant to what that organization is actually trying to accomplish. And I think that’s another thing that my experience as a lot of channel people struggle with is just being willing to ask the partner, hey, what, you know,

What are you trying to do as a business? where are you guys trying to grow? Like, don’t tell me what I want to hear, because we all know partners do that. They will tell us, you know, we want to be the best Linux partner in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But how are you trying to grow your business? Like, what do you talk about when I’m not in the room? How does that work, right?

Oliver (12:56.856)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And I think, like, what does it mean to you as an individual as well? Like the people you’re engaging, like, how is this going to make you more successful in your space? And I think like, can help you get there just because those, those priorities, I always talk about, like moral versus emotional, like moral is that I’m trying to do what I’m doing for the business. I’ve got a good moral compass and I care about the organization I work with. And then emotional is like, this is what I want to do in my

John (13:04.53)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Oliver (13:25.742)
This is how I want to get ahead and and those things as well can be super powerful They get you an exponential amount of channel credits if you can nail them

John (13:26.6)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

for sure.

Yeah, yeah, we break it down. We talk in our training about there are business motivators, which to you is that moral motivator. We talk about personal motivators, which is, you know, I want to spend more time with my family. I want to retire in three years. And then we talk about political motivators. And by that, we mean internal organizational motivators, right? Like I want a promotion or I want to get out of indirect and indirect.

Oliver (13:46.381)
Yeah.

Oliver (13:54.85)
Mm-hmm.

John (14:03.534)
or vice versa, or there’s all that internal navigation stuff. And of course, those are the hardest ones to uncover are those political ones. But man, that’s where the real credits lie if you can uncover those, right? That’s how we make competitive mindshare super solid.

Oliver (14:21.55)
Yeah, well, if you’re going to take the credits from me to use, I’m going to use that. love that. The three areas. It’s fantastic.

John (14:26.674)
Please, please do. Yeah, we talk about from a stakeholder management and you’ve teed this up so well that it’s not just organizationally, it is personal. It’s not just that the company is trying to do something, but then every individual that you’re working with has their own agenda. And so we talk a lot about how important it is to understand the motivating factors of the stakeholders that you’re working with. And

Oliver (14:38.318)
Hmm.

John (14:54.554)
It’s funny, was, was, when you mentioned this a few minutes ago, I was going to bring this up. can remember being in a couple of different trainings where, you know, we’ve talked about those business motivators, you know, how, well, like, how’s this guy compensated? What, what’s his bonus structure look like? And they’re like, I can’t ask him that. You’re like, well, why not? Right? Like, like, that’s part of the partnership is to be able to say, Hey, look, I want to make sure you get your bonus. So,

Oliver (15:11.35)
Yeah.

John (15:20.232)
Help me understand what that looks like. And then let’s figure out if our partnership can actually contribute to that. Like, there’s nothing wrong with that conversation, but I think less experienced channel people are a little bit nervous about asking those questions.

Oliver (15:33.538)
Yeah, I think those questions build credibility as well, right? Because these partners, these people are in these dynamics as well. They’re having partners or other organizations come to them and you can’t leave those things out because if you leave them out, somebody else is asking those questions. So you have to do it.

John (15:37.17)
For sure.

John (15:54.536)
Yeah, and which also means it’s two ways, right? You got to be willing to share your own structure as well. Rich is, look, I’ll be super frank with you. This is what I care about. you know, I get comped on this. So everything I’m going to try and push you towards, I’ll be really frank, is going to try and drive this. You know, I mean, that’s the reality of partnership.

Oliver (15:58.877)
Yeah.

Oliver (16:11.02)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a good one actually. think there’s nothing better. I mean, you think about direct sales, you go, there’s nothing better than signing a deal on 31st of December and hitting your quota for the year type thing. There’s like that whole sort of analogy there, but actually in the partner world, there’s nothing better than exposing those thoughts with things to a partner that matters and seeing them fight for you in an opportunity in a specific quarter. You know, that’s where you can see where you’ve built relationships. And I’ve had that recently.

John (16:33.138)
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

Oliver (16:41.614)
where I’ve built a very good relationship with one of the senior stakeholders within a partner. And we’ve talked about these things, you know, on quite an emotive level and just fighting for each other in those scenarios, both when it’s good and when it’s bad. That’s great. You’re in the trenches, you’re doing it, you’re forming relationships, you’re creating stories, you know.

John (16:55.474)
That’s right.

Yeah. Well, Oliver, it’s pretty clear that you and I could sit here and chat for a long time, but we try and keep these episodes relatively short. And so we’re at time. Let me just give you one last shot. Is there any last piece of advice around competitive mind share and kind of keeping track of that and trying to grow it that you’d give to our audience before we close?

Oliver (17:22.508)
Yeah, I think the concept of being a strategic enabler versus a vendor is huge. It’s basically what we’ve just talked about there. It’s like, how are you enabling those individuals in front of you? so I think that is super, super important in channel. I think also education, right? Getting into EQ selling podcasts, know, spending time with it, understanding the nuances, even coming from a direct selling environment into indirect is leveraging.

John (17:27.952)
Mm. Yeah. Yep.

Oliver (17:51.5)
like resources that you’re putting out there, John. So I think that’s super, super important because specifically the world that we’re in, always adapting, always changing, new competition coming in, new options for our partners. So you’ve got to stay ahead by being a strategic enabler, but also learning these tips and tricks to be able to have influence.

John (18:11.762)
That’s excellent. Oliver, thank you so much for taking the time to spend with us here on this episode. Really love it. And we’re going to try and have you back another time and have you talk more.

Oliver (18:21.464)
Great, John. Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

John (18:24.072)
Thanks much.