Specializing in partner sales, Will Padman, Senior Account Manager Fintech at AWS (previously Partner Sales Manager), this conversation delves into the art of identifying aligned partners and building robust partner programs, to fostering long-term relationships that drive growth. Expect in-depth, practical advice for aspiring partner managers and a forward-looking perspective on emerging trends in the world of business partnerships.
Tell us a bit about your background and how you got into partner sales.
In recent times, you've known me, in my capacity as a partner sales manager within AWS. That focus was on working with start-ups and orchestrating how we interact with a fairly diverse partner community. Prior to that I was in a partner business development role at VMware for about four years, building channels strategy around global system integrators of the likes of Deloitte, IBM and DXC. My remit was to build channel franchises through those entities. I also spent close to 20 years at IBM in various roles which included working as a Global Product Manager developing product strategy, building solutions, and driving channels and Go to Market motions for the promotion of those solutions.
Working with partners has been part of my DNA for many years. Understanding the nuances, techniques and some of the strategies where we can unlock the capabilities of these partnerships is certainly something I've been exposed to, as well as influencing and pioneering customer offerings through these partner channels. The transition to AWS in the role of the Partner Sales Lead for start-ups has allowed me to draw upon these experiences and add some flavour to the manner in which we engage a partner community that includes investors, system integrators, ISV partners and influence partners.
How did you identify potential partners and ensure they aligned with your company's objectives and values in your roles at AWS and in your previous positions?
Building robust and trusted relationships is at the heart of identifying collaborative partnerships. More broadly, partnering really is the most efficient way of scaling a business in terms of resource capacity, experience, handling multiple opportunities at any one time, a channel is so important to create that outreach.
People sell to people. And it's those relationships that partners have that are based on their experience and networks and the way they engage in their partner community is the bridge to building those connections, making those relationships crucial to how you drive that growth. So when it comes to choosing a partner, it's a combination of the alignment of personality, culture, the ability to build enduring relationships and not just capability that should be considered.
Questions that should be asked include:
The creation of Partner Programs will facilitate the structure to better manage these relationships at scale.
These programs should create a clear path for the realization of profit for participants in order to attract and build your partner network. There would be a prerequisite for accreditations and certifications that need to be achieved in order to be a member of that program. But the programs are designed to support the scale of those businesses, so you'll find not just with AWS, but right across the industry. A successful partner ecosystem is built and sustained by ensuring that participants are able to build profitable businesses in their own right. Attract organizations that want to be associated with selling and supporting your services or technologies.
Consider industry and commercial sales experience, as well as flexibility.
Lived experience is a valuable commodity when it comes to building trusted relationships. The ability to build trust is enhanced if the partner can empathize with the customer experience and so identifying with somebody who's been through building a business from scratch is extremely valuable. That deeper understanding of what the customer is going through in terms of what it takes to build culture, attract people, build a process, create governance models, protect intellectual property, capture financial data and reporting to stakeholders, and understanding the shareholder community all contributes to critical experience in these engagements.
“Lived experience is a valuable commodity particularly when it comes to building trusted relationships.”
When it comes to how services and solutions are offered by prospective partners, consider how flexible those organizations are. Not everybody will be able to deliver everything, so knowing your limitations and having the flexibility to collaborate with other partners becomes really powerful, particularly when you’re working in smaller market segments. Taking the opportunity to white label somebody else's products or to productize your services in a way that makes them more consumable are characteristics worth exploring.
My advice would be to find those people and organizations that are willing to collaborate, to structure and shape their services in a way that they’re both affordable and meaningful in driving ultimate outcomes for your Customers.
Beyond relationship building, what strategies or practices have you found effective in maintaining successful partnerships?
It comes down to a philosophy of understanding that everybody's in business to do business, and that there's a commercial outcome with all of that. But you're not serving purely your own interests, be aware of where the opportunity might be to foster and develop some of those other relationships in the knowledge that they're going to help you. That becomes an important driver because that's more of a strategic look, it's a longer term proposition.
We are seeing a more pervasive use of artificial intelligence within business today but we still have a real need for human to human connection. And that will never go away. Even though this technology is going to help accelerate and drive greater efficiencies and greater productivity, we still need community working with community, and that's where I've been trying to build a strategy in order to create a greater resonance within the market as to the value of what we bring. It becomes more intangible, the quality of your products and the speed and the obsession you have with your customers and the ability to deliver the customer outcomes in a positive way.
You can look purely at commercial measures in terms of your success such as sales growth or market share, whatever the case may be. But this is the life essence of how you actually achieve those goals by fostering and using the gravity you create as a business to attract other people who want to collaborate in that market. And that gravity then attracts more people and more people.
But that’s not built on purely commercial success alone or technology superiority alone. It comes with the quality of the relationships and the culture that you build. And we model that within AWS around the series of leadership principles. Those ethical frameworks that you create for yourself and as a business also become important as long as they embrace not only the commercial impact you’re driving people to work for you, but also how you inspire the people in the markets you're selling to as well.
What characteristics do you believe are essential for a successful partner leader?
How have you seen partner leaders articulate the ongoing value of a partner strategy to C-level executives, especially when the benefits might not be immediately visible?
It comes down to how you value the experience. When I was working for IBM, I was running a global business and saw customers all across the world. And there were some certain synergies, differences in culture, and the way you sold services, solutions and products. How you value that experience is critical.
If you're in a C-level or executive role and don't necessarily see the value, you've got to put in terms of what experience is being brought to the table to assist you, and how do you unlock the value of that experience? You can learn from your mistakes on your own. But you'd be a lot wiser if you benefited from the mistakes other people had made to help accelerate that journey.
Mentors can be driven by people that have very unique experiences or people that have been around for a very long time. So that comes in different shapes, flavors and forms as well.
A good illustration of this can be found back in the 1970s and 1980s when Wang Laboratories was a force to be reckoned with in the IT Industry. Wang had built a closed loop system of technologies that didn’t allow for innovation outside of that environment. Upon the death of Dr Wang the business went through a period of transition that ended in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. In parallel, IBM, Microsoft and Cisco built collaborative relationships that spawned an ecosystem of collaborations, technologies and innovations through their Partner community that still endure today. In the twenty-first century, AWS has built upon this construct by building a culture of innovation through customer collaboration and partnering programs.
Have you seen businesses in the start-up world successfully partner with venture capitalists (VCs)? If so, what value do you think such partnerships bring?
I have, and speaking purely in the context of where we are at AWS because that's very relevant. The investor community is really important to ask because they help evaluate and qualify opportunities. The investments they make go through a protocol of evaluating the founders and their capacity to sell an idea and their ability to deliver an outcome.
The process involves doing that evaluation that gets us closer to the mark of potentially successful customers. So, that relationship from a business development perspective is vital for us, but in a symbiotic way. We support that motion because we're then making investments in those customers. That will help us accelerate the outcomes that the VCs are wanting to see and the growth in those investments. And we're also putting our money on the table, not taking equity, so we're not diluting the benefit of the VC. We're building longer-term relationships back to the whole community model that are going to resonate over the years, rather than weeks and months.
We don’t see ourselves as the core component of that, but we are very much an influencer in bringing this community together. There's a gravity we create that just by sheer scale, size, and even the innovation that we've been able to deliver over the years, creates a differentiated opportunity to engage and it's all built in and around how you build momentum and scale. You may have the greatest idea on the planet but if you don't have a community that believes in what you're doing to help you scale, that idea may never go anywhere.
There is an anecdote that Dr. Wang had created a fabulous IoT platform, back in the 70s or the 80s: A closed loop system that didn't really integrate with anything else and you had to buy all the peripherals and engineered connected network solutions. The business didn't last and ended up folding because they weren't able to drive that resonance in a market that it was something that everybody needed. Whereas Microsoft took a very different approach and built very extensive partner networks and capabilities and managed to expand what they were doing tremendously.
What trends do you see emerging in business partnerships?
People are appreciating the value of their data in the digital age and technologies, like AI and machine learning, and even generative AI, unlocks the value of that data in a more time friendly, efficient way where you can get insights and potentially monetize that data itself.
In order to monetize, you need data exchanges and you will need marketplaces, so you will need to partner regardless in order to promote that. We're currently looking at businesses doing that, but ultimately, it'll be individuals that'll be trading their personal data as well. So that'll be something that will unfold very, very, very, very quickly.
Do you think marketplaces will become more widely adopted in the next 5-10 years for business transactions and partnerships? Specifically, do you see businesses increasingly using diverse marketplaces as a standard way to find partners and conduct transactions?
With the increasing synchronization of programming and the ability to use APIs to connect different technologies, transacting business is becoming much easier. This evolution is similar to the transformation seen in online shopping. Essentially, this shift means that business transactions are becoming more like online shopping experiences. In this scenario, financial risk and fulfillment are managed by third parties, similar to what Amazon does with its AWS Marketplace. This third-party management makes transactions faster and provides access to technologies that have been modularized or productized for easy consumption.
Offering services in a solution form that clearly outlines deliverables and price points is crucial. Marketplaces serve as a vehicle to facilitate these transactions. While customization is always possible, the efficiency of engaging with a global marketplace is significantly enhanced. Innovators and creatives from across the globe can now offer their products and services to a worldwide audience almost instantaneously. This capability exists today and is expected to become even more prevalent in the future.
That's my forward-looking perspective on the impact of these technological advancements.
What has been the most rewarding aspect of your role in partnerships and can you share a piece of advice for aspiring partner managers and leaders?
The most rewarding aspect of my career has been the success and connections I've built, along with the recognition for the knowledge and perspective I've brought to the table. Over the years, I've had the opportunity to pioneer technologies that have become mainstream. For instance, I hold patents for early rapid deployment of cloud solutions, developed years before such solutions became common. I worked with a large system integrator to build a unique multi-tenant cloud solution, which earned global awards. It was my idea and drive that initially sparked these innovations. I suppose you could say I'm a bit of a pyromaniac in that regard—I'm very good at starting a fire.
Being regarded as a mentor is also incredibly rewarding. I've had numerous customers express a desire for me to sit on their boards and advise them, though this often presents a conflict of interest with my current role. Nevertheless, such requests are a form of acknowledgment that my efforts have had significant value.
Seek out experiences and opportunities to learn new things daily: I'm a firm believer that life is about the journey, not just the destination. Setting goals is important, but the experiences gained along the way often prove to be more valuable than the original goals. Engage in activities that push you out of your comfort zone, as the rewards are overwhelmingly positive. Both good and bad experiences contribute to your personal and professional growth, making you more valuable and authentic in your ability to offer advice.
In a partnering role, know how to identify the right connections: Understand who to bring together, and who to keep apart. It's about directing traffic, creating a fun and creative environment, and ensuring commercial profitability for all parties involved. This ability to meaningfully connect and collaborate with others is key to making a significant impact in the partnership space.
At Think & Grow, we work with founders to source and leverage partnerships in the new markets they're looking to expand into to make their market entry a success. Get in touch to see how we can help.
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ARTICLE by Aisling Curley, Head of Partnerships and Ecosystems, 1 October 2024
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