I bet your partner marketing revenue targets are higher for FY 26 than they were this year. I also bet you know you could drive this number if you could get more investment to help. And I bet your board says no anyway. I've been doing some research about why this is – and it has nothing to do with whether partner marketing works.

When we're trying to get investment in partners, it's important to understand that your VC investors are watching three numbers more closely than your revenue growth. These are the numbers that affect your company valuation and they therefore come first. Then comes revenue. And partner revenue makes up just one portion of overall revenue. So, it's easy to see why investment in partners is often difficult to achieve - it's nowhere near top of mind at board level.

The years of cheap money and 'growth at all costs,' have gone. When I was talking to a very senior partner sales leader recently, she said that VCs have fundamentally shifted what they're measuring and their focus. They could no longer buy, strip and flip and sell on. Now they are having to work the businesses they've bought to get a better return.

What a great article from Stephanie Sissler from Forrester!

In it, she shared some research (from Forrester) about a critical difference between vendors that succeed and vendors that don’t. And what is that critical difference….PAMs. Specifically, well-trained PAMs.

She goes on to explain, that PAMs are not the same as sales people - but for channel. The way they operate is different and the skills they need are different.

Stephanie mentions 3 skills that I really like and that resonate with the work we do at Archer.

It’s almost 6 years to the day since I started my channel marketing consultancy business. I chose She/Her as my business name at the time because it reflected the fact I was working for myself, it demonstrated my pronouns (which less people were using back then), and it spoke about the way I wanted to run my business – based on a more collaborative, partnership-based approach.

To the outside, your channel and partner marketing probably looks successful. You’ve got a bunch of partners signed up. You’ve got regular campaigns going out. You’ve probably got a partner portal. It might even have content in it! You’ve spent a fortune on your tech stack. You’re full of ideas that you want to implement. So why won’t your board spend more on your channel and partner marketing?

What I’m seeing right now in tech, and especially SaaS companies, is the constant pressure to do more, with less. And no surprise, this is especially the case in partner and channel marketing. Budgets are largely flat (despite sales looking like they are picking up…this doesn’t seem to be filtering through to marketing budgets right now!), buyer journeys are more complex than ever, and more people are looking for added value in every sale. In this environment, one thing is clear: partners and alliances are no longer optional – they’re central to growth.

I took part in a webinar recently which talked about the power of the channel and how partnering has become so important. On this call, Jay McBain, analyst for Canalys, described the last decade as being the ‘era of the ecosystem’.

The biggest problem in channel and partner marketing that I see at the moment is not a lack of activity. It’s an overwhelming amount of activity! Who has time to actually read all the emails we get? I know I am constantly saving things that look interesting ‘to read later’. But later never comes! We are all so busy, that having time to spend on learning about new stuff, even if it’s interesting, is increasingly hard. And on that note, if you haven’t got time to read this whole article, you can just cut to the bullet points at the bottom

I'm proud to be a Trustee of the Cirdan Sailing Trust and wrote up this piece after helping to sponsor a voyage in 2023. The Cirdan Trust provides sailing experiences for young people who are disadvantaged in some way to experience the challenge and adventure of life at sea on large sailing vessels.

I started Tech Giants to celebrate some of the great people I've worked with in the channel over the last 20 years and to share their wisdom and knowledge with others. I hope you enjoy reading about them! In this issue of Tech Giants I speak with Craig Hume, Managing Director, Utopia Computers.

I started Tech Giants to celebrate some of the great people I've worked with in the channel over the last 20 years and to share their wisdom and knowledge with others. I hope you enjoy reading about them! In this issue of Tech Giants I speak with Richard Tubb, IT Business Growth Expert, Tubblog.

I started Tech Giants to celebrate some of the great people I've worked with in the channel over the last 20 years and to share their wisdom and knowledge with others. I hope you enjoy reading about them! In this issue of Tech Giants I speak with David Tulip, Managing Director of Network Group.