Validating and deploying a joint solution can often start to drag far past intended deadlines. The usual technical, marketing, and bureaucratic issues any deployment face increasing exponentially within alliances.
But that doesn't have to be the case, says Joan Morales, Director of Partner & Technology Alliances at Nutanix.
Consistently, his team has managed to validate joint solutions in a matter of weeks.
How? He has an incredible methodology.
On our Alliance Aces Podcast, Joan gave us his 4 keys to establishing a rapid joint-solution deployment model within every alliance.
First Step: Identify the 3 Must-Have Alliance Champions
In each alliance, your partner has 3 champions you must immediately identify:
- The marketing champion, who wants more pipeline.
- The business champion, who wants to scale the relationship.
- The tech champion, who wants to validate the solution as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Identify these 3 key individuals, enable and empower them, and focus your energy and resources on them.
Second Step: Systemize Each Segment of Your Onboarding
For Joan, he’s systemized the entire process of bringing on a partner.
Business onboarding usually takes 2 weeks, and that includes signing the agreement, having it approved from any legal perspective, and identifying necessary stakeholders (and the 3 champions).
Technical onboarding is a standard 1 to 2 weeks, which includes a valuation.
Marketing onboarding. Lastly, Joan’s team creates marketing material, including a solutions brief, enablement, best practices document, etc. They publish these both on their website and their alliance’s website.
Third Step: Prioritize Alliances
As HCI demand increases, Joan is pulling in an accelerated amount of partners, so he prioritizes them according to their “appetite” for partnership with Nutanix.
For select partners, he puts together a plan of joint marketing and joint sales, with account mapping, joint marketing events, etc. (This optional piece will add a couple of months onto your deployment timeline, but for the right partners, it’s worth it.)
Fourth Step: Have a Set Process for Escalation
You must have a set process for technical escalation. Will your company handle it? Will your partner? Will it be a hybrid?
Customers will have technical issues, period. So, establish the back-end process early, so complications don’t slow down the partnership.
1 Piece of Advice for Anyone Considering Becoming an Alliance Professional?
We ask this question to every guest, and Joan didn’t disappoint:
He said to continually hone your diplomacy and people skills. Navigating any company can prove difficult. But it can feel impossible in an alliance, as you are now dealing with at least 2 companies’ processes and culture.
Taking this idea one step further: It’s just as hard for your alliance to deal with your organization — they don’t know your processes, your company culture, etc. Be their “person on the inside.”
To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to the Alliance Aces Podcast, or visit our dedicated Alliance Aces page.
This episode is part of the Alliance Aces Roadshow. Watch the video interview on Facebook.
To contact the host, Chip Rodgers, with topic ideas, suggest a guest, or join the conversation about alliances, he can be reached by:
- Email: chip@workspan.com
- Twitter: @chiprodgers
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chiprodgers
