Transcript

Gilbert Verdryes: So if you’re the easiest one to work with and if you are the most pleasant one to work with, then they’re going to stick with you, they will be loyal to you. I specialize into more the experience than just this defining program or selling a product.

Announcer: Welcome to the Software Channel Partner Podcast where you’ll hear leaders of partner programs talk about their greatest challenges and most successful solutions and now your host Louis Gudema, the president of revenue & associates.

Louis Gudema:  Welcome to the Software Channel Partner Podcast where we talk with leaders in software partner programs to learn about what’s working today. I’m Louis Gudema, the president of revenue & associates where we help companies grow faster by helping their channel partners market better and grow faster. Today I’m talking with Gilbert Verdryes whose title on LinkedIn is Delivering Partner Happiness at Zoom. We’ll talk about that shortly. Gilbert has held senior partner positions, especially focused on partner engagement and experience at Docker, VMware, EMC Insignia and elsewhere. And early in his career, he was a sales manager with Apple in Paris. Gilbert, welcome to the podcast.

Gilbert: Thank you for having me, it’s such a pleasure.

Louis:    No the pleasure’s all mine, believe me. So you were born and educated in France?

Gilbert: Indeed, I was born and raised in France, I’d been living there for 45 years and I just found the world to be too small in Europe, so I just wanted to go beyond that.

Louis:    All right, well welcome. How long have you been in the US?

Gilbert: Six years now.

Louis:    It’s been an eventful six years

Gilbert: I wouldn’t say uneventful, for sure not. Moving from one continent to another is always a big experience, although I’ve been traveling to the US four or five times a year the 15 years prior to that move. And yeh, since I’ve been here I’ve been changing company two times already. So it’s not uneventful for sure.

Louis:    So please fill us in a bit more about your career path. What brought you to your focus on the channel and especially on partner experience?

Gilbert: So I’d like to say actually that I was born in a channel because my very first job was about working for a channel partner with a reseller  at the time of Digital and I started in presales and slowly became a salesperson in that company. To be honest with you, after almost five years, I went back to see my former boss and I said, I had enough working for customers. I would like to stay away from our customers and do something more interesting with some of the vendors or suppliers.

And it’s actually how I got my other job at Apple managing channel partners. And I was very confident that I would know what to do because I was coming from one of them, but that wasn’t true. I learned a lot definitely. But I just fell in love with it. Fell in love with this interaction with those companies where the purpose is to make money and some margin. But at the end of the day, just about interacting with other human beings and they have their own challenges and we as a vendor or the supplier have our own as well. Sometimes we don’t speak the same language, but at the end of the day it’s all about fulfilling or meeting the customer needs.

And throughout the years from managing partners, I got into managing programs, which is more around how can we, rather than talking to one partner talk to more partners and find solutions for them to worry what you have to sell them. And over time get back into my very first feeling, which is we’re still talking to human beings. So it’s not just programs, it’s really about experience because there’s so many vendors outside, so much competition. So if you are the easiest one to work with and if you are the most pleasant one to work with, then they’re going to stick with you, they would be loyal to you. I specialize in to more the experience than just this defining program or selling a product.

Louis:    And I hear that from both partners and vendors, how critical that experience is. And clearly there’s lots of companies, there’s lots of people to do business with in the world, and you want to work with the ones who you enjoy working with all things being equal. I’m assuming that everybody listening to this podcast knows Zoom. So I’m not going to ask you the questions I often ask guests about what your company does. But you have reseller, integration, and technology partners. When Zoom went public recently, one of the six elements in the Zoom growth strategy was “grow our partnership ecosystem and continue to expand our platform”. How many partners does Zoom have and how central are those reseller and integration partners to your growth?

Gilbert: So now we have around the world more than 2,000 active partners with us. But as you said, playing in different worlds. So we have reselling partners that are simply providing those subscription services to their customers on that paper. But we also have referral partners, partners who don’t necessarily want to invest too much into this customer engagement, I would say and are very happy to share opportunities with us, and then we close directly and we work with partners.

And we also have, because it’s part of our strategy, a lot of alliances and strategic alliances and partnerships in order to actually access to a broader range of customers. So we have AV integrators, for the people that are selling all the solutions around the voice and the video aspect. We work also with carriers, we keep on signing more and more carriers around the world. So the one clearly carrying the voice solutions and all the numbers. And we also have some strategic partnership around some other providers of SaaS solutions to customers when it comes to communication. Like shares, maybe file sharing, it may be instant communication.  So this is to the wider ecosystem of partners we have.

Now to answer your question in regards to our growth, obviously we today have let’s say more than three quarters of our business being done in the U.S. So we have a huge growth opportunity outside of the U.S. and for some people we have traveled abroad there, they should know that the best way to succeed outside of the U.S. is definitely to work more and more with partners because they have the local presence. They have the local relationship, they have the management, the local currencies and understanding all the different regulations and specifications. So definitely I’m in the right position because our growth path is based on channel development and partner development. Obviously here in the domestic market and also definitely also outside of the US.

Louis:    Yeh, it’s an interesting point about how central the channel is to growth overseas. You know, getting back to that job, that great job title of yours. So what are some of the ways that you’re delivering partner happiness at Zoom?

Gilbert: The other word that I don’t like to use externally for followers is to reduce friction. As I said earlier, working with a vendor is always very complex because it’s one out of many that a partner may carry in his portfolio. So the easier it is, the better it is. And my function here is to not only just as I said earlier to develop programs but to make sure that everything that goes around a program, both internally and externally, is actually as simple as possible. So very basic example being we had a partner portal, how we can get a partner to access to the main top task in just two clicks and not five clicks. So it inspires me to work with our web development team. And in that same extent working a lot with legal because how can we get a partner on board in less than two hours rather than having them filling 40 pages of contracts. And when it comes to transacting with us or provisioning, how can we shorten the cycle? So when a partner is having a request from a customer saying we would like to use Zoom tomorrow morning, how can we make sure this happens and we don’t have to tell the customer sorry but we were late and you can have this next week, those sorts of things. So my functions were about looking at all those different components or part of interaction with our partners and their customers and make sure that internally cross-functionality I shorten those, I enhance those, or I make this as seamless as possible.

Louis:    So you’re really looking at it like a customer experience person would. Looking at the whole customer’s journey and all the touchpoints; you’re looking at all the partner touchpoints and how you can reduce friction and improve the experience at each one of those.

Gilbert: So definitely that, it’s just an extra layer of the customer journey. It’s adding this extra value and shares. The customer might not necessarily come directly to us. He may take this route for partners or how can we make sure that this additional tier is actually not limiting or slowing down the experience for the customer. And it was very easy for me to translate my official let’s say systematic title into delivering partner happiness because as you may know, Zoom is about delivering happiness to the customers. But since I’m mostly touching partners I’m doing the same for the partners.

Louis:    So you were talking about how to improve your portal and such. And I’m sure there’s other partner technology, channel technology you’re using also. Are most of your relationships with partners human-based? Is there a channel manager or whatever you may call them at Zoom for each partner? Or are many of your relationships digital?

Gilbert: Both. My main relationships are definitely human-based. So I’m working extensively with our field channel team, so the people that are on a day-to-day basis talking with our partners to make sure I can collect feedback. We also have some ways to actually get feedback directly from our partners to make sure that we can have this advocacy or voice into the company so therefore we can look at or tackle the right issues based on the real needs outside, and not necessarily thinking from our vision within this ivory tower.

And the other interaction are definitely person-based here internally with all this cross-functional team that I’ve been referencing earlier. Now that being said, I also work with data. And when we were look at enhancing a partner portal or just simply using a partner portal, it’s important to me to actually get the real analytics around this specific touchpoint, and there are some others. To really understand the effectiveness of any change or any improvements that we have done here. An example being quickly talking about how can we get a partner in two clicks to the activity that is really trying to achieve in a portal. We have put some metrics around that to make sure that we could track that path. And even though we think, and we had the feedback that it should be done in less than two clicks, we’re still seeing partners that actually taking a longer path to get to the function.

So now it’s really to understand what do they find on those different pages or links that is actually either delaying them for the activities or what is, maybe they need that before they get to the action itself. So it’s all those different data and sort of business intelligence aspects that are also as important as talking to people in person.

Louis:    So you’ve mentioned the portal a few times. What other technologies, channel technologies do you think are especially important for managing your partner relationships?

Gilbert: So something that we don’t have yet and I’m definitely keen to build over the course of the next quarters is actually a sort of point of contact for our partners directly. So we have field managers, but every human being has to sleep or has to eat or has its limitations, so they can’t talk to thousands of people every day. So find a way to provide all our partners possibly on 24/7, or at least five days a week a person that they can talk to either by taking a call and using Zoom phone for example or just by chat. But have the ability to get to a resource center, a success center, we want to call them the [word?]. That is figure out that I need something from Zoom. I can contact Zoom and have somebody physically answering me. So that’s the next step.

Louis:    Okay. Are you using a PRM or through channel partner automation or other technology like that?

Gilbert: We have our own PRM, which is actually sitting on our Salesforce solution. So that’s what we have right now. And we have a bunch of different other tools that allows us to track some analytics and data based on the incoming calls, based on the number of emails. We outsource the emails we receive as well as the activity around the different deals that we’re closing.

Louis:    Okay. What KPIs do you think are especially important that you’re looking at in your work? You’ve talked about some very granular ones, you know, in terms of how many clicks it takes to do something on the portal. But are there higher level KPIs for the partners that you’re looking at around partner success?

Gilbert: So we have a very limited for now sort of P-SAT, or Partner Satisfaction Scoring. I said very limited because we actually deployed that to a very limited number of partners and so far only in the US, but that’s one of the metric that we clearly we’re going to develop.

The other one is mostly around the partner productivity. And this is a bit easier because we can attach this to the subject information we get from the direct contact with those partners as well as the data we get from their real sales activity. But these are metrics as well that we look at very carefully in terms of understanding where our focus must be for either increasing sales or simply increasing the support, the handholding of those partners in different areas. Does that make sense?

Louis:    Yeh. So you were talking about how much bigger Zoom is in the U.S. than overseas. So is there a growing emphasis on the channel at Zoom? Do you see this as something that Zoom is putting more and more emphasis on going forward than perhaps it has in the past?

Gilbert: Yes absolutely. Definitely. We have a tremendous growth in the company, but we know that we won’t be able to maintain that growth with just our direct sales approach. The channel contribution or the channel revenue contribution to the overall revenue is increasing year after year. But in order to make sure that we maintain that growth that we are planning for the next two or three years and obviously to appease the stock market, it will be with the help of the channel.

And once again in a different flavor, we have — as I said earlier — we have the carrier partners that are extremely important for us when it comes to the top enterprise and the Fortune 500 type of account. Because they do have a relationship there and they can bring more than just UCaaS we provide. And we also have a need in the commercial and mid-market to actually get more feet on the ground. We won’t be able to recruit thousands of sales reps to promote Zoom everywhere. So the channel partners and all the agency models that we were thinking about are definitely key in maintaining that growth.

Louis:    Okay. So it’s really a strategic direction for the company?

Gilbert: Definitely. Yeh. It comes from top-down. That’s the message that comes directly from our CEO and our recently nominated chief revenue officer. We have to go deeper and faster and broader into the channel. Yep.

Louis:    Yeh. That’s why it was one of those top six growth priorities that you mentioned in the S1A. So I’m going to ask you two questions that are kind of variations of questions I ask when I’m hiring people. So first, not necessarily just at Zoom, but possibly at some of the other companies you’ve worked at, too. What’s a channel program or a channel campaign, something that you worked on that you think was especially successful?

Gilbert: Well that’s a good one. I have to go back in time. Twenty-five years now doing this.

Louis:    Yeh. Well, as I said, it doesn’t have to be at Zoom, but it could be at another company.

Gilbert: So I think one of the most interesting ones for me and the most challenging back then was at my time at VMware when I was in charge with the global partner experience. This was a brand new role, it was not existing before. And it was about trying to combine a series of different interaction point of partners into one single entity. And my mission there was not that we have all those things combined, I’m going to describe that in a minute is how we can actually make the best out of it and find a synergy between those.

So the idea was to simplify, to bring what was called back then the partner support center. So it was a team of 40 people around the world supporting partners seven days a week together with the partner portal once again. So clearly an online relationship with offline relationship. And figure out indeed what to make best out of this from a pure partner experience. And the very first idea that came and that has been very easy to implement was a quick win in less than six months, was to leverage the fact that there were incoming calls and inbound calls to the partner support center. And to create a knowledge base from that series of calls that were coming in for multiple times the same question, the same need, and how to provide this information in an online fashion through the portal.

And the other way being we have launches, announcements being made on portal, I would say in an offline way in some ways. But how we could then we brought completely the function of the partner support center and having them switching their function for more receiving inbound calls and going and doing outbound calls. So therefore repeating the message we were pushing online through direct outcall to the partners. These have shown a lot of success because I can tell you that in terms of, I would say in this kind of period of six months there was a series. I think it was a top seven questions that were asked at the partner support center had been decreased by more than 30% because the answer was then provided online. And having a storage space online was clearly offloading the agents and the support center. And the purpose was definitely to find a way to offload them so therefore they could start placing outbound calls.

So in less than six months, we were already seeing some benefits of having combined those two things. So it wasn’t a channel program as such, if you want, if you think about the usual sales program. But it was a real way to better interact for our partners and also organize our resources in a better way to make sure that we’d be more proactive than just being reactive with our channel network.

Louis:    Okay. That’s a good one. And then just the opposite, what’s a channel program or campaign that you worked on that wasn’t successful? And why do you think that was?

Gilbert: Another example back at VMware but further back in time in Europe. Back then I was managing distribution and VMware was moving from a one-product company to a multiple product company. And we had a special product on the VDI Virtual Desktop Infrastructure that wasn’t actually taking off for a couple of years. And I was managing distribution all over EMEA, but then I was thinking maybe the best way to start accelerating sales on this aspect is to actually decompose our rebate program for our distributors, and start having a differentiated program based on what they sell, what they promote better than the rest.

So the idea was okay now that we have this new product that is, it is struggling taking off how can we actually put some more incentive from the rebate perspective on that aspect. And moving from a one flat rebate model to a sort of matrix model was looking good on paper, was looking good once shared with the advisory council. It was looking quite okay talking internal corporations who were supposed to arrange this. But after three quarters of implementation, it turned out to be a real disaster. Because from an operational perspective it was a real mess to really provide the right payments and the rebate calculation on time.

From a pure sales aspect, it was very difficult because it wasn’t completely aligned with the long-term plan, business plan, that had been set with the partners underneath distribution. And I think we also had some issues in securing enough budget. Because some parts have worked quite okay, but we were asking every day more money that we have initially planned. So we had to kill that program very quickly. While honestly, the first two or three months of preparation, everybody was really enthusiastic about it, but the execution did show that it wasn’t the right thing to do. I learned my lesson, I’m taking more time to announce programs and eventually pilot them more or longer, rather than just thinking that the initial thoughts and discussions are enough.

Louis:    Yeh. Good example. You either succeed or you learn.

Gilbert: Yep. I think I learned from this one, trust me. [laughs]

Louis:    Okay. So I would assume, tell me if I’m wrong, but I would assume that the partners that VMware or EMC have, or even Docker, are different kinds of companies and maybe different kinds of people than Zoom has. Do you see different challenges when you’re working in with different kinds of partners like that? Or is there a kind of uniform approach that you can bring across a lot of different types of industries?

Gilbert: No, they are definitely different for a couple of reason. But I think the number one was on here at Zoom is this is a SaaS solution definitely. So the business model is completely different as you know, it’s all about subscription. It is initially a low cost on a monthly basis, but it can be as big as the last year that used to be sold on a purchase licensee as a hardware site a few years ago in the long term. But the business of the partners is different. So there are some common partners. There are some big players. You will always find them here in the US when you think about the DMRs, so the PCMS shows the value of the role, they are playing everywhere.

But when you go below that category of partners those are completely different indeed. These are not traditional VARs, these are not the traditional SISOs that we used to have. These are sort of brand new type of partner. They’re not completely brand new, at least they’re made, they’ve succeeded in changing their business model and being more services-oriented than just providing licenses. And therefore the approach and the way you talk to those partners, the way you present the benefits of partnering with Zoom is different from what I’ve experienced at EMC or VMware.

That being said, it’s still quite similar in the way you interact with them and the way you try to capture their attention. Because as I said, it’s all about this relationship, this partnership, and how much you actually understand where they live, what they talk about, what they’re trying to achieve. And if you fit with their expectations, then you are the partner of choice. So once again, it’s human relationship and try to understand what works for them, Not neglecting what works for us as a vendor, for sure. But really make sure that it’s flexible and adjustable enough so therefore they can carry this with their business, which is very similar to anything I’ve done in the past. It’s just that that business model, their reaction to margin or commission or just a deal value are completely different.

Louis:    Yeh. The services part is really critical for the SaaS partners. Do these partners have experience with that or is this new for them, too? Because sometimes over the last several years a lot of companies, a lot of partners been having to make this transition from on-prem to services, SaaS and that recurring revenue stream, as opposed to that one time sale that they might’ve had in the past?

Gilbert: So that is always making me smile because, as I said earlier, I started working for a channel partner 25 years ago. At that time you would have called this partner a regular VAR, a value-added reseller. But the main message we had, our [word?] back then was, guys we’re selling servers, we’re selling network and infrastructure, but this is not how we’re going to make money. We’re going to make money by selling services and potentially [word?]  contract and this is recurring revenue. Whatever the customer will have on site, they will need us to make sure that we can maintain that and enhance that.

So I was lucky to actually start my career in this mindset already, which is services is what is going to make the company successful in the long-term. And not just a one time off deal — that is great. We’re going to have champagne but then after that, let’s start again.

And it’s been throughout my career, and I talk with all my peers in industry, this constant question around how can we convince the partners that more and more they’re going to have to invest in services because selling a PC when they come in, forget about it. Selling a server when that comes in, forget about it and so on and so on.

And Zoom and what I’m learning with in this new job in a SaaS environment, is that most of the partners that we actually work with have understood, and have made successfully the transition into services. They do understand that at the end of the day, they need to provide one solution to their customers. And even though that solution may be partially made of some cloud solution and very low touch and very low cost software piece, the solution itself still requires them to be present with their customers and provide everything that the customer needs in order to be productive and effective. And as I said, most of the partners I work with have understood that and have been down to our business model on the services approach. So in most cases the Zoom subscription in the measurement of the deals is actually representing a very little portion of the deal itself.

Louis: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because at Microsoft they talk about partners making $9 on top of, from their services on top of the $1 that Microsoft typically gets. Salesforce has numbers that they use. Other companies have numbers that they use. So that’s pretty much the situation for Zoom partners as well? That they make much more from their services than they do from the actual selling of the Zoom licenses?

Gilbert: Yes, it’s true. I don’t have any metrics to share with you, like a one to nine. Definitely that’s something that we keep hearing from our partners. And when the partners that we may start a relationship with are not necessarily at that level, that we at Zoom will also provide directly to the customer our own CSM and our own PSO. So Customer Success Management and Personal Services. We also bring the partners with us for them to show them what’s happening and therefore for them to ramp up slowly their skill set around the Zoom solution. So even though they may not have yet this mindset and this behavior or this practice we carry them on with us and we plan for them to ramp up and be able then to deliver the same level of services by themselves. So being self-sufficient at some point.

But yeh, the message is clear. We have so far, great technology, customers are asking a lot, but this technology requires a lot of services around. I’m talking here about the Zoom Room or I myself currently in a Zoom Room where you might just hear my voice, but I have cameras and microphones and screens and all these requires installation, deployment, configuration. And that’s where our partner’s also being an important role in approaching their customers, not only from a pure software perspective but how they can rearrange their environment, the workspace. As well as redefine the full collaboration within their customer accounts. And that’s additional services on top of a very simple software.

Louis:    Most of the time is it just one partner who’s working on this or do you often have a situation where two, three, four partners may be collaborating around one customer to put together the whole solution for them?

Gilbert: So we have both. We definitely have both. We have in some cases partners that can do everything. But I would still say that for more than half of the nice deployments that we are having with the top customer, this is a combined effort of four different instances. Of course Zoom coming as a subject matter expert. And then you have the company that comes in and we sell the application, the Zoom solutions services to the customer as part of a larger customer asset management service. Then you have the AV integrators I was talking about earlier, that come and do the deployment from a hardware perspective. And sometimes you also have consulting companies that we work with when it goes beyond just the video collaboration, that I was talking about earlier, about this full collaboration philosophy within a company.

So we are putting a lot of time to be actually part of some bid or some tender, some public tender where the customer comes and say, I got those 50 offices. I want to make sure that all my people work well together. And then you have one person that may say, I got a perfect solution for you from the software perspective. Another one say I got a perfect solution from a hardware perspective, and here’s the philosophy you have to deploy in your company and so on.

So we’re actually going far beyond just an app. That’s what it makes it very interesting and going beyond an app means going beyond just one type of partners, and actually give a totally different perspective on almost every single deal we work on.

Louis:    Are partners good about that? Do partners have any problem with collaborating with other partners? Worrying about who’s going to own the customer, any of that kind of thing?

Gilbert: So far we haven’t seen, we don’t have any issue or any complaint about that. We’re not necessarily bringing the partners ourselves. We have a reference list sometime we have once the customer might be asking, Can you indicate me a good partner to install my Zoom Rooms or to get into my phone systems? But usually, we actually see the partners joining together because they know they don’t have all the skill sets and they seem to already have the network of people to work with in order to come to their customers with a full solution approach.

Louis:    Okay, that’s great. So what should I have asked you that I didn’t? What keeps you up at night?

Gilbert: What keeps me up at night, and then during the day too, I don’t have time to take any nap, is clearly not staying complacent. I mean by that, not being complacent. I do believe that at Zoom and in my previous roles we have done the right things, but doing one thing is never enough. There’s always something else. It’s not about thinking okay I’ve deployed this way of capturing feedback, so now I can rest and just listen to it because the market outside is changing. The partner types are changing. The way they interact with vendors is changing constantly. And if I remember well you know, 10 years ago sending an email was the best way to get information back and forth. Today with social media with less and less phone with most chat and short conversation, the idea that we have to capture that part of feedback with the voice of the customer and the partners is not necessarily taking the exact same route sometime within the same year, so it’s really about what is happening outside.

What are those people using to look for information to be contacted, to feel like being loved and nurtured, to make sure that we leverage all those different mechanisms and means not to miss anything. It is very important in those days where I’m seeing after that many years that the propitiation of the partners is changing a lot. I said in my early days I was working for a partner working with Digital before the acquisition by Compaq. This was a completely different generation of people and salespeople and companies that we have to the industry with all the startup and young companies and the population. As I said, the partner is also changing and you have multiple generations there. And they all interact with information and business and business relationship completely differently. So it’s really about keeping an eye out and say, okay, What is working and what is not working anymore to make sure that we constantly get the right voice at the right time.

Louis:    Yeh. When you’re going back to Digital you’re spanning a few decades there.

Gilbert: [laughs]

Louis: I’m in the Boston area and Digital’s headquarters is very close to here so they were a huge presence here back in the eighties and nineties, but not anymore. So Gilbert, how can people contact you if they want to talk about Zoom or the partner program or some of the things that you’ve talked about today? What’s the best way to contact you?

Gilbert: I think my LinkedIn profile is the easiest one. I’m open and I welcome any contact on request and my email address. I might be very old fashioned, certainly after all I said about, but gilbert.vendryes at zoom.us is a good way to get in touch with me as well.

Louis:    Okay, great. We’ll put those into the program notes on revenueassociates.biz with the podcast. So thank you for joining us today Gilbert. This was very interesting. As I do with all guests, I’ll be sending you a copy of my Bullseye Marketing book in appreciation.

Gilbert: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Louis:    So if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcast, Google, Spotify, or another app, and you found the podcast interesting and useful also, as I did, please leave a review that will help other people learn about the podcast too.

Thank you for listening to the Software Channel Partner Podcast, and please subscribe and listen to future episodes.