Transcript

J.P. Dundas (Introduction): So I always say: How do we be uncommon. And that’s so important, because people don’t remember things they see all the time. They remember the people that are different, and are uncommon, and who bring different values to them.

Announcer: Welcome to the Software Channel Partner Podcast, where you’ll hear leaders of partner programs talk about their biggest 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 of channel programs about their great challenges and what’s working today. I’m Louis Gudema, the president of revenue & associates, where we help companies grow faster by helping their channel partners grow faster.

Today my guest is J.P. Dundas, the Director of North American Channel Sales at Fuze. Previously J.P. worked in the channel at EarthLink, Nitel, and Cbeyond.

Welcome to the podcast, JP!

J.P.:        Thanks for having me, Louis.

Louis:    You know, you’ve been working in the channel for over a decade. Can you tell me about the trajectory of your career, and what attracts you to working in the channel?

J.P.         Absolutely. I started my career as a direct sales rep at Cbeyond. And part of the model was hitting 50 doors a day, cold calling, and hitting 200, 250 doors a week. And one day I stumbled into an IT company’s business. And I talked to them about our product. We were selling integrated T1s: dynamic T1s. And I talked to this partner about our products, and they were really interested. And they said, we have a lot of customers who’d be interested in this. So I talked to them about the product. They gave me the name of one of their customers. They called up that customer, said I’d be stopping in. I stopped in and had a deal sold the next day. And I guess the rest is kind of history. So I started to put my focus on finding partners just like this company. And realizing, you know, you could find a company by cold calling. But at the end of the day you’re going to get that deal, and you’re going to go on to your next customer. But when you work with a partner, and they like you, they have multiple customers. They’re going to keep introducing you to their customers. And since then I shifted from a direct rep and into a channel manager role at Cbeyond because I was actually hitting my numbers and beyond doing pretty much half the work as everybody else. (laughs). So, I realized I had a different skill and it was working with partners.

Louis:    So it sounds like you kind of inadvertently stumbled upon this model and realized how well it could work if it was done well.

J.P.:        Absolutely. And the thing that’s kind of ironic about it at the end of the day is, 15 years ago the channel isn’t what it is today. We used to think that people went to the channel to die in their careers, for the lack of better words, but at the end of the day now you can’t even work with a business without some sort of partner being attached to it. So it actually worked out to my advantage getting into it when I did.

Louis:    Yes, well the numbers that I see say that selling through the channel is much less expensive than selling direct. I don’t know if you’ve experienced that in the companies that you’ve worked at. One of my other guests talked about that a huge percentage of global commerce is done through channels. His number was, I don’t know, 74% or something like that. So it is everywhere now.

And, I guess on a personal level, I noticed that you spent a year studying in Rome before you got into working.

J.P.:        Yes. So I played football in college and I got injured. And my last year I wanted to do something different. I remember I was coming back home for a weekend. And I was going for a walk with my mom, and we were talking. And she’s like, Why don’t you go do something different? Right? Get your mind off football. Finish your college career doing something fun. And literally two weeks later I applied for a program at the American University of Rome. And I studied International Business for my final semester in college. And it was probably one of the most rewarding experiences that I ever had throughout college. I had a fun time playing ball, but at the end of the day it was a reality check. I remember sitting in London, sitting there watching everyone getting out of work around 5 o’clock, and the switch kind of clicked in my head and I said, You know what: I’m ready for this. I’m excited. This is what I want to do. And a few months later I was back home and started my first sales job.

Louis:    Oh great. There’s nothing like overseas travel. Seeing so much more of the world. I’ve been to a lot of places including Rome and it’s always fascinating to see how different people are living, how they do business, and the norms of different societies.

Before we go any further, for people who aren’t familiar with Fuze, why don’t we tell them about the company.

J.P.:        Fuze is one of the premier, global, U.C. providers in the industry. We provide services for voice, video, collaboration, and contact center.

Louis:    And by U.C. you mean unified communication.

J.P.:        That’s right. Unified communications as a service. Voice, video, collaboration, and contact center. Globally. And we primarily focus on the mid-market and the enterprise. So we started out business in the beginning focused on that space. And we do focus on users, anywhere from 10 to over 40,000 endpoints today.

Louis:    So, I think for Microsoft partners generate 95% of revenue. In the first episode of this podcast series, I was talking with Rob Rae, who’s the vice president of business development at Datto. And they focus on the SMB market, and have over 16,000 partners, and get 100% of their revenue from them. For Fuze, what’s the breakdown. Roughly, how many partners do you have and how much of the revenue do they contribute?

J.P.:        So we have all different types of partners that we work with. We have our direct partners that can be anywhere from master agents to value added resellers to smaller distributors as well. But from a percentage of a business, anywhere from 60 to 70 percent of our business depending on the order is coming in through the channel. Through these partnerships that we have, especially the master agents and some of the VARs that we work with, we have access to over 5,000 sellers. Whether it’s one of our big master agents that has over 2,500 agents with a couple sellers among them; some of them are bigger. But at the end of the day we’re not working with all 5,000 of those sellers, so we have to do a really good job of finding the ones that really understand our value add, our value proposition, and really get ingrained with them to show them that we can help them be a trusted advisor with their customers. At the end of the day, I wish that we were working with all 5,000 of those sellers every single day. But in reality it’s a really hard task, as you know, Louis, working in the channel. Because at the end of the day you’re looking for the quality of partners over the quantity. Because if you try to do a lot with a lot of partners I think you’re going to see a lot of failure. If that makes sense.

Louis:    If you’ve got a master agent who has a lot of sub-agents, how does that effect how you can vet, and add, and onboard those partners?

J.P.:        That’s a great question. So a lot of time is spent with the executive team at some of these master agents, along with the regional leaders and the channel managers who are on the street, the ambassadors of those master agents working with the partners locally. And what we try to do is try to identify which partners in a region would be good partners for Fuze. My team works with their peers in their region identifying which partners we need to spend more time more of our time with, the ones that we need to be very proactive with. And when you have a master agency model there are always going to be partners where you’re going to get opportunities that are going to be good fits for you that you might not have known about or spent a lot of time with. It’s not just that we’re being reactive with those. But sometimes that’s the beginning of a new relationship, as well. Getting a partner that we didn’t know a lot about: they bring us an opportunity, they have success with us, they love our sales process, smooth implementation. I like to call it: we’re always trying to build new fans. But you can’t build too many too fast or it just doesn’t work sometimes.

Louis: When you’re vetting a sub agent, are you looking at their size, their business plan, what kind of sales process they have in effect, how they’re using marketing and sales technology? All of those kinds of things? Is that part of how you vet them?

J.P.:        Yes, absolutely. So some of the biggest partners are the ones that get a lot of attention. Because the more sellers that you can have access to. You’re thinking, If I could have access to 50 sellers, as opposed to another partner who has three, I could work with 50 more sellers on the street and 50 more customers that they could potentially talk to, right? But at the end of the day it all varies, Louis. Some of the biggest deals that we’ve ever done here at Fuze are with four or five man shops. But then again, some of the bigger deals are with some of the bigger partners. So it really comes down to the channel managers in that region and how they see success and how they feel they can have success. So there’s really no exact formula that’s proven for success. At the end of the day, if I’m going to do a webinar or training I want to touch as many people as possible. But sometimes that relationship with that smaller partner can be just as profitable as a partner who has a couple hundred sellers on the street.

Louis:    I guess it depends on what they see that’s in it for them. Whether they have four sales people or 200, it’s all about getting mindshare with those people and them remembering you and actually trying to sell-through your solution when the opportunity is there.

J.P.:        That’s exactly correct. The one thing that you need to look at when working with partners – and I say this all the time to people that hear me talk, most of the people on my team are hearing me say this on our weekly calls – but there’s no secret sauce or secret ingredient. Partners buy from people that they like and they trust. So if you can’t build that mindshare with your partner… You can’t just walk into a meeting, meet someone for the first time, shake their hand, and them expect them to bring one of their best customers to you. I always say, Put yourselves in their shoes. If you met someone for the first time, and they talked about themselves and how they could make your business so much better, well sometimes it’s not about that. It’s about getting down to the nitty gritty and understanding what they’re looking for in a partner. How can you be that trusted advisor for them? Because they have people coming and trying to meet with them all the time.

As we were talking about the channel growing and how it’s evolved of the past 10 or 15 years: we have to compete against our counterparts at different companies because we’re all trying to get the same mindshare with the same partners, or we’re trying to get to some of those partners.

Louis:    Yes. The reason that I reached out to you to interview you is because you had written a few articles, and you really emphasized in those articles building relationships with partners. That that was what it was all about. Kind of what you were just saying.

J.P.:        It’s so important. And at the end of the day you’re always building up your brand. You know about that. You’ve got to build your brand. You mentioned at the start of the podcast that I had some experience at other companies prior to this. And a lot of what I do on a day to day basis, and what any person working in the channel needs to do, is realize that if you say you’re going to do something, you need to do it. Whether it’s a little thing like, I’m going to return an email, or I’m going to call you back. Or I’m going to get someone within my organization to answer that question for you. If you don’t do that, you’re really not going to stand out. And furthermore, if you’re really trying to build your brand, as I’m always very aware of, at the end of the day I got to live with me, all day every day. So if I do what I say I’m going to do, and I’m building fans within my partner organization, that’s going to help them build trust with me, my organization. But at the end of the day, they’re going to have trust that if they do do business with me they know that if there’s a question, problem, or concern with their customers or within their organization, that I’m going to pick up that call, I’m going to return that email, I’m not going to put my tail between my legs and I’m going to get that problem solved for them. And that’s very important.

Louis:    You’re located near Chicago, but you’re the head of North American channel sales for Fuze. That’s a huge territory. You’re at a communications company. But how much is physical proximity, or meeting in person with the partners, part of building those relationships. Can you do it remotely, or does it work better when you get out in the field and meet in person?

J.P.:        It’s always better to, I always believe that being able to look someone in the eyes and shake their hand in person – maybe it’s me being old school, being from the Midwest – but I think it’s very important to have conversations that are face to face. You’re always going to have your best experience when you’re able to have that kind of conversation. But some of the tools that we have now days, being able to have video conferences, do help, and help eliminate some of that travel that’s on my plate on a regular basis. I always say that my second home is an airport. But I do that because I can’t have my best conversation sometimes sitting over a video call. And I like having that touch, and maybe going out to have a coffee or a drink afterwards to just reassure that what you see is what you get. It just varies. It’s hard to be everywhere at once. Last week we had three big events going on across the country, and it was also my son’s birthday on the same day. Well, I chose my son’s birthday over those events because I knew my team had that covered. But that also shows some of the values that are very important to me, Louis.

Louis:    That’s great. What about other technology that you’re using for managing and working with your partners? Do you use a PRM at Fuze?

J.P.:        We have hubs that are available to our partners to be able to go online, register opportunities, areas where they can get education on our different products. We actually have some programs where you can get certified. Learn about how our processes work, how we sell, what our products are all about. And we’ve been realizing that a lot of partners really want that stuff. They want to be able to learn and be a very good trusted advisor to their customers. And at the end of the day, working with a partner like Fuze, we like to enable our partners to know enough to be dangerous. Enough to be able to identify the opportunities that may be in front of them. Because one of the biggest gaps that we feel within the partner community is some of these partners have tons of products and services that they can offer to their customers. And when they’re sitting down with one of their customers, they may not bring up UC. Because maybe it’s not their comfort zone. Or maybe they’re talking about a different kind of service or offering that they’re looking for. Or, maybe that customer of theirs doesn’t even realize that they sell unified communications. So we try to get that in front of them. Get as much information as they need to be dangerous, like I said, but also to realize that we have an entire sales force that’s backing them 100% to help make them look good in front of their customer, so they’re able to lean on us. That’s one of the hardest things: getting partners who aren’t used to that methodology of going on and getting themselves trained. So we do some other things on top of that, whether it’s webinars, onsite lunch and learn type trainings. Happy hours are always fun if we have a chance to speak, get some people out of the office not sitting in front of their computers or having their phones in front of them. So we do lots of different things to help get some of that mindshare. And we’re learning now that, some of those tools, as we’re able to track some of that, we’re seeing that a lot of our partners are starting to utilize a lot of those tools. And it’s really great to see that because then we’re able to see which of our partners are leaning into us, too. If I can see that a partner from ABC Communications has been in the portal five times this week and looking at certain collateral, that helps us to be able to reach out to that person or that company and say, Alright, how can I help you more?

Louis: Absolutely. So you said a few moments ago that there was this entire Fuze salesforce behind them also. So you mean that you’re doing joint sales with some of your partners on some of the bigger opportunities?

J.P.:        Yes, absolutely. So when a partner brings us into an opportunity, my team is tasked with understanding the opportunity in front of us, which sales rep it needs to be assigned to — whether it SMB, mid-market, or enterprise. And the reason that that’s important is we have different parts of the business that cover different-sized deals. So, to answer your question further, if we’re working on an opportunity, and we discover midway through the sales process that there’s a partner who could bring us value, to help us. Maybe we’re at a standstill. We haven’t been able to get to the EB – the economic buyer. And we find out that we have a partner who has a really good relationship with this customer, and/or that person that we’re trying to access, we have no problem bringing a partner in in the middle of a sales cycle and also paying them for their efforts. And what’s important about that is, we as Fuze – our salespeople – they’re not taking a haircut on their commission if we decide to do that. So it kind of really eliminates any kind of channel conflict, or any kind of reason to put up resistance about why do I need to work with that partner? If a partner can bring us value, to get us further in a deal, we’d be silly not to look at that option to bring that partner in.

Louis:    That’s great that you do that and that that’s your approach, because a lot of times with other companies you hear about some serious channel conflict. I think I read that Fuze has more UC customers worldwide than any other vendor.

J.P.:        That’s correct. We’re one of the few enterprises in the cloud for unified communications. So we own the market share for 1,000 users and above per a Synergy Research report.

Louis:    Or as it’s otherwise known: the enterprise market.

J.P.:        Yes.

Louis:    So this whole approach, and the way that you’re partnering with your partners, sounds like it’s working great. Are there particular kinds of training that you find… Sometimes I’ll hear that vendors are great at marketing but partners aren’t always great at marketing. Or vendors may have much more sales experience, or systematized process. What kind of support or training do you think is most important to provide to your partners?

J.P.:        The support and training that I think is important for our partners is… Obviously getting in front of them and having an understanding of what our product does. But at the end of the day it’s What problems does out product solve for their customers. Because we need to be able to have a solution when we’re coming in, especially for the enterprise customers. We understand that 92% of all CIOs are tasked with identifying a cloud solution before doing anything moving forward. No one is going to renew an on-prem solution without doing their due diligence to look at a cloud solution. We’re definitely trending in the right direction there. So being able to identify and train our partners on the things that we think are very important to look at. If we have a product that could help improve efficiency. Or help foster collaboration within an organization. If we could have a product that is really doing things to bring that business into the digital transformation, the future of the workforce, and helping them understand to make businesses better. Or maybe to help solve some issues that they have.

Because if you think about it, Louis,  we have this new generation that’s coming out in the workforce. We this our current workforce made up of Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y. We have the Millennials. Then we also have this app generation. They know nothing but instant internet access at the tip of their fingers. So how do you accommodate that type of employee who’s coming into the workplace? Well, you’ve got to have some of the tools that they’ve be  en used to using their whole entire life. I always say – if we were on a video right now I’d have my phone in my hand – and I always say, We’re all carrying tomorrow’s desk in our pockets. And it’s a very strong statement and a very bold statement because, at the end of the day, I travel all the time. I don’t need to break out my laptop to get my business done that I’m used to doing when I’m sitting at my desk. I can communicate with my team seamlessly. I can integrate into some third-party applications that we have. For example, Salesforce, if I need to pull some data I can do that at the tip of my fingers no matter where I’m at in the world at any time. And that’s really true for the problems that we’re trying to solve. A lot of businesses are trying to figure out, How can we make our employees more productive? But also, it’s hard to make people more productive no matter where they’re at remotely if they don’t have the right tools in place. Does that make sense, Louis?

Louis:    You’re really talking about solution selling. You’re not just going out there talking about the techs and specs, and you don’t want your sales people or your partners’ sales people to be doing that. But they really have to find out what’s the situation in each one of these companies and what’s the solution, what kind of combination of the different offerings that you have is going to address the issues for that company.

J.P.:        Absolutely. I talked about in one of those articles that I wrote about value as a service. We all go out and talk to our customers and our partners. If I went out and talked to my partners about unified communications, there’s a good chance that they know what’s included in that: voice, video, collaboration. All that stuff’s included in there. But if I just talked about that and left it there, I’m not doing anything different from what my competition is talking about. I want to show the value about how we can do, and show them how our services can really change the landscape of their customers. And in retrospect, it’s really showing that partner how to be the trusted advisor to their clients by us equipping them with the right type of tools to be able to have those conversations.

Louis:     So, what should I be asking you about? I’ve asked you a bunch of questions here but the business world is changing so quickly, and that’s true of channels, too. What’s your biggest challenge these days? What’s keeping you up at night?

J.P.:        That’s a really good question. Besides my three- and six-year old, who are always keeping me on my toes when I’m in town. Anytime that you’re working with partners, one of the biggest challenges that you have is I can’t fire my partners for not doing business with me, right? In a sales organization, if one of your employees isn’t hitting their numbers, you could put them on a plan, you could work with them to help grow those numbers. But if they’re not getting the job done, you part way. Unfortunately it happens. But with partners you really have to start thinking out of the box because I can’t go to one of my partners and say Well, you never sold anything this year – I’m done with you. Because they’re going to say, Okay, I’m going to go work with somebody else; that’s no problem. So you really have to start thinking out of the box about how you could be that trusted advisor. I know we’ve talked about the word trusted advisor. It’s a nice buzzword, it’s a really nice buzzword today. But at the end of the day, it’s How do I get that mindshare? And how does my team at Fuze out-perform – not necessarily the competition in the UC space – but the people on the street. Their peers. The channel managers that are all trying to gain that mindshare with the partners. So I always say, How do we be uncommon? And that’s so important. Because people don’t remember things that they see all the time. They remember people that are different and uncommon and they bring different values to them.

So the things that keep me up at night, Louis, are how do I be different from my competition so at the end of the day, when we’re working with one of my customers, they’re going to have the confidence to push Fuze over the line. Push us through the end zone so we can get that new customer on board as a joint effort. So I’m always thinking about ways that we can evolve the channel, and different ways that we can work with partners to be successful. Because, at the end of the day, I don’t make any money, Fuze doesn’t make any money, unless our partners are making money. So we have to do a really good job of catering to our partners and giving them the attention and the mindshare that they deserve.

Louis:    So I do hear of some vendors who do cut off partners if they don’t make their numbers, or if they don’t deliver anything. That they’re pruning their partner network. But it sounds like that’s not your approach. Your approach is to try to incentivize and use the carrot instead of the stick.

J.P.:        Sometimes the ship can sail with partners. They try to bring on a new strategy; it didn’t work. I always try to use the term with my team, We need to do a really good job building fans. Internally, as well as externally. Sometimes you take a lot of time and effort, and you meet with partners, and you spend a lot of time doing training. If you see potential in that partner, and you know you have to figure out a way to get access to their sellers so we can get that mindshare so we can start working with their customers. But sometimes we do spend a lot of time with partners and don’t get a lot of ROI – Return on Investment. It’s okay for that ship to sail, because there are always partners coming in that you want to work with. But that’s one of those decisions that you need to make: which partners do I want to be very proactive with versus the ones that I just need to be reactive with. Unfortunately.

Louis:    So, we’re getting near the end, but I just wanted to ask you – again, because the business world changes so rapidly these days – how do you personally keep up? Are there particular podcasts, or blogs, or books, or events that you particularly like? Either for keeping up with what leaders are doing in the channel space, or business in general, or sales?

J.P.         Great, great question, Louis. I’m a big believer in if you stop self-learning and being educated —  especially in the technology world, it moves so fast – that you’re going to get passed up. Things are moving so fast in this world nowdays. You could use the old example: you buy a TV and next month there’s always a better one coming out. So you always have to stay on top of technology.

So I just got back from Enterprise Connect in Orlando, Florida; I got back late last night, actually early this morning. I just got back and you get to learn about all the different competitors out there that are all trying to do the same thing. We’re trying to teach out partners, we’re trying to teach our clients, about what our products can do, how we’re different, how we’re different from our competition. I love going to events like that. I’m definitely a big fan of Channel Partners. They have the show coming up in Las Vegas in a few weeks, and they have one in the fall that is based in different regions every single year. So I do keep up to speed going to some of the trade show events because I think it’s very important to be on the cutting edge. But I do spend a lot of time reading and learning about how I could better myself, as well.

A few of my favorite books that I’ll mention. One of them, Never Split the Difference. It’s brought a lot of value to me, learning from one of the top FBI hostage negotiators on different negotiation tactics. Because whether we like it or not, we’re always kind of negotiating. We always have that sales person in us. Maybe your friends doesn’t want to go out because, maybe they don’t have the money, or they don’t want to do it, and you say, Hey, I got your covered tonight; I’m going to come pick you up. We’re always working on that next [inaudible] persuading people to do what we want them to do. One of the first books that I read, that really impacted me, it’s one of my all-time favorites, is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Have you ever read that book, Louis? Are you aware of it?

Louis:    I’m aware of the book. I’ve never read it. But you’re talking about a real classic.

J.P.:        It’s definitely a classic. I don’t know many issues have been sold, and that book is always evolving. But I’m a big believer in – I know we talked about the brand – and what you see is what you’re going to get with me. And I always say that I’m cards face-up for a reason. And I do like to take an interest in my partners’ lives. Being able to just listen to what they have going on goes a long way with a partner, or a co-worker. Or someone that you’re looking to do business with. Because at the end of the day, it’s really easy to have people talk and then they say something or they make a point and you just pivot to another subject. And when you put yourself in those shoes, and people do that to you, you always kind of say You know, that person’s not even listening to what I have to say. So from that book I learned from the beginning that it’s just really important to remember someone’s name. If someone impacted you, it’s important: write down their name. If last time you talked to them they were on vacation with their family: bring it up. Bring something up that brings value and relevance that you’re more than just trying to do business with them. Because, at the end of the day, we’re all trying to get business done, but there’s more than that. It’s that lasting relationship that is so important in business. At least I believe.

Louis:    Yes, I believe that that’s really true. Well, I want to thank you for joining us today, J.P. And listeners, if you’re listening to this on Apple Podcast or another app, and you found the podcast interesting and useful, please leave a review. That will help other people learn about it, too. And thank you for listening to the Software Channel Partner Podcast. And please subscribe and listen to future episodes.