Michelle Zhang on Acting as the CMO of Your Partnerships

Transcript: Rick Currier (00:01.331) Hey, Michelle, how you doing? Michelle (00:02.478) Doing well. It's Friday. It's sunny. Can't complain. Rick Currier (00:06.541) I know we were just catching up about the weather and I'm looking at a no snow backyard here in Colorado and it sounds like you haven't got much snow out. You're in New York, right? Michelle (00:16.278) Yep, New York. It's only snowed once this season, which is great because usually it gets really gross with like the grudge of the gray snow, you know, once it hits. Rick Currier (00:25.923) I missed, you know, it's funny, when I was at IDG in Foundry, I was out in New York like once a quarter and man, being there, especially when it's Christmas time, that was always my favorite. I haven't been there in a while. I, you know, and plus the pizza, let's be honest, the pizza in Colorado, it's not very good. So I gotta scratch my pizza New York it soon. Michelle (00:44.386) That's true, that's true. And I remember we were talking earlier, you know, IDGs in Needham, Massachusetts, right? And so, back, yeah, exactly, from there. that, those, place, that spot had great snow and I don't know. Rick Currier (00:51.733) Well, yeah. And you're from there, right? Rick Currier (01:00.291) It's such a small world speaking a small world I want to do a proper introduction in a minute, but You you randomly saw me at reinvent and I want to talk about that because we never met me before and you just you I think you came over and you're like Are you Ricky and I was like, yeah And I guess you saw me because I was wearing the partner vista t-shirt. Was that it? Michelle (01:05.996) Yeah. Michelle (01:19.434) Exactly. Yeah. I was like, why do I know partner Vista? And, yeah, I, it's crazy in a place like reinvent in Vegas, where you're just like, with, I don't know, it's like 30,000 people. it, yeah, I saw that and I had remembered that, you know, my old manager, had, had done stuff with you guys. And so, you know, then joined that partner Vista community that you've started to build and, you know, it's great. And I'm excited that we get back now. Rick Currier (01:43.959) Yeah. Well, got, I know it's so cool and I love just those coincidences and you know, it's funny. I'm, I'm not a swag kind of guy. Like I'm not the someone who would wear a partner Vista t-shirt, but my, my partner and co-founder Honda Lewis, he's a big time swag guy and we're heading to reinvent. And he's like, we need t-shirts, we need sweatshirts and all this stuff. And I'm like, you know, you got to, it's a partnership. You got to get your partner when he wants and you know, vice versa. And so I'm like, all right, let's, let's do it. And I went all in and You know, sure enough, I wore the shirt and you walked over said, hi, and now you're on the show. So it's funny how things work out, right? Michelle (02:16.94) Yeah, yeah, the true value of swag. There we go. Rick Currier (02:20.502) So alright, so let's do a proper introduction. Why don't we tell everybody, you know, who you are, where you work, what you do. Michelle (02:26.286) Yeah. So my name is Michelle Zhang. I've been with Sayera now for four months. So, you know, just been in the role for a little bit, but I lead product marketing for our technology alliances. Part of that came from Cripple, did three and a half years, hopping from, you know, partner marketing and product marketing, but focused on, you know, developing our tech and cloud alliances. And then just before that, you know, I started my career off at IBM and Kindle. So kind of did that big corporation down to faster, you know, unicorn startup. So. Rick Currier (03:03.777) love it. So you've kind of seen the biggest companies in the world to these little startups. You know, I'd love to talk a little bit more about your experience and how that's kind of shaped, you know, you today and how you approach partner marketing. Michelle (03:16.15) Yeah, yeah, definitely. I feel like I've learned a big lesson from each of the companies I've worked for. know, starting from IBM, you know, like you get to see what does established look like, you know, what is it like when you've got all the resources at your fingertips, your teams are fully staffed. Now, I sat in an industry marketing role, but, you know, I kind of got to see like what, you know, What does it look like when you've already got these partnerships established and like what, you know, how that impacts your GTM motion across the field, across product, et cetera, across marketing. So that was, that was a really great way to start my career. Following that, I went to Kindle. So that's when I learned, you know, things are always changing. So we went from, so for those of you who don't know, Kindle is a managed infrastructure services spin-off. Rick Currier (04:07.287) Ha Michelle (04:13.068) out of IBM. So IBM took like a third of its business and reestablished itself as Kindle. And so that was really interesting because, you know, we were basically 90,000 people when we spun off, but had to reestablish the brand, reestablish messaging all from scratch. You know, we were no longer IBM. We didn't have the IBM resources. And so it's really cool to be part of, you know, like driving what that narrative was. and starting from scratch again. But that's why I did actually move over to the startup land because I liked building from zero to one, but I wanted to do it fast. So at Cribble, you know, learned more about the alliances motion. You know, we moved, you know, when I joined us around 300 people and we were very early stages in our partnerships. AWS, we were in the startup program. We had very early stage tech alliances relationships. And so, you know, that's kind of where I learned that you have to be the real owner of your partnership. You might not have all the resources. You might be a partner team of one marketer, one tech alliance, you know, technical person, you know, one person covering the Co-Sale, but there's a lot of just like a lot more you can impact there. And yeah. Rick Currier (05:27.159) Mm-hmm. Rick Currier (05:33.603) So, yeah, no, go ahead, go ahead. Michelle (05:36.696) And then Saira, you know, it's only been four months learning a lot, but, you know, we'll see what lesson I learn out of this one. Rick Currier (05:43.329) Well, I mean, it sounds like you have a pretty good background to set you up for success. You know, how do you, I'd love to dive in that a little bit deeper in terms of, you know, owning this, the ownership aspect of partner marketing. Cause I think there are so many partner marketers that, you know, feel alone. but it's interesting cause you, you have almost taken that and turn that into empowerment. So, you know, what does it, what does it mean to you? And then, you know, how do you actually execute on that? Michelle (06:09.42) Yeah, I think as partner marketers, we really have to think beyond what the job description is. Because if you're just following those bullets, you're kind of confining that role into what people have done before. But really, I kind of see the partner marketing role. And why I continue to continue a career in tech alliances marketing is because it's really like you get to be the CMO of your partner relationships. And I break that down into two areas. One is, you're driving what that message is. What's that better together narrative? And that's something that no one else is putting that focus on. That's up to you to really deliver that. And then you also have to be the chief operator of that partner business. And that can be overwhelming at first, you know, being a lean team of partner marketers, typically you've only got a couple of people or you might be the only one. and you're responsible for driving not just the messaging, but also the demand gen, you know, the campaigns, the enablement, making sure that sales is activated, but also aligning to product. and I think, the key piece to that is like, you actually aren't alone and the name never GTM alone is funny because like, like the, you know, what I find successful partner marketers doing is they are activating the rest of the organization and inspiring them and giving them reasons to include alliances into, you know, their aspects of the business. So really you're, you're, you're kind of an octopus, you know, putting a tentacle around each part of the business and making sure that they are bringing along alliances with them. Rick Currier (08:02.211) So, you know, thinking about the rest of the organization in terms of that activation, you know, what responsibilities do feel like partner marketers have or you've had where other people in the organization are kind of underestimating, you know, your function and what it is that you're doing? Michelle (08:17.324) Yeah. When you ask that question, do you mean like, you know, what, what do they see partner marketing as or? Rick Currier (08:23.171) Yeah, I'm just thinking, you know, if you are the CMO of this partnership and you're, you're activating the rest of the organization, you know, I mean, do you get the pushback when you're, you know, feeling alone, but you need them to activate, like just talk to me about the internal, the internal politics, the internal partnerships, how you actually activate that ownership role that, that you need to be the CMO of a partnership. Michelle (08:44.718) Okay. Yeah. And I can kind of share that around the experience I had at Cripple and then also at Sierra. So for those of you who don't know Cripple, yeah, super fast paced, uh, late stage startup, you know, really driving, um, what does it look like to give companies in IT and security teams ownership over their data, IT and security data. Um, so Rick Currier (08:50.754) Yeah. Michelle (09:07.054) know, at Cripple, we, you know, one of the key partnerships that stood out to me is our partnership with CrowdStrike. So, you know, back when we started with CrowdStrike, you know, they're a huge company, you know, one of the top security companies, you know, in the industry. And Cripple, you know, we were smaller. And so, you know, you kind of had to externally figure out, okay, like, what do they care about? What, you know, how are we gonna help them achieve their goals and really get the rest of the organization internally invested into making that happen across co-build, co-market, co-sell. And so, some of the things that as a partner marketer I had to do is not just do the partner marketing function, right? Like I had to make sure that our sellers were equipped and knew exactly what to say when going into conversations with with their counterpart had to make sure that, you know, executives were aligned. And then on the technical piece, was that moving forward? And so I bring up that CrowdStrike example, because the one thing that you really want to focus on is like, where do you sit as your business compared to that partner? You might have to invest more time if it's, or more resources if it's a larger partner that you really feel like there's a vision. and an opportunity with, with a smaller partner, you might be able to co-develop that a bit more. and then, you know, with Sierra, one of the reasons I joined this company was, knowing that Sierra is invested in building out this alliances piece. So, you know, you ask, you know, what, why do partner marketers? Sorry, I just, I just blanked a little bit. You might be asking. Rick Currier (11:00.483) No, you're good. think, yeah, I mean, there's a lot to this alignment stuff, right? And people underestimating, I think there's a big underestimation in terms of just the overall job that partner marketers have to do. Right. I mean, you think, you know, a of these other organizations, have, you know, people that are really focused on best of breed, whether it's like you're your social marketer or content marketer, you know, you're focused on events and then you get to the partner marketing. It's like, yes to everything. I do it all. you know, so, know, another question I have for you, just kind of just switch topics a little bit is in terms of, you know, aligning that, that a narrative, mean, you're telling me it's important to own the message, own the narrative. And that makes a lot of sense to me, but that also sounds easier said than done, you know? So what have you seen work well in terms of narrative alignment? Cause I mean, you have to align probably with folks internally. got product marketing teams and executives that have a view about a message. You have your partners, right? They have a message. And then you also have to make sure it lands with the customer. It's not just what we think, but how does it align with what the customer needs? you know, I'm interested from your perspective, what's worked in terms of owning that narrative, owning that message and making sure it actually lands at the end of the day. Michelle (12:10.432) Yeah, that's a great question. And a lot of why I enjoy sitting in this product marketing role right now, because typically we find that in just organizational structures, you might not have someone dedicated to driving that partner narrative. So it really falls on that partner marketer or the product marketing person covering partners. Sometimes you also find that product marketing teams might have that be an additional plus one role that you'd the product market will have to focus on addition to their day to day. So that's what makes me super excited about being part of Sayr. They've really invested in that role because they see the vision of how partners will impact the business. But I kind of see that joint value not as like a one plus one equals two. This is what partner value prop is. This is what our value prop is. It's kind of one plus one equals four. so number one, you mentioned the customer value, you know, like actually digging into not just the benefits that one partner and another partner brings, but what's that joint value proposition? and, and it really requires testing, you know, making sure that you're talking to the product teams, understanding what's that vision they're trying to drive forward with the product, but also talking to the fields and under into customers of like, are they actually asking for this? You know, What are the challenges that they're facing when it comes to the combined need for both of the solutions? And so, yeah, think that having that dedicated resource to be able to invest time into that is important, but that's just one piece. You're also responsible for messaging to your internal sellers. They've got so many different... things to think about of learning the product and the narrative and how they should be pitching and driving their own business with their customers. So why should they think about this partnership as well? And that's really selling them on the benefits of like, you you're going to find a faster deal cycles. You know, if you drive through the cloud marketplaces, you know, you might be able to skip a ton of procurement. Sellers are in the variable of elimination. So like, Rick Currier (14:31.745) Hmm. Michelle (14:34.882) What are things that are gonna make them get to the money faster? And then two more there. So the third that you have to think about is how are you going to show the value to the partner sellers? When we think about like cloud alliances, for example, an AWS rep has like hundreds of partners that are trying to make them. you know, get into either mind space. And so, you know, how are you going to show that there's proof of wins that have happened before? You know, why should they care about your solution? Is it going to increase consumption? You know, is it going to help their customers migrate to the cloud or adopt AI faster? And so, you know, these are all different narratives that are more than just developing that joint value prop. then lastly is that narrative internally. you know, like we were talking about before, you know, there isn't a ton of resources sometimes on the alliances side. So how do you show that you're driving more ROI, through the alliances? You know, you might be able to show that you have to spend less because you've got MDF support or, partner campaigns are driving more attention because you've got another partner's brand tied to it or. you're driving awareness together. so, yeah, it's a super tough challenge of driving all these different messages, but also really cool when it all comes together. Rick Currier (16:12.597) And it's even more complicated when you get beyond the narrative and message. Cause I mean, that's not all you're doing. I mean, you're, you're, you're activating programs or building strategy. You're working with a partner. I love your feedback from a prior prioritization standpoint. Like you're the CMO of this partnership. You own it all. And like, how do you prioritize day to day to make sure you're just not, not drowning in all these, all these complexities and all these to do's. Michelle (16:35.37) Yeah, totally. And I'll cover some of the tactics that we do, but I'd also love to hear from your founder yourself. So I mean, when I look at how we prioritize, we've really got to look at where is there opportunity for true alignment. There may be partnerships that your business will think about that might be great brand awareness opportunities, but like, is there actually a true need for the customer? Where I've seen this most effective is when there's true alignment or opportunity across co-build, co-market and co-sell. You know, one of the, you know, I brought up the CrowdStrike piece of when I was working back at Kripple. We got to a point where, you know, our technical teams were constantly building out that roadmap of what the integrations are going to look like and how we're going to evolve to better serve our joint customers. You know, on the marketing side, like we had partner marketing aligned on both ends and product marketing aligned. And then the Co-Sale side, you know, like we were already seeing field teaming, you know, in the different regions. There was already that openness to do so. And there already, you know, you know, when we're starting off earlier, early examples of where that was going to be successful. And so, you know, when you're evaluating, you know, which partners you can take on, I really recommend, you know, focusing in on what are those top three that you can really make an impact around. And it can't all be partners that you're reaching for. Some of them have got to be, like, you can only reach for so many, right? So having a good balance of which partners are you going to, you know, put a ton of resources in because you see the larger value there. And then which partners is their joint support where you can move faster because you're driving this together. But yeah, no, mean, like you, yeah, go ahead. Rick Currier (18:36.542) Yeah. I think you hit it on the head there in terms of impact, Because there's just endless stuff to do. I think, especially being partner marketers or leaders with their partnerships, right? And I think a leader's job is to figure out, we can't say yes to everything. How do we rank these priorities and focus on the stuff that's going to make the biggest impact? And by and large, there's a lot of things that we could do that just aren't really going to move the needle. What are those few things that are going to move the needle significantly? It's funny how the other stuff just kind of gets worked out over time. So I love that answer. I want to ask you too, in terms of like scalability is like a big topic in partner marketing, you know, but at the same time, you got to differentiate from one partner to the next. So how do you balance, you know, differentiation, you know, with scale, but without having to like reinvent the wheel every time you bring in a new partner or do a new program. These are all like things that are, you know, coming at each other, but at the same time, you got to scale without keeping everything the same. Michelle (19:38.316) Yeah, I think there's some partners where you've got to build that business, that differentiable business model, differentiated business model. And those are gonna be on your top most strategic partners. So, for those top three, what's that different go to market, I guess approach that you're gonna take with each of these partners. And then with the rest, you've got to rank the- the rest of the partners with how can you support them based off of where they're at, setting up a tiering system, setting up an approach where you can package up a partner plan together. Maybe you might have templates that may be used. Until there's more proof of more customers asking for it, more wins in the field, then you might be able to reprioritize where those partners are. And then in terms of the differentiation, I really value sitting ahead of the beginning of the year with each of those partners and trying to understand what's that ultimate goal that you're both trying to drive. Is it a partnership where it's more on the co-market side where it's really just awareness, you wanna drive leads, or is there a joint know, resell opportunity or, you know, kind of depends on, on what that ultimate, business driver you're trying to, push for is. and so, really sitting down in the beginning of the year, you know, making sure that all the plans across co-build co-market, co-sell are aligned to, those goals. Rick Currier (21:27.363) Now I have two more questions kind of on ownership and then I want to kind of close off focusing on, you know, how do you build this, this motion, that kind of summarizes all this, but you know, terms of like ownership, you know, and these two questions kind of go back to back. So maybe it's just one question, but you know, advice for people starting off in terms of like, you know, how do you actually really own this? Like what advice do you have for people that maybe a little earlier in their career and then for people like yourself that have more experience, like how do you, how do you keep from burning out once you figure it out? how to really own this, you know? So yeah, kind of both ends of the spectrum there. Michelle (21:56.47) Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll start with if you're approaching, you know, where you want to go in the alliances marketing space and evaluating, you know, joining a company and playing that role. The number one advice I have is finding a company where alliances is part of the vision and not just like we're just doing partnerships just to do partnerships. Because you'll find that the resources that are dedicated, the amount of focus that you get across the business really impacts how much you can drive as a partner marketer or alliances marketer. So one of the first things I'm evaluating and what I really found with joining Sayera was, do the sales execs see this vision? of bringing in partners? Are the sellers, is this part of their, how they get paid of bringing in partners into their deals? And then on the marketing side, where is the vision for how this team is gonna be built out? So I really look for opportunities where there's that. vision for success already, you in the minds of the leaders. So, you know, that's one area. And then I guess the other advice is of how to not burn out. Really finding champions from the beginning. Because again, you might be just a team of one or a small team of three. And kind of like I said before, you've got to find those champions and make other people across the business. part of the alliances too. So showcasing to your demand gen team, we're actually seeing that joint partner campaigns are driving this much in revenue or in marketing sourced pipeline. Let's put more value towards, more efforts towards that and get your campaigns team, your digital team, your Michelle (24:19.546) you know, your, your product marketing team also invested in, in growing that out. so it's really finding those champions showcasing that they're gonna, you know, proving that this is an area to invest in. and then you're no longer a team of one. Rick Currier (24:36.683) Yeah, it's funny you say that because, you know, for the people that I've seen that feel alone that are getting burned out, you know, it's not, I don't think it's a reflection of them not being able to go out and get those team members to support the mission. I think it goes back to what you were talking about earlier in terms of they might've ended up at a company where it's not part of the vision. Right. And so it's, it's nothing of what they're doing. And I think it's funny how those two go together because, you know, I think it's great advice for people going in, even if you're not earlier in your career, just making sure like this, this company. Partner's not something they're doing because it's working other places. They're doing it because it's the vision where they want to go. And then also in the back end, that's going to help you not burn out because there's going to be other people that are bought into that vision that want to support you because it's part of the company's mission. Michelle (25:18.336) Exactly. Yeah, I think alliances partner marketing is a it's a role where you might not have the biggest budget or the biggest team. You want to set yourself up for success by finding a company that is investing in this. But you can make the biggest impact in the most efficient way, you know, because you're you're able to champion the internal folks across go to market, but also make a bigger impact with the partners that you're working with, whether it's leveraging their brand, their field, the joint solution that provides better value for your customer. I think it's what makes this role interesting, but yeah, it's really investing from the start and figuring out how you're gonna move across the different areas of the business to make it successful. Rick Currier (26:17.795) Yeah. So, Michelle, why don't you close us out by giving us the Michelle's guide to building a modern high-impact partner marketing motion. Like, what advice do you have for people? Michelle (26:27.47) Yeah, we should write a book, right? At Sayer, we started to do these modern DSPM for dummies books, and we're finding that those are pretty successful. But yeah, so maybe if I trim it down into a couple sentences, as a partner marketer, you are the CMO of your business, of your partner business. And that breaks down into Rick Currier (26:41.389) Very cool. Michelle (26:55.182) how do you become a chief storyteller and a chief operator? If you're a chief storyteller, we got to think about the four areas where you're going to drive value. That's with a customer, with the field, with your partner field, and then internally showcasing why partners are going to bring more efficiency and drive faster success. And then on the... business operator side, how are you going to get the different folks across the business to help contribute to the Alliance's marketing mission? Whether that's, one, finding when you're joining the company, is this something that they care about? And then two, showcasing the real metrics and the reasoning why they should incorporate this into their own functions across, whether it's marketing across the field, across how product is driving these integrations. It's really being that champion for your business and going out acting like a founder of trying to convince people, why does this matter and how this is gonna help them solve their goals. Rick Currier (28:18.123) I love it. think it's great perspective. think, you know, when you stop just looking at yourself as a partner marketer and hear the, here are my job, you know, here's my job description, what I need to do, but thinking about it from a CMO's perspective, it reframes the job and I think it helps you take a more systematic strategic approach to what you need to do. And it's probably why you've been so successful. So thanks for sharing your, your perspective on that. Michelle (28:40.12) Yeah, of course. mean, I think it's such a cool job because, yeah, you get to influence all parts of the business and it's super cross-functional, not just internally, but also externally. You're working across, you might have marketing counterparts, but also you get to chat with the partner field and the partner, product managers. So it's really cool that in one role you get to influence so much. Rick Currier (29:08.843) I think it's the coolest role. why we have this show and it's why we have people like you on. So, Michelle, thank you so much for coming on. We'll link to your LinkedIn on in the show notes. And yeah, you're in the Never Go To Market Alone community. Hopefully we'll be opening that up pretty soon. We'll get more folks like you in there. So thank you. Michelle (29:11.7) Exactly. Yeah. Michelle (29:25.868) Yeah, I think it's awesome what you've built with this community and I'm excited, you know, continuing to collaborate with folks in this role. Rick Currier (29:33.599) Awesome. Michelle, thank you so much and good luck surviving that snowy winter in New York. All right, take care.