030: Enabling IT Channel Partner Success and Revenue with Good Marketing Execution with Brent Patrick
Listen to Episode 030 with Brent Patrick here (YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts):
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About the episode:
Brent Patrick is Senior Marketing Manager at Scale Computing. He’s responsible for Channel Marketing and Marketing Ops. This includes sales handoff and sourcing leads for the Account Development reps. In Episode 030, we discuss how agile marketing in 2020 has allowed its partners to increase revenue during a tough economic climate. Brent holds certs in Pardot and the SiriusDecisions B2B Marketing. Certs help him think outside the IT industry, enabling good marketing execution with speed and confidence.
Show highlights:
02:30s – Brent came to the IT Channel in 2015 from the non-for-profit world as a marketer. In 2017 Brent got much more involved in Channel strategy and fell in love with it.
06:00 – Scott Mann, Director of Channels in North America, took Brent Patrick under his wing. Brent learned the importance of relationship building and being a contributor to revenue on the sales side, while Scott got Brent’s mechanic mind on the backend.
10:30 – Brent breaks down his (3) area focus and how they play off each other: (a) Channel Marketing, (b) Corporate Marketing, and (c) Marketing ops and alignment with Account Development Reps and Inside Sales (tools, platform, budget, and reporting).
13:00 – Marketing passing qualified leads to ADRs and how? And marketing during COVID.
16:30 – Moving messaging from feature selling to solution selling at Scale computing.
18:00 – Event marketing in 2020, Brent discusses how they pivoted from over 200+ planned field events and tradeshows on the year and how they got leads. This had broader impact since the ADRs were almost 100% focused on following up on leads. Brent highlights keeping agile and keeping the channel partners as an extension of your team/ go-to-market with you.
22:00 – Solving business problems with IT during COVID.
26:00 – Marketing directly-to the IT Channel (finding partners and they care about an impactful product with a good margin profile), versus marketing-through the IT Channel (finding end-customers, solving business problems for businesses)
29:30 – How getting marketing certifications have made Brent a better marketer. In 2020 he got the SiriusDecisions B2B Marketing Certification, which makes him a bigger contributor to revenue. Importance of being versatile as a marketer. Helped formalize his marketing knowledge by thinking outside his own use case. It’s easy to get siloed (working at Scale Computing for 6 years); it’s easy to get tunnel vision.
34:00 – Marketers chasing shiny objects with their technology stack. How this can be a problem.
36:30 – How to push back internally? AND how to work best with sales? Brent says, “If I don’t have data to support I’m right, I can’t push back hard”. Brent’s CEO has a marketer’s mind which makes Brent lucky and enables him to test and “fail fast”. As marketers, we WANT salespeople and execs to shoot holes in our plans, and sales team is the best asset that marketers can have.
41:00 – Closing remarks.
Find Brent Patrick online, plus the resources she mentioned on the show:
Personal
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bapatrick/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brentapatrick