Partnerships as growth multipliers: Insights from Asher Mathew

Summary

In this illuminating episode of the Clazar podcast, Asher Mathew, a veteran voice in partnerships, shares deep insights into the transformation of partnerships from a supporting function to a cornerstone of modern business growth. Drawing from his diverse experience across sales, marketing, and business development, Asher explores how changing buyer behaviors and content consumption patterns are elevating partnerships to a crucial component of modern sales strategies. He delves into the evolution of partnership teams, the increasing importance of data-driven approaches, and the role of modern tools in scaling partnership programs. The conversation covers essential aspects of building successful partnership programs, including common pitfalls, best practices, and key metrics for measuring success. The episode concludes with valuable insights into the role of hyperscalers in partnership evolution and the growing importance of cloud marketplaces in the future of software distribution.

Key Points:

1. (00:35) An overview of Partnership Leaders and Asher’s own journey: Asher Mathew discusses his own journey, its influences on his approach to Sales and Partnerships, and the intersection of his passions and the values of Partnership Leaders.
2. (04:37) Evolution of sales and partnership: Asher discusses how changes in content consumption patterns, buyers’ ability to exercise more control over the software buying process, and the slow decline of traditional outreach is contributing to the growth of partnerships as a key component of modern sales.
3. (07:11) How partnership teams are responding: Asher also discusses the most pertinent and discoverable changes in partnership professionals that are disrupting traditional models of selling.
4. (10:49) Technology and tools for partnership success: A growing rate of tech-adoption, GTM experiments, a focus on data-driven strategies and the modern tools that support all of it for partnership leaders.
5. (14:09) Building and scaling successful partnership programs: How the alliance and partnership functions should think through program-building, the common pitfalls and best practices.
6. (27:37) Leadership style and key metrics for partnership leaders: Core operational skills, leading metrics, and designing OKRs for your partnership teams.
7. (36:53) The role of hypersaclers in partnership evolution: How partnerships can impact everything from discovery to deployment through cloud marketplaces, the concept of “software eating the world” and gearing for automation at scale.

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