Yes, believe it or not Covid-19 has created yet another "new normal" - Digital Marketing. Actually Digital Marketing has been very much "in vogue" for years now Covid-19 has turned that good old dimmer switch to a light switch yet again - it's here to stay! A while back I hosted a webshop with AppSmart - "Digital Marketing 101 And The 5 Steps To Build Your Digital Marketing Machine" You can view the 34 minute webshop here.

In the webshop we covered these top 5 items,

1. The need for you to create, articulate and document a "must-have" brand/message aka value prop that "makes sense" in our "new normal" Hint: It has a lot to do with Digital Business Transformation (DX) and Customer Experience (CX). How do you think you are doing here?
2. The need for you to uber focus on and target verticals/sub-verticals (that are financially viable today) and the Business Managers. To what extent are you uber focused and engage with Business Managers?
3. The need for you to update your existing website to be simple, articulate your "must-have" value prop, speak to your target prospects and be digital marketing enabled. Is your website all tech speak with a TON of words and no Call To Actions (CTAs)?
4. The need for you to have remarkable content. Content is King and always will be. You can do many things right in Digital Marketing but if your content is sub-par it's all for nought. Remarkable content is hard to create. How is your content, OK or remarkable?
5. The need to have the resources and tools to execute on Digital Marketing campaigns. It's like going to the gym - if you don't put in the effort and use the equipment your results will suffer. Do you have the resources and tools to effectively make Digital Marketing work?

At the end of the webshop we offered all attendees a FREE Digital Marketing Assessment to determine where the partners "scores" themselves on these 5 items.

LET ME KNOW IF YOU'D LIKE TO DO A QUICK ZOOM CALL AND REVIEW YOUR RESULTS AND HOW YOUR SCORE COMPARES WITH YOUR PEERS.

First and foremost I hope you are well and safe.

Yesterday I hosted a webshop with AppSmart - "The COVID-19 Effect On The Telecom Agent: The Massive New Opportunity Now In Front Of You And How To Capitalize! 

“As Covid-19 im­pacts every as­pect of our work and life, we’ve seen two years’ worth of digi­tal trans­for­ma­tion in two months,” Satya Nadella April 30, 2020.

In the webshop I took my real-life experiences during the dot-com bust in 2001 and the financial collapse in 2009 where, as a member of the senior mgt teams at two partner focused software companies we needed to PIVOT quickly.  Now you, and virtually every company in the world needs to PIVOT their business model. Here's a simple summary on the 4 steps to PIVOT your business.

1. Interview your clients with empathy - LISTEN and LEARN
   - set up Zoom etc calls with 8 clients
   - everyone is stressed - lead with empathy
   - ask about the PERSON and their business
   - ask many open ended questions (2 ears and 1 mouth)
   - learn the state of their business and how they plan to pivot
   - give some softball suggestions
   - take notes
2. Customer Value Prop (CVP) and Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
   - CVP: your current CVP is NOT a "must have" - it needs to be a "must have" today, apply what you learned from your customer interviews, your team, your colleagues, industry news, etc and DOCUMENT your new CVP in a PPT and scripts. Hint: your new CVP should focus on Digital Business Transformation (DX) and Customer Experience (CX)
   - ICP: you DON'T have a laser focused ICP today, apply what you learned from your customer interviews, your team, your colleagues, industry news, etc and DOCUMENT your new ICP in a PPT and scripts. Hint: your new ICP must be viable and have $ during COVID-19
   
3. Test your CVP and ICP
   - go back to your 8 clients and test drive your CVP
   - approach your new ICPs with email scripts, elevator scripts and test drive your new CVP
   - look at your metrics (email opens, email replies, appts etc)
4. Execute
   - assuming you feel comfortable with your new CVP and ICP do the following
   - create business outcomes focused cloud solutions bundles that match your CVP and ICP, Hint - AppSmart are experts at this
   - refresh (NOT completely re-do) your existing website to reflect you CVP, ICP and cloud solutions bundles
   - create your Digital Marketing and Sales Plan and correlating MRR Cloud Financial Model
   - Go-To-Market

LET ME KNOW IF YOU'D LIKE TO DO A QUICK ZOOM CALL AND DISCUSS YOUR PIVOT STRATEGY

AppSmart and Cloud Revenue Partners Form a Strategic Partnership to Deliver Next-Generation Partner Enablement Programs for Cloud-Focused Technology Solutions Providers (TSPs)

I've been watching, listening and waiting for the next gen channel partners to arrive - I think it's here - finally - the Cloud Solutions Provider or what I call the Cloud Revenue Producer! And at the end of the day it's being driven my vendors' reactions to customers' insatiable appetite/demand for cloud. Legacy vendors like Microsoft are starting to rethink their sales and channels strategy - largely due to margin pressure. Pre-cloud the vendor could afford to have tons of partners in a 80/20 rule. Legacy vendors like Microsoft can't afford that any longer - the cost of sales/support for the long tail is too much. They must identify a specific cloud partner DNA with a "cloud friendly" business model that can sustain and grow a profitable recurring revenue cloud practice and focus their resources and support to help make them successful. Conversely the born in the cloud vendors like AWS have figured this out already with an extremely selective partner program with no desire for a non-cost effective long tail. 

Do 20% of your channel partners drive 80% of your cloud services revenue - or even worse numbers? If so, then you have a partner productivity problem that is holding back the growth of your business. Because that means that 80% of your channel is under-performing. If your success is tied to the success of your channel, then you need to address the situation with a strategy to make more channel partners more productive. I am going to show you how to increase your partner revenue significantly - a huge gain in productivity resulting from small changes in deal size and flow.Reasons for Low Channel Productivity
There are many reasons why your partners are not as productive as they could or should be. Your partners may …

What's a Modern Technology Provider? Are you? Want to be one? Take our asessment

So now you finally admit - you want to be in the cloud – and you want to be there NOW – smelled the coffee did you?

Wonderful but………………

A few major disruptions have recently occurred in the technology and business world,

• Cloud computing has emerged to become the most dramatic technology evolution in the past 20 years since when the internet first emerged in the 90’s. At it's core, one of the main benefits cloud provides businesses is the ability to deliver "business outcomes" to Business Managers.
• The internet and cloud have teamed up to cause the demise of the traditional marketing and sales playbook where “interrupting” prospects is (was) the name of the game. Today the buyer is now in control of the sales process known as the buyers’ journey, 1. awareness, 2. consideration 3. decision. Marketing and sales is now executed in the digital world and according to IDC, 65% of B2B buyers have already researched and made a purchase decision before they contact a sales rep.
• Technology purchases have moved out of the IT department to the Business Managers of an organization. According to Forrester 65% of new technology decisions are made by Line of Business Managers looking for cloud-based solutions to help achieve their desired business outcomes. Cloud Solutions Providers (CSP) are taking the lead in providing cloud-based business outcomes solutions to these Business Managers.

As much as we are all talking about the impact that cloud, subscription based consumption etc will leave many channel partners in the dust....I believe it's the new world of sales and marketing via the buyers journey that will be the real culprit.............

Time and time and time again, talking to, and working with ITSPs of all types (VAR, MSP, CSP, SI etc) and sizes I hear "ok, I'm ready to sell cloud - let's go!". Really?