New York, April 25, 2024 – Zift Solutions, a leader in Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) software, proudly announces its continued leadership in G2’s Spring 2024 reports, securing top ranks in both the Through-Channel Marketing and Partner Management categories. This recognition underscores Zift’s pivotal role in shaping the future of channel partnerships with advanced security features and groundbreaking AI innovations.

Unwavering Commitment to Security and AI Innovation

“Zift Solutions has always been dedicated to providing the most secure platform available, ensuring that our clients operate within a protected environment while leveraging the latest technological advancements,” said Lionel Farr, founder and CTO of Zift Solutions. “With the introduction of the ZiftONE AI Assistant — the industry’s first generative AI tool tailored for channel management — we continue to uphold our long-standing commitment to security and AI innovation, setting new standards in the industry.”

Setting the Standard for Excellence in Partner Relationship Software (PRM)

With this latest report, Zift Solutions continues to maintain its position as an industry leader, setting benchmarks in both Through-Channel Marketing and Partner Management software. Recognized for its intuitive interface, scalability, and exceptional support, Zift stands out as the preferred choice for startups, hyper-growth companies, and industry giants alike. This recognition not only reaffirms Zift’s excellence but also emphasizes its pivotal role in driving customer success across various market segments.

Prioritizing Customer Success and Business Outcomes in Channel

“In addition to delivering the best technology, Zift Solutions prioritizes unparalleled customer success,” emphasized Cosmo Mariano, Chief Customer Officer at Zift Solutions. “We’re dedicated to providing personalized support and tailored guidance, empowering businesses to thrive in competitive markets. Zift Solutions distinguishes itself through its unwavering commitment to customer care, ensuring businesses have the resources necessary to excel.”

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Check our ZiftOne’s G2 product page to learn more about why our customers love Zift

Ready to learn more about how Zift Solutions can elevate your ecosystem management? Set up a call with a channel expert today! 

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Recognizing Exceptional Leadership in the Tech Sector

Zift Solutions is thrilled to announce that Alexander Connell, Vice President of Professional Services, has been honored with the prestigious Internet 2.0 Conference Outstanding Leadership Award. With over 26 years of experience in the IT industry, Alex brings unparalleled expertise to his role at Zift Solutions. His comprehensive knowledge spans company management, project delivery, team leadership, and technical implementation, making him a driving force behind our success.

As Vice President of Professional Services, Alex oversees our service delivery teams and training initiatives. His leadership extends globally, with extensive experience in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. This diverse perspective enriches our approach, ensuring that Zift Solutions meets the unique needs of clients worldwide.

Alex’s dedication to excellence is evident in everything he does. He is committed to driving business success and exceeding customer expectations, making him a true asset to Zift Solutions. His passion for innovation and continuous improvement has propelled our Professional Services department to new heights.

“I am truly honored to receive this prestigious award,” Alex said. “It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our team at Zift Solutions. I am privileged to be part of an organization that values innovation and embraces positive change.”

Zift Solutions: Empowering Channel Success

Zift Solutions, founded in 2006, is a global leader in channel success. Our comprehensive cloud-based solutions for channel marketing, sales, and operations empower thousands of leading companies worldwide. Beyond software, we provide strategic guidance, seamless integration, and flexible service options to support partners across the globe.

Congratulations, Alex!

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CARY, N.C. – February 6, 2024 – Zift Solutions, the leading Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) platform, today announced ZiftONE AI Assistant, the industry’s first generative AI solution designed to assist partners with content discovery and guidance for an enhanced partner portal experience that boosts productivity, giving suppliers a competitive edge.

Effective channel management is time and labor-intensive as manufacturers and solution providers often support hundreds or thousands of partners with marketing, onboarding, training, lead generation, and deal-closing support. Many organizations manage their partner programs with inadequate, homegrown, or highly manual, resource-intensive processes, including spreadsheets, emails, and offline engagements, making it difficult for organizations to grow and scale their indirect channels.

The ZiftONE AI Assistant is the first solution to address the industry-wide struggle of resource constraints. By leveraging AI to create a virtual channel account manager, it assists partners in discovering the right content for their needs and guides them on the next best action for any task they are undertaking. This innovation will enhance overall productivity, enabling our customers to accomplish more with fewer resources and better serve their partner programs.

“Our customers want to maximize their indirect sales opportunities and do so with limited resources,” said Lionel Farr, founder/CTO of Zift Solutions. “Our investment in leveraging AI technology to cost-effectively support all partners, whether new or existing, underperforming or over-performing, through intelligent task automation, constructive conversation, and content automation, will better serve their overall partner ecosystem and help them grow faster and increase margins.”

ZiftONE AI Assistant will become available in March as a new feature on the ZiftONE platform, the all-in-one channel management solution for managing partner marketing activities, onboarding, training, and performance tracking all in one place.

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Looking for more information on ZiftONE AI? Click here!

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With the pandemic (mostly) behind us, economic uncertainty all around us and the AI revolution ahead of us, we humbly ask what’s in store for technology partner programs in 2024?

To answer this question, we spoke with seven industry experts. Our panelists include:

• Carolyn April, Senior Director of Industry Analysis at IT industry association CompTIA
• Rich Freeman, Founder and Executive Editor at channel news blog Channelholic
• Tina Gravel, Former Channel Chief, Tech Leader, Author and Consultant at TinaGravel.com
• Khali Henderson, Senior Partner at technology marketing firm BuzzTheory
• Peter Radizeski, President at tech advisory firm Rad-Info Inc.
• Jill Rowley, Strategy & Evangelism for media and event company Nearbound.com
• Kathryn Rose, Founder & CEO of channel expert marketplace channelWise

Looking Back on Channel Partner Program Trends in 2023

At the end of 2022, we surveyed technology channel experts and identified six partner program predictions for the IT and telecom channel space.

• Partner Programs Will Adopt Ecosystem Models
• The Channel Will Rely on Distributors Even More in 2023
• The Channel Will Search for a New Generation of Sellers
• In-Person Partner Training Will Increase in 2023
• End Customer Events Will Increase in Favor Over Vendor Partner Events
• Vendor Partner Funds Will Move to Long-Term Investment Versus Short-Term Incentives

For the most part, these predictions were realized or can safely be categorized as emerging channel trends. In general, they reflect businesses’ growing reliance on increasingly sophisticated technology and the resulting need for more skilled and varied partners who can fulfill clients’ needs with a range of solutions and professional services delivered throughout the customer lifecycle. The gloomy macroeconomic climate, which loomed large over the channel in 2023, also spurred partner program leaders to focus spend on strategies for directly influencing customer wins and driving sustained performance among select partners.

6 Channel Partner Program Predictions for 2024

As we gear up for 2024, we find that the macroeconomic situation has degraded further, with tech companies laying off employees and raising expectations for partner productivity. Add to this ChatGPT’s debut, which spurred an AI arms race that has many vendors and partners playing catchup to ensure their clients employ rational strategies for AI deployment and adoption. Meanwhile, partner program leaders are beginning to operationalize partner ecosystem models to influence more sales and retain more customers.

Against this backdrop, our panelists offered the following partner program predictions for the new year:

1. Partner Ecosystems Are Driving the Rise of RevOps

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a relatively new business structure that seeks to put all go-to-market models and channels under one department to improve revenue management.

As Zift noted in a recent blog, RevOps, Explained, “The emergence and increasing dependence on ecosystem partners for referrals, sales, service, deployment, integrations and retention is a significant driver for RevOps. Without it, organizations will struggle with a fragmented approach to revenue growth.

“We’re moving from random acts of partnering to integrating second-party partner data into RevOps,” says Nearbound’s Jill Rowley. In turn, she says, that enables a go-to-market strategy that’s informed by a more holistic set of data.

Indeed, unified data management is a key tenet of RevOps that ensures all teams are working with the same information to improve alignment and forecasting. It also encourages data-driven decision-making that helps to refine go-to-market strategies.

Rowley is part of an emerging chorus that calls this approach “nearbound” sales and marketing (in contrast to the more commonly known “inbound” and “outbound” sales and marketing strategies). “Nearbound will go mainstream, and at a faster pace than inbound,” says Rowley, alluding to the meteoric rise of digital-based inbound sales and marketing strategies in the 2010s with the advent of marketing automation from companies like Hubspot.

“Where outbound interrupts and inbound attracts, nearbound surrounds,” Rowley explains. “Nearbound is a game-changing [go-to-market] strategy that is reshaping the partnership landscape. It’s a strategy that taps into the power of your ecosystem. When you partner with those your buyers already trust, you close more deals faster and deliver more value sooner.”

2. Partner Tiers Are Becoming Less Relevant in the Partner Ecosystem Era

The effectiveness of medal-level (e.g., silver, gold, platinum) partner tiers has been the subject of debate for several years. It seems the emergence of partner ecosystem models – with influencer, transaction and retention channels – may soon put the final nail in the partner tiers’ coffin.

“The past decade has seen partners transitioning from mainly product sales to a host of newer models based on services — project and recurring revenue, and/or businesses based on referrals, influencing and consulting work,” says CompTIA’s April. “These newer business types don’t align as well with legacy vendor programs that reward volume sales and revenue quotas with a benefits system based on status tiers.”

Partner expert and former channel chief Tina Gravel agrees, noting that partner ecosystems with a range of partner types don’t line up well with traditional graduated tiers.

“A bronze, silver and gold package will not adequately cover a small channel program that has consultants, resellers, agents and MSPs. They are all so different [and] need different incentives and support,” says Gravel. “Today, the fact is that the more channel partners you have, the more routes to market and segments you have, the more programs, processes and incentives you will have to build and support. The time of the simplified programs has gone the way of the dodo.”

Indeed, partner programs will create programs tailored to partner business models. It is not uncommon today to see programs tailored to commission-based sales agents and margin-based resellers.  Within each of those models are subsets of partners as well. For example, sales agents may get recurring commissions and require training and extensive engineering or customer support, while referral partners may get one-time commissions and require very little support. Similarly, margin-based resellers operate under many models, including straight resale, white-label or co-branded — each with a different discount level and support requirements.

The new wrinkle is with the influencer, retention and alliance channels, which are not transactional. The challenge then becomes how to compensate these partners at the point of value. And, in some cases, compensation isn’t monetary. For a deeper dive into the nuances, check out our recent blogs:

• The Influencer Channel: How and Why to Use It
• The Retention Channel: How and Why to Use It
• The Alliance Channel: How and Why to Use It

3. Partner MDF & Incentives Will Come with More Strings Attached

We surveyed our panelists in the midst of fall budgeting for 2024. Needless to say, belt-tightening was top of mind. It’s no surprise to hear that they expect market development funds (MDF) and incentives to be distributed more judiciously and creatively.

“More [vendors] are thinking of MDF for lead gen as opposed to parties and sporting events,” says Rad-Info’s Radizeski.

BuzzTheory’s Henderson agrees, noting that vendors find less value in the large partner networking events and more value in working closely with individual partners on specific customer-facing campaigns. “It’s a hard line to walk since vendors need to maintain relationships and a presence at key distributor events,” Henderson says. “Some vendors are finding a good middle ground by enlisting the distributors to support targeted spending on customer lead gen for top-performing partners.”

Last year, our panel predicted that marketing dollars would go toward more customer events. Here again, vendors are getting creative. “Several of our clients host customer-facing events where partners invite their top prospects to enjoy an exclusive experience or sought-after speaker,” says Henderson. “While these events are meant to nurture customer relationships, partners also love them because they’re unlikely to be able to afford or organize them on their own. It’s sort of a two-for-one. With budgets stretched, targeted spending with measurable ROI will continue to be a priority.”

While on the one hand, our panel predicts more strategic investments, on the other hand, Channel Chief Gravel says the slow economy is also triggering a rise in SPIFFs designed to incentivize short-term sales in the quarter offered.

Want to learn more about how to structure and run an MDF program? Check out our ebook Unlocking the Potential of Market Development Funds.

4. Training & Certification Will Become More Important in the Age of AI

Technology is evolving quickly. Witness the floodgates of new solutions following the release of ChatGPT’s generative AI. AI is not only the poster child for accelerated technology; it’s behind many advancements and enhancements to existing tech solutions like cybersecurity, contact centers and more.

Partners are challenged to keep pace, making vendor and distributor training and certification programs increasingly important.

“End users want solutions, and the technologies those solutions are built on (think AI, analytics, cybersecurity, etc.) are growing more and more complex,” said Channelholic’s Rich Freeman. “Anyone in the channel who wants to remain relevant to their customers, even if those customers are SMBs, is going to need to continually burnish their skills. Training resources from vendors and distributors are an excellent way to do that.”

Our panelists also predict that certifications will become more important to partners who must possess and prove qualifications to recommend, engineer, install or support advanced technologies.

“Especially with the advent of AI in every product, training must come with proper certification,” says Gravel.

Rad-Info’s Radizeski agrees and adds that it’s a good investment for partners to make. “For security, data science, artificial intelligence, and some other technical areas, certifications will always pay off,” he says. “Will partners embrace them? Some will. Some won’t.”

To improve the chances of partners consuming training, we recommend self-paced technical training through a learning management system (LMS). And, for sales and product training, we recommend doling it out in small doses to overcome short attention spans.

“Microlearning – short, snackable trainings – or access to on-demand advice are going to become the dominant way partners access training for both business and technology,” says channelWise’s Rose.

5. Distributors Will Continue to Play a Vital But Evolving Role in the Channel

Distributors on both the IT and telecom sides of the tech business have been the vital nexus between vendors and partners for years, making it easier for vendors to sell through thousands of partners and for partners to sell thousands of vendor solutions. Instant scale enabled thriving channels — a value proposition that continues today.

“I don’t expect the degree to which channel partners rely on distributors or [technology solutions distributors (TSDs)] to change dramatically in 2024, but I do expect both models to remain at least as relevant as they already are,” says Channelholic’s Freeman. “To remain relevant to their clients, regardless of size, MSPs and other channel partners must offer outcome-based solutions. Outcome-based solutions require a complex mix of software, hardware, and services that few IT providers can handle on their own. Distributors and [TSDs] can not only help partners aggregate those solution components but fill gaps in their services capabilities as well.”

Indeed, distributors are adding capabilities, including engineering and project management, as well as new solutions and distribution models to support evolving “as a service” channels.

“Distributors, long the hardware fulfillment middle piece in the technology go-to-market chain, have been evolving their own business models to embrace dynamic digital marketplaces and e-commerce platforms,” said CompTIA’s April. “The likes of Ingram Micro and newer, cloud-only companies such as Pax8 are using their ample resources, scale, and tech aggregator status to build marketplaces that serve channel firms. The channel has mostly gone along for the ride.”

According to April’s unpublished research, CompTIA has found more than half (56 percent) of partners today have used one of the distribution’s cloud-based marketplaces and/or e-commerce platforms in the last year. Nearly half (47 percent) of partners said they use distribution’s marketplace capabilities to aggregate multivendor cloud services to build customer solutions.

6. Tightening Budgets Will Force Partner Programs to Drive Efficiencies & Scale

You’d think a pay-for-performance channel would be immune to vendor budget woes, but partners require a lot of care and feeding, such as training and marketing support. This is especially true as technology becomes increasingly complex.

“Many tech companies downsized their staffs,” says channelWise’s Kathryn Rose. “But partners are looking for more help, not less, so finding scalable solutions to activate, retain and enable partners will be the key to success.”

While there’s no substitute for experienced channel managers, marketers and channel ops, there are efficiencies to be gained by amplifying their capabilities with self-service and automation through a partner portal or partner relationship management (PRM) platform.

“A PRM tool is your channel teams’ secret weapon in good times and especially in not-so-good times,” says BuzzTheory’s Henderson. “The PRM can guide your partners through training, enable their marketing campaigns, give them direct access to deal and payment statuses and more. Anytime partners can help themselves through the PRM; it frees up your experts to focus on critical issues like getting deals unstuck and driving revenue.”

Looking Forward

As we look ahead, we continue to see tremendous opportunity in the technology channel, its evolution to a partner ecosystem and its elevation to a core revenue operation. Both bode well for its continued role in delivering value to tech-enabled businesses throughout the customer lifecycle.

The post 6 Channel Partner Program Predictions for 2024 appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Research shows that physical events build stronger relationships than their virtual counterparts, and ZiftONE Partner Events makes it easy for partners to find, register and attend in-person events, partner summits, training and lunch and learns that are relevant to their business. With ZiftONE Partner Events, all they have to click is register—no extra buttons or forms to fill out since the supplier already has all of their contact information.

ZiftONE Partner Events also makes it easier for suppliers to track who attended. This information can be exported to be used in other systems and is attached to the partner’s ZiftONE Partner Explorer profile. Best of all, because the events can be attached to an existing course or certification in the ZiftONE learning management system, suppliers can seamlessly track who has completed training, whether in-person or online, and reward the partner accordingly.

“Great relationships are built on shared experiences,” said Lionel Farr, Chief Technology Officer at Zift Solutions. “In-person activities are a great way for channel programs to improve engagement with their partners, build relationships with them, and get to know them on a personal level. The interactions and the conversations you share make the relationship richer. The best channel partners participate in these enthusiastically. This feature makes the registration experience easier for partners and the tracking process significantly easier for our customers, leading to more programs embracing in-person training.”

ZiftONE Partner Events has been rolled out to customers as an integrated capability in the powerful ZiftONE platform. It is included in Zift’s top-rated feature set with no additional licensing fee for all new customers. Current ZiftONE customers are encouraged to contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM) if they have questions about this new feature. 

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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Explore Infinite Avenues and Keep Learning

The tech industry is a veritable playground of options. “It’s a career choice that offers limitless possibilities, from coding to sales and marketing and beyond,” says Kathryn Rose, founder and CEO of channelWise. To really own these opportunities, it’s paramount to nurture an innate curiosity and foster an insatiable quest for knowledge. This entrepreneurial mindset, combined with an unrelenting passion for continuous learning, serves as the catalyst propelling individuals to flourish across multifaceted roles.

Climb the Ladder through Grit

Starting at the top isn’t how most journeys begin, and this holds true for the tech world. Meredith Caram, president of JSG, says the road to success requires diligence and the willingness to work your way up. Coasting along won’t yield the big jobs; instead, determination and hard work will pave the path to the top. That said, it doesn’t always have to be the big wins that we celebrate. “Focus on small victories even though there’s significant importance placed on achievement,” she says. “Success can be skewed based on what’s showcased on Instagram.”

Dream Big, Connect Strong

Jasmina Muller, chief ecosystem officer at PartnerTap, tells us to aim high and plan for the future. In other words, don’t let your quick wins hurt your long game. “When we focus on short-term sales, driven so hard that it is detrimental to your team and your relationships in and out of the industry, we may not have a business to run very soon.”

Problem-Solve and Embrace Your Tribe

Janet Schijns, founder and CEO of JSG, reminds us that continuous learning, resilience, and a passion for problem-solving are key elements for success.“Embrace challenges and view failure as an opportunity to learn and refine your approach,” she says. “Your unique perspectives and skills are not only wanted but needed in this rapidly evolving sector.” She also tells us to find our squad: cultivate a supportive network and seek mentors who can guide your journey.

Believe in Your Tech Magic

Kim Cesena, global go-to-market leader, channel, at HP, says it all comes down to believing in what you’re doing. This pride in your company and its offerings can be a driving force, propelling women to excel and make a lasting impact in the tech world. Embrace your unique perspective, for the technology sector thrives on diversity of thought.

Allies Are Life-Changers

“Being a woman in the technology industry has been both a unique and complex experience,” says Allison Francis, content specialist at New Charter Technologies. “By and large I have been stunned by the level of support – both overt and behind the scenes.” Being buoyed up by allies and mentors has greatly impacted her experience and success. Finding strength in these connections can help overcome challenges and fuel your growth.

On this Women’s Equality Day, let’s celebrate the achievements of these remarkable women and all the women who are contributing to the tech industry. Their insights and advice serve as guiding lights for those dreaming of making their mark in this field. As we move forward, let’s continue to support and empower each other, recognizing that diverse perspectives are not just valuable but essential in driving innovation and shaping the future of the channel.

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“Kris is a recognized and seasoned channel leader and a great addition to our team,” said Heather Ball, vice president of marketing, Zift Solutions. “Her combination of skills, experience and passion for innovating, growing and maximizing the channel aligns with our organizational mission and values, supporting our growth as we strive to deliver maximum value and impact to our customers and partners.”

Blackmon brings more than a decade of channel experience in content, marketing, research, events, go-to-market strategies and community building. Most recently, she served as chief channel officer at industry consultancy JS Group (JSG). Prior to JSG, Kris ran content strategy at Informa, where she programmed content for Channel Partners events, formed content strategy for the media site Channel Futures and built the MSP 501 program and community. She is a member of CompTIA’s Channel Development Advisory Council, advising and providing insight in all matters relating to the indirect technology market alongside some of the industry’s most influential leaders across hardware, software, services, distributors, telecommunications and technology providers.

“JS Group has a strong partnership with Zift, one that has been critical to the growth of both organizations over the years,” said Janet Schijns, CEO of JS Group. “I couldn’t be happier to see Kris join Zift, adding her strengths to their team. We look forward to continuing to work with her as she tackles this new role, confident that she will continue as an innovator and channel champion.”

In addition to her channel industry experience, Blackmon is a fervent advocate of DEI and sits on the Board of the Xposure Inclusion and Diversity Council. She is a member of the Alliance of Channel Women, a recipient of the ACW LEAD award and was honored with CompTIA’s Advancing Diversity in Technology Leadership Spotlight Award in 2022.

“I’ve been lucky enough to have a diverse career in the channel, building a network of strong relationships in an industry I love,” said Blackmon. “Zift’s commitment to helping both customers and the channel as a whole evolve to succeed in such a diverse channel ecosystem is inspiring, and I’m excited to work alongside a team of thought leaders as we build a community that drives sustained growth and success.”

The post Zift Solutions Appoints Industry Leader Kris Blackmon as Head of Channel Communities appeared first on Zift Solutions.

1. Unleashing the Potential of Feedback: A Paradigm Shift in Partner Collaboration

How do you know your partners are in sync with you and your program? It’s easier than you might think: Just ask them. Through the magic of partner feedback, you can level up your engagement strategies – if, that is, you actually act upon that feedback. One way to make sure you’re hearing what your partners are saying is to set up a partner advisory council. Think of it as your secret weapon in your partner communication arsenal. But listening isn’t enough. If partners take the time to give you their thoughts, you have the responsibility to take action.

2. Speaking the Partner’s Language: Crafting Consistency in the Midst of Complexity

In the expansive domain of partner engagement, the significance of clear and consistent communication stands as an indispensable pillar. However, achieving synchronicity in messaging is a task easier said than done. The panel gave some advice about the importance of developing personalized communication strategies, underscoring the value of adhering to a well-defined communication plan, circumventing information overload, and diligently acting upon the feedback received. It’s all about finding that sweet spot between keeping them informed and not drowning them in communication, so make sure you’ve got a vehicle to automate and deliver relevant communications quickly so they’re easy to consume. 

3. Automation: Liberating Time for Strategic Pursuits

Time is money, and no one can afford procedural bottlenecks. Streamlining operational processes is a pivotal solution to the perennial challenge of time constraints. The dialogue revolved around the identification of operational segments that can be automated, subsequently leveraging data metrics to inform these decisions. The automation of tasks not only alleviates partners and vendors from mundane undertakings but also creates space for fostering more meaningful relationships and strategic initiatives.

4. Access to Information: The Core of an Integrated Partner Experience

The concept of a unified “single pane of glass” is the dream of partners and vendors alike. It’s rarely completely possible, but leveraging every API you have at your disposal can help here. Integrating APIs empowers partners to efficiently retrieve relevant data, enabling informed decision-making. This accessibility not only augments partner engagement but also catalyzes data-informed strategic choices. The less partners have to hunt and peck for the data and information they need, the better. This encompasses user-friendly tools, insightful metrics, and accessible resources that empower partners to make informed decisions. This approach not only nurtures a collaborative mindset but also ignites the sparks of collective growth.

5. Simplified Deal Registration: The Catalyst for Effective Collaboration

Navigating the complexities of deal registration can often be an intricate dance for partners. Simplifying the deal reg process should be a paramount priority. By demystifying deal registration and establishing a clear engagement protocol, vendors lay the groundwork for frictionless collaborations. This ensures that partners can confidently initiate and manage opportunities, fostering an environment of enhanced engagement.

6. Effective Communication Delivery: Beyond the Email Onslaught

The panel spotlighted the transformative potential of effective communication delivery in the realm of engagement. Instead of inundating partners with a barrage of emails, the consensus leaned towards leveraging more efficient communication platforms. These platforms swiftly deliver pertinent content in formats that are both accessible and easily assimilated, reshaping the engagement landscape.

7. Equipping Internal Sales Teams: Bridging the Collaboration Gap

When a company that’s used to selling direct turns to the channel, there’s often a definite knowledge gap with sales teams. Attendees learned about the crucial role of educating internal sales about the reality of partners’ needs, challenges, and opportunities to jump on. When the sales team possesses a deep understanding of the partner landscape, collaboration flows seamlessly. This internal synchronization mitigates friction and fosters an environment conducive to enduring engagement.

8. Navigating Partner Engagement: Your Dashboard Demystified

Picture this: a partner dashboard that isn’t just a jumble of data, but a personalized treasure map. That should be the goal for both you and your partners. Develop an ideal partner profile and segment your partners according to their individual characteristics. That means no more drowning in a sea of data that doesn’t quite hit the spot and easy-to-find information that actually matters to your partners. Plus, who doesn’t love a dashboard that lets you export data? After partner segmentation, make sure the information you’re providing is appropriate to each segment. Partners, just like you, are on a journey of growth and evolution, so don’t settle for one-size-fits-all content. 

9. Elevating Partner Engagement through Dynamic Partner Communities

Establishing partner communities can be a powerful mechanism for fostering meaningful engagement. These communities serve as designated hubs, tailored to cater to specific partner segments along vertical and horizontal lines. Beyond a mere exchange of resources, these communities become nurturing grounds for interactive dialogue and collaboration. Partners cease to be passive recipients and instead transform into active contributors, engaging in customized conversations where knowledge and insights flow freely. One fantastic aspect of these communities is a shift in perspective we see often in the channel – partners no longer perceive each other as competitors but as allies, thereby fostering a spirit of cooperation. This collaborative ethos not only enriches engagement but also empowers partners to collectively thrive within a supportive ecosystem.

The Wrap Up

In an environment where collaboration shapes the trajectory of success, cultivating resilient partnerships is not just a strategy – it’s an imperative for thriving in the constantly evolving business landscape. By heeding these insights and seamlessly incorporating them into their engagement strategy, vendors can forge partnerships that stand strong against the test of time. Thanks to Anthony, the rest of the panel, and Baptie for sharing this thought leadership!

The post Elevating Partner Engagement: Golden Insights from the Channel Focus Webinar appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Surely, such changes can be intimidating. The road to transformation isn’t always smooth. Fear, uncertainty, and questions are natural companions during this journey. However, here’s the good news: vendors are not just bystanders. They are the guiding lights that can help partners navigate the transformational waters, illuminating the path, and making the journey less intimidating. So, let’s dive in and explore how vendors can be true partners in this transformative process.

1. Evolution: More Than Meets the Eye

Transformation isn’t just about shifting from being resellers to becoming Managed Service Providers (MSPs). It’s a grand canvas where partners are painting a new picture of their business. Some are diving into specialized niches, while others are embracing consultancy, and some are venturing into fields like cybersecurity and business applications. As vendors, you have the chance to embrace these diverse forms of transformation and provide tailored support to each partner’s unique journey.

2. A Cheerful Push Towards MSP and Beyond

Although the transition to MSPs has been the talk of the town, the reality is that only about half of the partners have taken the plunge. This stat is a friendly reminder that transformation isn’t a one-size-fits-all process. As a vendor, you can play the role of a seasoned guide, offering success stories and insights into alternative pathways. By sharing real stories of partners who have gracefully traversed this path, you’re offering hope and encouragement, giving partners the confidence to explore the uncharted waters of transformation.

3. Rising Above Competitive Waves

Partners face a dynamic myriad of challenges: From the survey, partners identified three top competitive barriers, including online marketplaces (49%), vendors’ direct sales (46%), and even their own peers (35%). But hold on, vendors, you’re not just here to sympathize. For instance, you can help partners view online marketplaces not as competition, but as strategic enablers. Positioning partners as consultants and MSPs empowers them to lead customers towards these marketplaces, whose products and solutions they can then help implement and manage, enhancing the overall ecosystem. It’s about embracing collaboration over competition.

4. Skill Gaps and Financial Hurdles: Bridge the Gap

According to the survey, partners are grappling with skill shortages (39%), transition expenses (36%), and employee training (34%). Vendors, you’re in the prime position to lend a helping hand. Offer training resources, certifications, and financial support through well-designed programs. This doesn’t just alleviate financial stress, it reinforces the bond between you and your partners, showcasing your commitment to their growth journey.

5. Communication: The Beacon of Clarity

Crystal-clear communication is the anchor throughout this transformation voyage. Vendors, create channels where partners can fully grasp the “why” behind the changes, the benefits they bring, and how they align with broader objectives. A mix of webinars, virtual events, and communication platforms can serve as your vehicles of information, helping partners navigate the ambiguity and embrace the journey with confidence. The key to being this type of trusted adviser? Regular conversations with partners during business reviews and constant communication with your customers about what their goals are and how you can help them achieve them.

6. Step by Step: A Journey of Incremental Evolution

Remember, transformation is not a one-time affair; it’s a continuous journey. Encourage partners to take measured steps out of their comfort zones. By celebrating every small milestone, partners gain a sense of accomplishment and motivation to keep moving forward. As a vendor, your role is not only to inspire but also to guide partners in embracing gradual yet meaningful change.

7. Conquering Fear through Shared Wisdom

Fear often lurks where change resides. Here’s where your expertise comes into play. You have the benefit of an extensive partner ecosystem, many of which have navigated transformation themselves. Create a platform where partners can learn from their peers who’ve conquered their fears and emerged victorious. Peer experiences are a treasure trove of insights and courage. By fostering this sharing spirit, you’re transforming fear into confidence, creating a united front against the unknown.

8. Embracing Sales Amidst Transformation

Regardless of the transformation, partners are, at their core, sales-driven entities. As a vendor, reinforce this mindset. Equip partners with sales enablement materials, insights into market trends, and strategies for customer engagement. This empowers partners to not only survive the transformation but thrive within it.

9. Bridging the Gap: Business Challenges over Tech Talk

Partners often begin their journey fueled by technology passion, only to realize the need for a solid grasp of the business side. You, as a vendor, can steer partners towards connecting with customers’ real-world challenges rather than becoming mired in technical jargon. It’s about finding solutions that resonate with customers’ needs and transcending the tech-stack conversation.

10. The Power of Problem Solving

In the heart of transformation, it’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of change. Yet, your guidance can help partners ground themselves by focusing on one pivotal question: “What problem are you trying to solve?” By tackling transformation with a clear problem-solving mindset, partners shift from change for the sake of change to an understanding that change comes with a quantifiable, market-driven purpose. Keep their eyes on the long-term goal, and transformation becomes much less intimidating.

Embracing Transformation Together

As the business landscape evolves, the role of vendors in supporting partners’ transformation journeys becomes increasingly vital. Partners are embarking on a path that’s often filled with uncertainty and challenges. By heeding the lessons from CompTIA’s research, vendors can stand shoulder to shoulder with partners, guiding them through the labyrinth of change.

Remember, it’s not just about being a spectator. Vendors can be the beacon of hope, the source of inspiration, and the provider of practical solutions. Each challenge partners face, from talent shortages to market disruptions, is an opportunity for vendors to step in, offering resources, insights, and guidance.

And, let’s not forget the magic of Partner Relationship Management (PRM) solutions. These platforms can be the bridge that connects partners with tailored assistance, knowledge sharing, and collaborative forums. In an era where change is the only constant, PRM solutions enable vendors to be partners in the truest sense, guiding partners towards a future that’s brighter, more innovative, and confidently transformed. Together, vendors and partners can navigate the waves of change, emerging stronger and more resilient than ever before.When you’re ready to optimize your channel program, take a look at what the ZiftONE^TM platform can do for you.

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Industry-leading PRM and TMCA provider offers advisory services to upskill channel programs through new partnership

CARY, N.C.  – August 3, 2023 – Zift Solutions, a leading provider of Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TMCA) software, today announced it is partnering with AchieveUnite to offer Zift customers channel leadership, skill development and advisory services. Together, Zift Solutions and AchieveUnite enable customers to gain access not only to the ZiftONE channel management platform, but also to specific educational programs and services from AchieveUnite. These programs help build Partner Lifetime Value®, a combination of maximizing investments and optimizing strategy around people, partners and programs. All of these elements build trust and make organizations more competitive and relevant in the marketplace.

“Organizations that have a clear partner go-to-market strategy and a comprehensive, state-of-the art partner program are uniquely equipped to leverage the power of the ZiftONE platform and deliver more value to their partners,” said Anthony D’Angelo, Vice President of Sales. “With the combination of AchieveUnite’s partnering expertise and ZiftONE’s market-leading PRM and TCMA capabilities, our customers can be confident that they are in the best position possible to drive material growth through their partner ecosystem.”

The following packages are now available:

Channel Acceleration Bootcamp (CAB): The Channel Acceleration Bootcamp is a comprehensive virtual 6-week program designed to equip you and your team with the skills to develop and maintain a competitive and progressive partner program that not only fits your business needs, but also drives value for your partners.

Accelerate Workshop: Accelerate Workshop is a custom half-day workshop leveraging AchieveUnite’s advisory services to deliver results designed to accelerate program success.

Vendor Maturity Index (VMi^TM): Based on the ground-breaking principles of Partner LifeTimeValue®, VMi^TM holistically examines your partner program through the lens of 5 maturity levels and 13 essential program categories and identifies high-impact areas for improvement.

“Our combined expertise enables Zift customers to gain access to programs that deepen their partnerships, elevate their employees and strengthen leadership capabilities,” said Theresa Caragol, CEO of AchieveUnite. “Together, we are focused on helping channel leaders build stronger teams and partnering relationships.”

To learn more about the partnership between Zift Solutions and AchieveUnite and discover how you can start building Partner Lifetime Value® with AchieveUnite programs, click here.

About AchieveUnite

AchieveUnite is passionately focused on helping organizations thrive through the development of trusting, dynamic partnerships. With deep experience across the channel and partner ecosystem, their proven approach to uplevel partnering expertise and effectiveness delivers strong financial return and business transformation. From strategy to execution, AchieveUnite partners with businesses across multiple industries, including Fortune 1000 clients and start-ups. Partner LifeTime Value® is a registered trademark of AchieveUnite.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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CARY, N.C. – July 24, 2023– Zift Solutions, a leading provider of Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) software, has been named as a “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q3 2023 report by Forrester Research.

Zift Solutions was among the select companies that Forrester invited to participate in its Q3 2023 Forrester Wave™ evaluation, Partner Relationship Management, Q3 2023. In this evaluation, Zift Solutions’ top scores in the Strategy Category were in the Roadmap and Adoption criteria.

In Forrester’s evaluation, Zift Solutions received the highest score possible in 12 criteria, including:

• Current Offering Category: Business planning and management, Guided partner journey and experience, Continuous partner enablement, Content Management, Partner demand management, Lead and opportunity management, Platform governance and security, Partner types, classifications, and values, Personalization and customizations
• Strategy Category: Roadmap, Adoption

According to the report, authored by Hannibal Scipio, “Zift Solutions shines with a comprehensive platform for optimal engagement. Launched a few years ago, Zift Solutions’ new partner platform has come of age. It has transformed from a product focused on channel programs to an extensible platform for ecosystem partners to deliver excellent customer experiences. With its more recent enhancements, including integration of generative AI technology, such as ChatGPT, and a superior roadmap to deliver increasing self-serviceability, expanded automation, and ecosystem-wide engagement, it is well-positioned for success.”

“We believe being named as a leader in this Wave evaluation validates what our customers have been saying about the value that ZiftONE brings to the channel and partner programs,” said Lionel Farr, CTO, Zift Solutions. “We remain committed to delivering the most innovative solution in the market, further empowering our customers, and continuing to shape the future of Partner Relationship Management.”

The ZiftONE Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) platform is purpose-built to support a solution provider’s entire partner ecosystem while delivering greater efficiencies to the entire organization. It manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales.

A copy of the complete report is available HERE.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by a leading independent research firm, as well as a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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ZiftONE Tier Programs enable partner programs to set up rules for multiple partner tiers, show partners what they need to do to meet the criteria for different partner tiers, easily monitor which partners have made progress and manually move partners up or down to different tiers if partner management teams feel they should be eligible outside program rules. Tier Programs can take into account revenue actions like deals registered, training actions like certifications completed, marketing actions like campaigns, and other aspects of partner performance. Partner program management can utilize ZiftONE’s Partner Groups to filter which Tier Program is displayed. Partners can be listed in more than one Tier Program, enabling partner programs greater flexibility. Tiers can be set to update automatically or manually; if a program changes its tier status quarterly or yearly, they are empowered to do so.

ZiftONE User Achievements rewards partner portal users for engaging with activities by granting points for every achievement completed. These can be repeatable or set to be completed one time only. When an achievement is completed it changes color, so every partner representative can easily see what they still have left to achieve. Completing an achievement earns points for the individual and shows their progress in the portal. User Achievements can be centered around marketing activities, onboarding completion, training completion, the registration of deals, lead activities, and more.

Both ZiftONE Tier Programs and User Achievements allow for custom imagery, ensuring that the look and feel of the portal are in line with each company feature and overall brand strategy.

“Motivating and rewarding partners and the people who work within partner programs are key to driving greater engagement,” Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer at Zift Solutions, said. “Making partner program compliance, like a Tier Program, easily viewable to partners is a huge step in driving this behavior. Setting goals for individual users takes this even further. These new features show Zift’s commitment to helping set customers apart from other partner programs.”

Tier Programs and User Achievements have been rolled out to customers in the powerful ZiftONE platform. They are included in Zift’s top-rated feature set with no additional licensing fee for all new customers. Current ZiftONE customers are encouraged to contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM) if they have questions about these new features.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Launches Features to Increase Partner Engagement appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Businesses that rely on an indirect channel to amplify marketing campaigns, generate leads and close sales need a single, enterprise-wide view into the performance of every partner, regardless of business unit, geography, product set or distribution strategy. This information is critical for accurate forecasting, planning and global expansion. Until now, companies managed their various partner programs separately using disparate applications and platforms without a consolidated enterprise dashboard. ZiftONE Global eliminates the time-consuming process of managing, extracting and consolidating critical business information about channel partners and performance. The PRM platform provides a centralized way to manage, analyze and present channel performance data in an easy-to-follow dashboard.

ZiftONE Global is purpose-built for worldwide industries including technology, telco, manufacturing, building materials and other companies that have multiple partner programs with various channel configurations. By using ZiftONE Global, customers can easily expand into new regions, integrate partner programs from newly acquired companies and amplify marketing campaigns without eroding brand equity. The platform drives higher partner engagement, faster sales cycles, increased revenue and greater market share. For partners, the advanced channel enablement capabilities of ZiftONE Global eliminate potential roadblocks to success, even delivering leads directly into a partner’s CRM of choice. 

“With 75-80% of all sales going through the channel, it’s critical for businesses to be able to easily see the status of every partner and their activity without losing valuable time and resources trying to manage an increasingly complex tech stack. ZiftONE Global solves this issue,” said Lionel Farr, chief technology officer of Zift Solutions. “We’ve done the research, interviewed customers and partners, and have built the industry’s most comprehensive PRM to support the needs of customers today while providing the foundation for them to build long-term, profitable partner relationships.”

New features of ZiftONE Global include:

Global channel management: A centralized platform offers complete visibility into channel activity across all business units. The easy-to-understand dashboard provides decision makers and stakeholders with accurate insights and analytics showing the performance of all partners by marketing campaigns, revenue forecasts, sales and other key performance metrics.

Support for global growth and expansion: The platform is designed for easy onboarding of new partners and partner programs as organizations grow through acquisitions and expansion into new regions and sectors. 

Streamlined organization of products and services: Customers can easily group products and services by reseller, distributor, business unit, country, region and more. Presenting only relevant information to distinct audiences in a highly organized way avoids confusion, enabling partners to successfully move forward with their go-to-market strategies. 

Shared marketing assets: Each business unit or region has dedicated portals, content libraries and campaigns. Global admins and corporate marketing teams can place assets into specific portals to ensure consistent messaging and branding while allowing customization by language or product type. This allows partners to easily rebrand content and amplify marketing and sales campaigns using only approved materials.

Existing customers can learn more about ZiftONE Global by contacting their Customer Success Manager. Interested parties can contact the Zift Solutions team to learn more at www.ziftsolutions.com. 

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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The company has been named an overall leading provider of Through-Channel Marketing software. Zift Solutions has also earned recognition as the top provider for small businesses, meaning it is the easiest to do business with, is most likely to be recommended, and has the highest quality of support, amongst other factors. Zift’s newest recognition is as a Momentum leader, meaning that the company’s ZiftONE platform ranks in the top 25% of their category’s products by G2 users.

Within the Partner Management Software category, Zift Solutions has once again been recognized as an overall leader, a leader for enterprise companies, mid-market companies, and small businesses. Zift also earned a badge for being a Momentum leader in the PRM space. The company has received 20+ user reviews with an average 4.0-star rating.

“Our ongoing market expansion and the increasing adoption of our ZiftONE platform by numerous companies have led to the continued positive recognition by G2,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “We extend our gratitude to the users of ZiftONE for their unwavering support and valuable feedback as we continue to provide the leading PRM and TCMA applications.”

Zift Solutions is the only product in its market to be built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform provides its global customer base with top-to-bottom funnel management that aligns channel sales, marketing, and enablement around growth. Customers include Dell, Cisco, Nutanix, and more. To learn more about Zift Solutions and ZiftONE, inquiries can be directed to this contact page.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Featured in G2 Summer 2023 Reports appeared first on Zift Solutions.

D’Angelo has more than 20 years of experience in global channel sales, advancing industry-recognized channel teams, sales results, and partner programs for fast-growth companies in both the networking and security space. Most recently, Anthony served as the Global Channel Chief for Cato Networks, where he built a world-class channel team and more than tripled channel-led sales results. Prior to his position at Cato Networks, he was the Director of Global SD-WAN Partner Sales at Cisco Systems, where he oversaw partner sales for Cisco’s SD-WAN product line.

“Our entire organization is excited to have Anthony join the team,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “His extensive experience in building and leading high-performing channel teams will be invaluable as we continue to help our customers achieve their channel marketing and sales goals.”

 “I’m thrilled to be joining the amazing team at Zift Solutions. As a Channel Chief, I know firsthand how important a well-designed and fully utilized PRM can be,” said D’Angelo. “As a leader in the space, ZiftONE helps businesses increase revenue and improve productivity, ultimately leading to sustained growth and success. It has always been my go-to PRM and I am excited to work with clients to ensure they get the very best results with Zift Solutions.”

D’Angelo’s appointment as the Head of Customer Growth comes at a time when the company is experiencing rapid growth and expanding its customer base. His passion for enhancing customer experience will undoubtedly bring significant value to the company’s partner management and marketing automation solutions.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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With this feature, users can simply edit a text block within ZiftONE and then select the new “Write with AI” option. Based upon the user’s prompt, AI will generate original text. This text can then be applied with just one click. Zift’s new AI functionality not only enables an easier content creation process but helps users leverage the power of artificial intelligence while still controlling their unique branding and messaging.

“We are excited to launch this new feature for our customers. AI-generated text is a game-changer for businesses that want to streamline their partner communications process,” says Gordon Rapkin, Chief Executive Officer of Zift Solutions. “With this feature, our customers will save time and increase efficiency, all while maintaining a high level of quality and consistency in their communications with partners.”

One of the most important actions a supplier can take to generate partner engagement is to continuously provide fresh, relevant content and maintain a constant flow of communication with partners. AI-generated text has been rolled out to customers as an integrated capability in the powerful ZiftONE platform. It is included in Zift’s top-rated feature set with no additional licensing fee for all new customers. Current ZiftONE customers are encouraged to contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM) if they have questions about this new feature. 

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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Hey, Jenine! Thank you for stopping by our Employee Spotlight series. To get started, can you tell our readers about what you do here at Zift?

Thanks for taking the time! I’m excited. I create content for both Zift and our clients. I help make sure that everything goes well as far as management coming up with new, different ways to use social media.

Yes! I know I always appreciate the beautiful videos you create for ZiftONE.

Thank you so much. You know, I have fun being creative. I love the fact that Zift allows me to create.

While we’re on that topic, I was wondering if you could share a recent project you’ve worked on and are especially proud of.

Yeah, so right now my manager Ben and I are working on a project that utilizes animated GIFs for social media posts. The goal is to help our clients determine whether GIFs result in a higher click-thru rate for their content. Ultimately, this will help clients make the most of their Service Points so that when we are curating content for them, we can not only guarantee content that works but guarantee content that is actually generating ROI. I’m trying to do my part to research GIFs right now, then moving forward we can create optimal social media processes.

Love it! That fits perfectly with my last question, actually. As you know, ZIft is always focused on giving our customers the best experience possible. Do you have any recent examples of something from your department that has been completed with customers top of mind? It sounds like that GIF project is one great example.

I try to experiment a lot. You never know until you try, right? Recently we chose a handful of customers for a custom curation project over the course of three months. We wanted to see how partners utilized our content, how they customized the messaging, and what worked best in terms of engagement. This informed our approach to creating content for Zift clients. You know, I have my Master’s degree in new media journalism which is all about social media – so this is something I love!

The post Employee Spotlight: Jenine Williams appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Throughout his career, Mariano has held key positions in various industries, including serving as a management consultant for Caledon Consulting and as Customer Experience Design and Insight Director at the Royal Bank of Canada. As the founder and CEO of GetLift Agency, he established one of North America’s leading B2B and channel management agencies. Most recently, he was the Vice President of Services for Uberflip Software. He has more than two decades of experience scaling and transforming technology companies for customer success in mainstream markets.

“We are thrilled to welcome Cosmo Mariano to the Zift Solutions team,” said Gordon Rapkin, Chief Executive Officer. “His background in customer experience design and strategy will bring a fresh perspective to our customer journey and value delivery. Cosmo’s role, and the unity of a Customer Operations Team, is just one piece of our continuous commitment to serving ZiftONE customers.”

“I could not be more excited to be joining Zift,” Cosmo Mariano added. “As Chief Customer Officer, I look forward to applying my wide range of knowledge and experience to the ZiftONE user base as we continue to prioritize customer delight.”

Mariano’s initiatives have consistently delivered impressive results, increasing value for customers, employees, and stakeholders by focusing on outcomes. His leadership skills have led to accelerated transformation and exceptional project success rates. A lifelong learner, Mariano continually enhances his skills through various professional programs, like the Stanford Corporate Innovation Program, Product-Led Growth, and IDEO business design.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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This is the fifth quarter in a row that Zift Solutions has been featured as the number-one provider of Through-Channel Marketing Software. The company has also earned recognition as the top relationship provider for small businesses, meaning it is the easiest to do business with, is most likely to be recommended, and has the highest quality of support, amongst other factors.

Within the Partner Management Software category, Zift has once again been recognized as a Leader in Small-Business, a Leader in Mid-Market, and an overall Leader. The company has received 20+ user reviews with an average 4.0-star rating.

“As we continue to expand our market presence and more companies adopt our ZiftONE platform, the G2 Spring reports are a recognition that our innovations are leading to very positive results for our customers and their partners,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “Thank you to ZiftONE’s users for their support and reviews. It is especially exciting to see our placement as the top relationship provider in Through-Channel Marketing Automation, proving that Zift’s team is always willing to go the extra mile for our customers.”

Zift Solutions is the only product in its market to be built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform provides its global customer base with top to bottom funnel management that aligns channel sales, marketing, and enablement around growth. Customers include Dell, Cisco, Nutanix, and more. To learn more about Zift Solutions and ZiftONE, inquiries can be directed to this contact page.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry and fueled by the recent $70M capital investment by Investcorp, Zift has been named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Featured in G2 Spring 2023 Reports appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Research shows that gender-diverse teams offer companies improved problem-solving tools, broader thinking, and better solutions. This directly translates into outperforming competitors and higher earnings. It’s been a slow process, but women are now represented throughout the tech industry and act as role models and mentors to new generations of women entering the field. 

Zift Leaders Offer Advice and Support to Young Women in Tech

In celebration of International Women’s Day, March 8, Zift Solutions asked a few of our talented leaders, what career advice would you give your younger self? What advice do you have for women starting a career in IT?

On Finding Your Place

“Tap into as many people as possible to find out what they do and why they like it. Explore all the available possibilities. Believe it or not, some people are glad to help you as you start your career. Find those people and build relationships. Now more than ever, career opportunities are only limited by your imagination.”  

• Laura Crawford, Director of Human Resources

“There are three elements that will make you happy in your job. The company, do you like their vision, products, and culture? Do you trust your manager, and will you learn something valuable under their guidance? Do you like the job role, what you are doing every day? 

My advice to my younger self is if you have all three of those things, treasure them because they don’t come along often. If you have two things, work on making the third element better. If you have zero or only one of the above, don’t stay too long where you’re unhappy. There are always other opportunities.”

• Gwyn Edwards, Director of Partnerships and Alliances

“I would tell my younger self that there is more than one path to follow. Consider your priorities and find a career path that allows for a work/life balance. And travel first!”

• Lissa Johnson, Director of Customer Success Operations

On Success and Advancement 

“Don’t hold back because of a hypothetical situation. I passed on early career advancement opportunities because “I’m thinking about starting a family” or “I might need to care for a sick parent soon.”  

The farther along you are in your career, the more power you have over work-life challenges.  With advancement, you gain better control of your time. Push forward, and when a personal situation arises, you will have the flexibility to handle it.”

• Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer

“I’ve been privileged to work with some of the brightest minds on the planet even though my career took a completely different direction than what I envisioned in college. I’ve found IT and the channel space welcoming to women, and it’s an industry where you can succeed and grow in your career. 

My advice is to take chances. When you come to that fork in the road, taking the safe path isn’t always a bad choice, but the riskier option could take you somewhere better than you imagined.”

• Gwyn Edwards, Director of Partnerships and Alliances

“Embrace the possibility of failure. All success comes with risk. To win big, you must be willing to fail big. I’ve had lots of wins but also lots of failures. I learned from all of them, and I’m glad I took risks.”

• April Samuelson, Director of Product Marketing

On Skill-Building and Mentors

“Success in the IT channel means understanding the go-to-market realities of the business. The channel with the lowest cost-of-acquisition or cost-to-support wins. Make sure you have the financial analysis skills needed to understand channel performance vs. other routes to market. That may mean finding a mentor or filling skill gaps with additional training.”

• Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer 

“Picture yourself living your best life – what does that look like? Work is just one part of this picture. Create your plans in pencil and put your values in pen. Plans will change, and this is okay. People who love you want the best for you, so leave the fear of judgment behind. Live your values and if you find yourself in a situation that doesn’t align with them, get out the eraser and pencil in a new plan!”

• Laura Crawford, Director of Human Resources 

“The IT channel is a great place for women.  Gravitate towards other female leaders who encourage you and give you a path for growth.” 

• Lissa Johnson, Director of Customer Success Operations

Are you interested in pursuing a job with Zift? Click here to view open positions.

About International Women’s Day

The first official National Woman’s Day was held in New York City on February 28, 1909. Soon after, the concept of a “woman’s day” caught on in Europe. The first International Woman’s Day was held on March 19, 1911, drawing more than 1 million people to rallies worldwide. 

Today International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day is also a call to action for gender inclusion and equality.

Many organizations and people celebrate IWD by:

• Celebrating women’s achievements
• Raising awareness about women’s equality
• Lobbying for accelerated gender parity
• Fundraising for female-focused charities

Learn more about IWD on the official website: https://www.internationalwomensday.com/

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Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions’ award-winning ZiftONE software delivers a comprehensive, modern platform that aligns channel marketing, channel sales, and channel operations. ZiftONE’s customers consist of national and international brands with renowned channel programs. Its customers are served from three offices: Oxford, UK, Hoboken, New Jersey, and Cary, North Carolina.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Investcorp Technology Partners as we enter this next stage of growth,” said Gordon Rapkin, Chief Executive Officer of Zift Solutions. “Investcorp demonstrated a strong understanding of our business and the potential of the markets we serve. They are the right partner to support our international expansion given their global expertise. We look forward to working with Investcorp to continue our growth journey and capitalize on the fast-growing channel technology sector, as well as on the value it provides in helping organizations scale their own growth.”

ITP’s investment will help accelerate Zift’s go-to-market strategy, continue expansion into international markets, and further support the company’s growth. ITP has established a market-leading position of investing in lower mid-market technology companies with a specific focus on Software, Data / Analytics, Cyber Security, and Fintech. The investment in Zift represents the second investment from ITP’s global fund, Investcorp Technology Partners V.

“Building and growing an effective channel program that engages partners is a critical, constant challenge for channel leaders,” added Andy Drummond, Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer for Zift Solutions. “There is enormous potential in channel technology to meet these needs. We are excited to have the support of Investcorp as we deliver additional innovation and enhanced services to move the market forward.”

“Our investment in Zift aligns with ITP’s mission to support high-growth companies with proven products and end markets,” said Gilbert Kamieniecky, Head of ITP. “Zift’s solutions help to solve an increasingly complex issue for marketing and sales-driven businesses, making relationship management simpler for companies across industries. We’re excited to be partnering with Zift and helping the Zift team take the business to the next level.”

“Investcorp Technology Partners is pleased to be investing in Zift,” stated Julian Bennet, Managing Director, ITP. “Gordon Rapkin and the Zift Solutions team have shown a tried and tested method for partner relationship management, revolutionizing the way companies can manage their marketing data. We look forward to working with Zift on their further growth, both in the United States and in markets worldwide.”

Atlas Technology Group and Wyrick, Robbins, Yates, and Ponton served as advisors and counsel to Zift Solutions. This transaction is subject to customary regulatory requirements and is expected to close at the end of January.

About Zift Solutions 

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

About Investcorp

Investcorp is a global investment manager, specializing in alternative investments across private equity, real estate, credit, absolute return strategies, GP stakes, infrastructure, and insurance asset management. Since our inception in 1982, we have focused on generating attractive returns for our clients while creating long-term value in our investee companies and for our shareholders as a prudent and responsible investor.

We invest a meaningful portion of our own capital in products we offer to our clients, ensuring that our interests are aligned with our stakeholders, including the communities that we operate within, towards driving sustainable value creation. We take pride in partnering with our clients to deliver tailored solutions for their needs, utilizing a disciplined investment process, employing world-class talent and combining the resources of a global institution with an innovative, entrepreneurial approach. In January 2022, Investcorp issued its 2021 Responsible Business Report which outlines its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) highlights for 2021 and specific initiatives the Firm implemented to meet its goals: https://www.investcorp.com/esg/.

Investcorp has today 13 offices across the US, Europe, GCC and Asia, including India, China and Singapore. As of January 2023, Investcorp Group had US $50 billion in total AUM, including assets managed by third party managers, and employed approximately 510 people from 50 nationalities globally across its offices.

For further information, visit http://www.investcorp.com/ and follow us @Investcorp on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

The post Zift Solutions Receives $70 Million in Funding to Expand Market Leadership appeared first on Zift Solutions.

This is the fourth quarter in a row that Zift has been featured as the number-one provider of Through-Channel Marketing. Within the Partner Management category, Zift has been recognized as a Leader in Small-Business, a Leader in Mid-Market, and has once again received 20+ user reviews with an average 4.0-star rating.

“We are honored to receive this recognition from G2 and our users,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “As we continue to innovate the ZiftONE product, we look to our customers to guide us to ensure that their needs are not just met but exceeded. Inclusion in the G2 Winter 2023 reports shows us that this is happening as intended.”

Zift Solutions is the only product in its market to be built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform provides its global customer base with top to bottom funnel management that aligns channel sales, marketing, and enablement around growth. Customers include Dell, Cisco, Nutanix, and more. To learn more about Zift Solutions and ZiftONE, inquiries can be directed to this contact page.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Featured in G2 Winter 2023 Reports appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Zift Solutions’s CEO Gordon Rapkin was interviewed by the MarTech Outlook publication regarding ZiftONE’s innovative approach to Channel Marketing. His interview can be found in the latest print edition of MarTech Outlook’s Channel Marketing magazine.

“We created ZiftONE to work as a unified, comprehensive solution. Our objective is to enable marketers to do everything from demand generation, lead building, and deal management through the full range of marketing channels,” Rapkin shared in the interview. “[ZiftONE] also enables [users] to view their ROI, marketing activities, and business analytics from a single source.”

This acknowledgment from MarTech Outlook is one of many industry-wide recognitions that Zift Solutions has received this year. In 2022 alone, Zift has received a Tech Cares award from the national brand TrustRadius, has won a People’s Choice Stevie® Award from the American Business Awards®, and was presented with a Globee® Award in the Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, and Operations category.

“At the core of these awards and honors is Zift’s ongoing commitment to innovation,” says CEO Gordon Rapkin. “We are proud to receive recognition for our hard work. This is a sign of great things to come from Zift Solutions.”

More information on the Top Channel Marketing Solutions Provider award can be found at the MarTech Outlook website or at https://www.martechoutlook.com/.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

The post Zift Solutions Named a Top Channel Marketing Solutions Provider in 2022 appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The women on this year’s list lead from a variety of positions across the C-suite and beyond, from CEO to CISO and CHRO, to SVP and Director of Software Engineering. What they have in common is a demonstrated track record of success tackling the greatest challenges the industry has to offer. 

“It’s a true honor to be included on this list along with so many influential women in the SaaS space,” said Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer and recipient of The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2022 award. “I look forward to continuing to participate in this growing industry and nurturing the next generation of winners into 2023 and beyond.”

The software-as-a-service market continues to expand, with some expecting the global SaaS market to grow at a CAGR of 25.9% from $143.8 billion last year to a staggering $720.4 billion in 2028. More companies seeking to digitize more parts of their operations has led to stiffer competition between SaaS providers. 

The accomplished women on this year’s list have been instrumental in leading their companies to innovation and success in everything from document generation to enterprise resource planning, education administration, cybersecurity, and other software categories. Please join us in celebrating The Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2022.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

The post CRO Heather Tenuto Named to the Top 50 Women Leaders in SaaS of 2022 List appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Hey, Laura! Thank you for stopping by our Employee Spotlight series. To get started, can you explain what Zift Solutions does?

Hey, Kelsey! I’m glad to. Zift Solutions has the people, places, and processes needed to deliver the best Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Channel Marketing Management software in the industry. Both Channel Marketing and Partner Relationship Management enable suppliers and partners to align on goals, communicate program progress, and effectively reach ROI goals.

Thanks for that. Can you tell our readers what your job entails?

As a Human Resources professional, you might expect me to say that I have a people-centered approach to my work. Really, I want to bring more than that to my day-to-day at Zift Solutions. What comes to mind is integrated balance: finding ways to bring Zift’s people and business together in harmony. Through fostering an environment where people can be their authentic selves and also find fulfillment, I help nurture employees who are proud of their contributions while simultaneously driving corporate goals.

As you know, Zift is always focused on lifting our employees up. Simply put, we want to be the best employer we can be. What do you think defines an organization as a top employer today?

When it comes to being a “top employer,” there are many lenses through which an organization can be measured: benefits and compensation, culture, diversity, trust, communication, etc. A metric that’s often overlooked is whether or not an employer can attract and retain engaged employees who feel deeply connected to their work. These are the companies that would correctly be identified as a top employer.

Here at Zift, it’s certainly exciting to win awards and receive recognition within the industry. What really highlights us as a top employer, though, is the employee feedback that we receive from our annual employee survey. We consistently receive survey results expressing how deeply our compassionate, supportive community is appreciated. Employees feel they’re living out a culture of respect, integrity, and fun. A leadership team that fosters transparent communication makes it easy for employees to connect their work to customer satisfaction and completed organizational goals. At the end of the day, wouldn’t a top employer be a place where people have fulfilling work, understand the value of what they’re doing, and work with people they genuinely enjoy?

Can you tell us about a recent initiative in the HR department that you’re most proud of?

We started a Professional Development Series a few months ago. This series consists of a voluntary lunch n’ learn that covers a variety of topics, including personal development, financial acumen, and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives. Hosting these types of sessions, thanks to the help of allocated Professional Development funds, shows employees we care about developing their professional and personal growth.

What is the next objective in Zift’s journey to improve the employee experience?

Our next objective is to develop action plans based on those employee survey results. We’ll use this direct feedback to improve our overall employee experience.

From an HR perspective, what is the biggest challenge facing Zift? How are you planning to overcome it?

I see us facing two primary challenges: 1) maintaining our company culture in a virtual world and 2) continuing to foster a culture of inclusivity as we bring in new talent. When it comes to overcoming these challenges, this isn’t going to be a situation where we just check a box and move on. Nurturing employees and company culture requires constant attention and fresh ideas. Right now, our Professional Development Series has helped keep the excitement going within the company. This was just one example of applying fresh ideas to the company. We have more work to do by tapping into our employees and employee survey results.

Going back to that concept of integrated balance, it’s all about listening to employees and engaging with them. This is how companies find solutions to challenges, like staying connected and effectively onboarding new employees in the virtual world.

The post Employee Spotlight: Laura Crawford appeared first on Zift Solutions.

bChannels understands the challenges facing partner and vendor ecosystems, acting as an extension of one’s team and connecting partners with customers. bChannels provides campaign guidance, alongside ZiftONE platform support and expertise, providing program optimization that helps simplify and accelerate campaign activities and generate the highest return on investment.

“As we renew our partnership with bChannels and The Channel Company, we look forward to a continued commitment to serving customers and their channel programs,” said Gwyn Edwards, Director of Partnerships and Alliances at Zift Solutions. “With the combination of bChannels’ marketing expertise and ZiftONE’s market-leading PRM capabilities, customers can be sure they are receiving best-in-class assistance in their channel efforts.”

“Our combined marketing expertise and partnership of over 10 years lets our joint customers remove administrative burdens allowing them to focus on strategy while extending reach and increasing partner engagement,” said Stephanie North, Global SVP of Agency Services at The Channel Company. “Together, we are focused on one thing: ensuring marketing dollars are spent on effective programs that help penetrate further into the market.”

To learn more about the partnership between bChannels and Zift Solutions, and discuss how you can make the most of it for your channel program, please contact Gwyn Edwards at the Zift Solutions website.

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About bChannels

bChannels is a global technology marketing agency with employees in every major region. Experts in to-partner and through-partner marketing, our focus is only on technology and only on channels, making us the choice of leading brands in the market to accelerate the growth of their partner revenues. Our channel experience is built over 22 years from a history of channel program design to today’s product offers. Our coverage is unique with partner marketing experts that provide local language, cultural and business understanding. Now as a part of The Channel Company, which is celebrating its 40th year, we continue to empower the growth and evolution of the technology industry through an unrivaled suite of innovative global marketing services: Events and Communities to foster business growth, Strategic Marketing and Insights to accelerate your time to market, Agency Services to transform your marketing strategy, and Editorial and Media to ensure you’re first to know about the latest technology channel news.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Announces Partnership with bChannels to Further Drive Channel Success appeared first on Zift Solutions.

ZiftONE for Ecosystems includes all of the existing features of ZiftONE, including its market-leading through-partner marketing automation suite. These, combined with a new set of features, are designed to work together to improve partner collaboration and sales through multiple channel partners.

“We’ve seen the channel transform from selling through an individual partner to collaboration across value-added resellers (VARs), distributors, managed service providers (MSPs), and agencies to drive product value and better enable sales across different regions and geographies,” Gordon Rapkin, CEO at Zift Solutions, said. “We view PRMs as the hub for companies embracing a collaborative partner program model. ZiftONE for Ecosystems offers these companies a place to host, manage, and grow their partner ecosystem. ”

ZiftONE for Ecosystems features functionality that enables partners to most effectively interact with a supplier’s offerings, including services, other partners, or resources. These features help partners get everything they need from one platform, in one place. In addition to the existing features included in Zift’s award-winning PRM and TCMA ZiftONE platform, ZiftONE for Ecosystems includes the following features: 

• Partner Finder – ZiftONE’s Partner Finder provides an entirely new way for partners to locate other partners to work with. Through the feature, channel partners can search for a specific partner that will meet their needs. Partners can also promote themselves to other partners by creating a profile that highlights the skills, services, and complementary products they can bring into a deal. From there, partners are able to directly contact each other.
• Multi-Partner Deal Registration – Multi-Partner Deal Registration offers a way for partners to document if and when other partners are collaborating with them on deals. This includes non-transacting partners who have had a huge influence on the deal closing, giving ZiftONE for Ecosystems customers a more accurate picture of who is actually influencing customer decisions. From there, Multi-Partner Deal Registration enables suppliers to reward each partner’s participation in a deal. 
• Provider Locator – The Provider Locator feature is focused on connecting channel partners with the service providers, including approved agencies and technology partners, they need to best sell a supplier’s product. By connecting partners with approved providers, suppliers can have peace of mind that the listed service providers will maintain foundational brand and market understanding. Within the ZiftONE portal, partners are empowered to search for whatever they need within their geographical area – and then connect with the appropriate providers.

ZiftONE for Ecosystems enables and rewards stronger partner collaboration by empowering suppliers to provide an environment where one partner can work with another to close business. This adds value to partners while simultaneously improving the end customer’s experience. 

ZiftONE for Ecosystems is available now for companies interested in improving their channel partner ecosystem experience. Current ZiftONE customers who are interested in adding these features to their ZiftONE instance are encouraged to contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM).

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Introduces ZiftONE for Ecosystems to Power the Next Generation of Channel Programs appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Through this add-on capability, Advanced Partner CRM Integration, suppliers can enable channel partners to work out of their own Salesforce platform. Advanced Partner CRM Integration was designed for use by both distributors and significant national partners. The integration allows these partners to enter deals and leads through Salesforce without requiring the additional step of logging into the ZiftONE portal. It builds upon ZiftONE’s existing, robust CRM Connectors for partners, which allow them to bring in leads from ZiftONE’s best-in-class TCMA features

“Through our experience working with national and award-winning channel programs, we’ve found that access to partner data is a distinct advantage for partner program leaders,” Gordon Rapkin, CEO at Zift Solutions, said. “This new capability makes it easy for partners to share more comprehensive information with their suppliers and improves the deal and lead registration experience, helping suppliers foster better, stronger relationships with their most important partners.” 

Advanced Partner CRM Integration also generates reports that are capable of identifying connection issues, empowering partners to manage their CRM integration themselves.

Advanced Partner CRM Integration is now available as part of the ZiftONE platform. Current ZiftONE customers are encouraged to contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM) if they are interested in accessing this new premium feature. 

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

The post ZiftONE’s Advanced Partner CRM Integration Provides Simplicity for Partners appeared first on Zift Solutions.

“Zift Solutions has earned a 2022 Tech Cares award for demonstrating a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility,” said Megan Headley, VP of Research at TrustRadius. “Zift is committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace and regularly sponsors organizations that work towards this goal. The company and its employees have also made consistent donations to help refugees from war-torn regions.”

“We work tirelessly to foster a supportive, positive workplace culture that puts social responsibility at the core of what we do. It is exciting to see fellow technology companies embrace these initiatives–and be recognized for their work,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “Thank you to TrustRadius and their 2022 Tech Cares Awards for featuring this important responsibility.”

To be accepted for the TrustRadius Tech Cares Award, each nominated organization had to be a B2B technology company that demonstrated impactful CSR initiatives in one of the following categories; volunteerism, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, charitable donations and fundraising, support for in-office and remote employees, or environmental sustainability initiatives. Everyone was welcome to nominate an organization for this award, including those who work for or with the company. All nominations were thoroughly vetted by the TrustRadius research team, and supporting proof was provided by the nominated.

At Zift Solutions, we’re proud of our Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. This year we’ve implemented the Zift Diversity Committee and made commitments to supporting those affected by the war in Ukraine. For more information, please contact us at this page.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

About TrustRadius

TrustRadius is the most trusted research and review platform for business leaders to find and select the right software for their needs. Decision-makers across industries rely on verified, peer-based guidance and research from TrustRadius. Vendors engage and convert high-intent buyers by telling their unique story through rich reviews. Over 12 million visitors a year create and engage with high-quality review content and data on Trustradius.com. Headquartered in Austin, TX, TrustRadius was founded by successful entrepreneurs and is backed by Mayfield Fund, LiveOak Venture Partners, and Next Coast Ventures.

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Zift Solutions was listed as the number one provider of Through-Channel Marketing. This is the third quarter in a row that Zift has received this ranking. Within the Partner Management category, Zift has been recognized as a Leader in Small-Business, a Leader in Mid-Market, and has once again received 20+ user reviews with an average 4.0-star rating.

“It’s a tremendous honor to be recognized by G2 as we continue to develop ZiftONE and prove ourselves as industry innovators,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “Customer care is central to all that we do at Zift. We’re glad to see evidence that our continued innovation and attention to customers is paying off with supportive reviews and high category placement.”

Zift Solutions is the only product in its market that is built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform provides its global customer base with top to bottom funnel management that aligns channel sales, marketing, and enablement around growth. Customers include Dell, Cisco, Nutanix, and more. Recently, Zift announced its $16.5 investment funding from AshGrove Capital to continue to innovate the ZiftONE product.

To learn more about Zift Solutions and ZiftONE, inquiries can be directed to this contact page. Additionally, Zift will be attending The Channel Meet-Up, ChannelPro SMB Forum (Southwest), and Ascent Conference. Interested parties can stay up-to-date on Zift’s upcoming events at this page.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

The post Zift Solutions Named Industry Leader in G2 Fall 2022 Reports appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Through Provider Locator, channel partners can contact approved agencies, technology partners, and service providers that have familiarity with a supplier’s corporate identity. By doing so, suppliers can trust that listed agencies will maintain a foundational understanding of their brand and of the market in which they work. 

Providers can now create their own comprehensive services profile to promote their offerings. In Provider Locator, partners can search for what they need within their geographical area and then connect with the providers that specialize in their language and business practices. Working directly within the supplier’s partner portal, partners can request services.  The supplier is able to track valuable information and data about how many inquiries (leads) are generated for the providers, as well as which partners are reaching out.

“As more global companies embrace partner ecosystems, they are presented with challenges connecting their transacting partners with the right resources–whether that’s marketing agencies, service providers, technology partners, or other companies that can help influence ultimate purchasing decisions,” Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions, said. “At Zift, we’ve recognized the need to support these companies as the definition of a partnership expands and partner programs grow into ecosystems on a global scale.” 

Provider Locator is available now as part of the ZiftONE solution. Current ZiftONE customers are encouraged to contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM) if they are interested in accessing this new feature. 

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

The post ZiftONE Provider Locator Connects Partners with the Right Resources appeared first on Zift Solutions.

The Channel Futures MSP Summit will be taking place in Orlando, Florida at the Caribe Royale hotel from September 13th to 16th. Their featured Women’s Leadership Summit, hosted in partnership with the Alliance of Channel Women, will be highlighting influential women leaders in the channel. Featured speakers will host sessions to provide insight into their careers, as well as to share how colleagues can continue to uplift women in the channel. 

CRO Heather Tenuto’s speaking opportunity will be focused on building channel leadership skills, particularly those related to financial matters. Attendees will leave the session with actionable insights for reading and understanding P&L statements. Tenuto’s speaking event will be taking place on Tuesday, September 13th from 1:45 PM to 2:20 PM.

“As a woman in the channel, sharpening my financial literacy skills has been the make-it-or-break-it key to my success,” said Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer at Zift Solutions. “I look forward to sharing information on how all members of the channel can begin speaking the language of business. Thank you to the Women’s Leadership Summit for providing the opportunity to speak on a subject so near to my work.” 

The Women’s Leadership Summit event is open to all people attending MSP Summit. Click here to register. For those who have not yet signed up for MSP Summit, head over to this webpage. 

About Heather Tenuto

Throughout her career, Heather Tenuto has helped tech companies accelerate revenue through both direct sales and channel partnerships. Her two passions come together in her role as Chief Revenue Officer at Zift Solutions, where her mission is to help companies achieve real channel success. Previously, Heather served as VP of SMB Sales and Indirect Channels at Office Depot, and Vice President of Channels at ShoreTel. Prior to ShoreTel’s acquisition of M5 Networks in 2012, she spent five years at the SaaS start-up in several roles leading sales and marketing efforts. Before that, Heather brought her innovative sales and education experience to businesses in industries including technology, manufacturing, retail, agriculture, and healthcare in both enablement and direct sales roles. Heather has a Bachelor of Arts degree from New York University and a Masters of Arts from City University of New York.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

The post Zift Solutions’ Heather Tenuto a Featured Speaker at MSP Summit Women’s Leadership Summit appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Each year, Channel Futures honors leaders within the IT channel who drive diversity, equity, and inclusion in their professional efforts. This year’s recognition comes after a thorough review by Channel Futures team members. To see the full list of honorees, review this DE&I gallery presented on the Channel Futures website. 

Demar Amacker has been with Zift Solutions since May 2021, when he started as the Director of Revenue Operations. In that time, Demar has been promoted to the Senior Director of Business Operations, where he reports directly to Zift’s Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer. Demar was named a Top 25 Revenue Operations Leader in the 2022 Heroes of RevOps Contest.  

“In the last four months alone, Demar has made tremendous strides leading Zift’s Diversity Committee as our company increases its efforts to support diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said Andy Drummond, CFO/COO at Zift Solutions. “We are thrilled to see his efforts recognized at the channel-wide level and look forward to seeing what the future holds for him.”

“It’s an honor to be included in this year’s DE&I 101 list,” added Demar Amacker. “As someone wholly committed to expanding efforts that support diversity in my professional and personal life, I look forward to continuing this work and sharing it within the channel.”

Zift Solutions sends a warm congratulations to all named recipients of this prestigious award.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions is the only Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) tool built as one to work as one. The company’s ZiftONE platform manages the flow from onboarding to enablement, lead generation to marketing, all the way through sales. Backed by the most experienced team in the industry, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research and a market leader in Partner Management Software and Through-Channel Marketing Software by G2. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

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Are you ready to reduce complexity with a seamless Partner Relationship Management experience?

With the Zift Solutions and Microsoft Dynamics 365 integration, companies with channel partner programs can now easily manage their data between two platforms. Channel sales leaders, marketing leaders, and administrators can all expect to find a simpler user experience that enables partner and deal management in one place.

This solution offers the ZiftONE features customers know and love: a hyper-personalized, easy-to-use partner portal, through-partner marketing, partner enablement, and much more.

With ZiftONE for Dynamics 365, you get an app that is preconfigured and reduces complexity. The integration will automatically update as new features are added to ZiftONE, offering a seamless experience.

Now, you can:

• Manage data and deals in Dynamics 365.
• Make the most of turnkey installations to map ZiftONE fields to Dynamics 365 fields.
• Manage partner roles and groups in Dynamics 365.
• Filter your view in Dynamics 365 to show only your partners.
• Grow your partner program.
• Manage your partners–better than ever.

Check out the full benefits of ZiftONE for Dynamics 365 on this page.

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“We are thrilled to announce the collaboration between Zift and Microsoft to deliver a Dynamics 365 capability that manages channel partners through our industry-leading ZiftONE platform,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “By building partner management directly in Dynamics 365, the user experience for channel sales leaders, marketing leaders, and administrators is familiar and efficient, and delivers the full power of Zift’s Partner Relationship Management (PRM) platform.”

With this integration, Dynamics 365 customers can now manage deals and users directly in Dynamics 365 without ever leaving their native environment. With a combination of channel expertise, powerful data tools, and a platform built for ease-of-use, channel programs will be empowered to see immediate ROI and dramatically improve their partner experience. 

This new solution includes all of ZiftONE’s features: Dynamic, hyper-personalized, easy to use partner portal experience, powerful through-partner social media and email marketing campaigns, co-brandable video, comprehensive onboarding plans, easy-to-create online training, partner locator, deal registration, lead distribution and more.

“Microsoft is glad to be partnering with Zift Solutions to provide a partner relationship channel management system with a more seamless technology experience built on Dynamics 365,” says Toby Bowers, General Manager, Industry, Applications & Data Marketing at Microsoft Corp. “By making it easier for partner programs to access their data in one place, we are significantly reducing roadblocks that lead to friction and reduced ROI.”

Companies interested in adding ZiftONE for Microsoft Dynamics 365 to their current Dynamics 365 instance can view the listing in the Microsoft AppSource to find out more.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions has a decade and a half of experience delivering Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Channel Marketing Management. As the global leader in Enterprise Channel Management, the company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue. In 2020, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

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Winners of the crystal People’s Choice Stevie Awards, as well as all other winners in the 20^th ABAs, will be celebrated during a gala awards banquet on Monday, June 13 in New York City.

The People’s Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products are a feature of The American Business Awards in which the general public can vote for their favorite new products and services of the year.  More than 46,000 votes were cast in people’s choice categories this year.  All new products and services nominated in the ABAs’ new product categories were included in people’s choice voting.

More than 3,700 nominations were submitted to this year’s American Business Awards for consideration in a wide range of categories, including New Product or Service of the Year, Most Innovative Company of the Year, Management Team of the Year, Best New Product or Service of the Year, Corporate Social Responsibility Program of the Year, and Startup of the Year, among others.

In January, Zift announced the launch of its Virtual Event Campaigns capability on the ZiftONE platform. This product was nominated for, and won, this year’s People’s Choice Stevie Award in the Relationship Management Solution category. The Virtual Event Campaign offering is a first-of-its-kind marketing capability. It allows ZiftONE’s customers to promote webinars and other virtual events directly through their partners with registration attribution and lead tracking capabilities. 

“ZiftONE Virtual Event Campaigns measure where registrations are coming from, create standardized and co-brandable event promotions, and integrate data that identifies and scores leads and tracks the buyers’ journey,” says Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “It is an honor to have this capability recognized by The American Business Awards voters.”

Details about The American Business Awards, the list of People’s Choice Stevie Award winners, and the complete list of Stevie winners in this year’s ABAs are available at www.StevieAwards.com/ABA.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions has a decade and a half of experience delivering Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation. As the global leader in Enterprise Channel Management, the company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue. In 2020, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research. For more information, visit Zift Solutions

About the Stevie Awards

Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East & North Africa Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, and the Stevie Awards for Great Employers. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

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Cary, N.C. – May 12, 2022 – Zift Solutions, a leading provider of partner relationship management (PRM) and through-channel marketing automation (TCMA) software, today announced several new additions to its ZiftONE platform. With its three technology-first features, suppliers using Zift can better and more easily empower their partners for digital marketing and communications.

• Co-Brandable Videos: Co-brandable videos allow partners to upload and personalize their logo on supplier-provided videos, providing an additional marketing tool that reflects their brand while still using the supplier’s messaging.
• Through-Partner Social Media Syndication: ZiftONE’s improved Through-Partner Social Media Syndication helps suppliers share videos and photos in posts to partners’ Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. ZiftONE supports both company and individual seller’s accounts. Now, suppliers can more easily identify periods lacking content with an expanded media calendar view and access comprehensive reports.
• To-Partner Emails and Pop-Ups: ZiftONE’s enhanced tools with drag and drop functionality and a WYSIWYG editor to make it easy to build emails and in-app pop-up messages for announcements. With filters, suppliers can be sure that the messages only reach their intended audience. They can also get reporting to see who has and who has not interacted with the message.

“ZiftONE empowers channel marketing through selling partners in an increasingly virtual world,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “This is the next step in our expanding focus on digital communications. Earlier this year we delivered virtual event campaigns to enable a data-driven approach to promote webinars through third-party sellers. Zift’s shareable co-brandable videos and Zift’s scalable social media syndication further help companies give their third-party sellers a dynamic online presence featuring their products. By extending ZiftONE’s to-partner communications abilities, suppliers can easily share and promote to their partners these new and improved tools to help partners become master digital marketers.”

All three features were rolled out to customers as an integrated capability of the powerful ZiftONE all-in-one platform, and are included in Zift’s top-rated through partner marketing automation feature set with no additional licensing fee for new customers.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions has a decade and a half of experience delivering Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA). As the global leader in Enterprise Channel Management, the company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue. In 2020, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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By bringing innovative concepts, strategic business planning and comprehensive channel initiatives to life, these extraordinary women support partners and customers with exceptional leadership. CRN celebrates these women, who are so deserving of recognition, for their constant dedication to channel excellence.

Gwyn Edwards runs the Zift ZONE Alliance Program which connects Zift customers to a growing ecosystem of trusted and certified agencies, applications, and service providers, all of whom drive channel success. Gwyn is a seasoned channel leader with 30+ years of channel experience for a wide range of companies – from high-growth start-ups to industry giants like Nortel and Oracle with mature partner programs. Gwyn has created and managed a wide variety of Go-to-Market models including OEMs, VARs, System Integrators, Two Tier Distributors, and Service Providers.

“We couldn’t be more excited to see Gwyn’s accomplishments, as well as her dedication to serving Zift and our alliance partners, rewarded,” says Heather Tenuto, the Chief Revenue Officer at Zift Solutions. “Gwyn’s commitment to building channel relationships shines through in all that she does.” 

“We are proud to once again recognize the remarkable leaders on this year’s Women of the Channel list. Their influence, confidence, and diligence continue to accelerate channel success significantly,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “Their accomplishments will inspire others, and we look forward to witnessing their future contributions to the channel.”

CRN’s 2022 Women of the Channel list will be featured in the June issue of CRN Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/WOTC.

About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions has a decade and a half of experience delivering Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Channel Marketing Management. As the global leader in Enterprise Channel Management, the company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue. In 2020, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers, and end-users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelcompany.com 

Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

 © 2022. CRN is a registered trademark of The Channel Company, LLC.  All rights reserved. 

The Channel Company Contact:

Jennifer Hogan

The Channel Company

jhogan@thechannelcompany.com

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Additionally, Zift Solutions was named a top leader in Partner Management software, a category it has been included in for four consecutive quarters. G2, the leading tech marketplace for businesses to find and review technology products, releases quarterly reports detailing progress in a variety of software categories.

On top of being included in the Through-Channel Marketing and Partner Management categories, Zift was recognized as a Leader in Small-Business for Partner Management, a Leader in Mid-Market for Partner Management, and received a “Users Love Us” reward. These rewards are given to companies that have received 20+ user reviews with an average 4.0-star rating.

“We are incredibly grateful for the number of positive customer reviews that led to these results,” said Gordon Rapkin, Zift’s Chief Executive Officer. “Time and time again, we’re reminded as a company that our customers are the backbone of our business. Thank you to those who helped us achieve these results.”

Zift Solutions is the choice of leaders in the channel, including Dell, Cisco, Nutanix, and more. It recently expanded its market-leading ZiftONE platform with innovative new features, including integrated Virtual Event campaigns, which help channel programs take their virtual event promotion to the next level, and Success Plans, empowering sales leaders to get on the same page as their partners with detailed annual plans.

To learn more about Zift Solutions, please visit www.ziftsolutions.com or stop by booth #2444 at the upcoming Channel Partners Conference and Expo from April 11-14. The company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue.

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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions has a decade and a half of experience delivering Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Channel Marketing Management. As the global leader in Enterprise Channel Management, the company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue. In 2020, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research. For more information, visit Zift Solutions.

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To celebrate Zift’s sixteenth anniversary, we’re interviewing Lionel about the early days of operations, his proudest moments within the company, and where he imagines Zift heading next.

Thanks for joining us on the blog today, Lionel. Since you’re in the unique position of knowing the company from the beginning, I’m curious to hear what the early days of Zift were like?

Lionel: To be honest, they were hard. When you’re just getting started with a business, you’re working on finding a market, the right product fit, money, and everything else that comes with the territory. There are a lot of hours that need to be spent building the company up – and not a lot of people to fill those hours. 

At the same time, though, the early days were fun. We were just trying to figure it out and had to think fast on our feet. There’s something to be said for the excitement of being young and scrappy.

I would imagine there’s been a considerable amount of change to the business since 2006. What are the biggest ways you’ve seen the company evolve in the last 16 years?

Lionel: I see the biggest growth reflected in the people who make Zift what it is. We started with two employees and now have more than a hundred. With each level of growth that a company achieves, there are new challenges and rewards that arise.

Think about it this way, if you have anywhere from one to 30 people on staff then you can make culture work with the personality of who’s on board. Once you have over 30 employees, though, there needs to be a real shift towards investing in culture. 

After a business reaches a certain level of revenue, too, there will always be a newfound level of responsibility. Companies grow and the focus on professionalism grows, too. It’s been exciting to see Zift step up to the challenges of growth and focus on both our employees and customers at the same time.

What has been your favorite part of being at Zift from day 1?

Lionel: Ever since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by this idea of building something. I was always curious if I could see success in that way or forge a path for myself by creating a product. My favorite part of being at Zift from the beginning is – hands down – seeing the thing that I created grow into what it is today. Yes, there were sleepless nights and a lot of time spent getting Zift built up. But it’s all been worth it a hundred times over.

Along those lines, what are you most proud of accomplishing in the last 16 years at Zift?

Lionel: Since the earliest days of Zift, we’ve had more than 300 people employed by the company. I feel proud to have built something that created that many jobs. Zift has created opportunities, not just for our customers but for our employees as well.

One last question for you, Lionel. Thinking of all that you’ve accomplished with Zift in 16 years, where do you see the company going next?

Lionel: Our company – its people, processes, and services – is all backed by a framework for extraordinary success. If we can continue to execute on our goals, serve our customers well, and be a market leader then I see us growing into an even bigger company than we are today.

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Zift Solutions and its employees are donating to Ukraine. If you are interested in joining us, the following are several example organizations supporting this cause:

1. UNICEF
2. Americares
3. Mercy Corps
4. World Vision
5. International Medical Corps

Be well,

Gordon Rapkin, Chief Executive Officer

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In addition to learning from experts, industry leaders, and innovators, channel events provide valuable networking time with presenters and guests, opening the door to future collaboration opportunities.

Find Zift Solutions at These 2022 Channel Events

Heading to any of the following 2022 channel events? Be sure to stop by the Zift Solutions booth at the following key events to pick up some impressive swag!

1. Channel Partners Conference and Expo
2. Alliance of Channel Women @ CPExpo
3. SaaS Connect
4. B2B Summit
5. Women of the Channel (West & East)

1. Channel Partners Conference and Expo (CPExpo)

*Find Zift at Booth #2444*

When? April 11th-14th

Where? Las Vegas, NV 

The Channel Partners Conference & Expo, co-located with the MSP Summit, is a four-day event where partners can connect with technology suppliers to advance their businesses and harness knowledge that accelerates new revenue and growth. 

Psst… Still need to buy a ticket? Get a discount courtesy of Zift at this link!

2. Alliance of Channel Women: ACWConnect Live!

When? April 11th

Where? Las Vegas, NV 

ACW’s signature event, ACWConnect Live!, is a biannual get-together with more than 200 members and prospective members. This unique event kicks off the Channel Partners Conference & Expo with a two-hour event that’s part reunion and pep rally, part networking, and part education.

3. SaaS Connect

When? April 27th-28th

Where? San Francisco, CA

Connect to meet, network, learn from, and close deals with business development, partnership, marketing, platform, reseller, channel, and distribution experts across SaaS.

4. Forrester’s B2B Summit

When? May 2nd-4th

Where? Austin, TX

Hosted by Forrester, B2B Summit North America is the premier event for B2B marketing, sales, and product leaders to empower their strategies, fuel the revenue engine and drive the business forward.

5. Women of the Channel

When? WOTC West – November 16th-17th

Where? Palm Springs, CA

When? WOTC East – December 6th-7th

Where? New York, NY

The Women of the Channel Leadership Summits are the meeting place for women from across the IT channel looking to advance organizational diversity, make unmatched connections, and empower and cultivate women leaders.

Stop By, Say Hi, Score Swag at the 2022 Channel Events

Say hello and meet a few of our high-profile channel analysts, business leaders, digital marketing experts, and successful channel engagement managers. We have vital information to share necessary for scaling your business, maintaining a healthy partner ecosystem, and surpassing your 2022 revenue goals. Plus, you won’t want to miss free goodies! 

More Essential 2022 Channel Events 

1. ITEXPO
2. Channel Futures MSP Summit
3. Best of Breed Conference

1. ITEXPO

When? June 21st-24th

Where? Ft. Lauderdale, FL

ITEXPO is where telecom and IT professionals, C-levels and business owners, developers, and the channel learn in conference sessions and conduct business with hundreds of manufacturers and solutions providers.

2. Channel Futures MSP Summit

When? September 12th-15th

Where? Orlando, FL

This event brings together 500+ channel partners, and suppliers focused on best practices and industry evolution in managed services.

3. Best of Breed Conference (BoB)

When? October 10th & 11th

Where? Atlanta, GA

The Best of Breed (BoB) Conference meets the evolving needs of the IT channel’s most prominent, fastest-growing, and most progressive solution provider organizations and the top technology vendors and distributors.

Best Virtual Channel Events in 2022

1. Channel Focus
2. Gartner Marketing Symposium Expo

1. Channel Focus

When? April 6th-7th

Where? Online

For 25 years, the Channel Focus event has helped attendees understand new Channel trends, develop state-of-the-art Channel programs, and develop industry-leading Channel Sales and Marketing strategies.

2. Gartner Marketing Symposium Expo

When? May 23rd-25th

Where? Online

At the virtual Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo™ 2022 conference, attendees benefit from unparalleled, expert guidance on topics such as customer experience, marketing strategy, digital innovation, social media, CMO education, and more.

For more information on Zift Solutions and to access the latest channel events and news, visit our blog.

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Sales calls, events, lunch and learns, and other related outings were a requirement for channel partners building business for both themselves and their suppliers. 

With the current shift from physical to digital, suppliers and partners alike are having to find new strategies that meet the same needs.

Virtual Events: The New Relationship Avenue

A digital transformation has been unfolding for quite some time. This isn’t new to anyone in the channel. What is new is the development of tools to support channel programs at this time. Vendors are listening to the needs of partners and coming up with solutions for digital marketers.

One such solution? Zift’s Virtual Event Campaigns capability. ZiftONE users now have the ability to fully integrate the webinar experience and drive the top of the funnel in a more data-backed approach than ever before. 

We’ve previously equated the current digital transformation with the re-skilling of channel marketers to become digital warriors. Virtual Events takes the channel back to the proverbial boot camp and creates a platform for leveling up your marketing approach.

With Virtual Event Campaigns, channel marketers can now:

• Get back to square one on your approach to webinars. Instead of a complicated and tedious event promotion process, Virtual Events enables you to promote your very own thought-leadership webinars (and roadshow series) all in one platform.
• Put power into your partners’ hands. Suppliers can let their partners host lunch-and-learns and other events through ZiftONE.
• Track which partners are actively promoting events and who is driving registrations.
• Empower partners to connect webinar registration with other lead tracking to get a holistic view of which customers and prospects are engaged.

The days of being a one-trick marketer are over. Following the digital transformation, everyone in the channel must now locate and use tools that help us embrace all things “virtual.” The new Virtual Event Campaigns capability is just one new tool to add to the marketing toolbelt. 

If you’re interested in learning more about how Virtual Event Campaigns can serve your channel program’s needs, be sure to contact us at this link.

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ZiftONE Virtual Event Campaigns create standardized and co-brandable event promotions and the ability to integrate event-specific data with other data housed in ZiftONE. This measures the efficacy of events in lead generation and engagement.

In addition to empowering partners to promote suppliers’ events, the new capability enables partners to promote their own webinars with pre-packaged campaigns from suppliers. This allows companies to better syndicate and standardize customer training and appreciation events across various partners by sharing co-brandable emails and presentations.

“With the challenges of the past two years, many of our customers have embraced online events and webinars in a way they never have before,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “ZiftONE Virtual Event Campaigns measure where registrations are coming from, create standardized and co-brandable event promotions, and integrate data that identifies and scores leads and tracks the buyers’ journey.”

All registrations from these events connect with Zift’s lead tracking capabilities, helping ZiftONE customers and their partners better identify highly engaged leads. The marketing campaigns directly integrate with both Zoom Pro and Cisco Webex, giving vendors and their partners options for how they host webinars.

“Joint events have the power to ignite excitement and interest amongst participants. As we’ve seen, this can accelerate buyer decision-making. If joint events are done well, there’s all the more reason to capture and share insights in real-time,” said Stephanie North, VP Channel Services at bChannels. “As our global teams continue to see digital events climb back up the ranks of demand generation tactics for through partner marketing, our ability to integrate event promotion and lead scoring data into our partners’ buyer journey sequences via the ZiftOne platform is super exciting!”

Virtual Event Campaigns were rolled out to all ZiftONE customers as an integrated capability of the all-in-one platform, and are included in Zift’s top-rated through partner marketing automation feature set with no additional licensing fee for new customers.
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About Zift Solutions

Founded in 2006, Zift Solutions has a decade and a half of experience delivering Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Channel Marketing Management. As the global leader in Enterprise Channel Management, the company’s ZiftONE platform integrates channel sales, marketing, enablement, and operations in a single end-to-end channel management solution that oversees the entire funnel from lead to revenue. In 2020, Zift was named the only leader in both Channel Marketing Automation and Partner Relationship Management by Forrester Research. For more information, visit www.ziftsolutions.com.

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“Joint partner success plans are an essential ingredient to maximizing long-term partner potential and success, but a majority of partners report that many vendors don’t prioritize this initiative,” Theresa Caragol, Founder and CEO of AchieveUnite, said. “Joint success plans present a great opportunity for vendors to engage and collaborate with their partners to drive Partner LifeTime Value® and accelerate revenue. The key differentiators between this approach and traditional planning are that this is an experience created for the benefit of both parties and will guide the relationship for the next 12-24 months.”

Vendors can kick these discussions off with their partners as part of regular conversations and planning. 

“This approach is not an 18-page spreadsheet to be filled out or a complex process that provides little value to the partner,” Caragol added. “This approach is a joint value-based planning exchange that brings together the best of both organizations to serve a set of clients/markets/solution areas. It requires the right executives from both companies, active participation, and strong execution. This execution can be in the form of QBRs or my new favorite term, MBRs – monthly business reviews – which are more critical in a Covid/Hybrid world than ever before.”

This ongoing transformation within the channel has increased pressures for channel leaders to get it right.

“For companies that sell through an indirect channel the expectation to drive accretive growth and capture the addressable market has significantly increased,” Christian Alvarez, SVP WW Channel Sales at Nutanix, said. “In order for manufacturers to reach their financial goals, they must partner even more effectively to better leverage their existing partnerships. Partner success planning is fundamental and a key foundation to setting mutual go-to-market objectives, goals, growth targets, and drive alignment on what ‘good’ looks like. Success planning should be a comprehensive 360° exercise encompassing all key stakeholders from channel marketing, sales engineers, and field sales leadership. An effective planning session should have very clear financial targets and goals that all parties have agreed to and measure quarterly to celebrate when goals are achieved and learn when goals are missed.” 

In addition to financial measurements, vendors can look at another factor that drives success: what steps their most successful partners have taken. From here, vendors can create a model for their other partners to follow. The goals listed in this model might include recruiting new accounts, distributing marketing campaigns, and achieving certifications and training. 

This approach can be beneficial to the long tail of your channel program as well. In channel programs, money, staff, and other resources are finite. It’s easy to focus what you do have on the channel partners generating 80-90% of revenue. In the meantime, your other partners are wondering what they need to do to level up, get attention from your team, and succeed over competitors. You can help these often overlooked partners by providing them with a plan. Annual business planning, enhanced with automation,  makes goals more clear, giving partners a sense of which hurdles to jump over. 

“Ultimately, business planning should be part of an overall discussion of both partner and supplier goals,” Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Zift Solutions, added. “Vendors should come out of the discussion with the partners’ agreed upon goal, their plan to achieve it, and a list of what the supplier is going to do to enable it.”

Companies looking for guidance on how to improve their business planning efforts can contact AchieveUnite to learn more about value-based business planning. To see a demonstration of Zift’s robust Success Planning tool, contact us for a demo.

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We’d like to take a moment to reintroduce ourselves.

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Much like Duke, Zift has caught wave after wave in terms of analyst recognition. Fresh off the heels of winning Frost & Sullivan’s 2019 Best Practices Award for Innovation Excellence, Zift has once again been named a Leader in the 2020 Forrester Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA) Wave Report.  But this isn’t the first time that has happened.  In fact, over the last three years, we’ve been named leader in different categories by one of the industry’s leading analyst firms.  

For the 2020 TCMA Wave Report, the analysts at Forrester not only ranked Zift highest across the board in Strategy but also gave us top scores (5 of 5) across 11 categories!  (For those of you who have already listened to my podcast, we found out we’d captured 11 rather than 10 high scores after recording). I thought it would be useful to take a deep dive in each of these areas and see how each translates into value new or existing channel suppliers can realize using the Zift platform. Let’s start by Hanging-10…

HANG-10 IN THE CHANNEL

1. Digital Asset Management. Partners with little to no marketing resources can realize huge benefits simply by accessing a Supplier’s catalog of whitepapers, case studies, competitive docs, etc.  Today’s partner sales rep has to be part marketer, part business developer!  To do so, they need a robust asset management facility that allows for advanced asset versioning, personalization, and categorization — such as vertical, product line or even language.
2. Partner Execution. Today’s busy suppliers don’t have time for partner hand-holding — but Zift does. ZiftONE makes it easy for partners to execute multi-touch and multi-tactic campaigns all by themselves, with a little help from our Channel Engagement team, or complete end-to-end campaign support and execution from our experts.
3. Marketing Vehicles. Suppliers find it challenging to ensure partners adequately represent and extend their branding.  To ensure effective communications and delivery of prescriptive programs, a broad set of marketing vehicles is required by channel marketing teams to get the job done.
4. Subscription/Profile Management. Most channel program amazingly have little data, besides basic company and contact information, on their partners.  A flexible data model is required to create an ideal partner profile, which can then allow partners to provide information on what unique capabilities do they have, or which verticals do they sell into or even what other Suppliers do they work with.  With ZiftONE’s versatility to create flexible profiles and make it easy for partners to manage them, Suppliers can capture the right data to create more effective offers, such as tailored marketing programs.
5. Digital marketing execution. Supporting single tactics, like social or content syndication is baseline at best.  As suppliers try to help partners tell their story and help differentiate themselves from other partners, an arsenal of marketing tactics, like those which have evolved on the ZiftONE platform for years, to reap the advantages of digital marketing.
6. Security and Compliance.  Partner portals, the door into most Supplier programs, should be well-protected but made easy to allow single-sign-on across multiple platforms.  So too should compliance with GDPR, CCPA and other evolving privacy standards, which comes from having both, an experienced team and an enterprise-grade software platform.
7. Integration.  Channel software can be complex, especially when it comes to getting tools to talk to each other.  ZiftONE focuses on being a “good citizen” in a Supplier’s technology stack with Developer Central, a native API interface. It also makes it easy for partners to provide updates on deals, opportunities, etc. via two-way, self-service CRM “connectors”, which partners are likely to have, but are often overlooked by other channel software providers,  that make it easier to receive regular updates.
8. UI/UX.  Partners often report a lack of productivity as a result of not being able to find things on the Supplier’s portal.  The true test of an integrated solution is its ability to provide a seamless partner experience, through a well-designed interface across multiple application areas, e.g. PRM, LMS, TCMA and across multiple devices that can drive higher partner adoption.
9. Product Innovation Roadmap.  Adapting to new partner types, new ways of doing business and the ever-changing role of distributors and Master Agents requires Zift to “read the tea leaves” and plan for innovation in our software.  A great example of this is how we’ve incorporated “Partner Groups” and “Tiers” into the very essence of what it is to be called a partner on our platform.  With this ability, no matter what type of channel a Supplier supports, we can model their partners and way of doing business on ZiftONE.
10. Supporting Products and Services.  It takes more than software to run a channel program.  From the Supplier, resources are required to help partners register, engage, learn and drive revenue.  Through an experienced channel engagement team, a world-class customer success organization and our very-own Channel Center of Excellence, Zift has the resources in place to fill the gaps and help our customers reach their channel goals.

Get Barreled with ZiftZone (Our Ecosystem & 11th High Score) 

Hanging-10 is awesome but getting barreled is considered the ultimate surfing experience as you are surrounded completely by the wave as you shoot through the tube. This brings to mind that 11th category Zift grabbed a 5 out of 5 score from Forrester in the latest WAVE report: Our Partner Ecosystem, ZiftZone.

Zift launched ZiftZone in 2019 and since then we have enlisted some of the channel’s leading software and services companies to surround our customers with everything they need — within ZiftONE. It’s like finding the calm and safety inside the chaos of the channel, which is exactly what surfers feel when they get barreled.

A lot has happened since the arrival of the first longboard on the beaches of Waikiki.  Surfboards have become shorter, more aerodynamic, enabling riders to conquer the most challenging waves. Each year, Zift strives to meet our own challenge — keeping our customers and the analyst community apprised of our ability to deliver real solutions for the channel.   

This year we met that challenge with a new product, ZiftONE, which although new to some, has been 12 years in the making.  Being named Leader in the 2020 Forrester TCMA WAVE report after launching ZiftONE the previous year is a testament to all who work at Zift and believe the customer’s success is our number one passion. 

Take a few minutes to see why Zift keeps making waves by reading the full Forrester TCMA Wave, Q2 2020 and listen to me chat more about what you can and should be taking away from analyst reports in this week’s episode of Channel Chatter LIVE. Then give us a shout to find out how we can help you and your partners Hang-10 and get barreled with Zift. We’ll see you at the beach!

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Today, channel organizations must close and lock those windows to comply with strict data privacy policies and regulations. It goes without saying that adhering to the data privacy laws everywhere our customers are located or conducting business is of the utmost importance to us. We recently spoke with Tim Porterfield about GDPR and how channel marketers use Zift to ensure compliance. Today, we’re following with Zift’s Director of IT and resident data privacy expert Stuart Phipps. He’s navigated Zift through multiple SOC II Type 2 certifications with no exceptions. Naturally, we turned to him for answers on CCPA. 

What sets the CCPA apart from GDPR? 

“The California Consumer Privacy Act is not a far-reaching set of regulations like GDPR, but it is still a strong step in the right direction for protecting consumer’s rights to privacy in the US,” said Phipps. The main difference between the two laws is the broadness of their reach. GDPR applies to the data of an EU citizen worldwide, meaning EU citizens can invoke their right to be forgotten from any company that has acquired their data. The CCPA applies only to California-based companies with revenue over $25 million or whose primary business function is the sale of personal information. 

Data encryption is another important facet of privacy that CCPA addresses. Encryption makes data that much more difficult to be accessed by unauthorized users and adds a level of security to companies involved in data transfer. Mainly, though, its purpose is to ensure the protection of personal data.

Phipps also thinks it’s not a matter of if, but when, for other states to follow suit on new privacy laws. “The CCPA is likely the beginning of a whole suite of data privacy laws in the US — New York, Illinois, and Washington state are all in the process of drafting privacy laws to be enacted in 2020.” 

Zift is committed to driving your channel success, and that includes ensuring compliance to all data privacy laws not only for ourselves but for suppliers and partners as well. Our platform is set up with the “right to be forgotten” in mind for the end customer, and partners can be anonymized in our support system.  

How does Zift ensure CCPA compliance for Suppliers? 

GDPR’s requirements are more stringent than the CCPA. So the GDPR requirements met and ensured by ZiftONE also cover the needs of CCPA. We have steps baked into the platform that brands can enable that require verification of contacts opting-in for marketing and communications. Keep in mind, though: a system designed to protect data is only as good as the people using it. Our terms and conditions protect suppliers and us as a data processor. 

It’s worth stating: playing by the (data) rules pays off. Our system has automatic bounce rate and spam rules in place, and those who fail to meet those rules repeatedly lose access to our platform for communication. Conversely, those who use it effectively gain more email credits. 

Have any questions for our IT experts on how Zift ensures total compliance for GDPR and CCPA for suppliers and partners? We’re happy to answer them. Leave a comment or contact us — privacy matters, but our commitment to data security is totally transparent.  

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Here are three things channel leaders should be thinking about in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

1. Amp Up Partner Marketing 

Why emphasize partner marketing now, especially if your partners aren’t engaged? Virtually every analyst or marketing consulting firm will agree, events are not dead. While the buyer continues to consume more and more digital content, in-person or virtual events are still a leading tactic when selling B2B solutions, especially for offerings with an ASP over $50K. Except under the current situation, you’ve got to be thinking more digital and less in-person. Like the viral “Wuhan shake” that’s replaced handshakes and fist bumps across Asia, channel leaders should also be thinking of a broader variety of tactics — social, content syndication, support for virtual events, etc. that can help partners attract buyers and build digital relationships with them.

2. Don’t Lose Partner Mindshare, Especially Now

All of the tech conferences that channel programs typically rely on for Spring leads have been canceled. However, this is the perfect time to think about using alternative methods of communications, and where automation really shines. Many programs were timing key announcements to coincide with their partner conference. How will they get the message out if their conference is postponed? If you’re a channel leader, you need to be thinking about increasing your to-partner communications and delivering multi-layered messaging using a robust platform that can support a few hundred or several thousand partners.

3. Use the Portal to Consolidate

The partner portal is still the best place to provide information to partners of all types. Don’t confuse partners by sending them to different websites, providing different logins, etc. to access information or benefits like training or incentives. This should be all done on one platform through one portal. If you’re offering them the ability to attend a virtual partner conference, do it from the portal. If there’s a new training offering, make it virtual and deliver it through an LMS via the portal. Remember you’re likely to be one of seven suppliers working with a single partner. Like the World Health Organization (WHO), there’s one place partners need to be sure is providing accurate information about what is happening in your program, and that should be the partner portal.

As of this blog’s publication, Zift has issued a non-essential travel notice, along with recommending all the prudent precautionary measures. Many of us are still attending conferences, but thankfully we are optimistic about our ability to succeed and help companies in the channel make it through this time. If you’d like to learn more about ZiftONE and how it’s helping companies like you adopt these best practices, feel free to reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn. 

The post No Handshakes, Please! Coronavirus’ Impact on B2B Channel Leaders appeared first on Zift Solutions.

“Embrace the importance of now, and refuse to allow the lull of comfort, fear, familiarity, and ego to prevent you from taking action on your ambitions… The cost of inaction is vast. Don’t go to your grave with your best work inside of you. Choose to die empty.”

“… The cost of inaction is vast.” That resonated with me personally and from a professional angle. We’re always talking about the benefits of applying technology and best practices in channel marketing, sales, and operations. But what are channel brands and marketers losing every day — every minute — by doing nothing? By repeating familiar processes and investing in tech that just does not work for channel? By focusing only on specific aspects of their channel programs instead of the bigger business picture? Way too much, according to the channel experts at B2BMX.  

BETTER PARTNER EXPERIENCE = BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

As Zift was instrumental in shaping and launching B2BMX’s dedicated Channel Marketing Track when it premiered in 2018, it was great to see how central that track has become to this event. Channel experts, analysts and the folks who live and breathe channel marketing joined workshops and packed into panel sessions. During a panel focused on Referral Partner Programs, David Portnowitz, CMO of Star2Star, pointed out that your partners are the true face of your brand. If you aren’t providing an incredible experience for partners, you’re essentially undermining the customer experience. No one can afford that. 

Well-known Forrester analyst Maria Chien (VP and Research Director for Channel Marketing Strategies) took the next step in her session, asking the question, “Is Your Partner Enablement Strategy Broken? (Spoiler Alert: It Is!).” Maria suggested brands shift from focusing entirely on channel partner enablement to rev up their channel revenue engines. She noted that buyers are engaging sellers differently today and with much greater frequency. Every customer-facing role and touch from a partner’s organization will impact a buyer’s decision. Doing nothing to influence and optimize all of those interactions is incredibly detrimental.

Maria recommends that brands examine and support every buyer interaction via more dynamic partner enablement. Building external loyalty and driving partner business growth takes more than slapping a partner logo on a brand’s collateral. Maria emphasized that brands must ensure all customer-facing roles possess the needed skills, knowledge, and process expertise and have access to the best assets to maximize every buyer or customer interaction. [You can learn more from Maria about Dynamic Partner Enablement on Channel Visions TV now.] 

CISCO MOVES THE NEEDLE WITH MARKETING VELOCITY

Karine Elsen, Senior Director of Global Partner Marketing, demonstrated exactly how Cisco is actively engaging and investing in its partners via its Marketing Velocity Program. Instead of leaving partners to flounder on their own as Cisco began marketing outside of IT, the company proactively launched this program to power digital marketing practices, enable better training, and give partners the tools they need to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

“We don’t have an ideal partner,” said Elsen. “We give everyone the tools to become a better partner.” And that includes Zift, the platform that powers Cisco’s Marketing Velocity Central: A full-service marketing portal with free-to-use customizable campaigns and an enhanced marketing content library. Scorecards show Cisco which partners are active and engaged. MDF spend is tracked and optimized in Zift’s Marketplace. And partners have access to real people to help and guide them via Zift’s Channel Engagement team. “The experience for the partner is seamless,” Elsen said. “We are focused on aligning sales and marketing — creating a growth marketing organization — and Zift’s end-to-end platform helps us do that.” 

What are you doing to shake things up and shake off channel partner and program inertia? Share your thoughts in the comments and I look forward to seeing you at next year’s B2BMX! 

The post The Cost of Inaction: Big Insights from B2BMX 2020 appeared first on Zift Solutions.

I think most marketers both look forward to and dread this season. There’s so much to learn and share about current and upcoming trends. So much free stuff to collect! (My t-shirt and sock collection gets a hefty boost every year.) There’s so much networking to do and industry gurus to listen breathlessly to at keynotes, workshops and panel sessions. So much tweetable content! (Speaking of that, shoutout to Pam Didner who crushed at B2BMX this week.) 

On the other hand, event season can be tough. There’s so much prep work, logistics, badge scanners that don’t work and so little sleep. We see you slumped over on benches in the hallways of conference centers, checking your email and taking a moment to yourself. We’ve been there, too. Of course, there is a solution: Come find your Zift friends! We’re at the bulk of B2B events, particularly those with a channel focus. 

We love getting together with people who get us. We love learning from fellow channel experts and sharing the power of Enterprise Channel Management and ZiftONE. 

Want to know where we’re going to be in the next few weeks? Our team just got back from B2BMX and is excited to be traveling all around the US to talk channel expertise during March. Here’s where you will be able to find us.

XChange 2020

The Channel Co’s twice-annual event is back, and you’ll find Zift in the Black Badge Lounge.  XChange is an event we look forward to every year. It’s packed with channel experts, innovative strategies and market intel channel chiefs can use to drive their brands forward. The Black Badge Lounge at XChange is a great place to escape from the hustle and bustle of event chaos and Zift’s Jonathan Pack and Randy Skipper will be there to greet you. 

Spring 2020 Channel Partners Conference & Expo

I’m always the person at the party hanging with the host’s pets. You can actually do the same at CP Expo.  Last year at CP Expo, we had a ball meeting Johnny Juan Rico, the canine star of the TrainOurTroops booth. We even had time to sit down and interview him in between his many social engagements — you’ll want to read up on this superstar’s not-so-ruff life. We’ll be back with TrainOurTroops this year on the expo floor. We are always inspired by the work they do and proud to partner with them, providing the technology they need to help Vets find more fulfilling civilian careers. Stop by to learn more about their mission — and get in some doggo time! 

You will also find us at Channel Partners hanging out with the fine folks at SaaSMAX. They specialize in helping companies make the most of their reseller partner relationships by using strategic business insight and best practices. Come escape the show-floor crazies with Zift’s CRO Heather Tenuto, who also knows a thing or two about getting more ROI from your channel. 

Don’t want to risk missing us at these events — or want to sneak away from the show floor for a bit? Contact us now and we’ll set up a meeting in advance. Can’t wait to see you in San Antonio and Vegas. And don’t forget to hydrate! 

The post Navigating the XChange: Surviving Events Season appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Marc Sachdev, Director of Channel Engagement: I’ve been in the technology industry most of my career, predominantly in marketing. I’ve had a variety of roles from head of the marketing organization at small software companies to small but important parts in global organizations with multi-billion dollar budgets. Even with all that variety, there are common threads and they are: Identifying prospects, understanding what they want, and providing them the information to make a buy decision – for you! I spoke with a few people at Zift and realized there is a great opportunity here. 

I can see how that would help with Channel Engagement.

It does. At the end of the day, one big part of Channel Engagement is helping partners perform marketing practices effectively. So you really have to understand marketing. 

What part of Zift are you enjoying the most?

One of the things I like most is the global footprint. I lead an international team and about half of the members are outside the US, with support offered in nine languages. Our follow-the-sun support is something I’m proud of. 

I also really like the fact that I get to work with many of the different departments. Our team is involved with product development since we connect with actual product users and can give feedback. We also work closely with the Professional Services and implementation teams, and with marketing to build sales enablement content for Channel Engagement.

Tell me about Channel Engagement. What is it? What do you do?

Channel Engagement’s primary role is helping our partners be successful. That includes everything from getting them onboarded, training them on the Zift platform, to supporting them in implementing creative programs to drive new business.  

It’s an interesting role because partners are busy people, and we have to prove that we add value to them. So for example, once we show partners how to launch a campaign, we start building a relationship. Of course, partners are great at what they do, but they’re not necessarily marketing experts. We use our in-house expertise to build up their knowledge. 

What types of challenges does Channel Engagement solve for partners and suppliers?

Suppliers use the channel model to increase their footprint, or to get into new lines of business or geographies. Partners are busy, so we help them understand what’s available in terms of marketing best practices and content that comes from the supplier. We are the bridge between partners and suppliers. 

So, where’s the ROI in this for suppliers?

We help partners and suppliers understand what data is relevant and important. For example, activity stats are important — for example, how many emails were sent or opened. But there’s a tendency to get absorbed in how many emails were sent. And while that may be interesting, what really matters is how many leads and deals a given partner was able to create using the Zift platform. So in addition to helping onboard partners and building a relationship with them, we help them learn to sell more.

So, you sift through all that data and pass it along for suppliers?

We help them sort through the data. With ZiftONE, there’s a lot of data to be found. Channel Engagement helps them understand what data drives results.  

What do you think customers should be thinking about for 2020? How can they use Channel Engagement to help? 

They should be focusing on leads and ultimately on sales. The end goal of Channel Engagement is to generate leads for partners. So the more the partners and clients focus on how many leads were generated by the marketing campaigns that either we helped create or that we created outright, the better. Our concierge service is a great way to accomplish this. We can run an entire marketing campaign from creation, content, segmenting databases, formatting email campaigns, and creating plugins. For smaller firms, this can be a lifesaver — and it’s a great way to go into 2020. 

So what are you excited about for this year, for the channel?

One thing I’m really excited about is I’ve launched a high-performing Channel Engagement program. Artificial intelligence will take over all of our jobs unless we’re adding value. What we’re doing is automating a lot of mundane and boring tasks to free up our team to build relationships and add value with partners. Leveraging AI with our channel expertise is a great combination. 

Mind telling a little bit about you? Any fun hobbies?

I’m an avid cyclist, so moving to North Carolina has helped me enjoy that even more! I moved here from the cold and snowy north about three years ago, and I’m enjoying another 55-degree winter day. The Triangle area is fantastic in terms of culture and learning opportunities. It’s a really fun place to live.

The post Inside Zift: Marc Sachdev, Channel Engagement & Metrics that Matter appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Industry thought leaders and analysts were quick to recognize our efforts as well as the transformational power of ZiftONE. We were honored to receive the prestigious 2019 Frost Radar Best Practices Award for Innovation Excellence from Frost & Sullivan recognizing the launch and impact of ZiftONE. In their words, “The Innovation Excellence best practice award is bestowed on companies that are industry leaders reinventing themselves through R&D investments and innovation.“

Frost & Sullivan analysts noted: Removing data silos and making intelligent marketing decisions on the channel partner and direct marketing and sales side is a challenge most marketing teams face today. ZiftONE from Zift Solutions alleviates these pain points by bringing data and insights from channel marketing, sales, and operations into one place, highlighting Zift Solutions’ understanding and innovation leadership in the marketing automation solutions market today.

Zift’s investment in innovation is unmatched in the industry, with over 25% of our revenue committed to R&D to expand functionality for suppliers managing their channel programs with ZiftONE.  After launching ZiftONE, our pace of innovation accelerated, and the platform is growing and improving every day. The Zift product team is constantly listening to the market and our customers, and our engineering team delivers enhancements and improvements every week.  

Enhance. Expand. Integrate. 

An exciting platform extension you can put to work immediately is the ZiftONE Developers Workbench. The channel management platform has to integrate with existing enterprise technologies and operational systems. ZiftONE was built to be a part of the enterprise ecosystem, and it comes with a long list of pre-built connectors and interface tools, but most IT organizations require more. To answer that need, we delivered the ZiftONE Developers Workbench. It is a comprehensive toolkit that opens up all of the programming interfaces in the platform so that anything Zift developers can do, our customers’ IT team can do. We made ZiftONE an open platform that enables developers to enhance, expand and integrate it with just about anything in the corporate infrastructure.

To ensure the highest levels of service and security as your IT infrastructure grows, Zift has added a number of critical security certifications (Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Level 1, Cyber Essentials, IASME Consortium, and Privacy Shield Framework) as well yet another year to our string of Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II compliance audits with no exceptions. 

Joining the Revolution

Shortly after the launch of ZiftONE, members of the channel technology market asked to join in our channel technology revolution. So we created the ZiftZone Strategic Alliance Program, a rapidly growing ecosystem of trusted and certified agencies, applications, and service providers, all of whom drive channel success for our customers.  Zift’s global reach is advancing rapidly via ZiftZone and our customers are reaping the benefits with connections to more than 30 leading providers of channel-focused solutions and services.

We’re moving forward into 2020 with more customers, more integrations, more alliance partners, and more expansive capabilities. We continue to support and invest in our existing customer platforms while we innovate and advance ZiftONE to provide the next generation of channel management excellence. 

We’ve spent a great deal of time in 2019 listening to our customers. They are excited about the ability to manage the entire partner lifecycle with ZiftONE. They like the fact that they can onboard, train, engage, and activate their partners with transformative tools to generate pipeline and close deals. They also appreciate the fact that they have the flexibility to take a DIY approach, using ZiftONE’s dynamic portal tools to quickly onboard and activate partners.  They also appreciate that they can leverage our Zift Services, Channel Center of Excellence and ZiftZone partners for even more expansive capabilities and support. 

In 2020, our focus remains on addressing the complex needs of channel leaders. We’re thrilled to see so many organizations reaching out to us to learn how they can join the ZiftONE revolution. Some have expressed their desire to get help in understanding exactly how their channel program stacks up against others in the industry — and even create an action plan to move forward. Our Channel Center of Excellence provides a Channel Readiness Assessment to explore the foundational levels, current capabilities, and overall effectiveness of your channel program. I encourage you to kick off the new year by scheduling your assessment as soon as possible to ensure you meet your 2020 goals. 

What are you planning to conquer in your channel program in 2020 and beyond? Let us know if you’re ready to turn your future visions of channel success into reality today with ZiftONE. 

The post Step into the Future of Enterprise Channel Management appeared first on Zift Solutions.

That is when the real fun for me begins. I love putting all those decorations away. The house feels clean, spacious, new.  To be fair, I have my share of OCD personality aspects that likely contribute to me putting it all away so quickly. But to me, the idea of cleaning house in preparation for a new year brings me great joy and infinite possibilities. 

This approach and attitude don’t stop with my house. I feel the same about my business.  Q4 is over and last year is old news. When you work in Sales, the ‘what have you done for me lately?’ message greets me every new year.  Rather than let that bog me down, I feel a rush when I think about what 2020 will bring as I work with my clients and prospects.  

During these early weeks in January, I love strategizing about what’s ahead for my clients, my company and my work community.  What challenges do they face in 2020? What new ways can I approach my job? How can I think differently, act differently, advise differently? As a  channel-focused sales professional, I pride myself on my active listening skills but can I do that better this year? Can I bring a new perspective to the conversation that will help prospects achieve their goals or give clients a new way to work successfully with my organization?  

Channel organizations should be asking themselves those questions, too. But doing so can be a lot more complex and cumbersome than packing up the holiday decorations. That’s where I know Zift can help. We offer Channel Readiness Assessments through our Channel Center of Excellence. This is a fantastic way to benchmark your channel program and partners. Determine key priorities and define your direction for the new year — and even beyond. We’re looking at a brand new decade! This is the time to think big, or even take a revolutionary approach to your channel program. A Channel Assessment isn’t just an exercise. Once it is complete, you receive a performance scorecard that highlights your strengths and areas of concern as well as a detailed action plan to meet specific goals. 

While my musings might sound like New Year’s Resolutions, to me, they are cleaning the slate, starting with the same building blocks but perhaps a new shape that drives different results in the end.  January may only see the start of these changes, but I view these exciting few weeks as a way to think about why I do what I do, how I can do it differently, and what I can learn along the way. Not necessarily a resolution but an intention I carry with me every day.  Unlike a resolution, this is harder to lose after the first weeks as well as easier to evaluate over time and potentially modify for growth and learning. I hope you will do the same.   

Here at Zift, we are so excited about the future of our business, how we can serve our clients with ZiftONE and how we can continue to grow, advise and guide our customers to their success, both for their partner community and their customers. I hope you will consider scheduling a Channel Assessment to kick off your new year with a clean slate and clear plan to define your own intentions to achieve measurable channel success.   

The post 2020 Channel Resolutions — And Revolutions appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Heather Tenuto, Chief Revenue Officer for Zift: I started my career in technology but I was an English major in college and always wanted to be a teacher. After a few good years selling data center infrastructure, I joined a program that let you get your Master’s degree while teaching in a hard-to-staff public school. 

That program was crazy and awesome. I taught high school English in Manhattan and realized that I enjoyed teaching as much as sales. So when I got out of the program, I moved into sales consultation, where I found success with growth companies who were “too busy selling to change the way they sell.”  It became my tagline and I joined businesses where I could make an impact. 

In 2007, one of my clients, M5 Networks, convinced me to come on board full time. I made my way to the senior management team and we sold the company in 2012 to ShoreTel. With both M5 and ShoreTel, my role was to optimize revenue. Essentially, I was always asking the question: How do we sell more, faster? That led me to channels and I served as ShoreTel’s Channel Chief for 4 years. During this time, I learned that running a successful program was all about showing return on investment, not only to our business as a supplier, but to the partner community as well. When I learned about how ZiftONE could support these efforts, end to end, and create success for Channel Chiefs and the businesses they worked for, I had to become a part of it.

What do you like best about working with Zift thus far?

Without question, the people. Zift feels like home to me. The second thing is this: The channel ecosystem is evolving quickly. A solution that takes the complexity out of managing channel programs is game-changing for brands. For every second of overhead we save a partner or supplier, they get to invest more time with the customer, the end-user of the product or service, who has never been more powerful. Suppliers and partners should be spending their time on high-value activities like customer acquisition and customer experience, not fumbling with multiple portals, complicated MDF approval processes, or searching for content. ZiftONE is the first platform that offers that kind of shift for the partner/supplier relationship. 

What are you most excited about in terms of working with Zift, product-wise or culture-wise?

Unlike our competitors, Zift had the courage and insight to rebuild our platform from the ground-up. Everything a supplier needs to engage partners, drive revenue, and show return on channel investment is NATIVE. This happened because our culture thrives on helping channel companies have successful outcomes. This culture drives our marketing, sales, support and importantly, our product roadmap. When a supplier chooses us for what we are today,  they get to be part of the journey as we evolve with the channel ecosystem. 

With the new decade on us, where do you think the channel is headed in the next five years? 

1. I mentioned before that buyers have never been more powerful than they are today.  In the next 5 years, we will see suppliers and partners will work more closely together to make sure that the customer sees the value in working with indirect channel partners and how 1+1 can equal 3. 
2. There will be a lot of pressure on channel chiefs to show a faster return on their company’s channel investment and a huge dependence on tools that will help them get there. When a new channel chief asks me for advice, I tell them, “Whatever it takes, you must become your CFO’s BFF.” (That’s Best Friend Forever.) 
3. There will be a palpable shift in how customer-facing partners choose suppliers. They will be driven more by successful outcomes for their customers and less by supplier incentives. 

Do you have any thoughts on women in the channel, progress over the last decade, and new opportunities for women to step up?

This advice could benefit anyone, but especially women: Have a more holistic view of your entire company. Really understand the metrics and the goals, and align your channel strategy with it. Understanding your business, and how it contributes to the overall success of the company is good. Being able to communicate that message early and often is better.  

The best piece of feedback I ever got from a boss was when I asked him what I would need to do in order to get his job one day. He was SVP of Sales at the time. I expected him to say that I needed to spend more time in the field. He didn’t. 

 “You need to understand the balance sheet better.” He said, “I think you’re lacking a little bit on the finance side.”

He was right and I knew it.  I went back to school to fix that. The result was a much better relationship with my CFO and more support for our channel efforts.  Like I said before, Channel Chiefs and CFOs = Best Friends Forever. 

Have any questions or thoughts for Heather? Leave a comment below — we’d love to hear from you. 

The post Inside Zift: Meet Channel Leader & Zift’s New CRO Heather Tenuto appeared first on Zift Solutions.

My friends and family know that I live by that quote. Maybe that’s why I can still do front flips and backflips on the trampoline. Youth is all in the mind. That said, I am struggling to embrace that I have a junior in high school. My nightly reading is about college and all these words that aren’t words: SAT, ACT, GPA. There are a whole lot of acronyms I don’t know, like LAC (didn’t have that when I went to Marquette — a solid LAC) and there is CLEP, LOR, OOS, COA, DOA, DOI, ED, EA, and my favorite, QOL, which of course we didn’t have either when I was deciding on colleges. You just went to a campus, walked around, met some people, and had a conversation! (Don’t worry, I’ve included a handy acronym legend at the end of the post.)

I started to wonder: why are there are so many acronyms? Is this acronym-izing a recent trend, based on being more efficient so we can communicate or text more quickly? Did we have this many acronyms in business a few years ago or farther back? If so, maybe the college process is more business-like now.

I did some research to see if I could find some answers. I went back to the 1990s in my business. I looked at the business process tools available at that time and if acronyms were as popular then. In the ’90s, we had mostly manufacturing tools like inventory solutions, finance, and accounting solutions, human resources and project management solutions. All of these solutions were independent solutions with non-acronym names until the term ERP was created. Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP, was a term Gartner Group created in 1990 to describe a single system that encompassed all business functions within one platform. The first ERP was created by SAP — of course, another acronym. Go figure!

In the channel space and at Zift, as you would guess, acronyms are abundant: PRM, TPMA, TCMA, CMM, CIPM, CDM, LMS, and LDM. All are independent solutions, and it seems that no one uses the full wording. In talking with other industry pros, I’ve discovered that some don’t even know what some of those acronyms mean because the acronyms are so new. (I totally understand!) And this year Zift fully embraced the acronym game and launched ZiftONE: the first ECM. That’s the first Enterprise Channel Management system, a single system that encompasses all channel functions needed to create a thriving, successful channel program within one platform. 

ZiftONE is to ECM as SAP is to ERP. Isn’t that much easier to understand now? 

Let’s take it a step further: ZiftONE is a SaaS ECM — and the GOAT. 

I’m loving these acronyms now!  Maybe I can learn to love the college application and decision process, too. Fingers crossed.

Acronym Legend

CDM: Channel Demand Marketing

CIPM: Channel Incentive Management

CLEP: College Level Examination Program

CLM: Channel-Focused Learning Management

CMM: Channel Marketing Management

CMS: Content Management System

COA: Cost of Admission

DOA: Director of Admissions

EA: Early Action

ECM: Enterprise Channel Management

ED: Early Decision

ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning

GOAT: Greatest of All Time

LAC: Liberal Arts College

LDM: Lead Distribution Management

LMS: Learning Management System

LOR: Letter of Recommendation

OOS: Out of State

PRM: Partner Relationship Management

QOL: Quality of Life (at campus)

SaaS: Software as a Service

TCMA: Through Channel Marketing Automation

TPMA: To Partner Marketing Automation

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The Nats had a long journey making it to the playoffs and later winning the World Series. Their pitchers, hitters, and defensive players all had to come together to propel them to their win. I’m reminded of Zift’s own journey, and how our team has worked as one. After a long journey and the launch of ZiftONE, the first end-to-end software application that covers all channel bases, Zift Solutions was also awarded the Frost Radar Award for Innovation Excellence — you can read the report for yourself at that link. 

Winning this award marked a milestone in a long journey for Zift, like winning the World Series after a long season. It’s required focusing on many aspects of our business to reach this level of performance — building a product that is both deep and broad that engages partners at every turn meant a lot of fine-tuning. It also required having a hard-working, passionate staff and a loyal base of customers who believe in our vision. 

I’d like to share some key insights I’ve gained from making this journey, ultimately winning the Frost Radar Award, and some lessons learned along the way.

Product Depth and Breadth

The analysts at Frost & Sullivan recognized Zift’s ability to provide a broad set of functionality to keep up with modern marketers interested in omnichannel marketing, while also providing additional functionality to support channel planning and oversight, partner recruitment and onboarding, partner sales and marketing enablement, channel demand generation, and channel engagement and sales execution. 

Unlike many companies that provide single-point solutions, Zift delivers everything needed in ZiftONE to engage partners, build knowledge and drive channel performance – all in one platform. By covering all the bases, ZiftONE eliminates the headaches customers face when having to buy multiple software applications to support channel partners. 

Here’s how Frost & Sullivan describes it:

“By including all of these crucial partner management pieces into one solution, Zift takes the guesswork from customers looking to optimize their partner management strategy without tedious integrations and data silos.”

Dedicated Staff and Loyal Partners

The first and hardest part of winning any championship, whether it’s a World Series or an industry award, is making sure the right players are on the field. While merging several companies we had to align our development efforts, streamline our service capabilities and reset our mission from being the best PRM and CMM solution to creating a new software category: enterprise channel management (ECM), which analyst firms are now adopting as they realize the growing need for horizontal channel software. 

This doesn’t happen overnight, though. It comes from a dedicated development team, challenged each and every day by sales teams digging into customer requirements, and from our hard-working services consultants who assist our customers, much like passing the football to a star player for a goal, to reach their channel automation goals. 

It also stems from our customer success and channel engagement teams, who advise partners every day and act as their “virtual marketing” departments. It’s this kind of dedication and shared vision that has created a winning environment at Zift.

Top-Notch Innovation

Given the furious pace of change taking place in the industries we serve like high tech, finance and manufacturing, that Frost & Sullivan gave the award for excellence in innovation over the other companies we compete against speaks volumes. 

Innovation isn’t limited to product alone. You’ll find it in various forms at Zift. It manifests as thought leadership from our CTO and our development staff, who are pioneering the latest innovation in artificial intelligence as it applies to the channel; it comes from our expanding ecosystem of partners, which include ancillary tools like incentives and propensity data vendors that add value to a partner’s experience on our platform; and it comes from our customers who provide us regular feedback in roadmap sessions and advisory councils that challenge our thinking and make us better.

I had the honor of flying to Austin, Texas to receive the Frost & Sullivan Awards. Aside from attending the ceremony, I had a chance to spend time with other company executives who shared new ideas, challenges and stories of how they’re reaching greatness. While accepting the award, I shared our story and the journey Zift has taken. If you’d like to read the report for yourself, you’ll find it here. 

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Besides ensuring data protection, GDPR and its fellow data privacy acts have made marketers evaluate their practices for lead generation. Most marketers worth their salt (dare we say, like you!) have pared down or even eliminated the more questionable practices of the past. Still, it’s been a year since GDPR enforcement began. So it’s worth a refresh of good practices for lead generation, particularly in email marketing. 

This List Ain’t Big Enough for Two Practices

Email used to be the Wild Wild West of marketing — Anything goes, essentially. Emailing people who never signed up for your newsletters? Fair game. Fortunately, for the most part, we’re past that now. Between GDPR and the other laws either being carried out, like the California Consumer Privacy Act, and bills being proposed, like the New York Privacy Act, the future looks a lot more regulated for data protection standards. 

And this regulation is happening around us in real-time. Since data protection standards are changing so rapidly, it pays to stay informed of local and international (if you conduct business globally) laws regarding the use of data. To borrow from GDPR’s terminology, personal data — data that concerns an individual, such as their name or email address — is a commodity not meant to be abused. So treat your contact lists with the respect they deserve. 

People are willing to part with their personal data for convenience, or in our industry’s case, for a good whitepaper or eBook. So moving in the direction of more regulated controls over data use will not mean fewer contacts — rather, it enables more control on the contact’s part to take their data back when they’ve decided they no longer wish a company to have their info. But that’s not set in stone for many locations yet, including much of the US. 

Get Back in the Saddle 

The Wild Wild West is over, but it’s left its mark on some marketers who may not have caught up just yet. Get back in the saddle with these best practices for clean contact lists:

• Trim your list for optimal open rates. Every so often, go through your list and prune out the emails driving up your bounce rates. A higher bounce rate is not a good thing. Bounce rates indicate that user is not receiving the email — either the email address is no longer active or their inbox is full. Keeping your contact list current will also give your open rates a boost. No inactive email addresses mean more people are likely to see your email. Save the tumbleweeds for the frontier, not your open rates.

• Smaller contact lists aren’t necessarily a bad thing. This means you can drill down into specific interests and raise your open rates by targeted contact lists by region or vertical. You’ll be quicker on the draw with focused targets and likely see higher win rates. 

• Stop when you say you’ll stop. Once contacts have unsubscribed from your list, keep that promise. Let them leave and hunt out new contacts instead. Everyone will be happier for it. 

Ready to head home on the range with your optimized contact lists? Hold your horses! We’d love to hear what you’re doing to clean your contact lists and navigate the changing marketing landscape around data use. Drop us a comment (and tell us your favorite old Western flick, too). 

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We’re focused on providing world-class availability, security, and privacy controls. As a result, we have achieved a degree of security and operational maturity seen in very few software-as-a-service companies. We are in an exclusive club — Less than 1% of SaaS vendors who have achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance attestation! 

Our team has spent the last few months working diligently through a detailed, thorough third-party review, so our organization can be designated as SOC 2-compliant. When a company completes this process, its customers and partners are assured by a third-party that the organization adheres to a strict set of principles around securely managing your data. Zift recently completed this process for the third consecutive year, and again received a “clean report” with no exceptions!

Some of the most common questions we get from customers revolve around security and privacy. We field questions like:

• How do you protect my company’s data from potential threats?
• What critical security controls have you implemented to ensure the security of my company’s data?
• What type of testing is performed to ensure the effectiveness of those security controls?

How can you be sure a service provider has really prepared for all the potential issues? SOC 2 is one of the major frameworks that’s come to the forefront of security discussions as a way to combat issues before they start.

Let’s look at what being SOC 2 compliant means, and why it’s important.

What is SOC 2 compliance?

The Service Organization Control reporting platform was developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) to help companies get a handle on the complex, diverse security issues out there, and provide a framework for service providers to measure against. SOC 2 compliance covers companies that provide services like data hosting, colocation, data processing and software-as-a-service (SaaS), and is based on five “trust services principles” that reflect different criteria for managing customer data: security, privacy, availability, processing integrity, and confidentiality.

The five SOC 2 principles 

The SOC 2 principles double as a great way for customers to organize their thoughts and concerns over data management. To be compliant, service providers must have clear, well-documented, proven strategies for each of these topics:

• Security ensures that system resources are protected against all types of unauthorized access, including network and application firewalls, two-factor authentication and intrusion detection.
• Privacy addresses how the system collects, retains, discloses and disposes of personal information, and how that process aligns with the organization’s privacy notice and with the AICPA’s generally accepted privacy principles (GAPP). It includes access control, two-factor authentication, and encryption.
• Availability looks at how accessible a company’s services, products, and systems are, based on the contracts and service level agreements (SLA) it has. It includes performance monitoring, disaster recovery and security incident handling.
• Processing integrity, at its base, asks if a system achieves what it’s meant to do. Does it process data the way it promises? Does it do so in a timely manner, with authorization, and with the performance and price agreed upon? It involves quality assurance and process monitoring.
• Confidentiality relates to data that has access and/or disclosure limited to specific groups. It involves encryption, access controls, and network and application firewalls.

Why does SOC 2 matter?

It’s important to note that no vendor is required to be SOC 2 compliant; it’s a voluntary process, generally driven by customer demand. Any company that chooses to go down this path has security and privacy as a top priority within the company. After all, the certification process is a months-long endeavor, conducted by impartial outside auditors.

SOC 2 is considered the “gold standard” in compliance for software companies and is well worth the effort. It’s a very tangible way for Zift Solutions to ensure that our data, and our customers’ data, is handled using the strict guidelines mentioned above. It’s more than checking a box; it’s a commitment that goes to the very heart of our relationship with the continuing assurance to our customers and their partners worldwide.\

To learn how your organization can use channel sales, channel marketing, and channel operations together as ONE with ZiftONE, visit us or get in touch.

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Helping our customers drive channel success is our number one goal, and establishing a partner program of our own will help our customers grow and prosper. We’re a bit picky — only selecting world-class experts who are the best in the business to join the Zift Zone. And we are currently cultivating three distinct partner types: Agency, Technology, and Service Partners, each with a specific purpose.

Optimize Campaigns & Content with Agency Partners

Zift Zone Agency Partners specialize in creating content, campaigns and educational courses optimized for ZiftONE and your channel partners. They can create customized, original content and import content you already have in other systems, such as Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, etc. They can also expand your reach with outbound tele-prospecting, lead qualification, partner outreach, and concierge services. You can rely on them to serve as Product Marketing Managers (PMM) who understand the importance of MDF and Proof-of-Performance (POP). Zift Zone Agency Partners, like Televerde and bChannels, are channel and partner marketing experts who know exactly what it takes to engage and empower your partners.

Make an Impact with Technology Partners

Zift Technology Partners, such as Bombora and BlueprintCPQ, offer complementary tools and technology to ZiftONE. They can improve your marketing impact, help you use and profit from your data, and even maximize the power of extended IT infrastructure. These are the organizations who know how to identify and connect with your potential partners and buyers. They provide leading-edge technology to support specific initiatives, such as Account-Based Marketing, Social Listening, and Data Cleansing. Plus, they deliver software and tech solutions to ensure you are doing everything you can with and for your channel program and partners. From MDF management and execution to rewards, SPIFFs, payment services, propensity modeling, learning management and more, Zift Technology Partners expand business capabilities quickly, so you can do more with fewer internal resources.

Expand Your Reach with Zift Zone Service Partners

Zift Zone Service Partners like AchieveUnite and LeadFabric positively influence strategy, implementations, and industry reach. These are the organizations who provide custom development, technology connectors and facilitate integration with other systems. On the strategic side, they can train Partner Account Managers, oversee channel budgeting and planning — and even support partner tiering and program design. They also provide insight and best practices to reach new geographic areas or industry verticals you might be thinking of expanding into.

Already have partners around the world? No problem. In fact, Zift recently announced a new round of EMEA-based Zift Zone alliances. As our own Laz Gonzalez puts it, “Welcoming these powerful strategic alliance partners to the Zift Zone demonstrates Zift’s strong global presence and allows our customers to do even more with ZiftONE to energize their channel programs.”

We’re growing — and we’d love to help you grow, too. Check out the bounty of powerful strategic alliances we’ve brought together in the Zift Zone to help your own channel program bloom.

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At Baptie’s recent Channel Focus conference, the day before the conference proper was dedicated to a Women’s Leadership Council. There were panels and networking opportunities, leadership tips and mentoring sessions all day. It was fantastic. I enjoyed the chance to meet and even mentor my fellow women in the channel and share what I’ve learned.

I came away from Channel Focus thinking of the preconference Women’s Leadership Council Meeting more than anything else. Specifically, I thought of how much we are accomplishing now, in terms of helping women’s IT channel careers — and how much more we could be doing to help elevate them higher.

There’s been a big push in the last ten years to help women take more leadership positions. In the tech industry, there have definitely been efforts — Lean In groups meet over lunches and exchange tips on owning your career, STEM programs work to attract girls to science, technology, engineering, and math, as well as article upon article on the benefits of women in the C-suite.

And yet, here we are, still talking about how to make it happen. Progress is slow. We meet at lunches and talk about balancing work and family or women’s tendency to smooth things over and allow others to take credit for their ideas. We talk about how to negotiate these experiences as they occur, but not necessarily how to solve those problems for good. I often find myself thinking: Will talking about work-life balance again truly help us move forward to gender equity in the channel or workplace?

Here’s what I think will help break apart the monotony and truly start moving us forward: mentoring programs. At the Women’s Leadership Council Meeting, the leadership team started a new program called speed mentoring. It’s like speed dating but focused on empowerment in the workplace rather than awkward conversations about walking on the beach.

Mentorship programs can give younger women just getting started in their careers the support they need to make bigger, bolder moves than they might otherwise feel capable of making. Even well-established, high-powered career women can use the support mentoring provides to keep them going strong! Support systems consisting of women in all stages of their careers help propel movement truly forward. Talking about the struggles women face, addressing those in a positive, career-empowering way, and looking to the future will add more women as channel leaders. One-on-one and group opportunities to address and make positive changes, one woman’s career at a time, will change our field.

The channel is a great place to work, and younger workers are catching on to that. Let’s work together, generation to generation, to ensure it stays on course to a more equitable and fulfilling future.

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I’m just back from this year’s SiriusDecisions Summit where I had the chance to watch as two of Zift’s customers were named Channel Marketing Program of the Year Award Winners by SiriusDecisions. Both award winners, Cisco and Citrix, shared a similar focus: The digital transformations of their programs working alongside their partners, SiriusDecisions and delivering through Zift.  

Citrix’s Marcio Moerbec, Director of Worldwide Partner Marketing, framed the challenge this way: Partners are in a tug of war to grow business outside of their referrals and customers, and the only way to win new business is to activate digital marketing. He described how their Kickstart Program married content, planning, budget and resources to deliver education and content to partners. The results of the investments are paying dividends.

Kelsi Doran, Omnichannel Strategy Lead, Global Partner Marketing, shared how Cisco is connecting disjointed programs across the omnichannel to create personalized experiences for their partner communities.

Their successes showcase how people inspired to create change — and equipped with innovative processes supported by a capable platform — drive measurable change within the business.

Change and transformation was a theme. In another post next week, I’ll share insights that Kerstin Demko, Partner Marketing Director at Sage, shared in her best practices case study with conference attendees.  

So, channel marketing leaders, what does this mean for you?  

First, in a world where 6 in 10 B2B buyers make decisions about who to talk to about a product or service offering before EVER talking to a salesperson, your reach has to cast a net to best-fit buyers. Second, digital marketing when combined with personalized content is hands down one of the best ways to cut through the clutter to reach and communicate to the needs and challenges of your best-fit buyer. And finally, to execute and deliver with your partners’ communications, training is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s imperative. They need to know how to execute.

World-class channel marketing programs have learned to trust our solutions to support their programs.

We are inspired by their creativity and their success and hope you are, too. Congratulations to Citrix and Cisco!

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So now, Zift is looking to help you hit your own home run. We think of channel program successes as wins on their own. In our recent webinar, “People, Process and Platform: Turning Enterprise Channel Management into Profit,” Krista Fuller and I discussed streamlining channel processes for continued wins. Here are some factors to consider to hit the ball out of the park — and maintain your winning streak.

Choose Your Players Wisely

Nothing matters more than having the right players on the field. So what do you do when the players on your team don’t have the skillsets you’re looking for? Look for the right partners — prune back your program until the partners you have are the ones who will be able to most effectively sell your product — and set your team apart from the competition.

Channel programs aren’t a numbers game, and having more partners doesn’t necessarily equate to more success. Increasing partner quality over partner quantity is the factor you should focus on. Adding partners who match up to your ideal partner profile and align with your solutions increases the effectiveness of your program.

Consistency is the Name of the Game

How can you scale and create consistency and momentum in your platform? Drive a similar (positive!) experience for all your partners. Consistency is key to crafting a program that feels simple to use, while still full of great benefits to keep partners coming back. Additionally, keep track of your best performers. High performers gravitate toward great content that aligns to their message. As a rule of thumb, take note of what content partners are using, track the results of what they do with it (send emails, execute campaigns, etc.) and make adjustments as needed.

Are Silos Challenging Your Plays?

Too often, data is siloed within individual parts of your program and even separate technology systems. This broken, data disconnect frustrates channel teams and partners alike. At SiriusDecisions Summit, 72% of respondents to an on-site poll of channel professionals indicated siloed sources are the most common channel data challenge. With data silos now a widespread channel epidemic, it’s time to take charge. Without access to all data involved, how can you make informed decisions on where to take your program next? An enterprise channel management platform, like ZiftONE, can solve this problem. By reaching across silos and consolidating data, channel leaders can immediately have better visibility and actionable insight as nothing slips through the cracks.

Is your channel program set for the playoffs? Where are your wins, and how did you achieve them? I’d love to hear how you’re succeeding — and let me know if we can help you drive channel success even higher. Additionally, get more tips for wins in our on-demand webinar — and learn how channel assessments can empower your program even further.

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Q: So, what brings you to the Channel Partners Expo?

A: I go everywhere with my partner and handler, so when he said we were headed to the Expo, I was ready to go. Now that I’m here, it seems pretty cool. A lot of people talking about something called “channel” partners and how they need a world-class experience. I’m not 100% sure what that means, but I am all about world-class — and Vegas, of course.  I was born in Arkansas, raised in New England, but today, Vegas is home.

Q: You’ve received a good deal of attention at the show for your sunglasses…

A: Hey, my future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades. But, seriously, I’m not just a superstar, I am an explosives detection canine. I wear these all the time to protect my eyes when I’m training or on a mission. Folks seem to get a real kick out of seeing me wearing them at events and shows, but they are really just my work goggles. We snazz them up for events.

Q: Are you looking for explosives at the Expo?

A: I’m always on the lookout, and I can assure you, the only things exploding here are ideas around channel sales and marketing. I’m actually here to support TrainOurTroops, a non-profit Veterans’ organization. I’m a huge advocate for the work they do. And, I was born on the 4th of July, so patriotism is in my blood.  

Q: Can you tell us more about TrainOurTroops?

A: We work to provide U.S. military veterans, their spouses and dependents with the training and skills they need to secure fulfilling jobs. The fact is, far too many vets and their families find themselves in low-paying jobs that underutilize their potential. Using TrainOurTroops, they can fill skill gaps, level-up professionally, start a brand new career or even start a new business. 

Q: Where can we learn more about TrainOurTroops?

A: Google it. Just kidding. I mean you can, but you can also go to  www.trainourtroops.org and follow them on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter. You’ll see some great shots of me and, of course, some of the veterans and volunteers that keep TrainOurTroops moving forward.

Q: How does TrainOurTroops facilitate the training they provide?

A: First and foremost, direct access to training and certifications is absolutely free to veterans, their spouses and dependents. They just have to register at TrainOurTroops.org. I don’t know a lot about software, but I do know TrainOurTroops is using the ZiftONE platform behind the scenes. It’s leading-edge tech that makes it easy to provide valuable online training and certification for vets and their dependents on the most relevant business solutions in demand by today’s leading employers. (OK, I sort of stole that last part from Glen Brynteson, who is the Founder of TrainOurTroops. He’s better with words than me. Mostly, because he’s human.)

Q: How many courses are available now?

A: Once they sign up, users can access over 500 courses and certifications designed by TrainOurTroops and its corporate sponsors, including Juniper Networks, eBay and Exxon, and many others. These are leading employers around the globe who are looking to hire vets and their family members to step into more fulfilling and higher-paying civilian careers.

It’s great stuff. Proud to be affiliated with them. But I do need to get back to work now!  Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook and visit TrainOurTroops.org and ZiftONE to learn more!

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We agree to disagree. While B2B social is a tougher nut to crack in terms of straddling the line between capturing attention (and followers) and maintaining professionalism, everyone scrolling through their social feed is human.

We all want that human element — human to human instead of business to business — and we’re all way more likely to notice and interact with social posts that appeal to empathy. B2B audiences are more professional than B2C, so a lighter touch goes a long way. We’re highlighting some B2B companies that are bridging the gap and posting content that resonates with their audience on social. Let’s go to Twitter, shall we?

Cisco: Empathy & Enthusiasm

This tech giant, whose products range from Security to Cloud to Internet of Things, has a social presence as varied as their product line. From making use of video to personalized GIFs that spice up announcement posts — We love their enthusiasm!

Cisco’s human-centric stories capture the breadth and depth of their products while showcasing the personality of their people.

Cisco’s Twitter feed is a great example of professionalism with empathy. Check out their page for yourself.

SiriusDecisions: Not So Serious After All

SiriusDecisions, a respected B2B research and advisory firm, has a Twitter feed filled with tons of resources and links to their analysts’ and business-focused content. Some research firms go fairly serious with their social media presence, which is an understandable decision. SiriusDecisions embraces humor and humanity. Take a look at this recent event promotion and you’ll see what we mean.

Now that’s an event we’d like to attend. We always look forward to following their webinar live-tweets, which are informative and entertaining. Get a closer look at the flavor SiriusDecisions adds to posts on their Twitter feed.

Star2Star: Making History Buffs of All of Us

Star2Star Communications, a UCaaS and VoIP leader, has a social feed that caters to their position and history in Telecom. Specifically, we love their #ThrowbackThursday posts, which often call back to important moments in Telecom history.

Star2Star knows their angle and they’re owning it. It’s fresh and informative. Take a closer look and learn a little about the past.

Atlassian: On Brand & On Trend

Atlassian’s social media presence is, well, fun. The company provides software development and collaborative tools to improve performance and cohesion among teams. Their social feed reflects those values. Between links to blog posts about work-life balance and think-pieces on professional self-improvement, they have a distinctly eye-catching art style that makes us stop scrolling and click to learn more.

Take a look and learn a little about leadership while you’re at it!

Marketo: Working Their Marketing Magic

If you’re a marketer, you’re likely already aware of Marketo. And their social feed reflects this. They push thought leadership that their followers, likely well-versed in marketing themselves, will want to read. We had to recognize them because they target what their audience wants to see so well. Whether it’s their #StatoftheWeek, a marketing best practice or blog post recommendation, we love seeing them on our feed because their posts always deliver something we can actually use.

Bet you want to read it, right? Find more clickable content on Marketo’s Twitter.

Have you come across any B2B companies that are knocking it out of the park on social? We’d love to hear about them! Leave us a comment and share who you’re excited to see on your feed.

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B2BMX is the place to rub elbows with some the best and brightest in the B2B landscape, meet with analysts, and share real strategies and best practices for driving more value and higher returns from channel marketing investments. We had a fun Frankenstein-themed booth on-site where lots of folks gathered to share horror stories and see how Zift could help them tame their own channel technology monsters. Plus, there were tons of channel-focused sessions to learn from.  Let’s just say, I returned from the event brimming with new ideas and excited to share some big insights from B2BMX.

Getting Smart About AI in B2B Channels

As a well-known industry analyst and established channel thought leader, Laz Gonzalez always packs a room. He took the stage on Tuesday to discuss Getting Smart About Applying Artificial Intelligence in B2B Channels.

While everyone is certainly talking about artificial intelligence, I don’t know many people who understand how AI can be applied to B2B channels. (I certainly didn’t get it before Laz’s session). But Laz took a page from science fiction to make things very clear to us. He kicked off his presentation with a scene from Terminator and asked the question: “What if you could have ‘Terminator Vision’ when you looked at your channel partners?”

If you haven’t seen the movies, the Terminator is a cyborg assassin sent back in time from 2029. Everything he sees is scanned, identified and analyzed. His perspective is populated with a full dashboard of data he can use to make decisions. It was a fantastic example to help us start to see and understand just a bit of what AI can do for channel marketing and sales.

Laz went on to discuss how suppliers can use machine learning and AI to see exactly who their channel partners really are, their modes of operation, skill levels, and even recent activities. Coupled with propensity modeling and predictive analytics, suppliers can compare them to other partners, optimize campaigns specifically for them, prescribe specific marketing tactics, improve partner planning, onboarding, demand creation and more.  I, along with the other attendees, walked away with a much better understanding of how AI, machine learning and propensity modeling can intersect with channel programs to improve engagement, visibility, and results.

Does ‘Partner-First’ Pay Off?

Lunch and learn sessions are old hat. How about lunch and a high-spirited debate? That’s exactly what those who joined Zift’s B2BMX “Birds of a Feather” table enjoyed as we batted around the question: Does Partner-First Really Pay Off?

Some at our table felt strongly that To-, Through- and For-Partner Marketing is already way too complicated and expensive. They argued their partners aren’t fully engaged or even using the Marketing Development Funds they are providing. So why try to do even more for them? Channel expert Cameron Avery (who founded Elastic Grid) along with David Portnowitz, Chief Marketing Officer of Star2Star, passionately argued the other side. If you want to be top-of-mind for partners, they said, you absolutely have to put them first.

Cameron emphasized the importance of putting your partners in the spotlight (rather than the supplier’s brand) and using modern digital marketing tactics across the partners’ journey to engage and enable them every step of the way. According to Cameron, a partner-first approach is a much faster track to more revenue and ROI.

David Portnowitz agreed — and he wasn’t just expressing an opinion. He had real numbers to back up his argument that taking a partner-first approach is essential. (We’re talking 3 months to ROI, 15-20 hours per week in employee time savings, expanded social reach and more.) He also shared his top three investments for happy partners.  And, looking at his results, Star2Star’s commitment to being the easiest company to work with is seriously paying off.

Channel Power Panel

Later in the day, Laz returned to moderate a powerful channel-focused panel on Driving Partner Engagement: New Approaches for Boosting Partner Participation in Channel Programs.

Jamie Mendez, Director of Channel Marketing IBM gave attendees a peek at how Watson uses machine learning and AI to match IBM content exactly to where its technology partners are in the deal cycle, which was incredible — and brought us full circle on AI in the channel.

David Portnowitz, Chief Marketing Officer at Star2Star Communications built upon the partner-first philosophy he defended at lunch. He noted that it is vital for suppliers to better qualify their channel partners. There is no getting around spending money and resources to get the results you are seeking from channel partners, he said. So, make sure you’re getting the most from your investments by carefully qualifying partners before dedicating those resources to them.

Cameron Avery topped off the discussion by pointing out that your channel technology and programs should cater to different types of partners. “There are those who want to do it all themselves, and they should have self-service options,” he said. “And for those who need more direction, you will need to provide focused Channel Engagement services and support to increase engagement, drive activation and build pipeline.

From technological innovations to practical suggestions for improving partner engagement now, B2BMX was a true source of insight for channel marketers. I can’t wait to return next year and hope you’ll join us. Let us know what kind of sessions and topics you would like to see covered at B2BMX 2020. We’ll see you there!

The post Big Insights from B2BMX appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Reeling in Results

We see a lot of different ways of managing channel programs here, as you might imagine. When you have over 80% of channel chiefs using your product, you become aware that there are a million ways to run a successful partner program. There are so many good ways to support your partners, but Sage’s method is pulling in exceptional results.

During a recent Zift Customer Strategy Session, where Zift customers gather to share what makes their specific campaigns and initiatives sink or swim, we learned about Sage’s take on partner enablement. Capping off a day packed full of channel knowledge, Sage North America Partner Marketing Director Kerstin Demko gave us a deep dive into how Sage supports their partners by empowering them to do more on their own.  

Letting Partners Cast the Line

Demko asked, “How do we teach them to be better partners? How do we give them the tools to be great fishermen, so they can help themselves for a lifetime?”

Helping partners drive their pipeline through the channel in a way that also allows partners to learn and grow, not just accepting help, but actively nurturing their own growth as marketers, is an end-goal worth striving for. When your partners touch as many different industries as Sage’s do, it’s easiest to nurture growth enabled by the program and fostered by partners themselves as opposed to using a more concierge-based approach (though that, of course, can be successful as well). It all depends on what works with your specific blend of partners and industry standards.

Small Fish in a Big Pond
Nurturing and teaching smaller partners, who are busy themselves, is a key point for Demko. Helping and even prioritizing partners who don’t have a marketing department or many resources outside of Sage’s offerings is vital for their program. If you’re asking a small business to help you drive revenue, you’ve got to reach out a hand and make it easy for them to help themselves. You’ve got to teach them to fish.

Watch Demko talk priorities and fishing poles in this great new video from our Channel Visions series. Then, drop us a line to let us know your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you — Does your channel program tend to align with Sage’s — or do you feel like you’re constantly baiting the hook for partners or casting a hook with no bites?

The post Channel Visions: Sage’s Self-Serve Philosophy appeared first on Zift Solutions.

That’s why at Zift, this time of year is all about giving back. Our NC office’s holiday party featured a casino where all “winnings” were donated to deserving charities. It feels good to give back (especially after racking up at the blackjack table).

That’s also why we extend the opportunity to give back on behalf of our awesome customers and friends this time of year. Zifters voted on which organizations we’d most like to donate to, and we let you choose how we spread the love to the various charities. Here are the four we chose this year:

ASPCA

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is one of the largest humane societies in the world and the first to be established in North America. Their work to end animal cruelty and educate on treating animals with respect and kindness is further carried out through animal rescue, adoption, and protection.

Make ASPCA Your Pick

Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK does just what the title suggests — they’re searching for a cure for cancer and raising money to further cancer research. Additionally, they develop evidence-based policies to inform government decisions related to cancer.  

Support Cancer Research UK

California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation’s Wildfire Relief Fund goes toward helping relief and recovery efforts after wildfires. With the recent wildfires, this is a timely opportunity to help those who were affected start to recover and rebuild.

Choose Wildfire Relief Fund

Americares

Americares is a health-focused organization that responds to the needs of those affected by poverty or disaster. They have been instrumental in providing continuing support in response to Hurricane Florence, which not only closed our Cary, NC offices and personally affected several Zifters — but had devastating impacts in North and South Carolina with historic flooding that destroyed homes, industry and infrastructure.

Help Fund Americares

Does your company have a yearly charitable tradition? Do you personally donate every year? The holidays are a time of traditions and of sharing — so why not share your story with us? Tell us all about your traditions, whether business or personal, in the comments. Most of all, have a wonderful holiday season!

The post The Season of Giving: Zift’s Annual Holiday Program Returns appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We say it all the time, but as inclusivity moves to the forefront and women continue to break the glass ceiling in STEM fields, ripples continue to spread through organizations. The channel is certainly no exception. Women stepping up and inspiring and mentoring young women taking their first steps in their careers is becoming more and more commonplace — just look at the popularity of well-known women’s mentorship group Lean In.

Women of the Channel East is an event dedicated to showcasing the power and influence of women in channel roles and celebrating how that is shaping the future of channel sales and marketing. It’s all about inspiring current and future technology leaders. Several women from Zift attended in early December and came away with insight to share. Let’s give them the floor:

Heidi Parent, Senior Customer Success Manager

‘The energy just grew and grew’ –I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time with some great Zift women at a truly inspiring event. The speakers were motivational and genuinely interested in providing women, both executive and not, with skills to have the confidence to follow their dreams and take the next step in their careers. The energy just grew and grew throughout the event. Networking was great; I met some new prospects as well as some current clients throughout. One James Keller quote used during the event has stuck with me: “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”

Andrea Kottong, Customer Success Director

‘A strong sense of resonance’ — The overall message of WOTC is to encourage women to believe in themselves, take chances, embrace failure as part of the process, and be persistent. These aren’t new or earth-shattering concepts, but the stories from the presenters were compelling examples of these messages and really resonated. With that resonance came a strong sense of camaraderie and connection amongst the attendees that made the networking especially powerful. This was my first time going to the WOTC event and I appreciated the opportunity for the self-reflection and introspection the topics encouraged. I also really enjoyed getting to know my fellow Zift women better and hearing their perspectives on our business. This is a great way to promote the career growth of women at every stage.

Erin Bolton, Strategic Account Director

‘The collective, authentic desire to help each other’ — It was an honor to represent Zift at the WOTC East conference this year. Let me share my experience so you can get a better sense of the event – perhaps you’ll even want to go (women and men alike).

First, you are taken aback by the sheer number of successful women in attendance! There are so many talented, accomplished, articulate and knowledgeable women at WOTC. It is truly inspiring.

After listening to so many successful and passionate women, some of them CEOs, EVPs, authors, or Channel Chiefs to name a few, you are compelled to do better, push harder, accomplish more, mentor, contribute to your community, go to the gym more – suddenly your personal and professional goals have expanded! Okay, in all fairness, the one woman who was a BOD Chairman, author and triathlete made me feel pretty inadequate.

You also have some really amazing one-on-one conversations with very genuine women in the channel. They want to advance and help you in your career. In turn, you want to support and guide them through their goals. The collective, authentic desire to help one another in our profession and create greater results in the industry becomes obvious. You leave exhausted yet rewarded with new knowledge, new connections and a renewed outlook on the power of women in the channel.

Sheila McNeil, Director of Sales, East

‘Dynamic and Diverse’ — I, too, truly appreciated attending this event with this team of women from Zift. This was my second year at WOTC and I found it even more inspiring than last year as the speaker lineup was even more dynamic and diverse (culturally, age and professionally). The second day brought sessions that appealed to women in different stages of their career and challenged the audience to participate with each other and share what we can offer to each other — a message or advice that we may have received in our life and careers that might resonate with the person next to us. My biggest takeaway was a reminder that no matter where that we are in our careers, where we live, what our age is or what our life experiences have been, we have so much more in common than we know, and it connects us universally.

Krista Fuller, VP of Product Marketing

‘So What?’ In sharing her keynote From Ordinary to Extraordinary, Sheri Hedlund, Vice President, US Channel Sales at Dell EMC, asked the audience of 1,000 channel leaders and executives to consider how they could transform their seemingly ordinary business experiences into career-defining high points. As a product marketing leader, the simplicity of the ‘so what’ question resonated with me. She cited how an early executive coached her to answer the question of ‘so what,’ helping her understand the value of engaging the audience directly, clearly and succinctly.   

Women are great storytellers, for sure. However, in telling the story, we can sometimes overlook the need to capture the audience’s attention with why they need to listen. Most great stories that you love don’t follow a linear flow. They hook you — That hook is the ‘so what.’ How does this idea impact growth? What is the innovation that will transform actions? How will team performance improve? Remembering to frame key business discussions with the ‘so what’ can help turn ordinary communications into extraordinary communications. I encourage you to give it a try!

Laurie Balcerak, Strategic Account Director

‘Educational, Uplifting and Energizing’ I’ve been attending the WOTC event for a number of years — I think this is actually my twelfth year in attendance — so as you can see, I definitely feel it’s important. It was an honor to represent Zift and be able to say that we, as an organization, had a record number of talented women in attendance (six of us in total).

The event for me is important for 3 key reasons:

1. It’s so important to devote time to “sharpening your saw” and this is an event that is educational, uplifting and energizing. The overall themes of the event have not deviated much over the years, but topics evolve to remain current to the business climate and we’ve see the attendance grow from less than 50 women to over 1000. That alone is phenomenal (although a bit more challenging to find folks while on-site). The power of women in technology is growing; organizations are committed to the personal and professional development of women at all levels of their careers and that gets me really energized.
2. The opportunity to engage with colleagues, customers and prospects is tremendous.  You can plan 1:1 time with folks you know, reconnect with ladies you’ve not seen in a while and meet new people. In addition, there were a number of sessions that gave various women the opportunity to share their stories and make you feel like a real part of a community. We all get caught up in the day-to-day work that needs to be done (everyone’s “to-do” list is long and impressive), but you realize when listening to the presenters that we all have the capacity to share, mentor, be a sounding board and uplift others like a candle — which can share its light with another without diminishing its own.
3. The strength and generosity of women in technology is astounding. At each event, there’s an organization in need that is a focus. When women in technology come together, they make a difference. At this year’s event, the women in attendance raised over $20k for this year’s organization. The capacity for giving back and working to uplift others is inspiring – and women in technology understand the value of giving back.

Each year, the event helps me to boost my energy level for that mad dash to the year-end finish line and go into the new year with renewed optimism.

We’re glad to have attended Women of the Channel East and hope to continue that spirit of encouragement and inclusivity through to interactions with customers and internally. Did you attend WOTC or want to share your thoughts? We’d love to hear back from you.

The post Innovation and Inspiration: Takeaways from Women of the Channel East appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Leadership and understanding have always been top of mind for me. I’ve invested my career in product management and product marketing leadership roles, exploring businesses where I have an affinity with the product offerings. I’ve worked with plenty of interesting, exciting solutions — so when I heard about what Zift was doing, I jumped at the chance to be VP of Product Marketing.

How do you define Product Marketing?

To me, product marketing is about, above all else, commercializing software solutions for buyers and making sure that you connect a customer with the product that best fits their needs. It’s a series of questions I never tire of answering: What’s the messaging around your product? How do you position it in the market? How do you work with the sales team to talk about it? What stories do you tell on your website? Product place, price, and positioning are all connected, and all have to be cohesive in one solution.

What do you like best about working with and for Zift?

I love what Zift is doing. I love how we work with channel programs, sales and marketing leaders to create success in their businesses. I always choose businesses where I have an affinity for the product on offer, and Zift’s offerings — and our customers who purchase them — are engaging and exciting to learn about. The process in itself is fascinating, and the people behind the processes and programs are hard-working and involved themselves.

That’s one of the parts of the channel I like best: people invested in the channel, like my fellow Zifters, tend to work well with others. Whether it’s nature or nurtured by industry, people in the channel are very good at networking. Channel programs do a lot with a little, so it makes sense that the people behind them are good at connecting the networking dots to get what needs to be done, done.

What is your current focus?

I’m working on big projects you’ll hear more about in 2019 and helping to shape our vision of Enterprise Channel Management into a realized solution set. I’m thrilled to be part of the team working toward groundbreaking goals in the channel industry.

You’re breathing new life into Zift’s Lean In Chapter. Can you tell us more about that?

I believe women learn best through sharing their experiences with each other. Talking with and understanding other women in sessions with our Circle is what the program is designed to do, and that promotes confidence and provides a safe setting to practice business skills. Women leading women to grow together — It’s a wonderful program, and one I’m glad to lend my voice to and promote.

Any personal passions outside of Zift and Product Marketing?

My personal passion is helping to eliminate the stigma of mental illness through my work as a certified trainer with the National Alliance of Mental Illness, or NAMI. I work with families to break the silence on mental illness and begin developing positive behaviors and coping skills.  

This year, I’m enjoying the 25th anniversary of my blind date with my husband, Fred. We share our lives with one young adult son and our standard poodle, Charlie, who is just as feisty and smart as our son was as a toddler.   

The post Inside Zift Q&A: Meet Krista Fuller and Her Passion for Product Marketing appeared first on Zift Solutions.

This year’s Summit was right here in Raleigh, NC — Just a hop, skip and a jump from Zift’s Cary, NC office. Not even the rainy, chilly weather could stop the feeling in the air; this conference had energy, people. Energy. It was brimming with excitement.  

The Internet Summit is a hotbed of ideas for digital marketers, with nearly a hundred sessions led by top brands and industry thought leaders to pick from and hundreds of other attendees to network with. I knew I’d have to be choosy on what sessions to attend, but with keynotes by The Onion’s Scott Dikkers, Amazon’s Dave Isbitski and best-selling author and speaker Seth Godin, along with with sessions by folks from YouTube, Cisco and ESPN, I knew I was going to leave a lot smarter than when I arrived. I’ll admit I was particularly excited about hearing Scott Dikkers’ keynote as I’m a longtime subscriber of The Onion.

On a personal note, this was also my first non-academic conference… ever. I walked in totally unsure of what to expect. I had a great time learning, networking and attending sessions on everything from content marketing tips by Gartner to social media takeaways from the SVP of Social Content at ESPN. While all of you tradeshow and event veterans may be immune to it, I was blown away by the presence and aisles of swag from digital marketing leaders like IBM and Marketo.

I walked away from those booths and the Summit with a grab bag of goodies from the experts. Reach on in and take one to rev up your digital marketing efforts:

Freebie #1: Consistency is Key

This one comes courtesy of Godfrey’s Michael Barber. Is your messaging and voice consistent? Simplicity and sameness are elements to strive for with the bulk of your communication. People do not want to be surprised by a completely different voice appearing suddenly from one campaign to another. Make your branding and messaging mirror each other in tone from one email or whitepaper to the next. What tips partners or customers off that this email is connected to your brand? This includes brand terms as well. Consistency saves time, makes communication clearer and shortens the sales cycle.

Freebie #2: Dig Into the Data

I don’t mean, “Take that campaign your partners loved, change a few words and send it back out expecting more success.” What I got from Gartner’s Heather Pemberton Levy is more along the lines of this: Examine why your popular content works, and use those findings to pull another white success rabbit from your magic content hat.

Something Levy mentioned that I resonated with is, “Don’t settle for data. Uncover insights in your data.” Look at the metrics that matter most to you, whatever those are, and figure out what you can pull out of them. Discover meaning in your analytics, and use that to make future campaigns better and more targeted.  Maybe you’re trying to drive more engagement from partners in a specific region, and you had success with a particular campaign in the past. Examine that campaign under an analytic microscope, and produce something that meets the same needs.

Freebie #3: Wear Your Heart on Your Digital Sleeve

Over half of executive-level leaders wish companies would take a visible stand on issues impacting society. Now, don’t worry, I’m not saying you have to pick a highly divisive issue and take a definitive side (several marketers were overheard mentioning Nike as an example of this). Rather, remember that your audience is made up of people. So is your organization. It can be all too easy to come up with content for your partners to send out that focuses entirely on your products or solutions. Throwing in occasional mentions over social media to the good your company is doing or can do via your products, or even just promoting a company that’s doing great things, will go a long way in helping you stand out in the eyes of your partners and end users.

It was an action-packed couple of days. Were you in attendance? If not, do you remember your first conference? Tell me all about it in the comments — I’d love to know if you too got lost finding the well-labeled ballroom on the first floor.

The post Digital Marketing Grab Bag: What We Brought Back from the Definitive Digital Marketing Gathering appeared first on Zift Solutions.

In the Channel Partners Studio with TrainOurTroops  

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Glen Brynteson, founder of TrainOurTroops, at the Channel Partners Expo, where I was invited into the Channel Partners Studio to talk about opportunities for U.S. Military Veterans in the technology space and channel.

One of the important points Glen stressed during our conversation is that people who go the traditional college route after high school typically graduate with a clear focus and plan of action to secure a job in a particular field, like sales, marketing, communications, engineering, etc.

Yet, women and men who enlist in the military often, regardless of the intense levels of training and experience they gain, leave the service only to be lost in a crowded and competitive civilian marketplace. They may have been a highly skilled mechanic or intelligence analyst or training leader in the service. But connecting with employers who need their skills and successfully transitioning to civilian employment is a real challenge. Many vets take positions far below their skill and pay level just to take a job. And far too many of our veterans are lost after they serve.

A Difficult Reality

Unemployment is the reality of nearly half a million of our Gulf War-era II U.S. veterans, which the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) classifies as those who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces at any time since September 2001 to now.  This often leads to frustration, depression and, at an alarming rate, suicide for our soldiers. It crushes me to see that veteran suicide rates in the U.S. have increased by 25.9 percent in the last decade alone.

Thankfully, dedicated organizations like TrainOurTroops and its strategic partners are jumping in to help. TrainOurTroops provides U.S. veterans, and their spouses, with advanced online training and certification solutions to give them a competitive advantage in the civilian marketplace to ignite their careers. Their courses are absolutely free to vets and their spouses — and they do a whole lot more than training. Sure, there is fun stuff in the mix like major concerts and fundraising events. But I’m talking apprenticeships with the US. Department of Labor, getting vets into the largest tradeshows in the country, and in front of the very best employers, to capture those higher-paying civilian positions and careers.

The Stats Are Tough – But There’s Hope in Action

The latest report from the USBLS notes unemployment rates among vets are now edging down, in part due to organizations like TrainOurTroops and commitments from their partners, which include industry leaders like Amazon, eBay, Ferrari, Juniper Networks and MGM Resort, among many others, along with Wells Fargo, who has pledged to add 20K vets to their workforce by 2020.

At the heart of it, Glen and TrainOurTroops are enabling and ramping up vets to do more, connecting them with the tools and resources they need, and streamlining their path to success. (Much like what Zift does for channel organizations and their partners.)

For My Brothers and Sisters in Arms

This Veterans Day, it’s important to take time to remember and thank those who have served. It means a great deal. How do I know? I’m not just a loud-mouth channel sales strategist — I am also a proud veteran who served in the Active U.S. Army and National Guard. I know I’m not the only vet who’s found solid footing in the channel sales and marketing arena.

Raise your hand in the comments section below if you are a fellow Brother or Sister in Arms working in the channel, so we can thank you for your service. And consider picking up a hat, T or mug from the TrainOurTroops Patriotic Collection for yourself or someone else. I dig their stuff as it’s just patriotic, not political, and all of the sales go directly to creating more online courses for vets and their spouses. Check out their T’s, hats, mugs and more here: https://trainourtroops.org/collections

The post What the Channel Can Learn From Veterans appeared first on Zift Solutions.

We received and shared some great news last week as Zift was recognized as a “Leader” in The Forrester Wave™: Partner Relationship Management, Q4 2018 report by Forrester Research, Inc. The recognition follows Zift also being named a “Leader” earlier this year in The Forrester Wave™: Through-Channel Marketing Automation, Q2 2018.

This makes us an official market leader in both Partner Relationship Management (PRM) and Through-Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA), with the industry leadership position and strength of our  Enterprise Channel Management platform.

Well Beyond PRM

Forrester Wave reports examine a wide range of specific product functionality as well as market position and company strategy. In the PRM Wave, Zift received a 5 out of 5 possible points in the criteria of Product Vision, Innovation Roadmap and Supporting Products/Services. Zift also received high scores (4 of 5) in the Partner Co-Selling/Co-Marketing, Partner Portal/Integrations and Partner Performance/Incentives, and Strategy. In the TCMA Wave (released earlier this year), we captured high scores in the categories of Execution, Product Vision, Innovation Roadmap, Supporting Products and Services, and Partner Ecosystem.

According to the new PRM Wave’s authors (Principal Analyst Jay McBain with Caroline Robertson, Robert Perdoni, and Kara Hartig) , “Zift has created a full-function partner platform that goes beyond PRM to include through-channel marketing and creative/concierge-type services. Its vision is even more extensive and may include other channel software categories in the future.”

The PRM Wave goes on to say:

• The Zift PRM solution delivers comprehensive functionality on top of a very robust and configurable business rules engine platform
• Zift’s partner education, training, and certification support capabilities are among the best in this category
• Zift gets high marks for its global coverage and has significant bases of operations in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific

We’re happy to get such solid recognition for the solutions, services and support we are absolutely dedicated to providing for our customers.

Still a Siloed Market

While Forrester did an excellent job of capturing the state of the market for PRM and TCMA, these reports remain siloed and each one focused on only one distinct portion of the ChanTech equation. They also work as a snapshot of the market at just one point in time. Zift’s vision and capabilities cover the entire scope of channel sales, marketing and operations functionality. Plus, Zift releases new capabilities every week, and our comprehensive solutions are always evolving and improving.

The Bottom Line

Zift is the only channel technology provider recognized as a Leader in both PRM and TCMA — and capable of delivering end-to-end Enterprise Channel Management. Moreover, Zift is a true global channel technology and services provider, delivering:

• Third-party recognized leading PRM & CMM
• Follow-the-sun, in-language global support (for 13+ distinct languages)
• Advanced Creative Services with 20+ years of digital expertise
• Highly flexible Service Options (Expert Services, Customer Engagement Services, Creative Services, Channel Program Assessments and Partner Self-Service Options)
• In-depth Training, Workshops and Certifications
• Superior channel expertise and best practices via Zift’s Channel Center of Excellence

Interested to learn more about Zift’s leadership position and expansive PRM capabilities? You can download and read the full Forrester PRM Wave HERE.

The post Don’t Just Take Our Word for It appeared first on Zift Solutions.

You’ve heard me talk about the partner-first approach before. Putting partners first in your program will lead to ROI gains. How are you giving them the leg up they need? Are you creating campaigns focused around your partners and end users? Look for how you can provide convenience to your partners — that will keep them engaged. Providing complex, easy-to-implement campaigns is a great way to start, but I’ll address that more in a moment.

How can you get started on giving your partners a world-class experience? Just like with any other resolution, take baby steps before big leaps. You wouldn’t run a marathon before you’d run a few laps at the gym. The same theory applies to your channel program. Start out small.

For 2019, make your partner the hero. This is a small, but brave step to take. Some bolder vendors are — wait for this — leaving their logos out of campaigns. Why would they do this? They’re leaving space for their partners to put their logos into their emails and assets to establish the partner as the thought leader. This pays off with end users viewing the partner as someone knowledgeable. The end user leaves happy, the partner gets a sale and the vendor gets ROI payoff. Win-win-win.

Speaking of ROI, how are you measuring yours? The most common method is, of course, monetary. How much profit your channel program is earning is one method of measuring success, but is it the best for your specific situation? Look into that. Would it make more sense for you to measure your ROI through the number of partners regularly logging into your portal, or how many emails partners are sending out per month? Use the metrics that make sense for your program? If the channel program is just starting up, you may want to use data that measures growth as ROI as opposed to strictly monetary metrics. You can always change how you define your program’s ROI as it evolves over time. I talked about this at length in 360Insight’s Channel Edge podcast.

Ready to take a bigger step? Take a look at your partner portal. Adding personalization options to your portal is a great way to instantly make your partners feel more at home. Greet them at the door of your portal with the factors that matter to each individual user, whether that’s determined by their region, job role or vertical. The small steps add up to create one bold sprint, and before you know it, you’re running full-tilt towards success.  

Your partners’ experience, and ultimately program adoption, will likely be the main make-or-break factor for your 2019 sales. Give partners a reason to keep coming back and selling your product, or they will focus on other vendors who do.

What are your channel resolutions for 2019? Let us know in the comments, or drop me a line to talk more about why a partner-first approach can work for your program.

The post Check Off Your 2019 Channel Resolutions appeared first on Zift Solutions.

But, each and every time Zift contributes to an analyst report, I find myself singing the theme song to an early-80s sitcom, Square Pegs. I loved this show and adored watching the bright super-nerds Patty Greene and brace-faced Lauren Hutchinson trying their damnedest to join the “in” crowd at Weemawee High.

Organizations looking for solutions to their business challenges often rely on industry analysts from leading firms like Forrester, SiriusDecisions and Gartner to gather insight and direction prior to implementing a technology. They are considered the experts — the cool kids, per se. They determine who’s in and who’s out.

More Than a Little Unconventional

Zift works hard to ensure that they (and those who rely on their research) have the most current and comprehensive information about our products and services. Over the past several years, the channel technology (ChanTech) market has exploded. Analysts are working hard to categorize new offerings and providers. But Zift rarely fits into a specific category, even among channel-specific B2B technologies — hence, that ‘Square Pegs’ feeling.  And, like my beloved Square Pegs Patty and Lauren, Zift is more than a little unconventional.

There are multiple analyst reports focused on Through Channel Marketing Automation or TCMA (in which Zift is classified as a Leader), Partner Relationship Management (PRM), Channel-focused Learning Management (CLM) and more. But these highly segmented reports don’t cover the broader scope of what Zift provides, or what today’s channel leaders actually need to drive engagement, growth, and revenue.

Pure-play providers may fit neatly into these little boxes and pre-defined categories, but Zift does more. We see and fulfill the broader need for Enterprise Channel Management, which goes way beyond all those siloed solutions.

Zift’s approach to innovation may make us a square peg, but it keeps us and our customers in a leadership position. We know channel leaders are tired of purchasing, implementing and managing multiple disparate applications and point solutions to support their channel programs. Our focus is to deliver an integrated platform that spans the entire channel lifecycle. This is where we are investing heavily — over 27% of our revenue is invested in R&D. We are always looking ahead.

However, we are not only planning for the future. Today we are combining key TCMA, PRM, CLR functionality and more through the Zift platform. But we know even great tech doesn’t do much on its own. So, we also connect our users to the Channel Success, Engagement and Creative Services real people working in the channel require now.

Let’s face it: Today’s complex channel challenges aren’t going to be solved by a single-faceted solution. And Zift simply won’t be typecast. (P.S. For the record, turned out that super geeky early 80’s Patty from Square Pegs grew into the late 90s It-Girl and fashion icon, Carrie Bradshaw.) Patty, Carrie, and Zift: all innovators. All just a little ahead of their time. (Betcha’ the analysts will catch on and catch up soon…)

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I chose to evacuate and spent last week in Zift’s Cary, NC offices, comforted by my inland colleagues as I awaited news of friends, loved ones, and my own historic home downtown at the coast. Thankfully, my friends and family weathered the storm safely. But I heard through the grapevine that a portion of our roof failed during the storm, windows were broken and the front door cracked. So, I knew I was facing some hard work when I returned home Friday.

Tools & Supplies I Didn’t Know I Needed

I left the Zift offices loaded with supplies, well wishes and “What can we do’s?” from Zifters. They packed my car with cases of bottled water, PB&J fixings and more. Among the donations I received was a “Hurricane Bucket” filled with things I didn’t even know I would need. Clothespins and a rope to secure tarps or hang clothes to dry. Pre-diluted fungicide and spray bottles to stop creeping mold in its tracks. Reusable gloves, wet wipes, Lysol, and air fresheners (Things and people get pretty stinky when the power is out — and those floodwaters are far from fresh). A few surprise butterscotch candies were also tucked into my Hurricane Bucket for comfort along with cinnamon to sprinkle across doorjambs to keep the ants away! (Who knew?!) As I worked my way through my house using the tools and supplies my lovely Zifters provided, I couldn’t help but think: This is what Zift does for our customers every day.

While your channel program may not have been ravaged by Mother Nature, I bet there are things that need tending — are broken — or, at least, not working as well as you would like. And, like me, you may not know exactly where to start the clean-up. Zift does.

Like a storm damage mitigation team, Zift’s Channel Center of Excellence is staffed with experts ready to swoop in and assess what’s working and what’s not — then make a plan of action to get any program back on track fast. They have the proven expertise, insight and purpose-built tools to take on the most complex challenges. Zift’s dedicated Channel Success and Engagement teams are boots on the ground — armed with knowledge and know-how to get programs and partners working collaboratively to achieve more than they could have imagined. An array of Zift support professionals are always on call for clean-up and our Creative Services team can polish up any campaign — and even optimize it for use on the Zift platform.  

Zifters have continued to reach out since I’ve been home, asking what else I need — what else they can do for me and my community. Because that’s what Zifters do. We step up and provide real solutions when others are struggling. We get fired up when we have the opportunity to pitch in — and we are there when the going gets tough. If my Zifters can help me and my beloved Wilmington recover from a hurricane, just imagine what they can do for your channel program and partners.

Tell us what you would want most in a hurricane bucket to straighten out your channel program in the comments section below. And if you want to help out those affected by Hurricane Florence, consider making a donation to Direct Relief or helping us Re-Open Sub Stop, a Wilmington classic, and family-owned business severely damaged by the storm.

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I can feel it, even now as I’m writing this post. It’s not that focus is difficult. It just requires constant attention. Focus to lose hours in a book, or to remember my best friend’s birthday, or to leave the ketchup off my younger cousin’s burger because this week he’s decided he hates ketchup. It’s more than that, though. Focus requires focus.  

From a business perspective, focus can provide clarity that ultimately benefits revenue growth and ROI. It’s one ingredient in a mix of key elements that lead to a powerful channel program. Arguably, focus is among the most important elements for channel companies to consider.

That’s something telecommunications leader Star2Star understands. They sell 100% through the channel. Considering most companies do between 20-30% of their business through the channel, Star-to-Star’s commitment to channel sales guarantees a level of laser-focus on partner engagement and satisfaction.

“Our partners are our lifeblood,” says Star2Star CMO David Portnowitz. Supporting the partner is an essential element of their marketing equation. When all of your sales are made through the channel, partner success becomes a top priority.

Approach partners “like a small, digital agency,” according to Portnowitz. Catering to partner needs and providing partners with “whatever they need to go out and complete sales” is a logical extension of this philosophy.

Partner focus is a crucial part of successful channel programs. It takes many different forms, just like focus in our daily lives. In the channel, it means connecting with partners regularly and constantly assessing what they need most from you. It means producing content that’s relevant to partner needs, from whitepapers to complex campaigns, which empower them to sell effectively.

Focus is a concept you should warmly welcome into your channel program. See what else Star2Star has to say on the subject — and let us know what you’re doing to maintain partner focus in the comments section.

Visit ChannelVisions.tv to hear more from the top thought leaders in the channel.

The post Channel Visions: Staying Focused on the Partner appeared first on Zift Solutions.

1. Channel Chatter’s new home: Let’s start off this list right, with a mention to this very page. Our Channel Chatter blog has undergone a modern face-lift, with more relevant tags for you to get your search on.
2. Role-centric pages: These pages are brand new and tailored to your favorite topic: you! We have a series of pages dedicated to addressing your specific channel needs and concerns, sorted by role. From Channel Chief to CTO, we answer the questions you may have about not just Zift, but what you’re looking for in a channel tech vendor.
3. What makes Zift different?: We couldn’t make the list without mentioning this page. Not to brag, but we’re seeing the channel from a totally different angle — and we’re excited to tell you about why Zift’s approach can help you update your own channel program.
4. The new product pages: Take a peek at our new product pages for the freshest, most in-depth look yet at our product line. From CHaaS to CLM to our CMM and PRM platforms, we’re giving you plenty of information to get a good idea of what will fit your channel needs.
5. Our new Events page: The new Events page is a great way to see where in the world you can find Zift at any event we’re attending. You can also schedule time to meet with Zifters at events directly from that page. We’re all about saving you time and energy.
6. The Channel Engagement page: Partner experience can make or break a program. For something that makes as much of a difference as partner satisfaction, we wanted to highlight how much we go above and beyond industry standards for partner support. Our Channel Engagement team is focused entirely on helping partners be as effective as possible — watch the video on our CE page to learn more.
7. Support: Looking for an in-depth overview of our support options? We’ve got you covered. Though we mention three separate categories of support on the page, it’s really more than that, like ordering off-menu at a restaurant. We’re invested in your success and happiness, so what you want, we can serve up. That’s the whole point of this page.
8. The design: We can’t really link you to anything in particular here: it’s our whole site. We revamped everything to be easier to and more convenient to navigate. Load times are down. We’re proving that we’re invested in your happiness with Zift from the get-go.
9. Frank: Oh, Frank. He’s got the best intentions, but he just can’t get the job done. Our page on the channel tech Frankenstein is another new addition to the site with the relaunch. He is, to be honest, a mess, but don’t worry. We know how to take him apart and put a thriving program back together in his place. Curious to learn more? Check out why you shouldn’t build Frank.
10. Industry-centric pages: We’re interested in you, and in your specific needs and challenges in your industry. More than that, this isn’t our first stroll around the block. We’ve helped technology, telecomm and manufacturing companies of all sizes nurture and grow their channel programs. Driving channel success is the name of our game, and our team knows just has to do it.

Leave a comment with your favorite page on the new site. We’d love to hear from you.

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JERSEY CITY, NJ, RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC and OXFORD, UNITED KINGDOM –  August 21, 2018 – Enterprise Channel Management leader Zift Solutions announced today that it has added a partner configurable connector to Datto’s Autotask Professional Services Automation (PSA) system. The new connector drives partner engagement and channel sales by enabling seamless data transfer for Through Channel Marketing Automation (TCMA).

“With more Managed Service Providers and channel partners relying on PSA systems, we’re excited to offer a direct connection to Autotask,” said Gordon Rapkin, CEO of Zift Solutions. “Built for integration, Zift is absolutely committed to helping channel organizations and their partners leverage the systems and data they use every day inside the Zift platform.”

Datto’s mission is to empower the world’s small and medium-sized businesses with the best in enterprise-level technology. Zift’s new connector to Datto’s Autotask PSA allows channel partners and distributors to access and utilize the customer and prospecting data already in Autotask for syndicated marketing and outreach, without uploading or transferring contacts from one system to another.

“Like Zift, we are passionate about giving our customers the best experience along with the very best tools to drive productivity and profitability,” said Joe Rourke, Director of Product Management for Autotask PSA at Datto. “The new Zift connector extends both systems’ functionality and gives MSPs a leg up in an increasingly competitive market.”

Datto’s Autotask PSA joins the growing list of popular systems and business applications with which Zift integrates, including Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs); Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems; Analytics Packages, Sales Enablement tools and Incentive Management Platforms.

“Channel partners rely on these extended systems to get their jobs done and they are not going to stop,” stresses well-known channel expert, Laz Gonzalez, Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer. “Synching the Zift Platform with the tools and technology partners are already using speeds time to sales, keeps partners active and engaged, and boosts ROI for channel organizations.”

Learn more about how Zift supports partner engagement through connections in this short video: Partner Engagement Through Connections.

About Zift Solutions

Zift is the Enterprise Channel Management leader, synchronizing the people, processes and technology organizations require to drive channel success. Relied on by more than 80% of top channel chiefs and more than half a million partners, Zift Channel as a Service enhances channel partner program productivity and profitability by automating marketing, sales and operational processes. Our comprehensive range of applications integrates seamlessly with established systems and infrastructure to speed time-to-sales, engage partners, provide faster ROI and deliver better results. To learn more, visit www.ziftsolutions.com, join the conversation via the blog Channel Chatter and follow us on Twitter @zift.

About Datto

At Datto, our mission is to empower the world’s small and medium sized businesses with the best in enterprise-level technology. We do it by equipping our unique community of Managed Service Provider partners with the right products, tools and knowledge to allow each and every customer to succeed. It’s an approach that’s made us the world’s leading provider of MSP delivered IT solutions. Datto is headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., with offices worldwide.

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Last time, Laz Gonzalez talked about how marketers need to update their practices and step up to get customers engaged, since email marketing, particularly “spray and pay,” is no longer a viable tactic. So what else is there? Marketing is still a wild west for creative ideas – GDPR has only forced our hands in implementing the bold campaign ideas that we were too timid to try earlier. Since emailing any email address you could get your hands on is no longer a viable option, especially in the EU, some brands have really stepped up their game recently. Here’s a round-up of brands that I believe are pulling off memorable marketing campaigns.

Domino’s: Paving Potholes for Pizza Perfection
Domino’s is paving potholes in several cities to protect pizzas that get damaged in route for delivery orders. Thus far, four cities have been accepted. Convincing your potential customers and reminding them your brand helped them out may incline them to send their business your way, especially since many consumers are more willing to give companies their business if they have a solid set of brand values. Want to get Domino’s to fix your pizza delivery route? You can apply to have your city considered for pothole treatment over at Domino’s campaign website.

What you can take from this:  Helping customers solve a problem that affects your solution, even in a minor way, can earn you major brownie points – and more customers ordering your pizzas.

Country Time Lemonade: Lemonade Legal Aid

Country Time Lemonade has launched a campaign for Legal-Ade, which is a legal team that helps pay fines and permits for children with lemonade stands. When neighborhoods come citing permits and fines to try and squeeze the lemony fun out of the classic summer tradition, Country Time decided to help young entrepreneurs keep their business up and running.

According to their website, “Life doesn’t always give you lemons, but when it does, you should be able to make and share lemonade with the neighborhood without legal implications.” They’re covering fees or fines up to $300, which is a sweet deal – and, of course, great publicity for Country Time Lemonade. Why not use their brand’s lemonade if they’ve got your back?

What you can take from this: What’s not to love about this campaign? A brand standing behind customers, especially customers like kids with lemonade stands, will always make a good impression on their audience.

IHOP – or rather, IHOb
This list would not be complete without mentioning IHOP – or, as they’re known for a limited time, IHOb. Whether they’re successful long-term or not will remain to be seen, but it got the internet’s attention. Part of the reason this campaign worked out was announcing the change a week before revealing what the “b” stood for (burgers), and presented many opportunities for interaction. Other brands gave their feedback, joking about changing their name and focus – Burger King notably changed their Twitter handle and icon to Pancake King.

This attention paid off, at least in the short-term. #IHOb was a trending topic on Twitter for multiple days. Was the stunt worth the questions they’ll have to field at individual IHOP stores for the next few weeks, as anxious customers wonder if this pancake will be their last? That remains to be seen. It was a bold move, and it definitely brought more attention to their business, so it’s at least a short-term win.

What you can take from this: Being bold pays off. IHOP’s brand was so well-known that it was being overlooked for other meal options. By pulling off a campaign out of left field, they reminded customers that they’ve got range – and guts. They’ve seen an uptick in customers post-IHOb, too.

Interesting campaigns with real-world tie-ins garner more attention than just blasting out emails. Marketing spaces are inundated with companies promoting products and solutions without a real hook for the customer. Depending on your audience, that may be exactly what customers want. Exploring new routes of marketing post-GDPR can grant plenty of buzz. Let’s leave “spray and pray” behind. It’s time to be bold.

What are some campaigns that have caught your attention recently? Share what you liked or disliked in the comments below.

The post GDPR and the Channel: Three Brands Changing the Marketing Game appeared first on Zift Solutions.

“We’ve updated our privacy policy.”

How many times have you seen this message in the past month? And how many have you deleted without even a cursory glance? You can bet many of your customers and prospects are doing the exact same thing.

We’ve all been inundated with emails about updates to privacy policies. Every time I opened my email account the last week of May, I knew I was in for another batch of privacy policy updates. Usually, I’d delete them without thinking too much about it. Maybe, if it was for a service I use regularly, I’d open the email and give the text a cursory skim. As I deleted another seemingly irrelevant email, I did catch myself wondering: How have this many sites captured my email address? What do some of these services even do? Do I even remember signing up for some of these? With every privacy policy email I received, I realized how many people were talking to me that I’d tuned out.

GDPR not only affects the privacy policies of companies doing business in the EU, it is also affecting marketing strategy and tactics. It forces organizations to step up and put new practices in place. Net new prospects now have to raise their hands and signal interest. And organizations have to do much more than blasting out “spray and pray” emails. Will this impact your numbers? How much interest was “spray and pray” generating, anyway? This remains to be seen, but it will be interesting to measure.

GDPR is also making companies across every industry step up in terms of what they are offering to prospects. Sending out email after email to people through lists bought online or filled with outdated contacts won’t cut it anymore. Instead, reaching the people who are asking for info and who have a real need for what your business offers should be your end-goal. You still have to deliver value and tell a story to get customers to take those next steps toward a purchase. And, doing so will take a more integrated mix of tactics.

All the best practices for post-GDPR marketing were in place prior to the regulations going into effect. If anything, GDPR has forced our hands into taking a more targeted approach. Is that such a bad thing? Connecting with prospects who are truly interested versus sending them to disinterested people who delete them as though they were just another privacy policy update on May 24 certainly seems to be the better end of the deal.

You have the opportunity to talk directly to people who are listening now. Keep looking for those prospects who are engaging with what you’re putting out there. And take a hard look at how you intend to move them toward a sale.

This is the first in a series of posts on GDPR and the Channel. The next post takes what’s established here and elaborates on ways you can engage prospects outside of their inbox. Stay tuned!

The post GDPR and the Channel: We’ve Updated Your Marketing Policies appeared first on Zift Solutions.

What Happened at
SiriusDecisions Summit 2018
Doesn’t Have to Stay There…

If you read my last blog, you know I have some strong feelings about Vegas, which was host to SiriusDecisions Summit last week. Let’s just say, I’m still recovering.

Between work and sessions, there were cigars, a broken toe, and a dance-off to some Michael Jackson jams with a total stranger. In keeping with the mantra of “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” the details of those stories (and a few more) will be staying safely back in Sin City. But, don’t fret. I can still share some juicy details and serious insight from this year’s Summit with you.

Sirius Couple Alert: Lisa & Frank

Lisa Stifelman-Perry, Director of Partner Marketing Operations and Experience for Qlik, had everyone buzzing after her Zift-sponsored Case Study session. In the midst of detailing how Qlik aligned people, processes and functions to deliver a world-class partner experience (and snag SiriusDecisions’ Channel Program of the Year in 2017), she introduced Frank.

“Get your phones out, and take a picture of this dude,” she encouraged session attendees. “If you don’t already know Frank personally, you will soon, unless you do something different, fast! And believe me, this guy’s a real jerk!”

On the big screen was the image of a Channel Technology Frankenstein, which illustrates the monster created when you try to mix and match too many disparate solutions to run your channel ecosystem. Many folks stopped by the Zift booth to tell us their own ChanTech Frank horror stories — and were delighted to learn how Zift Channel as a Service could get rid of him once and for all.

If you missed Lisa’s session, make sure to check out her recent Channel Visions video, where she shares some of her key tips for keeping “ChanTech Frank” at bay and creating the perfect partner experience here.

You Call Them Channel Leaders: We Call Them Friends

SiriusDecisions Summit brings together business leaders and channel insiders from across the globe. We got to see pals from all over the world, working in all aspects of the channel, who were at Summit to hone and grow their programs and do more for their partners.  

Our Channel Leaders Dinner gave us and a few very special invitees the opportunity to hear how Rockwell, Alteryx, Cayan and Qlik are reaching new channel heights with help from Zift. While they weren’t able to join us for dinner, we were also incredibly pleased to note that Zift customer Carbonite received the SiriusDecisions Summit Award for Channel Marketing and Sales Customer of the Year. Congrats to Carbonite!

On our last day at Summit, Zift hosted a channel sales and marketing breakfast.  This was yet another opportunity to sit down face-to-face with our channel-focused friends. It was great to hear and reflect on how much Zift and its offerings have changes in the last year to meet the evolving needs of today’s channel leaders.

As SiriusDecisions Channel Operating Model aligns with Zift Channel as a Service, it just made sense that Zift was sought after throughout this event for best practices for recruiting, engaging and enabling partners, optimizing MDF, measuring channel success and more. It was a pleasure to see so many of our customers at Summit and make new friends at the Zift booth inside the Marketplace.

Everyone who stopped by entered to win a Traxxas remote-controlled car in support of Zift’s commitment to Driving Channel Success. We are pleased to announce the winners of this show’s drawing were Brian Gilbert, Director, Global Channel Marketing at SAP Concure and Jennifer Grimaldi, Channel Marketing Manager, Webroot. Your cars are on their way to you!

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There are two common reactions to the General Data Protection Regulation: blasé contempt or outright terror. It feels like data privacy – and the internet at large – is at the cusp of a whole new era. Those affected by this ruling are either worriedly getting data protection officers up to speed and receiving customer confirmation on their new data privacy policies or in deep, deep denial.

“My company is in the US,” you may say. Some of your partners or leads may still be in the EU. If your company touches the EU, even peripherally – if one lead is in the EU’s jurisdiction – you are affected.

So what does GDPR do? Why should you care?

The Layman’s Guide to GDPR

When I first started research for this post, I had a faint idea of what GDPR did. I knew it mandated data privacy laws for residents of the European Union (EU), but I did not know what “personal data” entailed beyond the obvious. I knew that Zift’s engineering and product departments had been hard at work for months to ensure our company-wide compliance. I knew our customer success team had been meeting with customers to discuss their own compliance changes, but me? From my desk in the marketing department, there were a few basic questions I wanted answered in easy terms. A lot of people affected, even this close to its enactment, are still at this level of understanding – they’re sitting at their desks thinking, “break this down.” So let’s keep this simple.
What does GDPR do?

It protects EU residents’ personal data online. This means that companies must provide protection for this data. As mentioned above, this applies both to data within EU countries and data exported outside of the EU.

What is personal data?

Personal data is any kind of data that reveals identifying details about an individual. This can include everything from basic data like names and addresses to more complex details like political leanings.  

What kind of protection is necessary?

In order to stay compliant, you must have a system in place for personal data to be purged. The GDPR offers some new roles for businesses to help, the most important of which is the data protection officer. This role defines the company’s strategy on keeping data secure and stored in a GDPR-compliant manner.

What if I don’t want to make changes to my current system?

You’re going to face steep fines – up to either 20 million euros or 4 percent of global annual turnover, whichever is higher. It’s costly and time-consuming to account for GDPR, but the EU has ensured that non-compliance is not to be done lightly.

I keep hearing about this “right to be forgotten.” What is that?

The right to be forgotten is a clause in the GDPR with huge implications. Residents of the EU have the right to have companies purge their data from their systems – the right, in other words, to be forgotten by that system.

The GDPR will change how data is processed and stored in a truly permanent way. You’re hopefully well on your way to compliance, if not already fully compliant. Do your research (maybe on Zift’s Help Center article?) and be prepared.

The post GDPR Made Simple appeared first on Zift Solutions.

I know what you’re expecting. A snazzy little blog about the awesomeness of Vegas. Everyone loves Las Vegas, right?! The Strip! The Shows! The Casinos! That Motto: “Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” What’s not to love?

Here’s the thing: I’m not a fan. It takes a lot to get this introvert out of her cave in the first place — and Vegas overwhelms me. However, Zift has so much going on at this week’s SiriusDecisions Summit, I can’t possibly stay away. So, I’m Vegas-bound to be a part of the scene — and I’m bringing you along for the ride.

What Makes a Winner?

At the Vegas poker tables, winners have nerves of steel and a good bit of luck. But what makes a real winner in the channel? Lisa Stifelman-Perry, Director of Partner Marketing Operations and Experience for Qlik, will be detailing the SiriusDecisions 2017 Channel Partner of the Year’s journey to channel success Tuesday, May 8th at 10:15 in a Zift-sponsored Case Study session.

Lisa is not only a dynamic speaker set to share winning strategies for world-class partner experiences, she talks about real channel challenges, tactics and solutions, without all the tech jargon. This is one Vegas show I am not going to miss. If you’re going to be at Summit, you shouldn’t either. Come see how Qlik:

• Aligned critical functions (such as sales and marketing) to boost program impact
• Eliminated a one-size-fits-all portal and created a customized user environment
• Integrated people, process and technology to transform the way partner solutions are delivered
• Leveraged data for better decision making
• Increased engagement to driving more revenue through partners

Skip the Buffets – Hit the Channel Breakfast

I’ll be skipping the monster buffets so many Vegas visitors love for the Zift-sponsored SiriusDecisions Channel Breakfast on Thursday, May 10 at 7:30 a.m. This is a great opportunity to start the day strong, talk channel strategies with colleagues, and connect with channel leaders, without all the tourists and flashy sales pitches.

Drive Channel Success

Who needs Cirque du Soleil, Britney Spears or the Bellagio fountains when you can actually learn how to drive channel success? You’ll find Zift at Booth 225 in the SiriusDecisions Summit Marketplace. We’ll have channel sales and marketing experts on site to answer your questions along with great giveaways of Traxxas remote-controlled cars.

Stop by the booth to see firsthand how Zift can help you drive channel success (and tell me what you love or hate about Vegas)! You can also follow me on Twitter to see a few of my own Vegas secrets, haunts and hideaways this week. Can’t wait to show you more!

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I love pimento cheese. Seriously love it. A Southern classic, it’s the taste of my childhood in Raleigh, NC. Being from the South, I “cut” the lights out at night. I also “carry” my kids to soccer practice. I love college sports (Go Pack!) and never miss the annual State Fair. I sometimes say “warter” instead of “water.” And the folks who grew up with me in the South know exactly what I’m talking about. They speak my language and know the intricacies of southern culture, including that delicious pimento cheese.

Zift feels the same way about the channel that I do about pimento cheese. We love it. We get it. We grew up in it and know the language. We understand the challenges people working in the channel face every day — from the inside out. During our recent 2018 kick off meeting, our sales and marketing teams were discussing how many years of channel experience we had among us. Just counting the people sitting around that dinner table, it was over 200 years. No one else can say that. In fact, there are a lot of organizations out there that now claim to provide channel-focused solutions and partner communities, but they often fail to support real channel success because they didn’t grow up in the channel — and they simply don’t have that insider channel knowledge and expertise.

I still call Raleigh home and I’ve seen it grow from a small town to a thriving metropolis that is continually changing. As an insider, I have an edge over the newbies as I maneuver through the increasing congestion and complexity of today’s busy Research Triangle Park traffic. Ask me where you want to go and I’ll tell you the best way to get there. I know the roads outsiders and newbies to town don’t. I know the roads because I’ve been traveling them all of my life.

Zift has experienced (and is now driving) the evolution of the channel in the same way — as an insider. We’re constantly guiding our customers and their partners to help them reach their goals faster with best practices, insider knowledge, expert services and proven processes honed by working with hundreds of channel organizations and more than a half a million channel partners. We’re also increasingly being asked to shape key industry events, like next week’s B2B Marketing Exchange (#B2BMX), where Zift and our own Laz Gonzalez are taking a leading role.

Get a Taste

Come get a taste of what real channel insiders can do for your programs and partners in Booth 210 at B2BMX and don’t miss:

• The brand new Channel Marketing track, designed by Zift and B2BMX to help channel organizations get more from their marketing and sales efforts  
• To-, Through- and For-Partner Marketing, Feb 20 @ 11:40 am, where Laz Gonzalez will explore distinct tactics and delivery options for modern marketers — and why all must work in unison to drive true channel performance
• Panel: Top-of-Mind Topics for Channel Marketers: Feb 20 at 4:10 pm, moderated by Laz and featuring channel experts from IBM, SAP; Q2E.com; and HomeSmart

And, if you get hungry in the meantime, try out this incredible pimento cheese recipe from fellow NC-Native and forward-thinking celebrity chef Vivian Howard.

The post Channel Expertise and a Bite of Pimento Cheese appeared first on Zift Solutions.

There was plenty to chat about in the channel this year.  Check out the most popular posts of 2017 in our top ten countdown:

10. Prepare for Global Domination: Zift Adds WeChat

“During the past decade, social media has reshaped the sales landscape along with the way people and businesses communicate. Today, B2B organizations and their channel partners are using social media to reach a much broader audience, demonstrate expertise and nurture ongoing conversations with prospects and customers. But to truly dominate the social media realm, you must move beyond just Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.”

9. Stepping Up to Solve the Integration Challenge

Ken Romley’s words at the launch of our Channel as a Service platform have become our mission and we’re seeing the benefits it brings customers.  “I can assure you that Channel as a Service comes from listening to our customers, hearing what channel leaders desire — and stepping up to deliver on the bigger picture.”

8.  Filling Some Big Shoes

This guest post by channel marketing expert, Mike Gallagher, is all about seeing things from your partner’s perspective.  “Sitting in a typical vendor organization, it is natural to design marketing programs centered on driving your brand.   You are measured on driving your marketing KPIs and growing partner leads and pipeline for your products or services.  But when designing those marketing programs or writing those MDF policies, it is wise for the vendor to spend some meaningful time standing inside of those mighty big shoes of their partners.  The world suddenly looks very different.”

7. Dispatches from Dell EMC World 2017 Global Partner Summit: 3 Best Practices for Digital Marketing in the Channel

Zift’s Chief Strategy Officer, Laz Gonzalez, shares the good stuff from his special presentation at Dell EMC World in May.  “The fact is, the modern marketing landscape has changed dramatically – and your channel marketing efforts must change with it, particularly when it comes to helping partners embrace digital marketing.  Digital marketing works – but partners need the right tools, skills and support to execute digital to provide measurable results.”

6. Blending the Art & Science of Digital Marketing

Digital ads that convert take the best of both good creative and sensible use of metrics. “Blending the art and the science of digital media marketing means staying ahead of the curve. In today’s digital marketing landscape there are two important ways that help achieve this; leveraging metrics and developing intuition.”

5.  The Deal on Leads

Laz Gonzalez calles “time-out” to set the record straight on the difference between lead management and deal registration.  “Lead management and deal registration, two critical components of channel sales and marketing, are often confused and misused among the majority of business to business (B-to-B) channel programs.”

4.  Channel Breakthrough: Tapping into the Power of Partner Currency

This year, we were thrilled to share knowledge from Pino Soro.  Don’t know Pino?  Time to get an introduction – Pino was featured on CRN’s “100 People You Don’t Know But Should.”  Here we break down his key takeaways when leveraging channel partner currency, including brushing up on lessons learned in Psych class.

3. Digital Advertising KPIs: Your Keys to Measuring Performance

Zift’s Director of Digital Advertising Services, Charles Machalicky, gets to the point on what you really need to focus on when measuring success.  “Knowing the answer depends on who is asking the question in the first place. Depending on whether you are a supplier, a partner, or a member of the Zift team, you may have a different definition of what success means.”

2. Driving Channel Adoption and Sales Pipeline through Partner Marketing

Andrew Sigmund brought his unique experience working with channel partners to Channel Chatter. “In today’s oversaturated channel environment, suppliers must enable partners collaboratively with both sales and marketing tactics to create true value. As a Senior Manager of Channel Engagement at Zift Solutions, I’ve had the advantage of working with many different channel programs over the years and have seen what does and doesn’t work. Simply signing up a channel partner then expecting their participation and success in promoting or selling your products won’t cut it.”

And the #1 Channel Chatter post of 2017 is…..

Wish List 2017: What’s on Top Channel Leader’s To-Do Lists?

Where do we start with recapping everything that was 2017?  The beginning, of course!  This post kicked off our year and featured top channel experts including Maria Chien, Seenu Brahmarouthu, and Heather K. Margolis sharing what was tops on their wish lists for the year.  Do you think some wishes came true?  Comment below!

The post Top 10 Channel Chatters of 2017 appeared first on Zift Solutions.

Each year, Zifters select three charities near and dear to our hearts, and ask our community to participate in sharing the warmth.  This year, we selected Kids Alive International, Doctors Without Borders, and Cure Alzheimer’s Fund.

We invite you, our Channel Chatter reader, to choose the charity that speaks the most to you.  Simply click the gift and let us know where you would like us to donate:

For over 100 years, the mission of Kids Alive International has not changed: to rescue and redeem orphans and at-risk children. We believe in families, so we work to strengthen them; but when a child’s own home is no longer a safe option, we care for them in loving, family-style homes.

Doctors Without Borders is an international medical humanitarian organization that provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters.

Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to funding research with the highest probability of preventing, slowing or reversing Alzheimer’s disease.

Join us in helping to make the season brighter, and a little warmer, for those in need.  Learn more about the ways Zift gives back by following us on Facebook.  From all of us, to all of you, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The post Share the Warmth: Zift’s Annual Holiday Giving Program is Back appeared first on Zift Solutions.

By now, most channel leaders know that you can’t simply populate a portal with sales collateral and marketing templates, then expect partners to use them effectively. With the addition of Elastic Grid, we’re positioned to deliver higher-touch partner support, which is a request I often hear when I meet with customers. Elastic Grid has nearly 20 years of creative agency expertise and personnel who specialize in digital partner-led marketing. There’s no one better to bridge the gap between channel technology and channel partners.

Elastic Grid’s creative services team and digital advertising expertise will greatly enhance our Concierge Services. Now, Zift users will not only experience the most powerful, integrated ChanTech platform, backed by superior global support, they will also benefit from rich creative services to build campaigns that work for partners and drive channel success.

This acquisition also makes Zift a more global channel provider with broader Asia Pacific coverage and new offices across the US as well as in Australia and Romania. We are on the ground, around the world, and our customers and users will benefit from more in-language support and multi-lingual campaigns.
I’m also pleased to report that Elastic Grid’s founder and CEO, Cameron Avery, will join Zift as Senior Vice President of Business Development. He will work closely with Zift’s Channel Center of Excellence to focus on the integration of the two companies, and bring his expertise and best-practices experience to the entire Zift community.

We will share more news as we move forward. For now, I invite you to explore the powerful benefits of this next step in Zift’s continued growth and success by clicking on the link below.
LEARN MORE

The post Zift Acquires Elastic Grid appeared first on Zift Solutions.

As CEO of the new Zift, I’m incredibly inspired and energized by the blended team that we’ve assembled to work for our customers. Bringing Relayware and Zift together is truly a merger of talent, processes, channel expertise and complementary technology.  It is critically important that we have great technology, but the winner in the channel technology market will deliver way more than just great tech. We need to go beyond being a technology vendor, and become a trusted business partner for our clients.  

A Broader Focus

When it comes to Channel as a Service — Service is critical.  Of course, Zift provides all of the features and functionality channel leaders require from their channel sales, marketing and operations software. Integration of our technology platforms is well underway. But Zift is so much more than our software. Here, people, processes and partnership with our customers comes first. Every technology element is wrapped in complete services and support, best practices and proven channel expertise to deliver real channel success.  

At Zift, we’re focused on more than just PRM and CMM. We are focused on creating a single, seamless supplier and partner experience that blends the very best of our CMM and PRM offerings along with all of the extended capabilities of our Channel as a Service.  

Through CHaaS, we not only help channel organizations and their partners generate more revenue, we deliver partner performance management analytics, so that channel leaders can see, track and measure everything happening within their extended channel ecosystem. Moreover, we take a data-centric view of success, which means more visibility, fewer data siloes, and more comprehensive data and insight to accurately map the overall efficacy and return of your channel spend.

Be assured that we’ll keep you posted as we move forward to fulfill our complete vision of end-to-end Enterprise Channel Management. For now, take a look at this quick video to get a sense of what we have in store for you.

The post Moving Past the Merger: People, Processes & Partnership appeared first on Zift Solutions.