“To get your product teams to engage with CSPs, there are resources like Azure Innovate, which can provide substantial funding. Even though it's not directly tied to the marketplace, using programs like AWS Call Days can be very beneficial. At both Aviatrix and VMware, these initiatives helped our sellers engage more effectively with AWS sellers.” - Brittany Ames, Director of Microsoft Global Alliances at Veritas In this episode of Unlock Cloud Go-To-Market, hosts Erin Figer and Patrick Riley are joined by Veritas’s Brittany Ames to explore the world of cloud marketplaces and co-selling with providers like Microsoft and AWS. Brittany shares her journey from Aviatrix to VMware and now Veritas, showing key components of her blueprint for success. From building operational models to securing leadership buy-in, Brittany discusses the processes of transitioning products to cloud marketplaces along with the importance of aligning cloud strategies with overall business goals, the role of operational readiness, and the significance of engaging with cloud service provider programs. In this episode, you’ll learn: The components of Brittany’s blueprint for success, including the importance of operational and transactional model development across various teams The significance of co-selling with cloud providers, emphasizing the multifaceted benefits and the importance of seller engagement and leadership buy-in Insights on Brittany’s experience transitioning to the cloud marketplace at different companies, highlighting the need for operational readiness and the impact of strategic cloud partnerships Resources: Connect with Brittany on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittneyames/ Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickmriley/ Connect with Erin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinfiger/ Learn more about Tackle: https://tackle.io Timestamps: 04:19 When Brittany joined VMware to tackle scalability and diversity 08:12 Aviatrix enabled quick end-to-end cloud Marketplace experience 10:44 Assessing and integrating product processes within VMware 13:12 Operational readiness crucial for customer experience efficiency 20:45 Helping sellers adapt to customer-led Marketplace sales 24:41 Differences in CRMs, but similarities in businesses 28:12 Key to success in Co-sell program 32:10 Co-sell is multifaceted 40:18 Get everyone's buy-in for successful implementation 45:50 Brittany shares key insights for tech startups 47:20 Moving a product to a Cloud Marketplace 50:29 Essential stages to grow revenue using Cloud
You Might Also Like
0:00
We did a $70 million deal with Wells Fargo at VMware,
0:03
where the sales team was not really buying in on marketplace.
0:08
And then suddenly Wells Fargo was like,
0:10
yeah, so we're only buying through the marketplace.
0:13
And so suddenly they were like,
0:15
oh, okay, actually we want to do marketplace.
0:18
And so it was like,
0:19
and then all of a sudden everybody wanted
0:20
to do marketplace of VMware.
0:21
We were like, oh, Shocker, what do you know?
0:24
- Welcome to Unlock Cloud Go To Market,
0:29
the series where hosts Aaron Figer
0:31
and Patrick Riley share the essential stages
0:33
of the Cloud GTM maturity model to start, optimize,
0:37
and grow your company's revenue through the cloud.
0:41
They've helped countless ISVs tackle the ends
0:43
and outs of their Cloud GTM motion.
0:46
And in each episode,
0:47
they're sharing those success stories
0:48
from the people who have put them into place.
0:51
Because ultimately, this way of thinking is the future,
0:55
and the future is now.
0:58
- Hey everybody, in this week's episode
1:00
of Unlock Cloud Go To Market,
1:01
we speak to a very fun mutual acquaintance,
1:04
Brittany Ames, director of CSP Partnerships for Veritas.
1:09
- I'm excited to have Brittany on.
1:10
I've been working with Brittany
1:12
and have known Brittany for over six years now
1:14
from her beginning days at A.V. Atrix,
1:17
a smaller startup to now working with really big companies
1:21
like VMware and Veritas on their marketplace strategies
1:25
and their overall Cloud Go To Market strategies.
1:29
- So stay tuned to hear some of the key differences
1:32
and the similarities and strategy
1:34
over those three very different types of companies.
1:37
- Hi, Brittany. Welcome to this week's episode
1:41
of Unlock Cloud Go To Market.
1:43
We're so excited to have you here
1:45
and have you just share your story
1:48
of what you've been doing in the market,
1:51
helping companies build and scale
1:53
their Cloud Go To Market strategies.
1:56
- Yeah, so happy to be here.
1:57
So excited to be with you guys.
1:59
It's so much fun to talk about these topics.
2:02
I absolutely love talking about marketplace
2:04
and all the different ways in which it's grown
2:06
and changed over the last couple of years.
2:08
So thank you for having me.
2:10
- Yeah, share with the audience a little bit of your story.
2:14
I know we can all go on to Lincoln and read like,
2:16
"Oh, she was here and she was here and here."
2:17
But like, tell us like a little bit of the story,
2:20
like how it all kind of started
2:22
and is building on top of each other
2:25
and has gotten you to the place you're at now,
2:27
which is you're at Veritas leading up
2:29
their Microsoft Cloud Go To Market strategy.
2:33
- Yeah, so I have a little bit of a different background.
2:35
I started in education actually,
2:38
which was ironic is my CRO at A.B.A. Tricks
2:41
when he hired me for sales operations.
2:44
And then we started doing marketplace
2:47
and it was kind of a brand new concept at the time.
2:49
At the time only AWS had a marketplace
2:51
and really there were very few products listed.
2:54
And we had--
2:55
- And this was like circa 2016?
2:58
- Yeah, this was, yeah, 2016, 2017.
3:01
Yeah, somewhere in there.
3:02
So, and this was, we were like just getting started
3:05
when the first like born in the cloud,
3:07
multi-cloud networking products.
3:09
And so he was like, we gotta figure out
3:11
how to get this thing listed, how do we sell it?
3:13
Like, what do we do?
3:15
And so he was like, since you're new
3:18
to this whole tech world anyway,
3:20
you have no like real preconceptions
3:24
around how stuff's supposed to be sold.
3:26
So go figure this out.
3:27
And so I-- - No baggage.
3:29
- Yeah, exactly.
3:31
- It's really today like you have no,
3:33
like you have no work stories and scars here.
3:35
- Oh, yeah, yeah.
3:37
- He's like, you won't try to make this
3:39
into something it shouldn't be.
3:40
So like, just go figure it out.
3:43
So I was like, all right.
3:44
So I went and figured it out.
3:46
And so we basically just worked on getting it listed.
3:50
A whole PEGO model, like, okay,
3:52
how do we price this thing?
3:54
How do we make it so our customers just go on
3:56
and buy hourly consumption?
3:58
And how could they just buy a license
4:01
and start using it right away?
4:02
And that's how it all started.
4:05
And from there, I started building up
4:07
this whole career around marketplace.
4:09
'Cause suddenly everybody was like, wait,
4:11
how did you do that?
4:12
And that's where it started.
4:16
- Yeah, and then can you help me do that at VMware?
4:19
- Yes.
4:20
So then VMware came along and they were like,
4:22
hey, we would like to be able to do this.
4:25
And I was like, wow, that'd be really interesting
4:27
to now see if I could do it at a much bigger company
4:30
and at scale.
4:31
And at the time, AVatrix was going
4:33
through some leadership changes anyway.
4:34
So I decided to go over to VMware
4:37
and basically to challenge myself to see if I could do it
4:41
not only at scale at a company with 30,000 employees
4:45
versus the 5,000 of AVatrix,
4:48
but also across so many different types of products.
4:51
So on-prem products, hybrid, multi-cloud,
4:55
not necessarily born in the cloud,
4:57
not ready to really be provisioned and licensed
5:00
through marketplace, like total different licensing models,
5:05
all of that, and figure out how we could still
5:09
use the marketplace to our advantage
5:11
because they were having more and more
5:12
of their enterprise customers who were telling them
5:15
even though they had to have VMware,
5:17
they were like, we have to buy through marketplace
5:20
because our procurement is telling us we don't have a choice.
5:23
This is the only way we can do our renewal
5:25
'cause our commitment contract is with AWS or Microsoft
5:29
and we don't have a choice.
5:30
So you gotta figure this out and VMware is like,
5:33
well, we don't know how to do this.
5:35
So we gotta go find somebody to do this for us.
5:37
So that's how they found me.
5:39
And I started building that out with actually
5:42
with Packle's help, really at VMware.
5:44
So that was a lot of fun, really.
5:47
We got to learn a lot 'cause doing it at a private company
5:51
is one thing, you can make mistakes
5:53
and kind of learn along the way.
5:54
And people get upset but you don't have quite the same
5:58
level of scrutiny as you do at a big public company.
6:01
So there's like, the mistakes are much bigger,
6:04
tax consequences become much more of a thing.
6:06
International export import compliance,
6:10
all of that becomes something that I had never really
6:14
tackled before and had to figure out
6:16
which was a way different problem,
6:20
operational problems to figure out around marketplace.
6:23
But critical in really unlocking the capabilities.
6:27
Yes, very much so.
6:29
And then unfortunately, Broadcom comes in via VMware.
6:33
You're like, shoot, all my hard work.
6:37
Yeah, and everybody who's been paying attention
6:40
even a little bit to the news can see
6:42
that Broadcom's kind of taken VMware in a different direction.
6:45
So from there, when Broadcom took over
6:48
and they decided to kind of bag
6:50
their marketplace business, I moved on to Veritas.
6:53
Kind of a mix between A/V/A tricks and VMware.
6:56
You're like, it's a, you know,
6:58
mid-market business over a billion dollars in ARR
7:03
but still just like been around for a while,
7:06
legacy business, learning how to do cloud,
7:10
learning what it looks like,
7:11
what their cloud business needs to look like
7:13
and how to do marketplace.
7:14
So they've been building up their marketplace business
7:16
for about a year and a half.
7:18
And so we're working on that.
7:20
Microsoft is a key component and key partner for them.
7:22
So that's been the big focus
7:24
is building up that partnership
7:26
and using and leveraging the Microsoft part of that.
7:29
And that's what I've been helping with.
7:31
Yeah.
7:32
And earlier in one of our earlier episodes,
7:34
we actually had one of your coworkers,
7:36
Shane Wilson on sharing a little bit of his story
7:40
from rubric to Veritas and all the great work
7:43
that the two of you guys are doing over at Veritas.
7:45
So just so happy to have you guys on
7:48
and kind of sharing your stories.
7:50
And with that, you had said earlier,
7:52
your first exposure to cloud go to market
7:55
was with A/V/A tricks.
7:57
And at A/V/A tricks, they had more of a product-led
8:02
cloud marketplace initiative.
8:05
What did this really teach you about building
8:08
a truly end-to-end marketplace experience?
8:12
So at A/V/A tricks, I got to learn truly
8:14
what the marketplace was fully capable
8:17
of providing that end-to-end experience.
8:19
Like when we think of marketplace, what tackle talks to,
8:23
what the whole experience we want it to be,
8:25
that quick procurement process,
8:27
that ability to click to buy
8:30
and immediately use the product,
8:33
all of that is the thing that we really want to have happen
8:37
and is the goal of marketplace,
8:41
even from like on the software side of things as well,
8:43
that like Amazon.com type experience.
8:47
And so what I got to see is that built out with A/V/A tricks
8:52
because it was a product-led motion board in the cloud
8:55
where we could actually use the marketplace to provision
8:58
where you could have a customer in the middle of the night,
9:01
go on, click to buy and actually get immediate access
9:06
to a license and start using within 30 minutes of purchasing.
9:10
And it was that whole end-to-end experience
9:13
that we had to map out and build out
9:15
that we got to see like that full capability
9:18
and what it could really be used and leveraged for
9:22
in that truest sense, which is just really incredible to see.
9:27
And I don't think that many companies are really able to use it.
9:30
I mean, it's tricky, really tricky to build out in that way.
9:34
And so it was cool to be able to see the full capability
9:38
in that sense.
9:39
Yeah, I mean, definitely.
9:40
I feel like if you're a company just getting started today,
9:45
you've got to have a product-led marketplace first product
9:52
strategy where like, yes, you're born in the cloud,
9:55
but you're born in the marketplace,
9:57
meaning I can be searched, purchased, licensed, provisioned,
10:01
deployed, start using Renu, like that entire buyer experience
10:07
and even deployment experience is happening
10:10
from the cloud marketplace.
10:12
And now you saw that and you leave ABA tricks
10:17
to go help VMware knowing like that is not VMware.
10:20
They're this well-established, you know, really big company
10:24
with a portfolio of products.
10:26
And that's more of a transform.
10:29
And in this transform environment that you're in,
10:33
what were some of the first things, though,
10:35
that you knew you needed to go do to start to unlock going
10:40
to market in the marketplace for VMware?
10:44
So honestly, the first thing you had to do
10:47
was basically take a look with their existing quota cache
10:51
and provisioning a licensing model was for each product.
10:56
Like each product within VMware has its own end-to-end process.
11:00
And you basically have to look at that
11:03
and then see how can you fit the marketplace into that.
11:06
And as much as you would like to do the opposite
11:10
and make it all fit within marketplace
11:12
because that's the goal you've seen it work really well.
11:15
And Patrick knows this.
11:17
Like I would love to be like, I remember going into VMware
11:20
like all like Brideide and like Barry Naive
11:22
and just being like, well, I've seen it work so great guys.
11:25
Like you go on and you buy and it works so wonderfully.
11:28
And then you go into a company like VMware
11:30
and you're like, oh, there's no way I can just make
11:35
this huge Titanic just completely change everything
11:39
and all their systems.
11:40
Like you have, you know, 7,000 people running Salesforce.
11:44
So like there's no way we're gonna make
11:46
all these field changes overnight that are required
11:49
to get this to where they can just quickly fill out a quote,
11:54
or their sellers can quickly pull out a quote,
11:56
get a private offer created and then, you know,
11:58
there you go, we're done.
11:59
Like it's not gonna happen.
12:01
So instead of like break it up into chunks
12:04
and start to like, yeah, go away at different pieces
12:07
and products got to go work on their product thing
12:10
and getting the product to be different in the marketplace.
12:14
And that's a whole product strategy.
12:15
So while products off trying to help fix,
12:17
I wanna say fix, but like evolve the product
12:20
to be able to be licensed and provisioned and deployed
12:23
from the marketplace, there's all these things
12:26
on the business side.
12:27
And the first one is gotta go get transactable.
12:32
Can we even--
12:32
Exactly.
12:34
Yeah, like can we even transact?
12:35
Because a customer can come to us and say,
12:38
okay, I want a private offer.
12:40
Like they could just want whatever product
12:42
and they could just say like, okay,
12:43
I wanna get this product and I wanna buy it
12:45
on the AWS marketplace.
12:46
And you're like, cool.
12:49
Oh wait, do we have a listing?
12:50
Oh, VMware doesn't have a listing for Tanzu up on the marketplace.
12:55
Well, we gotta go do that first.
12:57
Okay, that takes a couple of weeks.
12:59
Then we've gotta go do this.
13:00
And so this whole promise that you're making a sales team
13:03
that like, oh, this is super easy.
13:04
We can get this fun up and like,
13:06
you can have a private offer sitting for your customer
13:08
in 30 minutes.
13:09
Yeah, no, there's a lot of steps that have to happen
13:11
ahead of that.
13:12
So that operational component is so critical.
13:16
Like getting that operational readiness
13:18
is like the biggest thing in order to make sure
13:21
that you can actually do this.
13:22
And then figuring out within the company
13:25
how to just make it work within the existing ecosystem.
13:28
How are we gonna make this work within our existing systems
13:31
so that it does seem to the customer?
13:34
This was the thing I realized within VMware,
13:35
like how can we make it seem to the customer?
13:37
Like it's that 30 minute, I get a private offer,
13:40
I click to buy and then I get a license within 24 hours
13:45
or whatever you want the SLA to be.
13:47
So that for them, it appears to still be that ease
13:49
of a transaction motion.
13:51
But on the back end, what they don't know is happening
13:53
is you still have the whole Titanic still trying to move
13:56
very slowly.
13:57
I'm looking behind the magic curtain
13:59
at the way we're gonna be doing all these.
14:01
And that's where we're gonna.
14:04
Yeah, exactly.
14:05
I remember hanging first came out with VMware
14:08
and Core was doing VMware's CoSOL manage services for that.
14:12
We were co-sailing across all these portfolios
14:15
and you get hired and I'm like, great, my friend,
14:17
Brittany's gonna get in there
14:18
and she's gonna start to unlock market place for us.
14:22
And you were like, hey, this is my role.
14:24
I'm like, great, are you calling tackle
14:26
to help you get transactable?
14:28
Yeah.
14:29
And it was so funny because we couldn't use tackle
14:31
at ADatrix 'cause we were omni-based
14:34
and tackle at the time didn't do omni's.
14:36
So it wasn't even part of the conversation.
14:38
So I hadn't really used tackle before.
14:40
And so then being able to actually use them at VMware,
14:43
they became a critical component of our business there.
14:46
And actually getting them up and transactable in that way.
14:50
I remember tackle putting us on the phone
14:52
because I was trying to stop our deal train
14:55
and get the adoption that you were starting to get
14:58
at VMware where you were getting more support and buy in
15:00
and I couldn't get anybody to move.
15:04
And so I was like, I'm gonna go somewhere else
15:05
and I was looking at ADatrix and we were talking about that.
15:08
And I just remember you lying out there and saying,
15:11
listen, the two differences in the company sizes
15:15
are also the differences in the operational readiness
15:17
that they're gonna have.
15:18
You need to know if you're gonna go talk to ADatrix,
15:22
this is fast moving, they kind of get it.
15:24
They're built in the cloud.
15:26
But if you wanna take this back to Dell,
15:30
the operational changes that need to happen
15:32
that you're struggling with,
15:33
it's not gonna happen overnight.
15:34
I can give you some best practice.
15:35
Yeah.
15:36
I mean, it was a huge learning curve for me.
15:38
I came in thinking, in all honesty at the time,
15:42
there weren't a lot of us who really understood
15:43
how marketplace worked.
15:45
And so that was why I felt like we were like
15:48
this little family of people, like Aaron, you being Patrick,
15:51
like there's like a few of us out there
15:53
who really understood, okay, this is how this works.
15:56
Yeah, and how do we do this?
15:57
And Shane was one of those two.
15:58
And so it was like, you talk to each other
16:01
and just try to help each other out,
16:02
but really we were all struggling
16:05
with our own little things with the actual company
16:08
we were at where it's like,
16:09
each of them have their different problems and issues
16:12
because of what they have going on.
16:14
And that was the big thing.
16:15
You have to just like figure out, okay,
16:16
what are the company specific issues
16:19
versus marketplace specific operational issues
16:22
that we can really fix and make it, yeah.
16:24
Like a customer specific motion that's gonna work.
16:27
I feel like when we talk to our sales teams,
16:29
we're a little, like the story has changed a little bit.
16:32
'Cause I remember coming in and trying to tell my sellers
16:34
just like, okay, this is not all like just how easy it is
16:37
and all of that.
16:38
And now I've changed it where I'm like, okay,
16:40
may not be the easiest for you,
16:41
but it's gonna be the easiest for your customer.
16:43
And that's what matters.
16:44
And your customer's gonna love you for it.
16:46
And that's what matters.
16:48
- Yeah, and I think what I'm hearing you say is,
16:52
first I wanna say I love that you're like,
16:54
let's first separate these two things.
16:56
What are company specific things versus what is
17:00
a cloud partner specific thing that's happening?
17:03
That's really helpful.
17:04
Put your things in the right buckets
17:06
so that you can address them correctly.
17:09
But it sounds like you're starting to collect a blueprint
17:14
of what you learned at A/B/A/Trix,
17:16
what you learned at VMware.
17:18
And now you're gonna take this blueprint
17:21
and you go over to Veritas
17:23
and you're looking to say, oh, I have this blueprint,
17:27
Veritas has these components,
17:29
they're missing these components.
17:31
Can you talk a little bit about,
17:33
I think this blueprint you're putting together
17:35
of what it takes?
17:37
- Yeah, I mean, I think that's a big part of it
17:40
is like figuring out, okay, what can be replicated versus,
17:44
like what are the things that a company needs to know
17:48
ahead of time that they need to look for
17:51
within their own just ecosystem and operational readiness.
17:56
And then what's the blueprint for marketplace?
17:59
And it is based off of where they're at,
18:01
like what type of company they are.
18:03
Like it is very much related to are you a product
18:07
born in the cloud type company or are you a legacy,
18:12
making the shift to cloud based product?
18:15
And so that also is going to play into it
18:17
and there are these different components.
18:20
And so it's kind of learning to separate out those things
18:23
and figuring out, okay, what are the priorities
18:25
as a result of that?
18:26
What are the things that we need to focus on
18:28
so that we can make sure
18:31
that you are really focusing on the right things
18:35
and having the right resources in place to get started
18:38
so that you can make this successful from the get go.
18:41
So like when I talk to other ISVs about this,
18:44
you have to be careful 'cause you can easily just throw
18:47
a lot of resources at this or not enough resources
18:50
or not the right resources.
18:52
And that's where it's instead like figuring out
18:54
the blueprint is not so much just like,
18:56
let's get marketplace transactable
18:59
so that our customers can click to buy
19:02
and have a PEGO option and there we go.
19:05
That might not be the right motion.
19:07
PEGO might not be the right motion for your company.
19:09
It might be that like a Veritas MVM
19:12
where we were 99% private offer.
19:14
And that is a better option
19:16
because we're selling enterprise companies
19:18
who aren't going to go buy on a public marketplace.
19:21
They need custom terms, they need custom pricing.
19:25
And so it doesn't make sense for us to waste the time
19:27
to go set up a public offer with public pricing.
19:31
Instead, we should set up that private offer motion.
19:34
So it's more like figuring out, okay, who are your customer?
19:36
Who are you selling to?
19:37
And then how does the marketplace play
19:39
into that transaction with those customers?
19:42
That's the blueprint, like figuring out that part.
19:45
And then also your sellers,
19:46
how does your current sales cycle work?
19:49
How does this fit into your current sales cycle?
19:51
You should work to leverage sooner in the sales cycle,
19:55
but that always takes time to get your sellers on board,
19:58
how are your sellers with learning new routes to market,
20:01
that sort of thing.
20:02
Where's the maturity in the sales team as well?
20:04
And how are they going to be with learning it?
20:07
- You've gone through this twice now, right?
20:09
And you've talked a little bit about how that looks different.
20:13
And those of us that have been through this also
20:15
definitely understand the difference
20:17
in the types of organizations as well.
20:19
But that also means you have to have a different strategy
20:22
when you're looking at aligning now your new team
20:25
to get on board with this motion
20:27
and integrate some of these strategies.
20:29
Can you tell everybody listening,
20:31
now that you're at Veritas,
20:32
how did this approach compare to your experience
20:36
with VMware in terms of actually integrating
20:39
these marketplace strategies?
20:40
Like what are some of the similarities
20:42
or maybe the key differences in that approach?
20:45
- So some of the similarities is working through the sellers.
20:50
Like how to figure out like where your sellers are at.
20:52
In both situations, we're dealing with sellers
20:55
who have been at the companies for a long time,
20:59
are used to a very, they have a sales motion
21:01
they've been using for a very long time.
21:03
They're very used to a lot of renewals.
21:05
And so in that regard, getting them to understand
21:07
like how the renewals can play in here.
21:09
Like why renewals are important with marketplace.
21:12
It becomes much more of a customer-led motion.
21:15
And so in that way, getting them to understand
21:18
the propensity to buy information,
21:20
how their customers are going to actually push this,
21:23
how they need to understand why this matters.
21:25
Like why their customers are going to want this,
21:28
what the decrementing of the Mac means,
21:30
what is burning down of EDP means?
21:32
Like what are all these terms
21:33
that they're gonna start hearing,
21:35
whether or not they like it.
21:37
Also to make sure they're talking to the right people.
21:39
So that's part of it.
21:40
And then on the operational side of it,
21:42
it's also going in and figuring out
21:45
where in the sales cycle
21:47
and the transaction cycle does marketplace fit.
21:50
Is it something that we're gonna have towards the end
21:54
that we're just gonna introduce
21:55
as just a transaction mechanism for that right now?
21:58
Or is it something we can start building in
22:00
as part of the introduction to the product?
22:04
And like as we build new products and stuff like that
22:06
that we can actually start building them
22:08
to go onto the marketplace,
22:11
we can start including them like listening for them
22:14
and stuff like that and start doing those types
22:17
of things.
22:18
And then also just like from a quote to cash,
22:21
like how do we make this fit in that quote to cash model?
22:24
Like how do we look at our existing quote to cash
22:29
and provisioning system?
22:30
How do we make marketplace fit within that?
22:32
Like what do we do?
22:33
Because it just that we plug it in at once a quote is created,
22:38
there's just a checkbox for marketplace
22:40
and then that could send to an alias
22:42
and then they create the private offer
22:44
that gets sent to the customer.
22:45
And how does that fit in?
22:47
How do we actually build in that operational model
22:50
so that it's again, looks easy for the customer
22:54
and that it becomes that streamline process
22:57
on the back end for them?
22:59
- There's definitely a difference.
23:01
Like you still have to enable the sellers the same
23:03
in regards to like, this is what it takes
23:05
to partner with the clouds is how they talk.
23:08
This is what an EDP means, this is what a MAC means.
23:11
Like that education is the same regardless of
23:14
if you're going into a company that's really marketplace first
23:19
or like born in the marketplace from a product strategy
23:22
versus a established organization
23:25
that now we have to figure out how marketplace integrates
23:30
into our already well established business processes.
23:35
Then I have to teach you at what points do we start
23:39
to interject the cloud partnership
23:41
to try and help you get more leverage inside that account
23:46
or tap into that cloud budget that that customer has
23:49
versus in that product led marketplace first company.
23:54
This is the way we do business, right?
23:56
So it is a little bit different in that sales enablement
24:00
and then how you operationalize that inside your CRM system
24:05
had to be a little different in both of those experiences.
24:10
>> Yes, and I was just thinking, as you were saying,
24:12
I didn't really get into the differences.
24:14
I mean, one of the big differences VMware use Salesforce,
24:17
we're using Oracle Sales Cloud at Veritas
24:20
which is a whole new experience.
24:22
>> And it doesn't talk in that way.
24:24
>> And it will partner in that way.
24:24
>> And it will partner in that way.
24:25
>> No, it does not stop us from partnering tackle.
24:28
Tackle may not want to partner with us anymore
24:31
because of it, but that's a different thing.
24:33
So I'm just kidding.
24:34
>> Yeah, we're like, how do you move into the Salesforce?
24:37
>> No, it's just, so yes, there are differences,
24:42
but this is where I feel like it's,
24:45
every company is going to have its differences.
24:47
They're all going to have different operating systems.
24:50
They're going to have different quoting systems.
24:54
I feel like we can pretty confidently say most CRMs
24:57
are fairly similar, most people are using Salesforce,
25:00
but there are going to be different system,
25:02
different provisioning systems,
25:04
different licensing systems, all of that.
25:06
So, okay, you have those differences.
25:09
I think what you're trying to get at more is like,
25:11
what are like the big differences
25:13
from more of a higher level business standpoint?
25:15
And I think that's where it comes down to the blueprint
25:19
of like, what are the differences in your current business
25:22
and the gaps that exist within that,
25:24
around that licensing card, the provisioning part?
25:27
Like, is there an issue with getting licenses out
25:30
in a timely manner?
25:31
Is there something that you can, like this,
25:34
in all honesty, and I'm sorry,
25:35
I'm a little bit all over the place on this,
25:37
but it's just like helping me recall things that happened
25:40
that it helped me actually, like going through this process,
25:43
helped me identify things with MBM
25:45
where we figured out a licensing problem
25:48
for one of their products,
25:50
because there was a delay of two weeks
25:51
to get licenses out to customers for any route to market.
25:55
It didn't have to do with marketplace only.
25:57
And it was going through this like almost gap analysis
25:59
where you're like, okay,
26:01
how do we make this work for marketplace
26:03
that actually made us realize like,
26:04
oh, there's actually a gap that exists across
26:06
all more routes to market that we need to fix.
26:09
How can we use the marketplace process
26:12
to fix this for all routes to market as well?
26:16
And so in that way, like,
26:17
there are gonna be these differences
26:19
that exist across businesses.
26:21
And I would say for the most part,
26:23
for me, like implementing this,
26:25
it's just been going through that process,
26:27
that gap analysis process for each business
26:30
and identifying what those are,
26:32
because every business is going to be different
26:34
and how they're set up and what they have.
26:36
And there's gonna always be like things
26:39
that you can bring over,
26:40
and there's gonna be things
26:41
that you're gonna have to figure out,
26:42
like, you know what it needs to look like.
26:44
And I think that's the big thing is
26:45
that's what ABA tricks taught me.
26:46
Like, this is what the ideal end result looks like.
26:50
But how do we get there with what we have?
26:53
And that's, I think, what I'm learning
26:56
with like a VMware and a Veritas is like, all right,
26:59
we may have to make it look very different
27:02
just to get to that similar end result.
27:07
- Yeah. - And to get to--
27:08
- Everybody's kind of your recombination.
27:09
- Yeah, exactly.
27:10
Yeah, so I don't know that I can really identify, sorry,
27:13
I don't know if I can really identify
27:14
like true differences in the blueprint per se,
27:17
'cause I do feel like just every company is different
27:19
and how they're set up and what it's gonna look like
27:22
in that way.
27:23
And that's more just like taking the time to actually,
27:27
and I would say the biggest thing
27:28
is take the time to actually figure out
27:30
how to truly operationalize this.
27:32
Don't rush it.
27:33
- Yeah. - Just take the time.
27:35
- Yeah, one by one. - Yeah, like take each thing,
27:37
break it down one by one.
27:39
- We've talked a good bit about getting ready
27:42
the transformational activities you've had
27:44
across these now three companies
27:47
establishing those foundations.
27:48
But when we look at kind of that next phase of maturity
27:51
where we start to build some adoption,
27:53
we're incorporating more enablement and more programs,
27:57
can you talk to us about some of the specific marketplace
28:01
programs that you found most effective,
28:04
perhaps in driving engagement,
28:06
both within your team and within the sales teams
28:09
from a like cloud provider lens?
28:12
- I would say the big thing is the Co-Cell program.
28:15
As much as a lot of people don't believe me when I say it,
28:18
and I will be the first to say,
28:20
I kind of thought it was a bunch of BS.
28:23
First I was like, sure, they all sound with us.
28:27
But if you do it the way that Erin has taught you
28:30
how to do it, there is a way to do it
28:32
that actually is successful.
28:34
That is key.
28:35
And then there are cool programs that the CSPs will give you
28:38
and they didn't want to give you money.
28:40
That is the one thing that people don't realize.
28:43
They have a lot of money to give away
28:45
and they will give you money if you do the Co-Cell stuff.
28:48
You got to do it, you got to play nice
28:50
and you got to do the Co-Cell
28:52
and you got to get your sellers to do Co-Cell
28:55
and then they will do things like,
28:59
we've been using AMP so the Azure Migrate
29:01
and Modernization to get--
29:03
- That's an amazing program.
29:05
- We've had the last one.
29:06
It is.
29:07
I'm really hoping they fix the process.
29:09
You want to talk about an operational process
29:11
that is broken, it's that one.
29:13
So I've heard that they're changing it.
29:14
- If you're letting me, I'm not.
29:16
- I know, fingers crossed, they're supposed to change it
29:19
'cause it is painful.
29:21
But it is when it worked,
29:23
like it's just right now to dependent
29:26
on the customer doing too much.
29:27
But if you get your customer to do it and everything,
29:30
it's awesome.
29:31
We had four deals that were helped close
29:34
by end of quarter because of that money.
29:36
And that is money that actually like then
29:39
we use towards services for the customer.
29:42
So like we basically are like,
29:44
we'll give you a white glove service onboarding
29:47
and like help move.
29:50
A lot of our customers are moving from on-prem
29:51
to the cloud.
29:52
So we'll help with that and everything.
29:54
And you get $50,000 for free from Microsoft for doing that.
29:58
So it's great.
30:00
It's awesome.
30:01
- And it's real.
30:02
- And it's real.
30:03
- It's real, it's tangible.
30:03
- It's real money.
30:04
- There is a real money.
30:05
- It's so great.
30:06
- It's so funny.
30:07
- Yeah.
30:08
So that's one of the things.
30:09
Internally getting your product teams
30:11
to engage with the CSPs,
30:13
I've used the Azure Innovate as well.
30:15
We actually have quite a bit of money
30:17
that we've gotten from that too.
30:18
So there's just a lot of money out there.
30:20
And so those things, I would say,
30:22
and I know that's not directly tied to marketplace,
30:24
but I just in general like engaging with the CSPs with AWS,
30:29
we use the AWS call days,
30:34
both at A/B/ATrix and at VMware.
30:37
Those were incredibly helpful and successful
30:39
and actually got our sellers to engage more with AWS sellers.
30:44
My most successful sales rep at A/B/ATrix.
30:47
And this is at a startup where like,
30:49
AWS could care less about us, right?
30:51
Like this is not a VMware, not a big company.
30:55
And they started paying attention to us
30:58
and she was our top seller
31:00
because she had the best relationship with AWS
31:03
and used those sellers.
31:05
And it started all with the call days
31:07
where they basically literally will spend several hours,
31:10
they will go through lists
31:11
and basically be your SDR for the day
31:13
and just do calls with you.
31:15
And it was amazing.
31:17
- That's so nice to have like,
31:19
a ride along a partner. - I know.
31:20
- Wow, that is partnering.
31:22
That is partnering 101.
31:24
- That is partnering.
31:25
Yeah.
31:26
- So some of these programs,
31:28
they're not specific to marketplace
31:30
because they're meant to help you
31:31
with how you're going to market with your cloud partnership.
31:36
And that happens to go through the marketplace
31:39
there's some additional incentives
31:41
that they have for that as well.
31:42
But they have a lot of great partner programs
31:46
to help you really bring your product to market
31:50
and put fuel on that fire for you.
31:53
So that's so great.
31:54
Thanks for sharing some of those other programs
31:57
to help you kind of build out activating your cloud
32:01
go to market strategy.
32:02
And CoSAL, it's so funny.
32:05
CoSAL is like, it's a verb, it's a noun, it's a program.
32:09
It's a what is it, right?
32:11
It's like, it's all these things.
32:13
And CoSAL is so multifaceted and multi-bemificial.
32:18
Yes, it does some very fundamental things.
32:21
But one of the things you hit on is when you do it,
32:26
it's also opening up the door to other programs
32:31
because it's building brand inside
32:36
of that cloud provider's tools.
32:39
So the cloud provider can see you
32:41
and can see like, oh, we have this partner.
32:45
And here's how we could help this partner
32:47
either with programs or people
32:51
or go to market resources or more CoSAL.
32:55
Like, it's just a great way to drive visibility
32:59
and start to light up inside of the cloud provider's radar,
33:04
radar on their programs, radar with their people.
33:06
There's so many great benefits on top of,
33:10
yes, you get connected and you have an opportunity
33:13
to build more relationships at the deal level
33:17
within an accounting area, within leadership inside
33:20
of the sales organization, within leadership inside
33:23
of the partner programs, there is a lot of great benefit
33:26
from that.
33:27
Yeah, yes.
33:28
And you talked a little bit about that sales enablement piece,
33:31
not just for CoSAL, but you touched a little bit
33:34
on the importance of that seller engagement.
33:36
Now, when you've looked at doing this three times now,
33:40
can you give us some practical examples
33:42
or some success stories from your experience
33:44
on how you address seller engagement
33:48
and these different types of companies?
33:50
What was some of the keys for you, for those listening
33:53
that might be looking at building their own?
33:55
Like, what are some of the key strategies
33:57
they should focus on to drive that seller engagement?
34:00
The big thing is getting your sales leadership engaged
34:04
and understanding the importance of CoSAL
34:08
and the market pay.
34:09
And about to go tap on all your people.
34:10
Oh, yeah, exactly.
34:12
And you have to get their buy-in.
34:13
If you don't have their buy-in, it's not gonna matter,
34:16
as you know.
34:17
And I've seen it where, if you don't have your buy-in,
34:20
you're just gonna get like one off deals
34:21
from your customers where they're gonna insist.
34:24
I tell CROs this all the time,
34:25
like you will have a marketplace field come across your desk.
34:29
You will have your customer tell you,
34:30
I have to buy through marketplace.
34:33
Sorry.
34:33
It's gonna happen, just get over it.
34:36
So you either can lean in
34:39
and actually make this a route to market you wanna use,
34:41
or you can just keep doing these one off deals
34:44
and not taking advantage of all these other additional
34:47
benefits of this route to market.
34:50
That's up to you, whatever.
34:52
But the thing is, is that if you decide to lean in,
34:55
this is where your sellers,
34:57
you're going to have to tell your sellers
34:59
that they have to lean in too,
35:00
'cause they have to do their part.
35:02
And that is them learning it.
35:04
And I come from a family of sellers, I can tell you,
35:07
I know that salespeople don't like learning
35:09
new routes to market.
35:10
I can tell you that right now.
35:12
They're very stubborn and they wanna do things direct.
35:14
They don't wanna lose any money.
35:15
They don't wanna have to pay anybody else to help them out.
35:18
They wanna do it all themselves.
35:19
I understand that.
35:21
And so it's fine, like I get it.
35:24
In the end though, there is so much benefit.
35:28
And the marketplace fees are so low now.
35:32
Like it's minimal.
35:33
It's so minimal.
35:35
We're not talking like it used to be
35:36
when I first started in 2017,
35:39
when it was 20% marketplace transaction fees.
35:42
They're now like three, 2%.
35:44
It's not a big deal.
35:46
And that's the thing.
35:47
And so it's like, guys, this is not even an issue anymore.
35:50
So seller enablement is key.
35:52
And getting them to understand how Co-Sell works,
35:55
why it matters, all these incentive programs.
35:58
Now that my sales seems no,
36:00
hey, I can get your customer $30,000
36:04
to help with services to help get their,
36:07
with their migration fees or $10,000
36:10
in pre-azure credits for their bill.
36:13
They're like, wait, what?
36:14
And I was like, yeah, you think that'll close the deal
36:16
for them this quarter?
36:17
And they're like, yeah, they'll totally close it.
36:19
I'm like, great, she just has to go through the marketplace.
36:21
And that's just a caveat we put on it.
36:23
I know it doesn't have to necessarily,
36:25
but that's what we say.
36:26
- Yeah, but that's a great like, you know,
36:28
when you kind of built like, hey, you need to drive
36:31
this behavior, so you're going to leverage this program,
36:34
which is goodness for the customer to get the seller
36:37
to help drive that change behavior you need
36:39
in the organization.
36:40
I think that's like great, like best practice.
36:42
If you can take one thing over here
36:45
and marry it to the change behavior,
36:47
you're trying to get over here.
36:49
And you know that that change behavior
36:51
is also gonna help you overall elevate like it's a win-win.
36:55
- Right.
36:56
- That's because our CRO has said he's all in on this.
37:00
And so he's totally behind it.
37:01
He's totally behind us saying like, yeah,
37:03
this is what we're doing and we give spiffs out for it.
37:06
Yeah, it's just in the end, it's like,
37:08
that's the key thing is the sellers,
37:11
you have to get your sales leadership on board.
37:13
And there's so many reasons now why sales leadership
37:16
wants to get on board that it just makes sense to do it.
37:20
- Yeah, you're gonna get a deal that comes across your desk.
37:23
The customers are asking for it.
37:25
And look, because of our partnership,
37:28
because of all the things we do
37:30
and our partnership with the cloud,
37:32
we have access to these programs
37:35
that can help give your customers funding
37:38
to implement our product, to do these things, right?
37:42
So now we are coming to the table
37:44
and we actually have something to give our customers.
37:47
In addition to a great product,
37:48
we have all this other support to give them.
37:51
And we wouldn't have that if we didn't have the strong partnership
37:55
and we wouldn't have the strong partnership
37:57
if you don't get your product in the marketplace
38:00
if you don't co-sile, if you don't align
38:02
to the partner's priorities.
38:04
- Right.
38:05
And to give you, I can talk one success story from VMware
38:08
because it's public.
38:09
The other two companies I've worked for are not public.
38:11
So one big success story where this,
38:14
I actually saw this happen was we did a $70 million deal
38:17
with Wells Fargo at VMware,
38:19
where the sales team was not really buying in on marketplace.
38:24
And then suddenly Wells Fargo was like,
38:26
yeah, so we're only buying through the marketplace.
38:29
And so suddenly they were like,
38:31
oh, okay, actually we wanna do marketplace.
38:34
So it was like, and then all of a sudden
38:35
everybody wanted to do marketplace.
38:37
If you're like, oh, Shocker, what do you know?
38:39
- Sometimes it just takes one
38:42
and it just happens to be a real whale of a customer
38:44
and to get everybody like napping into it.
38:47
- Yes.
38:48
And it was basically they were like,
38:50
we can't do our renewal unless it's through marketplace
38:53
because our procurement has told us all our money
38:56
for IT solutions is over in this Mac agreement.
38:59
So like it has to be done through the marketplace.
39:03
And that's just like, I think CRS are catching onto
39:06
but they're still need to be educated.
39:07
Like procurement is telling them they have no choice.
39:10
So you have to do it.
39:12
- Yeah, finance that all over the board.
39:14
And that was the only reason we got it.
39:16
Well, not the only.
39:17
- The first reason we got into marketplace too,
39:18
large bank in Australia.
39:20
And now more and more ISVs are coming to us saying,
39:23
well, we're in FinTech or we're in finance
39:25
and we're to the finance verticals and banking.
39:28
And I don't know if they're there.
39:30
It's like, yes, they are.
39:32
They are there. - Trust me, they're there.
39:33
Yeah, everyone's there.
39:35
- All right, we've got one more question to ask
39:37
before we wrap up our time with you today.
39:40
And that is you've got your blueprint
39:41
that you're working on.
39:43
What is one key component that you can share with everyone
39:48
that you consider like essential,
39:52
that you've now seen and you've done it again
39:56
at Veritas where you're like, yep,
39:58
this is definitely a tried and true principle
40:00
in my blueprint for success.
40:02
- I would say it's taking the time
40:05
to actually build out the operational model.
40:10
Take the time to build out that transactional model
40:12
all the way through.
40:13
- Do you have to help it?
40:14
Like, do you did that by yourself?
40:16
Like, who do you gotta get to help?
40:18
- No, you need to, you gotta get everybody to help you.
40:20
So you've gotta get, you need everybody bought in on that.
40:24
So yeah, you've gotta get billing involved.
40:27
You have to get quoting, deal desk.
40:31
You need to get provisioning, licensing.
40:33
Like everybody has to understand how it's going to work.
40:37
Financing to understand like the fees,
40:39
what's gonna come in, when it's gonna come in.
40:41
'Cause that's a big part of it too,
40:43
that yes, you get paid on all these transactions,
40:46
but they're not gonna come in for, you know,
40:47
not 30, not 45 days, depending on your terms.
40:50
Things like that, that they just need to understand
40:53
so that they internally you have buy in across the board
40:57
with the back office.
40:59
So they wanna continue doing it as well.
41:02
- And how have you tapped on tackle to help you in this?
41:05
This is one of our sweet spots
41:06
in like operationalizing all of this.
41:09
Like how have you tapped on tackle in your journey?
41:13
- Well, so many different ways.
41:14
I would say specifically, like I said,
41:16
A.V.A. tricks we didn't use tackle,
41:18
but what helped me was A.V.A. tricks
41:20
I had to do it all by myself.
41:22
But then when I moved to VMware and now Veritas,
41:26
we got to use tackle to help speed it up.
41:29
So basically when I was doing it at A.V.A. tricks,
41:31
I had to do it all myself and it was luckily a startup.
41:34
So there's fewer people to work with and stuff,
41:36
but it still took us a long time
41:38
and I had an engineering support.
41:40
I required a lot more expensive internal supports
41:44
and resources to do it.
41:45
Tackle alleviated that and allowed me to speed it up
41:50
and get done what I was trying to do a lot faster.
41:53
So it probably cut the time to a third.
41:56
As far as getting listings up, they would help me.
41:59
I mean, honestly, at VMware,
42:01
they helped me actually map out with that transaction
42:03
end-to-end process was they sat on calls with me
42:06
with all the different groups
42:07
and we would walk through that process flow
42:10
and they would help map it out.
42:11
Yeah, like an extra subject matter expert on the call with you.
42:13
Exactly, yes.
42:15
Even in my core days before joining forces with tackle,
42:19
we would say like, this is what it takes, right?
42:22
You definitely can do this on your own for sure.
42:26
But if we do it together,
42:28
we're going to go so much faster together.
42:30
And that was really one of our pitches
42:32
and still our pitch at tackle is like,
42:35
yes, you could do these things.
42:36
You could absolutely do them,
42:38
but we will go faster together.
42:40
And your experience is proving out that that philosophy.
42:44
Yes, very much.
42:45
I was so glad when I got to use tackle.
42:47
'Cause we talked to tackle a lot when I was at EV in perks,
42:50
but it was kept just coming up.
42:51
We were like, we can't use you 'cause of the dummy things.
42:54
So yeah.
42:55
Yeah.
42:56
Yeah.
42:57
Brittany, if we could go back in time
42:59
and knowing all that you know now,
43:01
then you could sit down with me or anybody today
43:03
who's listening to this,
43:04
that's looking for a way to get started on this journey,
43:08
trying to plan out that long-term strategy.
43:11
What would be some key takeaways for you
43:14
or some key reflections that you provide them
43:17
from all the hard work and manual effort
43:20
that you had to do at ABA tricks to the lift
43:23
and the organizational support at VMware,
43:26
to now the hybrid approach, the buy-ins with Veritas.
43:30
What would be some of those key takeaways
43:31
that you'd wanna pass along?
43:34
The side's befriending you two and just like calling you up.
43:38
It's also gonna have a Dial of Friend.
43:42
Dial of Friend.
43:43
Yeah, like phone a friend.
43:45
No, I mean, I think I would one, like I said,
43:49
ask for the resources upfront.
43:52
First of all, talk to your CRO.
43:53
Get the buy-in from leadership ahead of time.
43:56
Say if we're gonna do this, you need to understand
43:58
it will take some resources,
43:59
but there are tools out there that we can use,
44:01
like Pac-L, that if I can get the money and support
44:04
ahead of time to use them, then we can do this.
44:08
Otherwise, you're gonna have to provide me
44:10
with an engineering support internally.
44:13
I'm gonna need sales ops, analysts,
44:14
or somebody to help write private offers.
44:16
Like there's just, so get that in writing upfront.
44:21
Otherwise, you are going to be miserable.
44:23
And so, that's what I would say,
44:26
is make sure you have support from leadership
44:28
to make this a true route to market.
44:31
Does anybody can get a listing live,
44:32
but you're not really gonna be able to make this
44:35
anything worthwhile.
44:36
And-
44:37
- Until you can integrate it into the way
44:39
your company does business.
44:41
- Yes.
44:41
- Yeah, such great advice.
44:43
I think so many times we just wanna like,
44:45
oh, just get in there and start doing.
44:48
And it's like, wait a minute.
44:49
Let's make sure we have proper buy-in and support.
44:53
We understand how this fits into the way
44:56
that we're trying to go to market,
44:58
so that we can then incorporate cloud go to market
45:01
as one of our routes to market
45:03
inside of our overall strategy.
45:06
And when you can do that,
45:07
then it's so much easier to get that buy-in and support
45:10
because it's not this add-on motion
45:13
that you're trying to do over here
45:15
that's separate from what the rest of the business
45:18
is trying to do.
45:19
It's like, that becomes a distraction versus
45:22
how can you integrate and make it an accelerator?
45:25
- Yeah, and not only is it just a distraction,
45:27
but one is a time suck that will,
45:29
'cause like just writing one-off private offers and stuff,
45:32
it's a massive time suck.
45:34
And you will be stuck in a loop that is painful
45:38
and it'll never work properly.
45:40
And your customers will be mad at you
45:41
and your sellers will be mad at you all the time.
45:44
- Yeah, so.
45:46
- Don't sign me up for that.
45:47
- No, I'm not fun.
45:49
(laughing)
45:51
- This has been great, Brittany.
45:52
Thanks for taking all of us through
45:54
not only your story of how you've morphed and really,
45:58
I would say you're one of the founders
45:59
of one of the SMEs of this space
46:02
for being there so early,
46:04
but you've explained a lot of the best practices
46:06
through the differences of customer-led
46:08
versus product-led marketplace initiatives
46:10
and you've seen and talked to everybody today
46:13
on building versus transforming cloud strategies
46:17
because of these experiences you've had
46:19
and obviously calling out the key themes
46:21
that we keep hearing,
46:22
which is you need executive support
46:24
and you definitely want resources to help you to scale.
46:26
So I know there's a bunch of key takeaways Aaron
46:29
and I'll talk about after this,
46:30
but thank you for making the time to do this
46:33
and for providing us.
46:34
- Yeah, thank you guys for having me.
46:35
This is a lot of fun.
46:36
- Yeah.
46:37
- We'll be talking with you guys, so anytime.
46:39
- Yeah, no, thank you so much for sharing your story.
46:42
I love the journey and I cannot wait to continue
46:45
to be there with you at your experience at Veritas
46:48
and whatever the future holds as well.
46:51
- Yeah, thank you.
46:52
- Aaron, that was an awesome call with our friend Brittany
46:54
and all she's been doing lately.
46:56
I think with all the experience you have
46:59
in working with her over the years,
47:01
seeing everything she's done at VMware,
47:03
I was actually leaning on her at AVA Tricks for advice
47:06
early in my cloud go-to-market career.
47:08
There was a ton of momentum and a ton of strategy
47:11
that she's built up over time.
47:12
What was your big aha moment from her
47:14
with the lessons that she's learned
47:16
and picked up on from working with you and tackle as well?
47:19
What was your big aha moment from that?
47:20
- I mean, a couple of things that she said
47:22
that really stood out to me in her story was,
47:26
it's not just about building your product
47:31
to be a cloud product or born in the cloud.
47:34
It really is about taking a product
47:37
that can either run or be deployed in the cloud
47:41
to really being a cloud marketplace product.
47:45
And that extra step of, yes, I have a product that's on prem
47:50
and now I'm moving it to the cloud.
47:52
And I'm not just moving it to the cloud,
47:54
I'm moving it to the cloud and its ability
47:57
to be provisioned and deployable in the cloud marketplace
48:02
where the clouds are trying to deliver their software
48:06
to their customers.
48:08
>> Yeah, in the backend too, right?
48:09
Like not forgetting her RevOps people
48:12
and making sure there was internal changes to align to that.
48:15
Yeah, that was great.
48:16
That's a great.
48:16
>> And her advice on separating the difference
48:19
between what are our own company issues
48:23
and things we have to solve for inside of our own business
48:26
versus these are things we have to address and solve for
48:30
based on the clouds, partnerships, programs and rules
48:35
and their structure that you have to also live within.
48:39
>> The other theme that you and I keep seeing,
48:42
and we knew this was one of the key themes,
48:44
but when we asked her for what she would give as advice
48:47
to somebody else trying to do this,
48:49
and she brought up exact alignment
48:51
and specifically asking for help and resources
48:55
because you can have another resource.
48:56
>> And investing in those resources
48:57
so that she could go hire like tackle
48:59
and people that she knew could help her accelerate.
49:03
Like the things she already knew how to go do,
49:05
she was like, I need help to go do these
49:08
and to do them in a faster pace
49:10
and getting that like in writing, buying and support
49:14
to go be able to get that investment
49:17
to help her accelerate what she already knows
49:20
she needs to go do.
49:21
>> Yeah, and that was funny to get it in writing
49:24
'cause well, and core and tackle had given her so much lift
49:28
to from the managed service perspective,
49:30
which we often don't talk about,
49:32
but that's a whole bunch of people
49:33
that she would have had to go staff and resource
49:36
that was augmented by a couple of folks at tackle
49:39
who knew what they were doing.
49:40
>> Yeah, and like at VMware,
49:42
it was a coastal for strategy
49:44
until they were ready for marketplace
49:46
and then they integrated marketplace, right?
49:48
And then at AVH or it was like marketplace first
49:52
and then add coastal and at Veritas,
49:55
they're doing both at the same time.
49:57
It's like coastal and we're getting our products
50:00
to be not just in the cloud,
50:03
but have a better experience in the cloud marketplaces.
50:07
>> Yeah, cool to see that evolution
50:09
and we'll be even more exciting to follow
50:11
where she continues to grow Veritas
50:13
and their next endeavor.
50:14
>> Yeah, and being with her for that journey
50:17
and continuing to help them along that way.
50:19
>> Awesome.
50:20
Well, this was another episode
50:22
of Unlock Cloud Go to Market.
50:23
I'm your co-host Patrick Riley.
50:25
>> And I'm your co-host, Aaron Fager.
50:27
Thanks for joining us.
50:28
>> Take care.
50:29
>> So pull up a chair, grab a notebook and join us
50:32
as we share the essential stages
50:34
of the maturity model to start, optimize,
50:36
and grow your company's revenue using the cloud.
50:40
For more resources on executing your cloud
50:42
go to Market Strategy, you can visit our website
50:45
at tackle.io.
50:46
[MUSIC PLAYING]