Like most people, I was looking forward to some downtime this summer. In retrospect, if I’d read the tea leaves like any good analyst should, I would have predicted things weren’t going to be as relaxing as expected. First, I had two kids heading to college and one starting an apprenticeship in NYC. Then I made the decision, after almost eight years as a head of channel advisory services at SiriusDecisions, to take on a new role as Chief Strategy Officer at Zift Solutions. Since then, I’ve been asked many times why I decided to join the Zift team.

Here are some reasons:

Best of Breed

One thing I learned by watching hundreds of channel programs over the past several years is that companies considered best-of-breed commit to best practices. Whether it’s aligning to the buyer’s journey or employing SiriusDecisions’ frameworks and models in channel demand creation programs, the development team at Zift Solutions has created a platform that’s built from the ground up to support greater efficiency and effectiveness — and it shows. Moving forward, I’m excited to offer Zift’s clients assistance in not just formulating best practices, but also helping to deliver them.

Flexibility

When software developers make it difficult to integrate to a customer’s existing infrastructure, whether it be their PRM or channel incentives platforms, they make it difficult for suppliers to manage their channel programs. From the outset, I recognized that Zift’s platform was designed to integrate with existing sales and marketing automation platforms. Through “connectors,” Zift helps channel leaders integrate to their Eloqua, Marketo, Salesforce or virtually any CRM/PRM/MA tool, facilitating the sharing of leads and offering transparency into partner opportunities. I’ve personally witnessed channel marketing leaders at top suppliers implement Zift to gain better visibility into partner performance. This type of flexibility gives companies the ability to adapt to different types of customer environments — exactly what’s needed to drive customer success in the new SaaS-based paradigm.

Win-Win

How does a company know it’s winning when it has no insight into what’s working and what’s not? Compiling data that shows which tactics drive the highest conversion rates for inbound leads, or demystifying the campaigns best suited for specific buyers — e.g., IT versus line of business — isn’t an easy thing. It takes time and experience in the market to understand which tactics resonate most for different types of solutions. Zift has worked with nearly 100 channel suppliers and thousands of partners worldwide. One criteria that helped me make my decision was the amount of experience and data Zift can rely on. Not only by activating different marketing tactics, but, more importantly, helping partners execute the most effective channel marketing campaigns for specific buyer personas.

Opportunity

As an analyst covering the B2B channel marketplace, I often see investors gauging the potential opportunity for channel marketing and management software. Many describe it as the next revolution in marketing automation. Even by conservative estimates, the market for these solutions is enormous. For years, Zift Solutions has been a thought leader, educating companies on why they need a different approach to market with partners, who rarely invest in marketing themselves. By moving to Zift, I’m excited to work directly with clients to adopt and implement a robust channel marketing and management solution to help them drive scalable pipeline growth with partners.

Common Vision

If there was one factor that had the most influence on my decision to join the Zift team, it was the common vision I share with Zift’s CEO, Ken Romley. (Read Ken’s blog from earlier this week.) I met Ken more than seven years ago, when each of us was playing our respective role in helping define the channel technology landscape. While it sometimes felt like an uphill battle, because of Zift and other pioneers like them, the market now recognizes the need for sales and marketing solutions that are easy to use and allow suppliers to generate revenue with partners. The next step is to make things easier by offering what I’ll call Channel-as-a-ServiceTM (CHaaS): end-to-end channel applications that suppliers can “activate” as their program evolves.

I’m honored to be part of the team that will contribute to this new frontier in B2B channels.

Feel free to connect and reach out to me on LinkedIn or comment below. I’d love to continue the discussion!