In today’s evolving cloud-driven landscape, effective alliance leadership and execution is crucial for unlocking value and gaining a competitive edge. Much like a runner facing various challenges in training for and completing an IRONMAN, the process of forming and maintaining successful partnerships is nothing short of complex. It can be a challenge to even know where to start.
That’s why having a Cloud Go-To-Market (GTM) coach is a strategic necessity for any organization who is building or scaling an ecosystem of partners. Coaching is far from a luxury, and innovative companies focused on building for the long-term make coaching a priority across the organization.
The power of Cloud GTM coaching is that it provides strategic insights tailored to your unique needs, as well as empowers you to build durable partner programs, forge strategic partnerships, and offer ongoing support to ensure your continued successful path forward. Today, we’ll explore how Cloud GTM coaching benefits you and your team and how to choose the right Cloud GTM coach.
Can Cloud Go-To-Market Coaching Benefit You?
GTM coaching is a game changer if you’re a Cloud Alliance Lead or a Head of Partnerships who is focused on strategic partner development, accelerating cloud vendor (AWS/Azure) adoption, elevating the performance of cloud channel/technology partners, and maximizing revenue attainment through cloud products/services.
Scenarios where having a GTM coach will accelerate flawless execution:
Have you recently stepped into the role of leading cloud alliances/partnerships? If so, have you considered how you will ramp up expertise for rapid success? Or how you can master skills like marketplace offer pricing, co-marketing, and co-selling? With a GTM coach in your corner, you’ll shrink the distance from noob to pro, becoming the partnership professional your organization needs you to be and that you’re destined to be.
Or maybe you’re already in the seat, getting the job done, but you need to uplevel your skills to capitalize on market trends you’re seeing on the horizon. Cloud GTM coaching is your ticket to positioning your organization in the market and experiencing career growth into more senior roles within partnerships.
Keep reading to learn how an outstanding coach can benefit you and your company’s bottom line.
STOP & VISUALIZE: Are you Tom Brady or Michael Jordan? Got the picture in your head? Perfect! These guys are who they are in part because of their coaches.
Can Cloud Go-To-Market Coaching Benefit Your Team?
If you’re the Head of Partnerships, investing in Cloud Alliance Leadership Development coaching frees you up to focus on boosting cloud partner performance while a seasoned professional coaches up your Alliance team. An investment in Cloud coaching is unlike traditional training programs in that it’s an investment specifically focused on partner building leadership abilities in your team.
Guided by a GTM coach, members of your Alliance team can receive comprehensive skill building that will equip them with the knowledge and skills needed to fuel successful cloud initiatives and optimize partner performance. The result is inevitably improved team dynamics and strategic decision-making. Ultimately, the knowledge your team acquires will prepare them to directly contribute to unlocking new revenue streams, more quickly attaching partner strengths to your go-to-market, capitalizing on cloud marketplace investments faster, and enhancing your competitive positioning. Empowered Cloud Alliance leads are multipliers because they’re able to consistently nurture the interlock between supportive functions (Sales, Partner marketing, RevOps, Product, Customer Success, etc.) throughout the organization.
What Should You Look For in a Cloud GTM Coach
For starters, you’ll want to find a Cloud Go-To-Market coach who is committed to ensuring that you have a comprehensive understanding of the cloud ecosystem, AWS services, solutions, and go-to-market strategies. This is crucial, as it enables you to identify potential areas for partnership alignment with your company’s offerings.
Look for a coach that brings their experience in developing a robust partnership strategy to the table. This will be instrumental in helping you define your “better together” story, share co-selling and co-marketing best practices with partners like AWS and Google Cloud, and maintain alignment between partner program objectives and the higher level organizational go-to-market mission.
Much like a coach helping an athlete train for the different disciplines of an IRONMAN race, the right Cloud coach will develop a program that covers navigating AWS Partner Programs, understanding AWS Competency Programs, fostering relationships with AWS account teams, and leveraging new partner program capabilities to build credibility as a trusted partner. You also need a coach who knows what it takes to help you master partnership negotiations, drafting agreements, defining roles, and success metrics.
And finally, the ideal coach will prepare you for partnership activation. And yes, this includes developing joint go-to-market plans, coordinating marketing and sales efforts, and establishing a framework for continuous optimization.
How to Choose the Best Cloud GTM Coach
By now you’ve probably realized that trying to establish and sustain partnerships on your own is not the best use of your resources. And in the complicated landscape of partner programs, ecosystem plays, and partner types, going it alone is a sure way to make every avoidable mistake, especially if this is your first rodeo.
At this point, you might be wondering why you can’t just lean on your partner for help. After all, who knows their inner workings better? This is an understandable assumption, but simply put, your partner doesn’t have the bandwidth to coach you or your team.
For instance, should you purchase Suger or Tackle, you’ll undoubtedly receive assistance from the marketplace platforms… You’ll also have to spend an exorbitant amount of money before you actually see that help. At the end of the day, it’s important to note that these organizations may make outstanding partners, but are understandably focused on selling their software. They are not focused on building your cloud go-to-market strategy. Sure, they’ll benefit from a tight cloud GTM. That, however, is your job to build – not theirs.
And strategy should be the priority! That’s why Drag37.io is dedicated to coaching from your point of view. What’s more, we coach principles on how to develop and interlock your cloud GTM with your committed organizational strategy. When it comes to strategy, it’s second nature for us to talk the talk and walk the walk… because we’ve been in your role.
All this to say that in your pursuit of a Cloud Go-To-Market coach that is worth the investment, you’ll know you are on the right track when the coaching program emphasizes accelerating your go-to-market timeline, contributing to your financial success, and reducing risk.
At Drag37.io we’re adept at accomplishing all of the above. We accelerate your go-to-market timeline by providing expert guidance that takes the guesswork out of the equation, cutting down on trial and error. We also align your organization’s goals with the right cloud-marketplace, channel, technology partners, and cloud optimization tool (Tackle, Sugar, etc.). Notice how the tooling is the last item on that list – it’s never first.
Leveraging best practices to assist with your pricing models is one way that we contribute to your financial success. We’ve also found that working with your marketing team on cloud-marketplace co-marketing best practices and training your sales teams on effective sales plays tailored to cloud marketplace co-selling is paramount.
And since one of the primary reasons for teaming up with a Cloud GTM coach is to mitigate risk, we accomplish this by developing contingency plans to address various risk scenarios, conducting comprehensive risk assessments to identify potential pitfalls, and providing tailored insights throughout the journey, where you need it most.
