5 Keys to Partner Account Management Success with Carmen Sorice

Speaker A: All right, thank you so much. Welcome to another episode of the award winning sales Game Changers podcast. My name is Fred diamond with the Institute for Effective Professional Selling and Carmen Cerise. We've done over 870 sales game changers podcasts. The Institute for Effective Professional Selling is launching our first ever partner revenue academy on October 2nd. It's a six session program, it's hybrid, it's also virtual as well all around the globe. It's for partner account managers who are looking to become what we call Carmen partner revenue architects. And we're going to be talking to Carmen Cerise here in a second about how critical that is for partner account, uh, managers to build that better relationship between OEMs and their partners to generate revenue. We're doing today's interview in September of 2026 and, and Carmen Serese, the world has changed over the last 18, 24 months for participants on the OEM ISV side distributors channel, uh, participants, and obviously for customers as well. So I brought you on the show, you're a good friend of the Institute for Effective Professional Selling and I basically ask you give us your five tips for partner success. And it's, it's interesting because you've been on both sides of the fence, you've been on the OEM slash ISV side and now you're, you're in the channel. So Carmen, give us an introduction and uh, let's get started. I'm excited to hear your five tips for partner success.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, great, Fred, it's great to be here. Uh, you and I have worked together, uh, over the last few years and I have a lot of respect for, for you, your organization and what you're doing. And I love the term partner, uh, revenue architects. Right. Because that is exactly what we need our partner managers to do. So real quick, uh, I started my career as an engineer, so I was on the technology side in telecom, uh, I moved into the channel side and for the last two decades I've been managing, building, scaling large organizations on the vendor, the OEM side. So I've worked for software companies, services companies, hardware and software infrastructure providers, managed service providers, cloud providers, and it's always been on the vendor side. So I've always been enabling my partners, getting my partners to do more. And I've, I've managed over the, over the last two decades, hundreds of partner account managers. And so you're spot on when you say things are changing. Right? And it is about revenue. And the word architect is important because the partner manager has to help design, build and Execute that revenue growth strategy. Um, so now I'm on the partner side, right. I'm, um, a, uh, EVP with e78 partners. My job, my responsibility is to go out and win business with new logos. And I have dozens of vendors we do business with on the network side, cybersecurity side, UCAS side. Uh, so now I find myself being in these executive reviews where, where vendors, OEMs, ISVs are telling me all the great things they do. And I'm trying to interpret how do I make that make sense for my business, my partner business. So very good.

Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm excited to get your five, uh, your five tips. And just as a note, you also work closely with the woman who is going to be kicking off the partner revenue academy, the great Rebecca Weatherly, who you work with at, uh, aws. And we're very excited to have her as part of the, part of the curriculum. All right, let's get started. What's number one?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, I've worked with Rebecca when I was with aws. That was my cloud reference and I have a lot of respect for Rebecca. So you, you have some really good leaders, uh, lined up. So it's going to be very exciting. Um, so what are my five tips? Right, so the first, first thing I'd say to a partner account manager is know my business. By my, I mean your partner's business. The ticket for entry is that you know your business, right? You know your speeds, your feeds, your pricing, all of your, your strategy for your company. But know my business, know my metrics, know my strategy. And at a personal level, when you're working with a partner, sales rep, sales leader, know their comp plan, right? How are they paid? I'm not saying everything should be driven solely by, by their comp plan, but it's very important for you to know how your partner on the other side of the table is getting paid, how their company's being measured, Are they private? Are they public? Are they trying to increase their valuation? Is recurring revenue worth more than just a one time deal? Know all of that about your partner's business. Uh, so that's, that's number one. Know. Know my business.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. A couple of things. One is, you know, obviously we talk a lot on the sales Game Changers podcast about what direct sales needs to, to be successful. And it's know your customer, the end customer, what is their mission, where they want to be in two years, et cetera. We talk about that all the time. And the reality is your customer doesn't need you if you're not going to help them get there. Same type of a thing with your partner. Where are they going? How are they going to get there? How is your solution going to help them continue to grow? And also I like the point that you made about understanding how they get paid. We had uh, John Kerry, who's the senior VP of Global Alliances at sas and he's been on the show a couple of times. We actually had him recently talking about AI and the partner channel. When I asked him for his final tip, he said exactly what you just said. He said, knows, know how the person that you're engaging with gets paid because at the end of the day that really is the most important thing to them is, especially in the business world, is how are they going to get paid to serve their customers, but also to serve their family and to help them achieve their goals and to grow. That's a great one to get us started with. Uh, what's number two?

Speaker B: Number two is enable me. Right. So yeah, yes, I'd like you to know my business, but I assume you know your business. So um, once you know my business, enable me to leverage your company to go qualify and win opportunities. And there are a lot of tools you can use to do that. Um, of course I, the partner expect you to know your business, how you operate, what your key products are. But help me out with a battle card, right? How do you compare to maybe a couple of your other uh, competitors? Where are your sweet spots? Um, what are some use cases you can provide? Um, if you have an ideal customer, ah, profile or two, that helps a partner. So I'm looking to be enabled as a partner to look for, qualify and recognize opportunities that have your name written on it. So that when I bring you into opportunities as a partner, I want a high win rate because I want your company to see me as a partner bringing opportunities that are qualified that we win with and that we're not spinning a lot of wheels and cycles, uh, going down paths that don't result in a win. So again, enable me use those tools, those battle cards, the sweet spots, the use cases, uh, to make sure I'm enabled to qualify and win opportunities.

Speaker A: That is a great point. And I actually we do a lot of coaching at the Institute for Effective Professional Selling of Selling Professionals and more and more partner account people, hence why we created this program. And I was, I was uh, interfacing with a kind of a mid level, uh, maybe a little bit on the junior side, partner account manager and they were seeking Me for some coaching. And they were talking about a negotiation that they had with one of their partners, and they talked about how they achieved what they wanted to achieve. And I said, that's great. But you have to remember, if you're going to stay in this business, you're going to be working with this partner possibly for the next 10, 15 years. You know, one thing that you and I know, with some of the great companies like AWS and the Oracles and the Microsofts, they have relationships, Cisco, that have been going on for, for decades, right? So you may looking at a little win here ain't going to help you. You need to figure out how I'm going to be with this person for the long term. So it's win, win, win. And of course, you and the partner win, then the customer wins as well. So I love that. All right, what's number three?

Speaker B: Number three is good segue, right? Uh, number three is also all about accelerate and scaling, opportunity, generation and progression. So it's, it's one thing to say, let's do a joint account plan. Many times those joint account plans sit on a shelf. Right? Uh, be active, actively manage the pipeline with me as the partner. Right. Understand the opportunities I'm bringing to you or you're bringing to me, that we're working together. And let's actively, weekly, bi weekly, m. Whatever the right cadence is, let's get together, review the pipeline and make sure we're moving them forward, we're accelerating. And one thing, uh, on this note I talk about with my partner, managers don't just come back and say, yeah, got a good. I had a good meeting with a partner. We have a joint account plan. Do you have actions? Do you have owners? Do you have dates? Are there specific things that you and the partner are going to do? Right. That are going to generate these opportunities and progress, move forward. Because at the end of the day, again, it is all about revenue, right? It's about revenue generation. And so accelerate would be, uh, uh, my next key thing that a partner manager needs to talk about. That's. I think we're on number three.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because one of the reasons we created the Partner Revenue Academy is we go deep into that. And one of the main goals of the program is shifting your mindset from a relationship manager to an active seller to an active sales manager. And that's a different mindset that you need to come with. But as we're talking about here, and as I've talked with hundreds of, uh, sales leaders in the OEM ISV M side and in the channel. If you, Mr. Partner Account Manager or Ms. Partner Account Manager, aren't making that shift to understanding what you need to do to become a sales manager, um, you're going to be struggling. And not only you're going to be struggling, you could be out of a job because you're not bringing what the company that you work with and the partner needs. And once again, we're doing this interview in September 2026, and the whole world has completely flipped. I was talking to a VP of sales the other day who said, we're almost in kindergarten with a lot of new things that we're having to learn and understand. And exactly what you're talking about here is going to be playing out in the partner revenue academy. That's going to be kicking off October 2nd. All right, Carmen, number four.

Speaker B: Number four is I need my partner account manager to be a champion for me inside their company. Right? Be a champion, be an advocate. That includes simplifying the partner experience I have working with you. I, uh, don't need to know all the complexities about your business because I work with dozens of vendors. So simplify it for me. Be my advocate. And this really becomes important when, when there's a channel conflict, right? I'm a partner out there selling. Maybe I run into a direct sales rep from my Vendors company, my OEM's company. And in order to mitigate that channel conflict, I need an advocate inside the company to help me get to where the win is. Right? So, um, being a champion and advocate is number four. And that priority of that. The priority of number four increases or decreases depending on where we are within the deal cycle. Um, sometimes it's just a given. Other times it's very important. Does the partner manager know someone in finance, in product, indirect sales, who can help us get through this conflict we're facing and get to the other side? So being a champion is my strong number four.

Speaker A: No, that's a great point. And, you know, one thing that we talk about a lot is if your company has adopted a channel strategy. And almost every company that we deal with has at this point, you know, you need to understand how are you making your partners as successful as possible? You know, we still see, unfortunately, Carmen, contentious relationships. And, you know, that may happen sometimes when it gets really down to the nuts and bolts of pricing, yada, yada. But, you know, the reality is your partner is closer to the customer. There's the reason why, you know, you're engaged with them and There's a reason why you need to give them the opportunity to be as successful as possible. Possible and more and more. One thing that we're seeing a lot, which is one reason why we created the Partner Revenue Academy and are doing all these podcasts with channel leaders like you and partnership experts, is because, uh, there's so much more dependence on the channel for being success for a whole bunch of different reasons that we've gone to in previous shows. Wow, these are great. Carmen, let's round us up here with number five.

Speaker B: Yeah, number five is it has to do with speed. Um, and you, you mentioned we're here in 2026 and the world's different. One of the ways it's different is we all have to move faster. And what I found is the only way a partner and their, and their, their oem, their ISV vendor partner are going to move fast is if you build trust, right? It's so important that you build trust with each other, person to person, company to company. And that, that involves open and transparent communications, right? So don't be afraid to let me know there's bad news. I didn't get the lead wrench. I didn't get the discount I needed. I, um, can't get into that account because your direct team has it as a do not, do not call account list for a national account, uh, type company. Be open with me, tell me bad news if you have to, and let's talk about it and how we're going to work through it. The other thing is we both need to do what we say we're going to do. That is so simple in business, right? Do what you say you're going to do. But how many times we leave a QBR and someone says, yeah, yeah, I'll get you that battle card. I'll do this, I'll do that. And then time goes by and nothing happens. And again, in order to move fast, we have to trust each other. And so building that trust is the foundation. I left it till number five, but without it, nothing else happens. Nothing else happens fast, and sometimes not much happens at all if you don't build that trust with one another. So that would be, uh, my, my fifth and anchor, uh, factor.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's really well said. I mean, as we're talking here, you know, we need to think about the word partner, right? You know, it's not enemy account manager. You know, it's partner account manager. And at the end of the day, the reason why, uh, our companies, the OEMs and ISVs that we work with at the IEPs, uh, have these partner relationships is because you need to build your business, you need to scale, you need to grow. Obviously companies have been doing this for 40, 50 years and in a lot of cases, a lot that we work with. But you know, even if you're new or if your company's growing, it's the fastest way to scale, uh, you know, at the end of the day. So what does. Think about that, listeners? What does partner mean? Partner means you both have something you want to achieve. You're going to work together to achieve it. And what we're doing with the partner revenue academy is putting some, uh, skills behind that and putting some regimen behind that and putting some, uh, working with you partner account managers to help you become more effective so that your company can drive more revenue and achieve the goals that your company has set up to achieve. Carmen, great five tips. I love them. Um, they're all very, very beneficial and helpful. Give us one final action step. Give us something that you recommend, uh, either partner account managers or anyone listening do today to take their sales career to the next level.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, great, great. I love it. Um, I think you look at those five keys we just went through, uh, for partner account managers and, and for any sellers, really, the, the one word I would say is be proactive. Right? Um, don't wait for the phone to ring or the text to come in or the email to come in. Be proactive as a, an OEM partner manager. Try and anticipate what your partners are seeing. If there's a news blurb out there about some acquisition by your competitor, assume they're going to want to know what the heck's going on, right? So be proactive. Communicate in a proactive manner. Act in a proactive manner, right? If you think your, your partner is going to need a better, a steeper discount because they're in a very competitive situation, maybe do some homework with product before they even ask you and say, hey, what is the floor? If they come and ask for three more points, five more points, is it possible? What would I have to do to get that? This way gets back to speed. When the partner does engage, you have an answer for them because you've done that proactive work. That's just one example of being proactive. So that's what I would say, Fred, and hopefully, uh, this helps you. And I, I think it does, you know, nicely into the curriculum you've put together and the speakers you've put together, uh, for your program.

Speaker A: Absolutely does be proactive. I love that. I recommend that to everybody. Sense the needs of the people that you're supporting and serving and your customers and your partners and your leadership. And the most successful people are the ones who definitely think that way and are proactive. All right. Once again, I want to thank Carmen Cerise for his five tips. Once again, the Partner Revenue Academy begins on on October 2nd. Hope to have you there. My name is Fred Diamond. This is the Sales Game Changers podcast.