Tanium’s Todd Palmer on Finding the Right Partners

Todd Palmer, senior vice president of global partner sales at Tanium, joins Larry Walsh to talk about the mythical “right partners” that vendors always seek to sell their products and why it’s important to set the right expectations when developing go-to-market partnerships. 

Vendors often say that they want to work with the right partners — resellers and solution providers with the ability and willingness to sell their products, support their customers, and, most of all, book consistent sales and beat revenue expectations.  

“The right partners” are the white whales of the channel — a bit of a myth, if not misnamed. A partner’s appropriateness for a vendor’s go-to-market needs and program depends on alignment of the right product, vendor brand and product marketability, and sales economics, and on the partner’s alignment in capabilities, capacity, and willingness to invest resources.  

That’s a pretty tall order, which is probably why the average vendor generates about 95% of its indirect revenue through less than 5% of its partners. And that’s also probably the reason why so many channel people say they want “the right” partners. In the survey for our 2022 Channel Chief Outlook, 83% of channel professionals said they’re challenged in getting partners to meet their sales goals and revenue expectations. 

It’s an endless pursuit to identify, recruit, enable, and engage partners that will self-actualize in the market, hunt for net-new opportunities, and build books of business that accelerate revenue growth. 

Channel veteran Todd Palmer, senior vice president of global partner sales at security vendor Tanium, joins Changing Channels to discuss ongoing efforts to find the right partners, how it’s often an unrealistic pursuit, and how vendors should approach the issue of finding qualified and capable go-to-market partners.  

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Episode Resources 

Host Larry Walsh: https://bit.ly/3beZfOa 

Guest Todd Palmer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-palmer-310807/ 

More videos by Larry Walsh: https://tinyurl.com/mr25a4cy