For too many years I was a "gym lollygagger" going to the gym too inconsistently and when I did I measured my results on how much time I would spend there. I was basically checking the health check box and got zippo results. A few years ago I finally came to my senses and signed up for a personal trainer spending a pretty hefty monthly OPEX (Operating Expense) for a committed 12 months.

I think we all know how a very large percentage of the 10's of thousands of the IT Channel/IT Solutions Providers (VAR, MSP etc) came about starting decades ago. In case you dont,

Many, many, many of these were started by a guy/gal that became tired of "working for the man" at a vendor (Cisco, Avaya, HP, you name it) or at an existing large IT Solutions Provider and said "heck I can do this myself" and/or they were part of the latest RIF. So he or she hung up a shingle, brought on some clients they knew and that trusted him/her and next thing you know, over time the client base grew, they now had a handful of staff and "voila - a nice little business emerged". And do you know that virtually everyone of these guys/gals say today "it's the best decision I've ever made"

In today's cloud and digital world your sales (and marketing) staff must be Digital Athletes.

Am I ranting and raving when I constantly say - "What the heck is this guy/gal doing hiring a sales rep that was successful yesterday?" I'm not trying to be mean or belittle anyone but for anyone that knows me I'm just telling it like I see it. Hiring the guy/gal with the supposed Rolodex and was successful "yesterday" dialing for dollars is simply not going to work today - especially when selling recurring revenue cloud. Beyond the fact that today you need some form of marketing function feeding leads to a sales rep to make it all work, let's look at the DNA of today's sales rep - the Digital Athlete. Full disclosure first. When I read Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah and The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge I said "OMG we think eerily alike". Their thoughts on today's sales rep and mine are very similar.

I've been in awe of Hubspot's success for years now (full disclosure - CSBexcellence is a Hubspot user and Gold Partner),

• serious, serious growth for years now - in less than 10 years - Q4 2016 $76.4m revenue at 44% YY growth
• 23,000+ customers 
• selling SaaS (new definition of SaaS further down this blog) to the SMB!!!! I've been told hundreds of times from VC's "it's impossible to make a business selling SaaS to the SMB"
• a massive following including 10's of thousands at their annual Inbound conference

Cloud is growing faster than expectations!!!

Cloud vendors are pushing very hard for their channel partners to get in the cloud game and to start taking marketing seriously!!!

Channel partners are seeing cloud being consumed by their clients without them!!!

Oh.....yesterday's marketing won't get you where you want to go today.....today's marketing will....it's called digital aka inbound marketing - all based on the "buyers journey".

Here's how I see it,

The cloud-focused MSP or cloud focused IT Solutions Provider (what ever label you want to use) isn't going to cannibalize their current revenue streams coming from their non-cloud clients by aggressively introducing cloud to them - so if they are serious about cloud they need net-new clients for their cloud solutions and services. 

Same thing with the "born-in-the-cloud" guys - they obviously need net-new clients for their cloud solutions and services.

Problem, it's going to be "next to impossible" for most all of these guys to properly execute on today's digital marketing aka inbound or marketing 2.0 needed to fill their funnel of their cloud solutions and services with their lack of expertise and resources to consistently create, execute and manage digital marketing campaigns.

Yes, the cloud world is heating up. And an even more resounding yes to the marketing world heating up - even more? And for the cloud-focused IT Solutions Provider it's a double whammy!! How the hell is a cloud-focused IT Solutions Provider going to execute on this new world of marketing (let's call it marketing 2.0 for the heck of it) required to add great recurring revenue cloud business?

Four plus years ago (and reposted 9 months ago) CSBexcellence posted a blog discussing the evolution of the IT channel titled "The Cloud Solutions Provider aka Cloud Revenue Producer has Arrived". When originally posted way back when, we predicted that the next-gen partner - called the CSP or CSB or Modern MSP or whatever name you like would start ruling the channel world and the IT Channel Revolution had begun. This is the world of cloud-first partners truly capitalizing on cloud and building a high value business - and all cloud vendors and distis would heppy campers. Hmmmm.............

I took a call from a friend of mine earlier today while I was staring at my laptop noodling through my next blog topic. He described some email campaigns he was doing for his traditional VAR/MSP business that were getting terrible results.

He went on to describe it this way,

A traditional local/regional VAR trying to scale their new RMM (Remote Management and Monitoring) MSP business by finding net-new customers. First, stop the presses!!! A good old traditional VAR starting an RMM MSP business now??? Hello, cloud!!!

I've been quite involved in the Microsoft CSP program including creating business plans for CSBexcelllence's clients to become a Microsoft CSP. A couple observations (maybe call them predictions) I made going back 2+ years ago,

1. A vast percentage of Indirect CSPs will first emerge outside of North America - that has been true to date. As I look at the latest map/list of Indirect CSPs, rough count I see approximately 11% are represented in North America - 89% outside North America. To be honest - no shocker to me at all - as a matter of fact just a few weeks ago I recently posted this blog -  "Are North America Channel Partners Going to Get into the Cloud?"