The Ideal Partnership with Alan Chhabra

In this episode of the Revenue Builders podcast, John Kaplan and John McMahon are joined by Alan Chhabra, Executive Vice President of WW Partners at MongoDB. Alan talks about starting the partner program at MongoDB and how he overcame some of the role’s biggest challenges.

Alan shares what he’s learned about establishing great partnerships, managing connections, and growing relationships with partners to maximize efficiency and long-term results. He also talks about his experience managing the complexities of client relationships, especially when it comes to competition.

Additional Resources:

• Connect with Alan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanchhabra/
• Visit MongoDB's website: https://www.mongodb.com/
• Donate to The Home for Little Wanderers: https://www.thehome.org/
• Support Vision-Aid: https://visionaid.org/
• More about Force Management | https://forc.mx/3waMDDS
• Increase Revenue by Improving the Manager/Seller Relationship | https://forc.mx/3bt8jTl
• Drive Revenue Growth Through Indirect Sales Channels | https://forc.mx/3nsioTh

HIGHLIGHTS

• How to manage the diversity of partnerships
• Gaining traction early with a partner
• The challenges of managing channel conflict
• The characteristics of the right people for a channel
• Establishing trust for enablement information
• Alan's advice on things you can get from a partner community

QUOTES

Alan: "When you put that together, then you get a handful of partners that you double down. I'm not one for where you just have hundreds of partners that you focus on. You really should get the ones that fit into all those buckets, and then you go deep."

Alan: "It does start on the street. If local sales leadership from both companies are not tight at the hip, global partnerships do not work. They may help with some marketing awareness, they may get people excited on LinkedIn, but if there's no real tight-at-the-hip at the geos, it doesn't work.

Alan: "The reason for that mistrust is usually because of misalignment on what's in it for them and what's in it for us. For example, if all that partner's job is to ambulance chase your deals in the field and steal points, the last thing you're going to do is share information with them."

Alan: "The customers' buying motion has changed. In the last five to seven years, customers now buy upfront infrastructure and commitments with the cloud provider."

Check out John McMahon’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Qualified-Sales-Leader-Proven-Lessons/dp/0578895064