Member Spotlight: Cloud GTM Leader Course - Jesse Kilgore

Jesse Kilgore, a standout alum of Cloud GTM Leader course, shares his insights on how 💡 Alliance leaders can ride the wave of Cloud GTM momentum.

Jesse's experience in alliances is truly in-depth: he leads Emerging Partner Development at Workiva after nearly a decade leading alliances at Salesforce.

🛤️ Journey and Marketplace Importance

I’m newer to Cloud Marketplaces, but this moment in partnerships /ecosystems feels very similar to the ‘Moneyball’ era of baseball with the rise of analytics vs gut feeling from professional scouts.

SaaS companies have a huge opportunity to partner with hyperscalers to hedge against competition and to even use competition as validation.

Companies that have a compelling "better together" narrative, along with operational and enablement advantages, are positioned to significantly enhance their partnerships with CSPs due to their flexibility and the strategic deployment of their skill sets.

Cloud Marketplaces build on traditional channel partnerships to boost your sales and customer reach, potentially faster and to audiences beyond what your go-to-market team can achieve alone.

🎯 Key Insights

The strategy is the most important piece of your Cloud Alliance journey. Understanding that, you need to transform how your company runs its transaction process and operationally what partnering with a CSP can do to leap your business forward.

Roman led with a James Clear quote that really stuck with me throughout the course: ‘When making plans, dream big. When making progress, think small.’

Our rapidly evolving GTM landscape demands swift results; however, establishing these partnerships is a gradual process that requires significant buy-in. Therefore, it is essential to thoroughly prepare and align on internal KPIs during the planning phase.

The amount of change management to make it all work becomes the biggest variable. Growing this partnership if you aren’t operationally prepared can be a fatal mistake, but with the right approach, it could be the growth engine to take your org to the next level.

The Cloud GTM leader course has forever changed how I look at Partner Operations and Enablement for the better. These are stealth competitive advantages that many organizations undervalue and underinvest in.

📊 Untapped Opportunities in Cloud Marketplaces

Cloud Marketplaces will give Alliances much more influence in the overall GTM struggle that exists with Sales inside organizations. Cloud Alliances give companies a large reason to unify their go to market team to combine sales and partnerships to create a more modern sales engine that drives more revenue faster.

I’m bullish that partners are the fastest way to bring customers to their proverbial SaaS-based “promised land”.

📈 Cloud GTM Leader Course

I highly recommend it to everyone looking to get a crash course to round out their alliances experience or seasoned Cloud Alliance Directors looking to go deeper.

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📈 Accelerate your Growth in Cloud Marketplaces

Transform your marketplace strategy with first-hand insights from Cloud GTM leaders in our 5-week cohort course. Learn in a community of great alliance leaders. Join 100+ alums from companies like GitLab, Darktrace, IDC and others.

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