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This Ecosystem Tech Leader Joins Ultimate Guide to Partnering®

Technology that drives partner and ecosystem growth is taking center stage and promises to propel us forward in this “Decade of the Ecosystem.” Rick van den Bosch is part of the movement we’re all seeing to help partners and vendor organizations better engage through partner marketing that drives best-in-class engagement and results. Rick is the founder and CEO of Channext, a partner marketing platform and organization that helps channel teams to scale and measure their through partner marketing and partner engagement activities to increase revenue. Is this one leader building the largest channel technology platform in the world?

In Rick’s Words

Rick is the Founder and CEO of Channext. He has partnerships blood running through his veins and fell in love with the channel at a young age. With Channext, Rick has made it his personal goal to fundamentally change how partners and vendors collaborate, market, and sell together.

What You’ll Learn

• Rick’s mission and Channext’s product-market fit (2:44)
• The State of Partner Portals (6:46)
• How Channext works? (11:03)
• Plans for future expansion (14:49)

Creating Ultimate Partnerships

Let’s face it, we all have seen partnerships that look good on paper but never live up to their expected results. There are many reasons why partnerships fail, and at Ultimate Partnerships, we help you get it right by applying a proven set of best practices and frameworks. If you want to learn more, follow the link in the show notes, or visit our website.

Partner Ecosystem Leader Episodes

163 – A Partnership Leader Uniquely Growing Hubspot’s Ecosystem Community

162 – How You Can Unleash the Power of Data to 10X Your Partner Growth!

153 – Janet Schijins – Ecosystems & Megacosm

150- Celebrating 150 Amazing Episodes with a Five-Timer Guest, Jay McBain

149 – WTF is an Ecosystem? And How Partner Hacker helps tech companies PartnerUp with Jared Fuller

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Transcription – by Otter.ai – Expect Typos

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

partner, partnerships, vendor, portal, marketing, parkins, started, partnering, year, building, content, companies, engagement, ecosystem, rick, platform, organization, ultimate guide, continuously, channel

SPEAKERS

Announcer, Rick van den Bosch, Vince Menzione

Vince Menzione  00:00

technology that drives partner and ecosystem growth is taking center stage, and promises to propel us forward in this decade of the ecosystem. My next guest on Ultimate Guide to partnering is part of the movement we’re all seeking to help partners and vendor organizations better engage on through partner marketing that drives best in class engagement and results.

Announcer  00:28

This is the ultimate guide to partnering the top partnership podcast. In this podcast Vince Menzione, a proven partner sales executive shares his mission to help leaders like you achieve your greatest results through successful partnering. And now your host Vince Menzione.

Vince Menzione  00:47

Welcome to or welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and today I will Rick bandwidth. Bosch is the founder and CEO of Chantix, a partner marketing platform and organization that helps channel teams to scale and measure their through partner marketing and partner engagement activities to increase revenue based in the Netherlands chan ext has been working with many leading vendors and just raise their series A and I’m so excited for their continued expansion and growth. I so enjoyed this conversation with Rick and I hope you enjoy our discussion as much as I enjoyed getting to know Rick bend and Bosch. I’m so excited to welcome athletic greens as the latest sponsor to ultimate guide to partnering friends who know me well know I’ve made taking a green drink supplement part of my health ritual for over 20 years now. About five years ago I added athletic greens and now their product ag one has become my go to green drink supplement. Ag one is packed with 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, Whole Foods source superfoods, probiotics and antigens. It literally is replaced every vitamin in my cabinet. If you’d like to give ag one a try athletic greens is giving away a free one year supply of vitamin D and five travel packs with every new purchase. Check them out at athletic greens.com forward slash Vince AM. Rick, welcome to the podcast.

Rick van den Bosch  02:31

Thank you, Vince. I’m super excited to be here today.

Vince Menzione  02:33

I am so excited to welcome you to ultimate guide to partnering. You’re the founder and CEO of chat next, a partner marketing engagement platform and the host of your own successful podcast. So welcome.

Rick van den Bosch  02:45

So yeah, I’m very excited to be in this space and also to be chatting about partnerships with you today.

Vince Menzione  02:50

Such a great topic we both care so much about but for our listeners that don’t know you or Chantix, can you tell us a little bit about you and your mission? Yeah, I

Rick van den Bosch  02:59

think Gen X was founded four years ago. And what we’re building is our goal is to build the largest channel platform in the world, where we really bring together partners and vendors in a single platform, I think one of the things I started to notice is that all partners are working with multiple vendors. And they have to do all kinds of interactions together to grow their business together. So in terms of marketing, in terms of training in terms of sales enablement, but because they work with so many vendors, they have to go to all different types of portals. And what we did with MX is combined it all together in one interface for the platform. So it becomes a lot easier for partners and a lot better partner experience. And for defenders, there’s the advantage that they have a lot higher engagement, but also get to see a lot more data about their partner so they can adjust their strategy accordingly.

Vince Menzione  03:48

So who specifically is your ideal customer profile

Rick van den Bosch  03:52

we started four years ago, specifically in the hardware market. So we started with companies like Logitech and Dell, and companies like that. So with a lot of partners, and now we see a big shift where we had more and more into SAS companies as well. So who are maybe kickstarting their partnerships and starting to work together with partners. And the advantage for companies who are building their program is that we have a marketplace for the partners where they can actually find new vendors as well. So it also really helps to build your parking network in such a way. So it’s bi directional. Yeah, it’s really bringing most value to both of them. And by putting the parking experience first making sure that for them it becomes as easy as possible that feminists eventually benefit from it as well.

Vince Menzione  04:36

So dive in a little bit more for me on this platform. We talk about this decade of the ecosystem. What is the gap that it solves for? Is it specifically around partner and vendor engagement?

Rick van den Bosch  04:47

Yeah, I think that’s the most important benefit, what we are working on, like how can you really increase that engagement? I think what we what I saw a lot in the market was that we are continuously trying to improve the software and trying to improve the portals. But the big this has fallen to suppose that Parkins we’re not going there. Because they have so many things to do. They have many projects to manage, they are focused on sales, and then also managing all the portals and finding the content and the training they need, that they were not doing it. And the vision really was what if we turn around to process and don’t wait for Parkins to come to the portal, but we bring the content that’s in the portal proactively to the partners. And in that way, you can really boost engagement in a whole different way.

Vince Menzione  05:29

So tell me about your journey here. Right. So you started this organization about four years ago? Was there a spark that got you on the path to entrepreneurship?

Rick van den Bosch  05:37

Yeah, definitely. I think both to entrepreneurship and to partnership, almost my whole family, from my father’s side are entrepreneurs. And also many people in my family come from the channel, actually. So my father, he, he led the apple, Benelux team here in the 90s, here in Benelux but also always stayed active with next companies within the channel. My uncle works at Microsoft, for example. So partnerships was always a very lively topic with our within our home. And I think that’s really what already sparked the interest at a young age there.

Vince Menzione  06:11

What did you do before you started the organization? Was there something else that you did in the channel, or along your path that got you here?

Rick van den Bosch  06:20

Yeah, when I was a, when I was a teenager, I was always very intrigued with marketing. So I started building websites and doing paid advertising with Facebook ads just launched and social media etc. And then when I was 20, I was still in university. But I thought I wanted to start my own company. And then it made sense. I know a little bit of marketing and acquired so much about China from other stories that I’ve heard. So let’s start a marketing agency within the channel. So we help companies like Samsung to actually launch when they had a product launch, for example, that we helped them to launch that to the partners as well. So we were responsible for activating and engaging partners with their marketing programs. And I think that’s where you could say, where I found out how hard that can be. Because when I started, I was really like, okay, we can work a lot on the strategy, we can work a lot on the creative side of marketing, but the reality that was that we were 80% of the time, continuously calling the partners and chasing them to participate. And every time when I spoke to partners, I heard that they really want to participate. But that oftentimes, they really just don’t have the time for it. And that’s really what triggered, can we start working in a different way together with our partners,

Vince Menzione  07:32

but you participate in reminded me of a event you participated in last year regarding the death of the partner portal, and some friends, I think was Jared Fuller, who hosted the event, and Jay McBain was also involved in that. Where do you believe we are with regards to partner portals.

Rick van den Bosch  07:50

I think that was a very, very nice event. And the great that was hosted by partner hacker. And I think a very good discussion there. And I think how J explained to this very well is that you need like your portal to have your central source as vendor where you bring everything, but that it’s very hard to expect from your partners that everyone is coming to your portal. And I think that’s really where we have to rethink how we want to approach our partnerships and help the ecosystem in the best way. And I think that’s indeed where solutions like checks, for example are also work spend chip purchase was also part of the debate come in, where we actually combine all those portals into a single place for the partner where they can interact with this. And I think there you really shift the mindset from siloed portals to open ecosystem is such a way and really bring your assets and your content to the place where your partners are the most.

Vince Menzione  08:44

So dive in with me a little bit on the underlying technology and how it solves for that.

Rick van den Bosch  08:49

And we really started from a marketing perspective. So what I saw was that on average, less than 15% of Parkins, were participating in the marketing activities of their vendors. And that’s where I thought, okay, but what if we turn this around, and don’t wait for partners to come to the portal, but we bring it through them, for example, with the Chetniks platform partners can connect their websites, their social media profiles, their CRM system, etc. So we don’t have all kinds of manual actions anymore. But we can actually serve the partners with the right content. So once a partner gets on board of the gemix platform, we ask them all kinds of questions about their go to market strategy. So what I prefer to have categories do sell from this fender of what I prefer articles, are you focused on in what language do you communicate with your end user? And by asking these questions, we can segment the partners in buckets and only provide them with the content that’s relevant for them. So in such a way, we have the right content for the right partners, and then you can start automating because a partner never wants automation when they just get all type of content that’s not relevant for them, right. But if you have the right segmentation and then combine that with what we call an opt out system. So with us, it’s not that the partner goes into checks and says I want to participate in a certain campaign or a certain social selling campaign, for example. But they tell us upfront what type of content they love. And then we only provide them with death content. And then it automatically publishes if they do not reject. So we turn it around, and then you really go to a participation and engagement of 93% on efforts versus less than 15.

Vince Menzione  10:30

Yeah, so I’m not having to go into the portal and just keep looking all the time for what’s coming from my vendor. It’s feeding the information up to me, it’s giving me what I need. And in many cases, it’s automating the process for me

Rick van den Bosch  10:41

100%, certainly it is, it’s a combination of that bringing the right content to the right partner and automating the process, but very important, always with the partner in control, because that’s what they find very important that they always have the end saying, so to say, of what really is posted to their social media, their website, or what is shared internally to all their employees.

Vince Menzione  11:03

My personal experience has been like the partners, when I was a vendor, the partners would only come when they did deal registration.

Rick van den Bosch  11:11

I see the same indeed, I think Jay said that the best during the portal debate, he said, if he would remove all the mandatory actions, like the required actions that Parkins have to do to get discounts, rebates, etc, or certification, then there would be zero logins left. And I think that’s really if you think about that, we need to have a whole different perspective on how we enable our partners in terms of sales and marketing as well. It was a very interesting debate, yes.

Vince Menzione  11:40

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Rick van den Bosch  12:40

I think when we reached out to them, it was really on that same point. And it and I think that it helped at the beginning that we were so specifically focused on the marketing piece there, where we started asking questions to the channel marketers to the partner marketers, and as soon as you got into that frustration of putting a lot of time and energy into content and spending a lot of resources and budgets on it. But then seeing it there on the shelf. So to say where it’s not being utilized by our partners, that hurts a lot for a lot of people who are invested in that put all their energy into creating that content. And that’s really where we could show them the results of actually how much higher the engagement is if you turn around that process. So I think that was the key reason for for getting started.

Vince Menzione  13:27

And the results you’re seeing you mentioned 93% utilization, is that the average? Is that a spike? What are you seeing in general,

Rick van den Bosch  13:35

that’s the average that we see for our campaign and for content, like from all your connected partners. So once they connected their website, social, etc, there are approximately maybe 3%, who reject where they say this does not fit my strategy at the moment. But we also always ask a rejection reason. So you have the feedback loop back into defender, how they can improve their content. And I think then there’s two to 3% as well, who edits the content, so who doesn’t just have it pushed automatically, but then says I want to put my own tone of voice on it or my own image, for example. And in such a way you get to the that result.

Vince Menzione  14:11

I told Jay he’s become the pied piper. Everybody’s quoting Jay these days. Right. So he has this partner ecosystem tech landscape, he equates it to the MAR tech stack. Where does Chen next fit? What areas you talked about the marketing areas? Are there other areas around partner portals that it doesn’t solve for

Rick van den Bosch  14:30

you? I think indeed we are at the moment in the true channel marketing automation there as well. There is no marketing before ecosystem yet. I expect it to come quite soon. Yes. And then I think what we do really notice especially with SAS companies who are building their parking program is that they use Genet completely as their PRM as well. So with lead and deal registration, and that’s our partner record system to have a complete timeline of every interaction with those partners. But the thing for example, where we really look at to bargain chips is when it comes to for example training, where you can actually utilize it to like date with where you can bring all types of different types of training into a central hub. Or eventually we’re looking at account mapping to connect with crossbeam, and things like that. So we really want to take that ecosystem approach, not build everything ourselves, but combine all the best tools for the best partner journey there.

Vince Menzione  15:25

So assuming you’re going to create API’s, are you going to surface the app? Is it going to be one pane of glass? I would say for the customer, or for the partner? Yeah, for

Rick van den Bosch  15:33

the partner. Specifically, we’re going for the one pane of glass there. Yeah. So it might be that it need for the feminists, sometimes you edit your content or do certain things in auditors, but definitely for the partner, make sure that they have one interface. I think that’s always been the goal, from the get go within chinext with a starting focus on marketing, but expanding into every type of interaction a partner has with a fender.

Vince Menzione  15:55

So exciting times. Now, you recently raised a very significant round of capital, especially for a new company. Can you share that more of that with our listeners?

Rick van den Bosch  16:05

Last September, we raised 4.5 million series, a round here in Europe, as well. And I think for us, the main goal now was really to expand further into Europe. And we also launched with our first customers in the US. And that’s the big roadmap at the moment, the road to the US, because that’s what I found out. It’s where almost every headquarter of hardware and SaaS companies is located.

Vince Menzione  16:29

Yeah. So you’re primarily in what I would call the EMEA region, right? Yeah, your Middle East and Africa or just Europe at this point?

Rick van den Bosch  16:39

Mostly Europe. So we we kick started just in, in the Netherlands. And then last year 2022, we really expanded into Europe. So we really grew our partner base as well in the UK, Nordics, France, the dark region. And now we’re really looking into southern Europe and US. That’s the road ahead for this year.

Vince Menzione  16:59

So where do you see yourself in three years?

Rick van den Bosch  17:02

Good question myself, I hope to live in the US. I’m actually quite sure I’m going to do that. We’re going to make the move as a company there as well next year. And that’s what I think we are really on that journey of building that that channel platform and with the partner at the center. And therefore it’s important that we eventually build that marketplace with the right vendors on it and the right partners. And that’s the thing we are continuously working on and experimenting with a theme as well.

Vince Menzione  17:28

You and I talked about this before the podcast right so you have you have quite a few of us down here in Florida and including your uncle I believe lives in the west coast of Florida. And then of course you’ve got Jay McBain Janet shine myself all the way down here in the southeast corner of the state.

Rick van den Bosch  17:45

I think Florida is a good place to to live. Have I heard from all of you guys?

Vince Menzione  17:49

Certainly the climate is right. This is the ultimate guide to partnering. Rick, what do you believe makes a great partnership?

Rick van den Bosch  17:56

I think the best partnerships are where you are very interested in each other. I think that’s the thing, what I what we are talking a lot about on our podcast as well. Like how do you really make it about a partner. And that goes two ways, of course, both from Fender to Parker as from Parkman to vendor or many people say, nowadays, it’s parking to partner. And I think that’s really a crucial thing to know, like really understand from each other. What are your goals? What are your needs? And how can I best serve you to grow together. And I think if you really focus on that continuously, and with every initiative you enroll, or with every type of action you take, then that will really bring your partnership forward.

Vince Menzione  18:37

used an interesting word used interesting as the word I like to use the word committed, do you see them as one in the same?

Rick van den Bosch  18:44

Good question? I think indeed, it starts with interest. But definitely, eventually commitment is important as well. Because I really believe in giving without expecting, but eventually if you start building a business together, and you start relying on each other more and more, then of course, it’s also crucial that you are committed to each other. So you know, you can count on each other.

Vince Menzione  19:05

I love that. What about when partnerships fail? What do you see? Is there a Kryptonite that gets in the way that basically a dysfunction of a partnership?

Rick van den Bosch  19:14

I think maybe like, in general, what I see especially now I’m talking more and more to growing companies as well who are building that partner program is that I see that like forget about departments that made them successful. So continuously, we are looking for the next big partner, everyone wants to work with Accenture, with Deloitte. But I think that’s something that I have very highly like never forget who brought you to the point where you are at so that’s the thing I would really love to advise to vendor, because yeah, definitely if you forget about them, and the partner has that feeling that like things are changing, or you go direct, for example, in their market, etc. That’s where you break trust. And I think that’s if trust is broken. It’s almost impossible to recover it.

Vince Menzione  19:53

Yeah, that reminds me so much that the shiny new object right and we forget The organizations that have brought us along the way, it is so important to continue to rekindle, I guess I would say, those relationships while you build your business, like you can’t avoid the fact if you’re going to grow your business, you need to have other partners that are going to help propel your success, but never forgetting where you came from.

Rick van den Bosch  20:17

Yeah, I fully agree there. Of course, you need to keep building your program. And you get all the theories like what specific approaches to different types of partners as well. But indeed, always make sure you keep giving attention to the partners that made you successful.

Vince Menzione  20:31

So tell us a little bit about this podcast you’ve created. That’s

Rick van den Bosch  20:34

partnerships, and raffles, we launched it early October. And we’re very much trying to look at it from different perspectives. So both from a sales and from a market thing and then enablement from the vendor side, but then also sometimes really trying to step into the shoes of the partner. Think that’s because we are building that marketplace, we are talking to many partners on a daily basis. So I think that’s really the unique note we’re trying to take there. We started recording together with my co host, Alex Whitford, who is VP Parkins, Hara GemEx. And next quarter, we’re also actually planning to really start inviting guests on the podcast, I highly enjoy building it

Vince Menzione  21:12

wonderful. And we’re going to provide a link in our show notes for listeners to follow along and join your podcast journey as well. So Rick, you have been an amazing guests, I am so excited for you and the future of your organization. As we really kick 2023 into high gear, what advice do you have for our listeners about optimizing for success?

Rick van den Bosch  21:33

Look at your existing partner base. Because what I think what I’m writing a lot about on LinkedIn, as well and speaking a lot about with customers is the partner engagement gap where we continuously recruit partners and get them on board. But then we don’t have the resources to continuously train them to enable them to onboard them properly. And what you see there is that you only have a certain attention span, which are partners. So if you lose their attention, you have the risk that they don’t engage with you and eventually churn out. And I think of course, the upcoming year is all about spending your resources in the best way possible and growing in a sustainable way. And that’s really the key part of the partners you are getting on board and the Parkins you do have on board, how can you shift your resources in enabling them in the best way to grow together? And I think that’s a crucial thing to look at for 2023.

Vince Menzione  22:25

Shifting your resources in the best way to help you grow together. I love that. Rick, that’s such great advice for our listeners today.

Rick van den Bosch  22:33

Yeah, and I think how I always call it like really shift from partner recruitment mindset into partner success mindset. I think that’s if I would have to summarize it in one, one sentence that will be

Vince Menzione  22:43

I’m reminded of the acre of diamonds, right, so you have an acre of diamonds in your backyard, you just need to find it, discover it and have it flourish.

Rick van den Bosch  22:53

Absolutely agree.

Vince Menzione  22:55

Rick, thank you, again for being on Ultimate Guide to partnering. I’m so excited for your journey. I’m so excited to continue our relationship. So thank you for your time today.

Rick van den Bosch  23:03

Thanks a lot, Vince. I enjoyed the love.

Vince Menzione  23:05

Thank you. So there you have it. Another amazing guest joins Ultimate Guide to partnering. And I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did. Odds are if you’re a technology partner, executive and hearing my voice, chances are you too, are looking to accelerate your success through partnerships. I mean, let’s face it. We all have seen partnerships that look good on paper, but never live up to their expected results. There are a lot of reasons why partnerships fail. And that ultimate partnerships, we help you get it right by applying a proven set of best practices and framework that’s used by leading partners working with Microsoft, and other technology giants. If you want to learn more, follow the link in the show notes, or visit our website at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com.

Announcer  23:58

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering with your host Vince Menzione online at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com and facebook.com/ultimate Guide to partner and we’ll catch you next time on The Ultimate Guide to partnering