Gary Sheedy, Director of Commercial Partner Programming at DAQRI, joins host Jen Spencer on The Allbound Podcast to discuss how to find the right partners and build a solid partner program.

You operate in a highly technical, specialized industry, how do partnerships come about?

With DAQRI, it's not a problem trying to get people interested in the technology. It's about bringing them out of the blue skies and showing them what's actually possible. We bring in partners and train them up on the use of technology and expertise, or in this case DAQRI's expertise, and deliver that to the market. This gives them a jump ahead from their competition in their market space by showing thought leadership and the use of augmented reality in their space, and also they are able to show significant return on investment to their customers and increased efficiency.

What checks does your team have in place to ensure it's the right partnership for DAQRI?

We have a two pronged approach. One is working with large key accounts and understanding who they currently work with. Then we work with targeting specific expertise in the particular marketplace we would acquire. Finally we work with partners to get trained up with our partner program and with DAQRI's strategies and goals.

If you've identified someone is not a fit, how do you politely turn them away?

It's a continually evolving artform. We provide a scorecard which mixes technical and commercial expertise and line it up with our strategic goals and the various market segments we're targeting. This allows us to compare the relative values of various partners. If they have a certain score then obviously we will engage directly, and get them up and going. What we typically do with those who don't meet the initial criteria is work with them on marketing to make sure that they can get informed.

DAQRI doesn't have a traditional reseller model. Why did you go the route of affiliate partners?

We have a seller model where we sell and warrant the software ourselves and then work with our partners to develop and support their business models. That way they can make good commercial results out of using the DAQRI platform and the applications they have developed on selling their customers. This would obviously migrate into a resellers model once we have some proven data in the market. We expect that will start happening sometime in the middle of the next year.

What tips do have for building a partner program?

Building a partner program is essentially creating another appendage of your company. For me, a successful partner program means operating and representing exactly how DAQRI wants to be represented in the market. When I started, the process has been about figuring out what that looks like and how to put a plan in place from a program and delivery perspective. Then it's about developing the artifacts, the processes, the control manner and the mechanisms.

Speed Round Questions:

What's your favorite city? Munich.

Are you an animal lover? Yes, dogs.

Mac or PC? Mac.

Uber or Lyft? Uber.

All expenses paid trip to where? Bern, Switzerland.

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