Charles Lewis: Co-Selling with AWS and Driving Customer Outcomes

Chip Rodgers  0:01  
Hey everyone. Chip Rodgers, Chief partner Officer at workspan and, man, we just had a fantastic event here. We've got, I think, about 100 people here in the background. Everybody's mingling and networking. And we're here in San Francisco, of course, and just had a fantastic event. I am very excited to be talking with Charles Lewis, so we're just going to chat a little bit about some of the things that Charles Charles is with AWS and a partner sales leader with a two pizza team. And your focus is around, you know, data and Gen AI and those kinds of sort of ISB partners for North America. Charles, tell me a little bit about what you're a little more about what your you and your team are up to these days.

Charles Lewis  0:49  
Yeah. So we're a partner sales organization, and again, like I said, a two pizza team. It's like running eight folks. And we really have a North America remit to really drive outcomes, working in conjunction with our partners, actually working with ISVs, who are our customers. So a very, very interesting remit, because that means we're actually working uniquely with our customers who are actually ISVs.

Chip Rodgers  1:15  
That's, that's great. So they're, they're both customers and partners, because they're ISVs and putting solutions together with AWS, and

Charles Lewis  1:23  
exactly so we kind of think of, you know, as they're thinking about how their business and how they grow their businesses, a lot of that has to do with how they actually are engaged in acquiring customers, which are ISVs.

Chip Rodgers  1:36  
Well, that's interesting. So some of the content here today was about how to co sell with AWS. And you know, how do you grow your your pipeline? Some just, you know, amazing stats. I think some folks may already know that anybody that's in partner partnering already knows that. You know, higher win rates, bigger deal sizes and faster close you know to, you know, when you're working with partners, clearly, that's that's true with AWS. So talk a little bit about your experience and your team. CO selling with with ISVs. Well, I

Charles Lewis  2:12  
think co selling with ISVs into customers, whether they're ISVs or, quite frankly, not ISVs. You know, we really, really appreciate all the partners that are in our ecosystem. Number one ISVs consulting partners. We have an incredible breadth of partners that we work with. We really focus on our on the leadership principle of customer obsession. We really like to work backwards in working with our partner ecosystem, in what problems they're solving, how they're meeting our customer on their journey to actually solve their problems and help them, like we said, when it's specific to ISVs, it's how do we ultimately helping them acquire more customers? So that's, you know what we when we look at that, our mission when we're in partner sales, we're really trying to help fit together, working with the partners, and matching that together with our customers they're trying to get for and drive what I consider to be insights and outcomes. What insights do you have? What outcomes do you seek, and matching that up with our field sales to ultimately help solve our customer problems better, whether that's cheaper, faster, better, you know, accelerate their business. We're in for it all to really drive customer obsession. Working with partners,

Chip Rodgers  3:22  
that's great. So it is. It's all about the customer, right? If it's like delivering value and delivering outcomes. So

Charles Lewis  3:28  
in that journey, I would say we're all about how do we earn trust? Earn trust with you, our partners, with our customers, with our field and we're partner sales. We're really catalysts to actively make that doing, and I have to appreciate what you've done here today. There's a lot of really significant partner ecosystems. Some are early on their journey. Some are, you know, optimizing their business. But I think all of them have that interest. And how do they drive a more efficient operation overall, so that they can drive co sell engagement that that in many cases have, I know I'm not comprehensive of everything I just said, but you know, a lot of those things, those pieces and parts come together really well when they grow that ecosystem, whether, regardless of where they are in their journey,

Chip Rodgers  4:08  
yeah, that's so it's so true. Because you're, you're able to deliver a better solution, ultimately, to customers, because you got, you're putting all the pieces together to that really, you know, can, can do something effective and valuable for them, absolutely so. So what's, what's new, what's on the horizon, or what's, I think, you know, one of the big things that's happening with AWS is just this industry focus around industries. Talk a little bit about what that, what that means to you and to AWS? Well, there

Charles Lewis  4:37  
certainly is across the in the the ecosystem or the industry, if you will, I would say we're really have organized a lot of our business, our enterprise business, around industries. So we're actually approaching customers and meet them where they are and speak the way they speak, and drive solutions and offerings that that actually help solve their so. Of what they're looking for. So

Chip Rodgers  5:02  
make some industries that would be a good example of, like financial service. Like,

Charles Lewis  5:07  
yeah, financial services, automotive, manufacturing, gaming, actually digital native still is a category. And you know, we also do think of our business in terms of ISVs as a collective whole,

Chip Rodgers  5:20  
as when industry Absolutely, I'd consider that so well, Charles, thank you so much for taking a few minutes and sharing your thoughts. We I think our have a lot of you know partner, partner leaders, partner folks that always want to hear from professionals that and leaders that have have been successful like you, Charles. So really appreciate you taking the time today.

Charles Lewis  5:44  
You bet. Thank you. Chip I just had when an AWS and partner sales, we wake up thinking about our customers first, but we actually think about, how do we help you our partners evolve your business and evolve our business. So we're really passionate about our customers, but also our partners and how we help you all grow. So thank you for having me. Yeah, fantastic, Charles, thank you. Okay, thanks everybody. We'll see you next time I know there's anything.

‍