Chelsea Berlucchi: Partnering for Impact: Inside Google Cloud Co-Sell

Chip Rodgers  0:01  
Hey everyone, Chip Rodgers, here in Las Vegas, at Google Cloud Next and wow, what a great I mean, just so much energy here. A bunch of people here already. It's not even started until tomorrow. Officially, I know

Chelsea Berlucchi  0:14  
we just actually opened up. So this year we're doing the Partner Summit on pretty much a day zero. So we got to build some momentum a little bit earlier on in the week, which is pretty, pretty fun.

Chip Rodgers  0:26  
Yeah, that's great. That's great. So partners also get to hear a little bit ahead of time, right? They get the sneak peek. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So I am so excited to be joined by Chelsea Berluti, Chelsea, is you head up sales organization, co sell organization within North America and and just doing incredible work. Just fantastic. And Chelsea, also, you've been with Google for about seven years in a number of right now, you handle across all kinds of partners. Previously, ISVs, more focused on ISVs and sales roles, and then 10 years at Cisco and always working with customers and driving value for customers. So Chelsea, welcome.

Chelsea Berlucchi  1:15  
Thank you. Thank you for having me. Yes. So I've been at Google for almost seven years now, as you said, so I've been in both the field role as well as working with partners. Right now, I lead up our sub regional co sell team. So my team works directly with field sellers as well as customers to drive as much partner business as possible, and of course, surfacing that that partner value as well to our field teams, but also our customers. That's

Chip Rodgers  1:41  
fantastic. How What's your the size of your team? How many? How many sellers, or CO sell? You know, support folks are there in in your organization, and then in Scott's organ,

Chelsea Berlucchi  1:51  
sure. So, quite a bit, actually. So overall, in this, this ecosystem, several 100, we have folks that are aligned to what we call a micro region or a cluster, which is a field team or a Field Sales Director team. So really what we try to drive there is a lot of cohesion between both our partner ecosystem as well as the field. They have one individual. They can pick up the phone and call and say, Hey, let's get closer to my business. I want to understand which partners are working here. How can I work with partners to grow and drive more business with my end customer as well.

Chip Rodgers  2:23  
That's great. That's fantastic. So what are the things that your team is doing, working with partners to help them with Google, to drive value for the for the customer,

Chelsea Berlucchi  2:34  
yeah. So that is the core of our role, is cosell, and so a lot of that comes down to the coaching for both our partners, but then also the coaching for sellers. And it's truly around fostering positive engagements, but also making those very strong and strategic. And the way we really do that, we've done some changes this year so within the organization, we've gotten very tightly focused on verticals as well as incubating industries, and so we're asking our partners to come to us with strong customer use cases. How have you made impact to a specific type of customer? How are you driving value? How are you adding to a business of a specific organization? And that's the quickest way that we see our field sellers really grasp and understand the value of partners and then figure out, okay, this is how and when I can bring in this particular partner to drive this workload, or this is how I can service this partner, by offering them a marketplace solution as well. So it's really that process that end to end process. How do we get partners to show up better and explain their value, and then how do we also coach our sellers to evaluate and to work more closely with partners as well.

Chip Rodgers  3:41  
That's great. That's great. So it's, it's kind of like solidifying in in the field of the FSRs, you know, mind who, who is this partner, right? What do they deliver? It's a lot of talk this morning already about industries. Tell me about that.

Chelsea Berlucchi  3:57  
Yeah. So, you know, we, we got a lot of feedback right from not only our customers, but also our partners, and in particular with our customers, is we want folks that are sitting across the table from us that are telling us insights about our business that may we may not already know, or areas pockets that one we want to grow and develop, right? So we want them to say, hey, here's how we can support you and maybe your end user, whether that's a hospital and it's patients, and we're really figuring out how to modernize that patient care, or maybe it's financial services, or maybe it's retail. And so we've seen that by really getting around a vertical really helps us refine that story and prove impact, not just in it, but outside lines of business. To really figure out, how do we broaden that digital transformation by then, again, situating the right partners that can drive the right value to their end customer, they really get on board faster, and then they see again, that time to value a lot faster as well. That's

Chip Rodgers  4:53  
terrific. That's really that's fantastic. So what are some things that Chelsea, that you're seeing? Being or that are you're, you know that partners should know about this year that are really important. I

Chelsea Berlucchi  5:04  
mean, you know, I think you probably know my answer before it comes out of my AI, but it's going to be all around agentic AI, and I love it, because that means we are getting back to thinking about an end user or knowledge worker, right, really getting that technology and productivity into the hands of the person that's probably the one most often using it and transforming or impacting the way that they work. For our partners, they're going to be there at lock staff with us. We can't make sure that we get agent space in the hands of our customers without a partner that's there on the delivery, on the sourcing, driving a proof of value. So really, that entire cycle is alongside a partner. And by the way, so many of them are getting certified. They're implementing themselves, they're investing, and they're really learning how to not only make sure that they're they're delivering that to the end customer, one by that self practice, but also making sure they're there when, you know, again, Google's in a meeting, they're also there with us too. And so whether that be through custom connectors or just having that specific knowledge base of understanding of, hey, what a retail user may may need, versus what hospitality needs as well, very different

Chip Rodgers  6:16  
use cases, right? Yeah. So what's what are you what are you hoping for? What do you got planned for this week, next? So

Chelsea Berlucchi  6:25  
a lot of meetings, I think that, you know, give myself a little pep talk before coming to next, because, I mean, it's, it's a lot of back to back, a lot of meetings. I keep loads of running notes, but it's one of the most productive weeks of my entire year. And I think as long as you do things right, you can get a lot of outcomes. So these quick, 2530 minute meetings I'm having with people, I don't leave without a specific follow up. But the other big thing I'm doing is I want feedback, right? How do our partners want to work more closely with Google? How are they working better with other organizations that I can learn from, and then how do I put some of those into practices? By whether that is supporting the field and coaching them the right way to work with partners, or whether it's going back to maybe our global programs, and saying, hey, something's got to change. So I'm looking forward to having some of those candid conversations. And of course, I'm going to be watching, as you know, we have a bunch of announcements that are floating around. It's pretty cool. We're in an incredible time right now. That's

Chip Rodgers  7:24  
exciting. That's exciting. I love that that, you know, the the idea of bringing, getting feedback while you're in the meetings, like, what's working? What are where? How can we improve? What are other partners doing? That that we can learn from? Sure, it's,

Chelsea Berlucchi  7:37  
um, it's one of those things that kind of puts a pause on the meeting, breaks it up a little bit. I get very excited to hear what a partner is going to say. I don't expect someone to tell me that we're always doing a great job, because if that's the case, I probably wouldn't have a job. And so if there's something that I can grasp onto, and if I see themes, it's something I want to build on, and so I encourage it, and as has my team that's here with me too,

Chip Rodgers  8:05  
Chelsea, thank you so much for taking some time today, and we got the whole week just kicking off here today, and it's going to be a great event.

Chelsea Berlucchi  8:14  
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me,

Chip Rodgers  8:16  
and thank you all for joining and I think with that, we'll see you next time, thanks, Chelsea, thanks, everybody. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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