Leigh Ann Campbell: Accelerating Partner Success in the Microsoft Ecosystem

Chip Rodgers  0:01  
Chip it worked. Hey, everyone. Chip Rodgers, we are here at ultimate partner, live at the Microsoft conference center here, which is a beautiful facility Washington.

Leigh Ann Campbell  0:15  
It's a beautiful day not raining, gorgeous. We lucked out. Yeah, yeah.

Chip Rodgers  0:20  
So I am so excited to be joined by Leanne Campbell. Leanne is principal and head of Rev alliances, which is consulting firm helping companies, you know, you tell me in a minute, but helping companies be more successful with, you know, partnering with Microsoft primarily. And and your background, you know, many years at Quest Software, HP, PeopleSoft, early on. And so you have been in this technology software partnership business for many years a minute. Yes, so tell me leant. First of all, welcome. Thanks for joining.

Leigh Ann Campbell  1:07  
I'm so excited to be here. Chip, I have to say, like, long time listener, first time caller, kind of situation here, I've been following you on all your LinkedIn posts and all your events, so I'm thrilled to be here. Thank

Chip Rodgers  1:19  
you. It's great. Thank you so much. So tell me a little bit about rev alliances first, and we'll go from there. Okay, sure,

Leigh Ann Campbell  1:27  
yep. So rev alliances grew out of my experience in the Microsoft ecosystem. So I was head of the Microsoft practice for a large ISV Quest Software. And you know, very early days, they were big in the migration space, right? But with the with the popularity of cloud and things like that, right, they were looking for a way to, you know, remain relevant and develop services. So my team and I, over about three years, we built quest into Microsoft's number one co sell partner worldwide.

Chip Rodgers  2:04  
Wow, that's phenomenal. Congrats, exciting.

Leigh Ann Campbell  2:07  
Thank you. It was a lot of a lot of work, a lot of learning what worked as well as what didn't work. And you know from that we, we were just thrilled, right? We had our GM on stage with Satya Nadella, we won Partner of the Year, like all the things that you want as an ISV and a partner with Microsoft. So very successful. And from that, I had the opportunity to launch rev alliances to now help other partners do the same thing. And we, ultimately, we really help partners accelerate their time to value with Microsoft, right? So, so don't be like me and take three years to get to where you need to be. So with with Rev alliances, we can get you there much faster, really, with a focus on sales. So, sales pipeline, sales, revenue, of course, co sell and all the things that you need to do with Microsoft and leveraging all their programs to get there. You know, co

Chip Rodgers  3:00  
sell is so important. We heard it this morning, from Nicole and just now from Sandy Gupta, talking about, you know, working with Microsoft, getting connected to the field. What are some of the secrets, how, what, without giving too much away? Because, how long do we have?

Leigh Ann Campbell  3:19  
So, so at Rev alliances, you know, there is so much you can do with Microsoft. And so what we did is we created a framework that we call fame, and it's really tongue in cheek based on that success we had previously, where the understanding is that all ISVs, all partners, they want their 15 minutes of fame with Microsoft, which could be everything from being on stage with Satya Nadella, it could be getting that VP of sales to invite your team to come in and do a co sell day planning event with them, right? Whatever it is that you want, it's like, how do you get there? So we built this framework called fame, and I'll tell you what it stands for, right at a very, very high level, fame stands for focus, audience, message and execution. And so if you can nail those four things one time, start with one solution or one go to market strategy, start with one thing and build out that fame framework, take it from there. And so that's basically what I learned over those last, you know, three to five years when I was really dredging and trying to figure out, how do I get to the next level with Microsoft? And so we've really solidified it into that framework, and it really seems to be resonating and working for a lot of our clients.

Chip Rodgers  4:33  
That's fantastic. I think it's it is so important that that if you're going to go to go to, you know, market with Microsoft, you need to have something that simplify your message, right? Have something that's very clear and understandable and and the next time the salesperson is engaged with a customer and they're like, oh yeah, we need these. We need to bring these guys in

Leigh Ann Campbell  4:57  
Exactly, yep. So I think. Think focus is probably the hardest part. So what are seeing? What we're seeing with our clients, and we have clients that are, you know, Fortune 500 to very small startups, but their challenge is, with any partnership, not just Microsoft, but with it, with Microsoft specifically, is, where do I start? Where do I focus? Right? And so the framework that we've created really helps you think about, okay, what's my solution play like? Where do I fit into these Mark Microsoft solution areas? What's the value that my solution brings to a customer? In addition to Microsoft solution, that's your focus, right? And you also need to think about your industry. You need to think about what geography like, where do you have strength already? Because, you know, you really don't want to, you know, be starting from scratch if you can avoid it. So you've got that focus, which is so important, and then from there, you can take that focus to really understand who's the audience within Microsoft that is selling to the customers who would really benefit from my solution, right? There's multiple types of sellers, as you know, at Microsoft, right? From everyone thinks AE, everyone thinks account executive is the person that I need to go talk to, maybe, maybe not, right? So really understand that audience. From there, you need to create a message, and when I say message, I'm talking about your message to Microsoft, right? Here's the value

Chip Rodgers  6:18  
which is different than your message to your customer, right, exactly. And

Leigh Ann Campbell  6:22  
it's hard to flip that switch sometimes, but it's really important in a partnership. So you really think that through, like, how does my solution benefit a customer who has m3, 65 right? Think that through and bring that to the right seller at Microsoft, they're going to have the aha moment. I get how my customer can benefit from this, from your capabilities or your solution, right? And then at the end of the day, it's about execution. The biggest challenge I see across all types of customers is that you have, you may have a strong alliance team who understands all of this, but it doesn't get translated to the sales people, the people on the front lines who are now, right? They got you, they you did your job and you got them invited to a co sell Planning Day. But they don't know how to speak Microsoft. They don't understand your better together story. They don't understand their value to Microsoft. They also don't understand what to ask for, like, what's Microsoft willing to do for you?

Chip Rodgers  7:19  
And that's not just the partner team. That's the sales team, that's your sales team. Your sales

Leigh Ann Campbell  7:25  
like, yes, as an ISV, my sales team needs to understand how to converse, have those conversations, so when I'm not in the room, you know, this can really translate and expand past the Alliance team. It's now salespeople in every region having these co selling conversations, and that's where the real magic happens. So that's my biggest tip for people, is that execution is don't keep it in the Alliance team. Make sure that you spread all that information out to your sales people so that they can have those tools.

Chip Rodgers  7:52  
That's fantastic. So Leanne, what we're here at ultimate partner. Great sessions already this morning. What are you hoping to to get out of the next, you know, today and tomorrow. There's

Leigh Ann Campbell  8:04  
so many good speakers here today, from Nicole, decent, like you said, and she started off this morning. You know, this is Microsoft q4 here in May now, right, may 1, q4 and so behind the scenes, there's a lot of planning going on from Microsoft's perspective, about what's going to happen in FY 26 and it was, I was very happy to hear that while, you know, there's always changes in the new year with organization and all that great stuff, what's not going to change are Microsoft's priorities. And let me see if I can test my memory here. So it's aI design wins. It's copilot, security, m3 65 and migrations, right? So that's not going to change. So migration never goes away, never does, never gets old. So I think if you're if you're an ISV or services partner, that's great to know, because you can kind of start your planning. Now, if you want to use the fame framework, you can plug that into part of it for your focus, but and then the other thing that's not going to change is obviously marketplace. The importance of marketplace for customers, for partners. It's amazing, right? And I think Microsoft, she just had such a good visual for me today. Of you know, you've got the sellers that are, you know, working with customers and driving customers there. You've got partners, right, who also can help drive by being transactable in the marketplace, right? You can take advantage of the Mac, the Microsoft Azure customer commit, right? That these customers have dedicated to Microsoft, you can take advantage of that as well. So there's, there's just so much going on. And I do feel like this is going to be the year where we're going to site start to see marketplace transactions really take off, right? It's been a really cool idea, and there's been some some early success, but I think this is going to be. Air where we see it's really start to take off.

Chip Rodgers  10:02  
Yeah, that's amazing. Leanne, thank you so much. This has been fantastic. I really appreciate you taking some time to catch up and share some of your thoughts about rev and you guys are doing amazing work. It's congrats on the growth and

Leigh Ann Campbell  10:17  
everything. I'm very grateful to our clients. I'm grateful to Microsoft for the opportunity to work with them as well. I'm also really grateful to Vince menzion. We should give him a quick little plug right now. So Vince menzion, this is his event, ultimate partner, and what a great opportunity this is to really get up close and personal with Microsoft executives and sellers, you know, the kind of access and the input that you get from them here, versus some of these massive events, it's like, kind of Night Day, don't you think it

Chip Rodgers  10:50  
totally is, I mean, this an event like what Vince runs always has. He always has, you know, really senior executives Microsoft, you know, executives here. And you just would never get if you go to, like, Ignite, for example, 10,000 people, no

Leigh Ann Campbell  11:07  
way. Many people, yeah, so. So if you haven't done it yet, I would say, call to action. If we could, would be, you know, look up ultimate partner live and maybe sign up for the next event. If you've never been it's, they're amazing. If you're interested in rev alliances and are interested in the fame framework, you can look me up on LinkedIn. Would love to engage. And like I said, we do consulting services workshops as well as fractional Alliance management. So fantastic.

Chip Rodgers  11:35  
Leanne, thank you so much. And let's you know again, beautiful day, and we'll get we'll get back to it. Okay. Thank and thank you all for joining and we'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody. You.

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