#cpexpo
Walk into the main hall for the opening Fastball / Keynote and it begins with a commercial – an actual TV ad – from Avant before Drew (co-founder of Avant) comes on stage. That was it for me.
The show already looks like NASCAR – everything is sponsored. It is nearly impossible to get away from the ads and pitches. How did we get here?
There are a boat load of booths and meeting rooms. Are you telling me that Informa can’t make a profit just from that?
Do they really have to get $100K from a master agency to splash their name everywhere too?
Here’s my problem: I will have spent almost $2000 out of my pocket to be here this week. Where’s the ROI?
The pitches aren’t even clear and concise; they are the same generic garbage that fill my inbox and ads on websites. It isn’t targeted. It isn’t specific. It doesn’t explain value. It isn’t even creative.
On the master agency side, they are running up against not enough partners selling enough deals for a fair split. (A fair split is 70/30 or 75/25.) Masters are afloat due to MDF, off-contract deals, extra cash bonuses from vendors and other revenue. They can NOT stay afloat off of 20% commission on deals!!
The CenturyLevel3 re-arrangement will result in some serious rearrangement of the channel too. Watch.
If more vendor M&A occurs, more master M&A will occur.
MSP M&A is skyrocketing.
The channel is aging out.
One master agency brags about signing up 700 new partners in 2017. With even 7 channel managers that is 100 more partners to on-board, contact, help – unless you just sign them up and put them on auto-pilot.
It isn’t about the 700. It is about the ones receiving commission checks.
As it takes more and more deals to hit quota and move the revenue needle for vendors, they will to grow the channel. Jay McBain talked about the shadow channel. He also talked about partners pivoting to ISV, because owning the IP and doing the integration is where the real money is. Commissions on UCaaS deals isn’t going to pay the insurance on the new Porsche. You know what I am saying?
The shows are all pitch fests. How do they think that will be ROI?
How about case studies? Buyer personas? A forensic on the average deal? Nope. Just a commercial that we can repeat and puke out at every opportunity all year. (And they wonder …)
I stopped going to MSP events because sitting in a room where I get pitched at all day was annoying and a waste of my time (and dollars). I stopped going to the majority of keynotes after a Cisco SVP stood on a stage and read me slides. All done.
Now I am wondering if this is my last CPExpo.
Bad enough this has become a Fraternity party with beer pong and drinking all day and night. Now it is one big commercial. What are you thinking over there at Informa????
One more point: if you are going to spend years telling partners they need to transition, shouldn’t the sessions explain exactly how to do that?