#308 John Brown & Holly Hall: Creating Pipeline Isn't The Challenge, It's Closing It

Holly, I'm gonna ask you this question because there's lots of vendors out there that say they're partner first.

Yeah.

Is HackerOne partner first, and what does it genuinely mean to you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Great question.

Love that question.

I'm all about channel, obviously being that channel manager coming into this role, um, as of June actually, so really excited to run with that, but good question in terms of what that means to me specifically.

I think there are three key areas that I always look for within the channel, within my partners, who we wanna work with essentially.

Um, I think the first thing is making sure that these resellers, our partners, are genuinely interested in their customers, so wanna go on that journey with them, so wanna understand the pain points, wanna support all the way through to, to finding that real fix for the organization, so that, that deep understanding.

So that's the first thing.

Second is that, that mutual investment.

So I wanna be able to give a lot of energy to you.

Are you gonna reciprocate that? Can we work together? Can we be a team? I'm a big sport girl.

I, I love being in teams, and I, I see the partners as an extension of that.

How can we work together? How can we be a team? How can you guys be an extension of, of our team? And then the third thing is, is transparency.

So it's absolutely great when everything's flying, when we're hitting the numbers.

That's fantastic.

But when we're hitting the bad stuff, when it's the good, the bad, and the ugly-

Mm

...

when things are a little bit uncomfortable, are we still being transparent? Can we still communicate to ultimately get to that end goal together?

I, I, I'd add on that, in terms of tips and tricks from people watching, you know, building your business out here, right? Coach your partners, right? You do...

Te-tell them what you expect.

You know, partners here especially, right, show up early, right? Engage early.

Don't hand the, the deal over at the last minute, you know, over the fence.

Holly, I'm gonna ask you this question because there's lots of vendors out there that say they're partner first.

Yeah.

Is HackerOne partner first, and what does it genuinely mean to you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Great question.

Love that question.

I'm all about channel, obviously being that channel manager coming into this role, um, as of June actually, so really excited to run with that, but good question in terms of what that means to me specifically.

I think there are three key areas that I always look for within the channel, within my partners, who we wanna work with essentially.

Um, I think the first thing is making sure that these resellers, our partners, are genuinely interested in their customers, so wanna go on that journey with them, so wanna understand the pain points, wanna support all the way through to, to finding that real fix for the organization, so that, that deep understanding.

So that's the first thing.

Second is that, that mutual investment.

So I wanna be able to give a lot of energy to you.

Are you gonna reciprocate that? Can we work together? Can we be a team? I'm a big sport girl.

I, I love being in teams, and I, I see the partners as an extension of that.

How can we work together? How can we be a team? How can you guys be an extension of, of our team? And then the third thing is, is transparency.

So it's absolutely great when everything's flying, when we're hitting the numbers.

That's fantastic.

But when we're hitting the bad stuff, when it's the good, the bad, and the ugly-

Mm

...

when things are a little bit uncomfortable, are we still being transparent? Can we still communicate to ultimately get to that end goal together?

I, I, I'd add on that, in terms of tips and tricks from people watching, you know, building your business out here, right? Coach your partners, right? You do...

Te-tell them what you expect.

You know, partners here especially, right, show up early, right? Engage early.

Don't hand the, the deal over at the last minute, you know, over the fence.