Global Digital Technology Company Launches MVP Program for Reseller Partners
Client
Cisco is the worldwide leader in IT that is shaping the future of the Internet and how people connect, communicate, and collaborate.
Location
San Jose, CA
The Case
The Cisco Marketing Velocity program exists to help thousands of Cisco reseller partners around the globe navigate their marketing programs. A large part of the Marketing Velocity work is to educate partners on marketing best practices, and to provide ongoing training on digital marketing trends.
Cisco sought to offer key accounts a specialized learning opportunity through a partnership with Convince & Convert. This became a value-add opportunity to 25 of their advanced marketing clients by inviting them to a customized marketing strategy course.
The Situation
Cisco partners are located around the globe and range from single-person resellers to enterprise-level businesses with dozens of dedicated marketing staff. While Cisco regularly offered educational webinars, eBooks, and training opportunities to all partners, they wanted to create a dedicated opportunity for the larger enterprise partner marketing teams.
They invited those key accounts to a 10-week, five session intensive course in which each team would receive advanced training on digital topics, as well as direct counsel with a senior Convince & Convert digital strategist.
The Challenges
This was one of the first dedicated training opportunities Cisco offered to partners. Some challenges included:
- Developing a fair way to invite key accounts from across all global regions, while also keeping the group intentional and well balanced geographically
- Building a mechanism to ensure participation of the partners, to maximize the time commitment and learning opportunity
- Keeping the curriculum advanced for the group, but offering feedback and recommendations on individual business marketing plans
How C&C Helped
Playing on the Marketing Velocity Program, Convince & Convert worked with Cisco to create the “MVP program”. This was a play on words to invite their best marketing clients to this unique opportunity.
Convince & Convert created an intake form for invited partners to submit their interest in the program, as well as specific topics they wished to learn. While each region was asked to invite the same number of partners, this intake form served as the mechanism to ensure participation and interest.
Convince & Convert then developed a custom curriculum that was delivered during two-hour live sessions over a ten week period. The live sessions rotated through the global time zones to give equal coverage for participants to watch at least one session live across the globe.
The goal of each training was to:
- Bring best practices and some advanced techniques to these Cisco partners
- Incorporate examples from the current partners – mainly highlighting those doing things well
- Provide about 90 minutes of training, including 20-30 minutes of open Q&A and discussion from partners
Sessions were recorded and distributed to all participants as well as tangle worksheets, action plans and other learning optimized resources.
In between live sessions, the Convince & Convert strategy team was fielding direct questions from the Cisco participants and providing real-team insights into their questions and progress on the topics discussed. This served as a 1:1 feedback loop, and offered C
Results
- 31 applications were received. From those 31 applications, Convince & Convert reviewed each one, including the applicants’ direct social channels and websites, and narrowed the final selection to 12 reseller partners.
- Five of the 12 partners attended each of the sessions live, regardless of timezone.
- Each partner had multiple individuals participate in the training, with more than 30 individuals at four of the five training sessions.
