Ep#122 How To Become Well-Architected at Co-Selling with AWS

Host: Jon

Hi everybody. Today's topic is how to become well-architected at co-selling with AWS. Our guest today is Tobey Amy, director of partner Development. So before we bring Tobey onto it, let's give a little bit of information about who Tobey is. Tobey's been selling in the cloud since 2004. Has cloud been around since then? Well, VMware Cloud's been around with them almost close to a WS and helping partners build AWS best practices. Since 2016, he has worked for one of the largest VAs in the world, including the largest AWS distributor where he began his AWS voyage. I feel like he's on a voyage on the boat. Do I see Land Anywhere? And since then, he has sharpened his knowledge and skills around co-selling with AWS, using the AWS Well-Architected program as his superpower. Wait for a second, now he's a superhero on a boat selling. Please join me and welcome Tobey to the show. Tobey, my man.

Guest: Tobey

What's up, man?

Host: Jon

I should be, what's up?

Guest: Tobey

What's up? Yep, I remember that.

Host: Jon

A little throwback there. Tobey, thank you for joining me.

Guest: Tobey

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Host: Jon

All right, Tobey, before we jump into some things, I always like to kind of give everybody a little bit more about you because I get this one little paragraph but doesn't do the person justice. How about you give everybody a little bit about who Tobey is?

Guest: Tobey

Well, I've been, like you said, I've been selling cloud since 2004. Yeah, it wasn't Cloud then. It was SaaS. I started in email security and worked my way into data center and hosted Exchange and then I got into AWS, and I've been part of it riding this wave since 2016, helping partners build AWS practices. And now I work for an I S V where I'm helping those partners and their customers manage their AWS environments. And my favorite thing that I'd lead with and the tip of the arrow is well-architected and co-selling with AWS.

Host: Jon

All right, Tobey, since I've known you, well, architected has been one of your go-to superpowers and yes, I have to use superpower because it was in your bio, but you're very knowledgeable on the value of well-architected and for partners. Our topic today is how to become well-architected by co-selling with AWS first. What is well-architected?

Guest: Tobey

Yeah, for sure. So it really started in 2012 as a white paper, and then in 2017, the well-architected framework lens was added, and then I think in 2018, the actual well-architected tool came along, and then it was like 2020 when they started, they rolled out a major upgrade and they did the API integration and tons more lenses, and then that's when you started seeing ISVs building these solutions to help them go faster through this. But the well-architected framework is just essentially a collection of best practices that allows a customer to evaluate their workloads from design and implementation, whether it's around cost, security, efficiency, and all six of those pillars.

Host: Jon

Tobey, well architected, is it a standard set of guided practices that it's you must follow, or is it living, breathing guidance on how to develop an architect, maybe your workload in the best practices through a collaboration? I would

Guest: Tobey

Say it's the latter. It's definitely through a collaboration, right? It's recommended by AWS. I recommend it to my partners and their customers. They should be doing these things like two times a year just to make sure that they're aligned with those pillars and making sure that they're not missing anything from that aspect, whether it's cost or security, just really making sure they got their back covered and peace of mind in my opinion.

Host: Jon

We've talked about, well-architected several times on my podcast and the pillars that were with it. Tobey, how many pillars are out there?

Guest: Tobey

Six pillars are currently in the AWS framework, and most recently the sustainability pillar was added.

Host: Jon

So the sustainability pillar was talked about in 2021, became public in April of 2022, and integrated into the well-architected review. Tobey, as a partner in working with the well-architected framework, how important is it for my customers?

Guest: Tobey

I think it's very important. Again, it's all about having that peace of mind and making sure that they're aligned with those pillars from when they either start building a workload or they're looking to just continue to keep that workload optimized on an ongoing basis. It is just a way to protect yourself in my opinion, and make sure that you have that alignment.

Host: Jon

Tobey, what is the value of actually doing a well-architected review on my workload besides peace of mind? I mean, to me kind of going in there and evaluating it off of AWS best practices, is it the value? Making sure that not only is my workload architected correctly with consideration to not only performance, cost, reliability, security, and sustainability is on there, but really what is the value of doing this? I just do this stuff on my own and be like, yeah, I feel good about it.

Guest: Tobey

Mean you can probably do it through the AWS well-architected tool on your end as a customer, but a lot of customers don't have time for that. And before some of these tools that are out, I was watching partners having to fly their top essay out to the customer site, get everybody in a room, head of operations, CFO, security, and then people all like, I got to take a lunch. I'm on vacation, I can't make it. And it ended up taking a lot of time. You're spending T&E, you know, getting your best guy out on the field doing a review, and with a tool like that out today, they help speed all that up and partners are doing it really to help drive value, but also to have a more meaningful conversation. As a sales guy, I walk in and try to just fling a few things and hope I sell something, but when you come in with a well-architected review, you're coming with facts to the table. You can't argue with facts. These are actual problems in your environment and we need to address them. We're going to do that through remediation efforts, through an AWS partner that's aligned and accredited in the well-architected program that's going to help be eligible for credits and just making sure that you're tight on that end.

Host: Jon

Oh, you can't argue with facts. So the Well-Architected Review just had a recent release. There was me as many as 113 new best practices or existing best practices that were updated from the cost optimization, which had 22 updates, sustainability 27, operational excellence 22 and Reliability had 14, a wild performance about 10, and security 18, but a total of 127, that's 78% explicit implementation steps of the well-architected review. I'll drop a link in the description below on a blog post outlining this, but if you look back, Tobey even indicated fraction of the 2012 Wall Architect was a white paper. It started as an internal document that started that helped all the essays and the PSAs align their partners with well-architected best practices from their customers. Now, Tobey, let's jump over to our topic today. What do you mean? Well, architected by co-selling with

Guest: Tobey

From a partner perspective, a sales rep, everybody's trying to recruit with partners, everybody's, I mean customers, everybody's trying to align with customers get in the door and hope they can sell something through a co-sell effort. You're aligning with anAWan AWSS co-sell with an AWS rep to go co-sell your solution into that environment. Typically through the marketplace that's best, right? AWS sellers are paid for doing transactions through the marketplace. You attach yourself to an ISV accelerate partner or an ISV accelerate, and you can go to market together to help everybody wins on that aspect, the partner gets an opportunity to sell their services and remediate SV gets an opportunity to sell a license and the AWS seller gets a marketplace transaction and the customer gets a well-architected review. So it's a win-win for everybody.

Host: Jon

Okay, right there. That last part that you ended with was key for me and that I was listening to specifically from you is what from the customer side do I get out of this when I go with a well-architected partner and they're co-selling with AWS, I heard a lot of, Hey, listen, everybody, wins. And then the last part, the customer gets a well-architected review of their environment with some remediation steps. They get a valid person that's been through everything and has done a well-architected review through the process, and AWS is comfortable kind of including them in the conversation. Yeah, that's one of my next questions, Tobey, why would you want to co-sell with AWS? Why not just do this on my own?

Guest: Tobey

I mean, what's better than having someone from AWS be your sponsor and help carry you into their customer so you can show the value that you bring? It's all about customer service and a great customer experience, and you're helping to contribute to that. Again, there's nothing better than having someone from AWS represent you and kind of carry you into that account. And of course, you got to build trust with these guys, right? It's not like you can just go to an AWS rep and say, take me a new account. It's all about building trust and showing them that you can demonstrate that you can deliver this from start to finish and bring value to that customer about nobody else but that customer. And once you can do that and you have a successful opportunity with one seller, they bring you another customer. You do another one, another one before it, they're on their team calls and they're getting called out.

Guest: Tobey

How are you doing so many? Well-architected reviews, tell us more about it. And then next thing you know, I as a partner or an I S V, I'm in front of the whole team talking about how we go to market together, and that just kind of bleeds out inside those teams and again, builds that credibility, builds that trust, so you can go deeper and farther with more services, cross-sell, upsell, it's all about getting the data. Once you got the data, you got the facts, and then you're hopefully from there, you're selling services. If you're doing billing, you're grabbing the bill, M s P services, you're wrapping that all in, and it's just really an opportunity to bundle your whole offering together and offer it to a customer and display that you're capable of delivering it.

Host: Jon

Tobey, I think you said it's key there, the trust, and customer obsession. All right. AWS is not going to bring any partner into the conversation unless they trust that they're all into AWS or value added to their customer. It's always what's in for the customer, what are we doing right by the customer? And when you have that trust that's built with not only AWS, AWS will take you into those customers in the conversation because they know you're going to do right by them. Now, this seems like a good time to jump in and talk about today's sponsor, Veeam. How would you like to own control and protect your data in any cloud anywhere, including AWS? Veeam? Backup for AWS is a native solution to protect all of your AWS data. It's fully automated, set it, forget it within one platform, centrally managed. Veeam Backup for AWS is a robust solution for snapshots, replication, full recovery within AWS, granular file recovery, and recovery outside of AWS.

Host: Jon

Implement VE backup for AWS today before you find out that your current solution isn't working. Now, how about we get you back to that podcast, everybody? Real quick. Our topic today is how to become well-architected at co-selling with AWS. We're talking with Tobey Amy, who is a director of partner development. Now, Tobey, we were talking about well architected how it was established, why you would co-sell with them, and the trust. Talk to me from a partner perspective because is it a 50-50 relationship or are you doing most of the work? And AWS is like, all right, listen, I don't want to do this work. You guys can have it, bring it in here. What type of relationship is it?

Guest: Tobey

So AWS, from a partner perspective, it's all about building trust and the relationship to get an opportunity to do these well-architected reviews. Once you do that, you're bringing in yourself and you're introducing your toolset that you're going to use to run this well-architected review at that point. The AWS seller, usually they'll stay on the calls and stuff, but it's pretty hands-off. You're the expert. They want you to drive it. They're there just to make sure that everything's going well. But again, it's all about the partner, building that trust, and hopefully building a relationship and turning that into a long-term customer.

Host: Jon

Okay, A long-term customer is key because when you do a well-architected review as a partner, you're working with AWS, you do your review, Tobey, you mentioned it earlier and I have sat through so many where you're flying in, everybody's sitting in a room and it's an eight-hour session, and the first four hours is just the first pillar. Afterward, you start to understand what their application is about more. And you can answer these questions a little bit faster, but when I do this review, it's not a once-and-done you're done with. It is something that you recommend should be done twice a year, correct?

Guest: Tobey

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these environments are dynamic, right? You could do a well-architected review today, have someone come in tomorrow, add a new workload, and make changes, and your whole review is kind of out of sync. So either do it two times a year or have some type of software that's continuously running and making sure that you're well architected continuously. These tools, do these tools, do many things, but well, architected is a big part of it the ongoing monitoring. And just again, that peace of mind and knowing that I'm aligned with these pillars all across the board, and it's something I can show to AWS on an ongoing basis to my pdm, my sa, Hey, look here, this customer's well architected. Here's the report. It's synced up directly into the AWS APIs. So everything you do in the tools is going back up. So AWS has visibility. A lot of these tools have made a conscious effort to not get between the customer and AWS, so it's a seamless experience from that point.

Host: Jon

So Tobey, let me ask you a question around here. What is the value in co-selling with AWS? As a seller, I

Guest: Tobey

See it a lot. Everybody is hunting customers directly. That's fine, but there's a lot to be said about teaming up with an AWS rep and going into the market together. Just a way to broaden your brand and gets you deeper inside AWS. Like if you're a seller with an organization and maybe you sell a lot of servers and hardware and you want to get into the cloud and start building your brand and stepping in and building that reoccurring revenue for yourself, starting on the first of the month with some business, then really aligning yourself with Amazon is key. And I see it all the time where these reps are just building it and they're getting eight to 10 deals a week, opportunities a week to go and present a well-architected review to their customers. So it just really is a way to generate new opportunities. From my perspective, that's how I go to market with it, with my partners is like, Hey, let's build a go-to-market solution together around well architected.

Guest: Tobey

Yes, it's a loss leader, like you're not charging for these, but you're getting the meeting. You're getting the opportunity to link that customer and get them comfortable to bring their data into your environment so you can run it through the well-architected tool and get those facts so you can have a meaningful conversation together, build that trust, and then hopefully you start selling from there. Cross-sell, upsell. You're going to get some vulnerabilities, you're going to get projects they're working on, and that's your opportunity to step into the plate and showcase your abilities to that customer and AWS.

Host: Jon

Tobey, how hard is it for me to get into AWS or get in there and have them bring me into deals through those conversations? Because I know that you can reach out to one AWS person, but then all of a sudden there's another area or another region and you have to work with them directly. Should you isolate where you're working and how can you get in there, get in tight with AWS so that you can build a trusted relationship?

Guest: Tobey

Well, I think it comes down to a few things. It comes down to your tiering. I think AWS sellers look, are you premier? You advance with competency. People that have been able to demonstrate and show that they're committed to AWS, they're, they're truly an extension. That's one piece of it, showing your commitment to AW S and that you're in it and then finding a rep that you can talk to and show them, Hey, here's what I can do for you. Here's what we can do together. I'm going to help you hit your marketplace transaction because we're going to do all these through the marketplace. We're going to service your customer. Hopefully, we're going to cross-sell, upsell, and help them grow those workloads. Get some net new workloads. And once you do one of those, then it's all about building trust. I would recommend getting out to events, getting in front of these guys. We're past the days of virtual events. Now there are tons of events in your area. Pick a niche, pick a group, whether it's a startup, d n b, healthcare, bioscience, whatever your superpower is, whatever you're passionate about, go start forging your relationships and continuing to focus on those and build them. And when you get into these events, there are other AWS reps there. That's your opportunity to shine. That's your opportunity to go make new relationships. And again, just kind of repeat that playbook through the whole ecosystem.

Host: Jon

Tobey relationship and network building are very key within any type of environment, especially with AWS. The in-person events were missing for some time, and that's where a lot of progress slowed. We had to do things virtually, but the in-person events where you get to go in and socialize and you build that trust with AWS where they realize that you are all in, you're committed is a two-way street. You bring AWS deals, and AWS brings you deals. It's not, I worked for a company once. I just had this conversation with Barlas UJA about how people think that AWS is going to just automatically bring them deals, but it's a two-way street. You need to bring them and vice versa and input all the information because it's a win-win for everybody. How key is this relationship with AWS and the events that you go to in networking?

Guest: Tobey

That's where a lot of my relationships have started. Reinvent. Partner summits, just meetups, lunch, and learns. If you're a partner, get aligned with your pdm, find a team, go, sponsor, an event, get an opportunity to showcase your brand. Maybe you're at the HQ and you can go in there and be part of some of these, like the CSE fair or whatnot, and sponsor it. Go set up a table and talk to people. People want to learn this stuff, especially if you can demonstrate and know how they get paid and you can hit those key metrics for them. That's a game changer, and that's going to get their attention. You can make it easy to sell something and you can demonstrate success game over.

Host: Jon

Okay, you said to make it easy to sell something. Is co-selling with them only limited to SaaS or can I sell anything with AWS?

Guest: Tobey

Any? Well, it's, it's through the marketplace, right? That's where I've had my successes all through the marketplace, figuring out how they're paid through the marketplace and then building a playbook around that is where I've had a lot of my success.

Host: Jon

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Guest: Tobey

I don't see a lot of partners charging for well-architected reviews anymore, right? Because some customers are doing it just to kind of check the box and get it done. Some partners will be like, all right, take the report. Some customers will take the report, they got the team, and they'll do it themselves. I'll remediate things myself. But again, take

Host: Jon

The report and be like, yep, I'll get to this.

Guest: Tobey

Yep, exactly. But that's what the credits are for, right? Remediating remediation credits are for trying to help influence this. Wait,

Host: Jon

What? Remediation credits.

Guest: Tobey

Oh, you don't know about the remediation credits. So as a partner, if you're in the well-architected program and you do a well-architected review for your customer and you remediate 45% of this, then that customer becomes eligible for $5,000 in AWS credits. So if I'm going in and I'm saying, Hey, Mr. Customer, here's all your hriChriss.

Host: Jon

Wait, what is his

Guest: Tobey

High-risk incidents?

Host: Jon

Okay, all right, go ahead, sorry.

Guest: Tobey

Right, and I've heard it called two different things, the high-risk items that you want to focus on, but you get those resolved and then they kick you back 5k the customer. So the partner can go in and say, Hey, I'm going to charge you 20 K to do these remediations knowing that the customer's going to get 5K back. So it's a $15,000 service engagement.

Host: Jon

Nice. And if I'm an enterprise level, right, 5K will help me offset some of my costs for the environment. If I'm a small to medium business, 5K will set me even for the entire year or at least six months for my AWS environment, and it's to help offset the cost of remediation because you're going to be going through and doing several things within their AWS account. Now, I want to ask you about the well-architected just a little bit more is well architected for partners or sellers geared only towards AWS environments, or can you do it for on-premise, but in a modified manner?

Guest: Tobey

I'm sure there are some tools out there. Some tools do it from a multi-hyper scaler perspective, but that's not what this is about. But there are. So I will say this, the opposite hyper scaler of Amazon starts with an M and has pretty much carbon-copied the framework. I mean, it's like, it's pretty exact, right? So you could do a well-architected review in those environments if you need to. It's something that's being more and more adopted. I know Oracle's adopting it Google, I don't think they're quite there yet, but it's there with the two major hyperscalers.

Host: Jon

Okay, so do you recommend the partners, the sellers, actually become part of the well-architected program to be a co-sell with it? Or can I do this without being part of the program, but I can't offer the credits?

Guest: Tobey

Well, I mean, listen, if you have software and you're an is S v A is sv, accelerate partner is sv, accelerate partner, then co-sell with an AW S rep, right? From a well-architected perspective, I recommend you get into the well-architected program. It adds a lot of value, it builds a lot of trusts, and it allows you to do the co-sell through that what's called the triple play with AWS reps, right? Where they're paid certain metrics for doing an I S V A partner and through the marketplace, and that makes them eligible for the triple play that they have.

Host: Jon

When you say through the marketplace, are you saying maybe a Co-Sell would offer the well-architected review through the marketplace, which allows the AWS reps to not only get that triple play?

Guest: Tobey

So partners can build their offerings, and their services on the AWS marketplace. So well-architected assessment, they can put it up there and offer it out, and off of that, they're building an MPPO to their customer, and the customer accepts that MPPO to get the whole engagement going.

Host: Jon

So Tobey, real quick. You mentioned MPO. What does that stand for?

Guest: Tobey

It's a marketplace partner private offer, and it's, oh,

Host: Jon

I just had this conversation with Barlas on public and private offers and the marketplace, and now this is tying together and making complete sense. So talking about well-architected reviews and co-selling with AWS. Really? How do I get started, Tobey? I mean, I am an AWS partner. I've got products, I've got services. How do I get started? What's the first thing I should even do? Knock on everybody's door. Yo, AWS rep, come over here. I need your help. Let's say I want to co-sell with AWS. What's the first thing that I should do? I mean, to get involved and get out there?

Guest: Tobey

Well, you got to register to be an AWS partner and work your way up.

Host: Jon

Okay? Check what's next.

Guest: Tobey

Go onto the marketplace and register. Get a register to be a marketplace private offer seller. Or if you're an ISV, you got to push out CPOs, a channel PRI channel partner, and private offers. I think that's what it stands for. Push those out. But you got to go enroll into it into the program. And once you get the authorization, then now you can go in and create your offers. Whether you're taking an existing offer from an I SV and making it your own to push out. That's what I do with my partners we push a CPPO to my partner and they take that CPPO and turn it into a PPOO and just rinse and repeat. Use that over and over again to generate more deals. More.

Host: Jon

Okay, so I created this in the marketplace, I'm ready to go, right? It's like now going to my AWS rep, or should I be at the same time working with my AWS and networking with other AWS to show them that the value that I have is going to help their customers in the long run? Because AWS does not want anything to do with a partner or co-sell. That is saying, here, I want to sell more. It's what value you're bringing to your customers. So what are my next steps?

Guest: Tobey

Getting in there? So obviously you do want to align with your pdm. I would probably get a call with someone that you're marketplace person that's assigned to your account, learn more about the marketplace, and build your offer with them. For what I do, you're going to want to associate yourself with an I S V A, right? So a platform that's going to help you deliver that well-architected review. You can use the AWS tool, but it's not as fast and it's not going to get you that marketplace offer. So go establish yourself as a marketplace seller. Align with your pdm, align with your marketplace person, and build an offer together and get that in the market. And then get out to your AW S reps and start talking about it flexing your superpowers. We do well-architected reviews super. We work with pick an industry, healthcare, whatever, a superpower, and just focus on that. And I'm telling you, you only need one or two successful opportunities and it takes off. That's the playbook that I've designed and have been using and had a lot of success with.

Host: Jon

Tobey, before we wrap things up with Well-Architected, it's been out there since a lot of partners have been picking it up since 2017 ish. 2018 was key in 2019, right around then where it started, where the APIs weren't there just yet until they kind of rounded out by 2020. Is it a watered-down market now that everybody offers it as a way to land and expand or to remediate? Or are there still capabilities for partners to get in and start doing well, architected reviews in a trusted manner?

Guest: Tobey

There is tons of opportunity. So I haven't checked in a while, but in 2020 there were like 400 well-architected partners, and the last time I checked, it's been a while. There were over 600. You know, AWS wants to do a lot of well-architected reviews every year. If you're an AWS user, you should be having a well-architected review. It's it, you should just do it. So the opportunity is endless, in my opinion. Now it's you as a partner where you want to spend your time and focus your energy, whether it's on migrations or well-architected reviews or wherever. But if partners looking for a good, strong go-to-market, and again, building trust and having meaningful conversations, I do recommend the Well-Architected program. And also to answer your last question, now that I'm thinking about it, I would even get aligned with the Well architected team.

Guest: Tobey

Those guys are great. I work with Brandon over there. They're good at helping to enable you to make sure that what's required to be in the program. You can't just go raise your hand and say, I got to be in the program. You got to do a certain amount of well-architected reviews every year. You know, got to have people certified. So go learn from it, and have your PDM introduce you to the well-architected team. Have a call with them, better understand it. Learn how you can get aligned, learn how you can get into the program. They'll recommend tools that you should be using. I know a few of you want to talk to me, but that's not what this is about. But yeah, that's another thing that I forgot to mention.

Host: Jon

Awesome. Tobey, man, I appreciate you giving everybody the knowledge that you have experienced over the years to be well architected in co-sell with, utilizing not only the well-architected framework but kind of a methodology to build trust with the customers and AWS and the partners. Tobey, before we wrap things up, is there anything you'd like to leave the audience with?

Guest: Tobey

I would just say, if you're not in it, check it out. If you are in it and you're having doubts, you not having success, ask yourself why. How are you aligning yourself? What tools are you using? Are you thinking about the AWS sellers? Right? If you're going to co-sell all about the AW S sellers, so are you lined with their KPIs? Take time to learn about them. How can you make them successful through this motion? And they'll tell you, we all want the same thing. It doesn't hurt to ask and learn about it. But that's kind of what I would leave you with. It's, it's been a great resource for me and my partners. I speak about it highly every day. I thank you for allowing me to be here and speak about what I've been doing and how I use it. And yeah, I hope as a partner that more and more partners start taking a look at this.

Host: Jon

Awesome. Tobey, thank you so much for joining me, man, it's great to have you on the show. This has been awesome. I appreciate it. So, Tobey, I'm going to wrap things up and do a quick ending for everybody. Everybody. It was Tobey Amy, director of partner Development, and we were talking about how to become well-architected at co-selling with AWS. My name's Jon Myer. Don't forget to hit that, like subscribe, end, notify, because guess what, we're out of here.

Guest: Tobey

Peace.