Video: Blue Mantis CRO on Curating Intentional Partnerships

hey Channel insiders welcome back to channel Insider partner POV your source for untapped opportunities and unfiltered opinions in the it Channel all to help you make Better Business decisions I'm your host Katie boso my guest today is Terry Richardson cro of solution provider blue mantis while Terry is celebrating one year at Blue antis he has actually spent decades working in Channel sales and Leadership roles at some of the largest vendors in the industry the key word in today's interview is definitely intention and you'll see just how it plays into many of Terry's business decisions and his approach to Leading welcome Terry it's so good to see you thanks Katie really nice to see you as well Terry and I go way back we've been working I've been working in this space for about 5 years and Terry you've been working in an a little bit longer than that and so you've known me my entire Channel career uh it feels so good to be able to see you in this position and this is the first time that we're getting to speak on the side of where you're in the solution provider seat it's it's about one year for you as cro at Blue mantis how's it going it's gone by very quickly it's really been a fun year learning a lot I can say I have new found appreciation for the challenges for working on this side of the channel it's my first uh solution provider role the rest has been on the vendor side but it's really been fascinating met a lot of great people learning some new skills and capabilities so really enjoying myself and I I love the modesty Terry you're like oh I've spent time on the vendor side huge names AMD HP HP at one point in your career as well so I will be making sure I ask you more about that experience as we go on but for the audience that's listening or watching that doesn't know Terry you will and you should by the end of this episode but let's talk about the solution provider that you're with right now blue mantis would you mind telling me in your own words what blue mantis is for those who are listening and may not know what services and solutions do you offer and who are the customers in the verticals that you typically serve yeah so there's a lot there but let me kind of give you the elevator pitch so blue mandis is a Security First IT services and solutions company um we offer a variety of IT services uh really spread across seven technology practice areas but cyber security is probably our strongest and sadly given the state of the world probably the most interesting um but really strong Cloud skills really strong data center skills uh we have some endpoint capabilities networking capabilities and even Carrier Services capabilities where much like we do on the cloud side we help customers control their um their telecommunication spend so we look for ways to to help companies find ways to to save money and and reinvest in in new technologies um we sell to companies that range from SMB to Enterprise uh we tend to focus uh geographically on the Eastern seab board in the US although we have uh customers uh all across the all across the country and into Canada as well um we focus across verticals uh public sector healthc care Financial Services manufacturing probably would represent um some of the larger verticals where we have a concentration of customers but no explicit focus on any1 vertical and for transparency reasons and just because I think it's so interesting I used to be a customer of blue Mantis at one point in my career not long ago so Terry what let's talk about the uh the blue mantis in the room because that name actually changed about a year ago this July in 2024 will mark one year as blue mantis uh the company going by Green Pages for almost 30 years until that name kicked in can you talk to me a little bit about what is that change represent for the company and how do you feel you've settled into the initiatives as blue mantis over the last year so I think it's really been fascinating to kind of go through because it it happened right after I joined the company the Rebrand it was two months after I joined I knew coming in that it was going to happen but going through the experience was really good it was really an opportunity to redefine the company green Pages um as you said was around for a little over 30 years and had really built a a you know a pretty strong reputation but when I talked to people about being at the company you know blue mantis formerly green Pages it was always oh I remember green pages and it was always a reference that might have been 10 or 15 years old um so it was really a good time because the companies evolved a lot you know at the at the earliest uh of the green Pages days it was a data center focused far that really saw its most rapid growth during the explosion of VMware uh virtualization and the company's techical Heritage really um show showed through and companies really got to know Green Pages oftentimes because of our capabilities around virtualization and and some other things but as the years have gone on company's changed a lot we've done some Acquisitions we brought in new Talent um so it's a really good time to reposition the companies it was a great opportunity to just Rebrand um and then redefine who we are now and where we're going and what companies should come to expect from us so it was almost like a restart but with 30 years of of History um launching a new company so all the excitement of something new um gave us a great opportunity to just go back out into our current customers and our prospective customers to redefine who we are today what our core capabilities are where where our value uh will be delivered and how we're differentiated so it's been it's been nice and you know thankfully the response has been overwhelmingly positive and we've done things through sponsorship and and marketing events and social to really try to get the name out there so I think most people probably think we're actually a lot bigger than we are um just because of the uh the the work that the marketing team did to really get the name out yeah I think your marketing team did a great Blitz on that because uh again having been a former a former client and knowing that uh green Pages was around for so long now I don't I barely remember that name blue mantis is definitely at the Forefront uh when I think about your company and as you said Terry your 10year applum mantis goes almost hand inhand with the blue mantis identity itself uh you started a year ago this month as cro of blue mantis Congratulations by the way on one year thank you you're welcome you're welcome and at the time uh of when you started you were coming from uh a background of decades spent at many of the largest vendor companies in the channel and Tech space in general again HP AMD you operated in a many Channel positions within those companies how did does your experience working inside some of those massive vendors in the Channel Make Your Presence at Blum mantis a differentiator for the company yeah so I've been fortunate to work for some terrific companies uh both in partner facing as well as customer facing roles so I've been able to bring a external perspective and some new ideas into the company I think that was one of the reasons they they were interested in bringing me on board um I've learned a lot I've seen a lot I've a lot over my my time in the industry and this is a nice way to kind of bring it all together um best practices on how to lead a sales organization how to develop goto Market strategies but I also have very keen awareness from the the the view of a vendor what does a good solution provider partnership look like how do you differentiate how do you make sure that you're entering into a partnership that's all based upon a win-win um type outcome so you know I've had the luxury of deep meeting and spending a lot of quality time with literally hundreds and hundreds of companies that look a lot like blue mantis in some way shape or form so I've been able to uh you know in my years's time influence some of the things that we're doing so that we we can become an even better partner to to some of those that we rely on so it's been um it's been really good I've been able to to bring sales experience to beer to make sure we're positioned to accelerate our growth and I've been able to to bring personal and business relationships on the vendor side to help you know solidify some of those Partnerships because as I said before the company's been in transition we started out as a data center VAR and now we're 50% plus uh recurring Revenue so we've made that shift um from VAR to MSP and we continue but there's still because it's a hybrid world it's not only about manage services and cloud services there's still a lot of um opportunity for helping clients with their rrem infrastructure and a lot of great vendor solution capabilities there so it's not an either War to me it's a bol and it's one of the things that sets blue mantis apart is we're really strong in um kind of Legacy world as well as um kind of more the modern modern world and you mentioned something really interesting about you know what a solution provider a good solution provider is supposed to look like to a vendor and supposed to do according to a vendor with that said now that you're on the opposite side and you're looking at vendors to partner with what can a vendor do to be able to entice blue mantis and you as a partner are there any things that you look for specifically now that you like that is a great vendor that is somebody we should do business with well definitely um really engagement executive level all the way down through field and and and functional relationship levels that's important needs to be an appetite for co-investment um and really working on a on a well-defined plan um I will tell you one of my key learnings being on this side of the relationship is you know there's a lot of um things to sell right I I mentioned seven technology practice areas right and and some of the the vendor relationships might only be in one practice area so you're really vying for the attention of the solution provider because there's multiple solutions that the field has to know and has to be able to position to their customers and it can be cyber security in the morning something you know Network related lunchtime and then maybe Cloud related in the afternoon and and the sales team jumps from kind of topic to topic so it's hard to get locked in so being intentional is what I'm trying to bring in terms of blue mantis we could we could sell anything right we're you know through distribution we could sell anything the customer wants but to be a really good partner we have to be intentional so we've definitely um focused on certain Partnerships that we think are well suited to the types of solutions that are customers are looking for and that should give us the ability to show that we're uh not only a a committed but a competent partner because there's always a lot of required trainings and certifications and and things you need to do just to stay current with the vendor programs so we can't do that across 80 or 100 or 200 Partnerships but you know we've really boiled it down to um to you know eight or 10 that really um really are going to be more impactful you know for us where we are today I love what you say about being intentional because I think that goes right with what you were saying about not spreading yourselves too thin because you can offer anything you're right through distribution and Cloud marketplaces there are plenty of opportunities to answer the call but when it comes to making sure you're being intentional and really good that does boil down to making sure that your circle is is small But Mighty and it's not just on the partner's side but as I address my sales organization and I want them to be intentional and unlike being on the vendor side where there's a limited number of things that that vendor manufacturers that you can sell here getting the sales team that's you know typically motivated and compensated based around gross profit there's lots of ways to generate gross profit getting them to be intentional was a little bit heavier lift than I had anticipated so I I can't say the work is done we've made good progress mindset mindset mindset yeah so is there anything that you're doing and maybe it goes back to how you've been changing that intentional motion and approach in your company but is there anything that you're doing to strengthen that trust with your customers since coming on board at Blue mantis yeah I think you know fortunately the a lot of the transformation U work had been started and was wed away before I got here so I didn't have to do anything dramatically different um um but you know my my role was to Comm in and and just kind of bring an acceleration and a scale to the business so the good news is a lot of the a lot of the hard things were done the company's fortunate to have relationships with customers that go back many many years some of them go back all the way to the start of you know Green Pages year one um and and trust is really earned right so we talked a little bit earlier about um cyber security for example right and if you do a good job on cyber security that earns you a lot of trust because you know the the consequences of getting that wrong are really bad um we do a lot of manag services work I mentioned that right so companies are relying on us to run a portion or all of their it um that builds trust and so I think it's bringing the right competent resources to the table that not only do what they're asked to do but a 7y enough to know what good looks like and what the company should be doing whether they're asking for it or not so really um we don't take lightly the role of trusted advisor but we aspired to live up to that um each and every customer engagement speaking of uh some of the changes and some of the intentional changes that have been made not only since you've been at Blue mantis but prior to you getting there when the the wheels were already going on that lots of changes to the Sea Suite in of blue mantis I I follow you on on LinkedIn Terry and I feel like your your fingers must be tired because I just see update after update and there's so many congratulations being thrown out because you've got a new CEO a a new coo a new and the first ever at Blue mantis CMO so why all these changes and additions and what are you building to yeah we continuing to um either attract external Talent like me coming in from the outside or develop um internally so I can hit each one a little bit differently the uh CEO had been with the company five years so he was elevated you know from frankly cro to to CEO so that was kind of a well-planned um transition not a not a sudden abrupt um thing and and the PRI CEO did a fabulous job getting oury to a point but um was ready to go do something different so there was a nice succession plan the cro was elevated he had been with the company about four years uh formerly serving as CIO in ceso so he added some additional responsibilities to his plate CMO was also um new or higher um little less than two years but you know kind of developed and and grown from within so we we tend to look to bring in uh talent because you frankly only as good as your people um but we're also trying to to put people in roles you know I believe in the adage you know right right people you know right role right time and as we are scaling this business it's nice to have people that have a a background that's not only diverse but is rich in experience to kind of bring that um bring that to the table as we set our path to continue to to grow in scale so it's been nice to nice to see they're they're great people and I I'm fortunate to have really good colleagues and we're continuing to uh to bring in new people as well I'm only halfway through my conversation with Terry Richardson come back on Tuesday for part two thanks so much to Terry for joining me today and thank you for watching or listening you can check out all episodes of Channel Insider partner POV on our website Channel insider.com or watch on our YouTube page at Channel Insider newws and Trends you can also listen to us in podcast format on your favorite podcast listening platform don't forget to like subscribe and follow to never miss an episode you can also connect with Channel Insider on LinkedIn and X or with me at Katie boso once again I'm your host Katie boso and I'll see you next time

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.