how to become a shopify plus partner

begin the countdown hello everyone my,name is Martin body and I'm head of,agency partnerships here at Shopify plus,I'm sorry I can't be with you in person,today but obviously there was that,incident in San Francisco um so here we,are recording the videos for you to,watch and find out more about the,Shopify Plus partner program at this,point I was going to say because I have,you all in one room and you can't escape,I'm going to take this opportunity to,talk about myself for a while which I'm,still going to do so please don't turn,the video off I promise it won't be long,so I thought it would be interesting,just to let you know why I'm here at,Shopify plus and what I've been doing,previous to this our role here and I've,been in this space for around 10 years,now,and prior to this I was working in a,very similar capacity at a competitor to,Shopify plus but as we all know you know,as we've seen over the past couple of,days the e-commerce and commerce,industries are really evolving and,really more rapidly day-by-day and I did,feel that where I was prior to this,there wasn't that energy or that mmm,willingness to really keep up with the,market and I really wanted to be working,for a company which offered the best,solution in the market so I took a look,around you know didn't necessarily get,on an airplane but I did take a look,around and I wanted to look for products,which really wanted to be in it for the,long haul and really wanting to,constantly be evolving to keep up with,the pace of consumer and merchants needs,you know a really amazing product that,could maybe benefit from some of the,skills I had from my experience in,e-commerce so you know bringing in some,and understanding how Enterprise,Business has worked from a partnership,point of view and and that's what I do,so I'm hoping that you realize that I've,joined Shopify by now as I'm here in,this video and we wanted to build a,partner program that was best to the,industry and best for the merchants and,best for each of our individual,partnerships so I joined supply plus in,March 2016 and now I'd just like to tell,you about what we did last year and,this partner partner program grew and,evolved so 2016 what did we achieve,first of all we launched the program the,program launched on June 7th at irce,2016 with 47 partners there was a range,of partners some existing great partners,at Shopify plus such as Demark and DIF,and B via Excel and pointed creative,joining new partners partners that had,experience in commerce but not,necessarily with Shopify so they,understood the needs of the market the,needs of our clients but they hadn't,necessarily used our technology so,partners like one Rockwell and picks,five red stage and screen pages since,launch we've actually added in 2016 15,new partners so we certainly went,through a growth curve within the first,seven months of the program and you know,within those seven months the,partnerships together we brought on some,really fantastic brands so working,together with our partner community,we've on-boarded brands such as centauri,whisky will.i.am with his head phone,line fred segal the legendary la,department store and good american,bolivar need sticks journal in new york,times you know the list goes on and i,think what's important to realize of,this list is there are businesses which,which would not have been successful,just working with Shopify plus you know,these are businesses that require the,partner community as well as our,products you know this is the success we,achieve together and finally just as a,last statistic in marketing so we aren't,going to achieve any success unless,we're actually telling businesses what,we are doing and why we're doing it so,just a quick high-level,example of this in the last six months,of 2016 we actually executed just over,25 partner hosted marketing events and,that was to around just over a thousand,people so an average of 50 people per,event which for us is demonstrating to,the market that we have new partnerships,with Shopify plus and businesses are,seeing us as partnerships so Shopify,plus since then moving forward to today,we now have over 125 partners the,partners very four,nimble boutique agencies right up to,Global Services companies all of which,are finding that they have a customer,base for Shopify plus and Shopify plus,is really changing the way businesses,approach ecommerce in many different,ways from the entrepreneur who's,experiencing success right up to the,traditional established retailer and a,lot of these businesses are finding that,they can work with Shopify for us and we,need a partner program that can cater to,that and speak to these different types,of businesses but the question you might,ask why does anyone actually want to,work with us you know aside from the,product what are we doing with a partner,program why are we here so just quickly,to go through how we work today so,obviously first and foremost we have our,partner team the partner team is there,to be your main point of contact your,coordinator into the business of Shopify,plus to make sure that you're getting,the right connections within the,business you're staying up-to-date with,our products and any advances that we,are having and really that you know one,main point of contact secondly and this,is what I really like I like them all,this one I really like is our solutions,engineering team so as I mentioned,earlier I've been doing this for a while,and I've certainly been involved which I,think all of us watching this video,probably have as well with some projects,that have maybe not gone as smoothly as,we might have liked and approach we have,from the partnership perspective with,job 5 plus as we make sure that we work,with our solutions engineering team on,every deal and every opportunity whether,that opportunity is successful and we,close it together or not what we want to,do as a business is make sure that the,customers that we are working with can,work with us and that we are identifying,what is the right solution for them from,the outset and working with our partners,to deliver that solution therefore,negating to a large extent those failed,projects so it offers that level of,comfort for for us as a product and for,you as a services company to make sure,that we are or at least have the best,chance possible of delivering good,projects and having happy clients,moving on from that knowledge management,so we don't have clients in the first,place if we don't know what we're,talking about and we need to make sure,that we are arming you with all of the,information that you need on Shopify,plus so that you are capable and,confident to sell our product so this is,something which is constantly evolving,we have tools online such as sales tax,information repositories which talk,about why Shopify plus against other,more traditional systems and such but,really just putting together what that,knowledge is that you need is an agency,to work with us and look like leaders,within the market but munna step,backwards we can't even talk to people,if we aren't getting in front of them,first so as I mentioned to you earlier,we completed just over 25 events in,second half of 2016 and towards the end,of 2016 we recruited a dedicated,marketing support focusing just on our,Shopify Plus partners and experts so,they are there and dedicated to to help,accelerate your business whether that is,through event so through webinars or,creating co-branded content of the,leadership pieces that help you get in,front of the right audience for the,solution that you are selling as a,business and finally industry support so,you've probably seen us at shop Talk or,at irce and you've probably engaged with,your partner manager about perhaps,co-sponsoring event service at these,industry events or positioning your,booth somewhere near a booth so that we,can share the audience and really feed,off each other and making sure that we,are selling this message of Shopify Plus,and their partners delivering a solution,together so I've probably said together,a few times already and I'm going to say,it again well no no you can read it so,one thing which I've always learned from,very beginning of my career way back,before even e-commerce is technology's,best as Matt moans like says here when,it brings people together and I think,that's even more important today with,with what we are doing and we are only,going to be successful with our mutual,clients if we work together and we work,together seamlessly and really,understand each other's businesses,so what's next as the slide says here,what are we going to do in 2017 and,beyond I've just shown you what we've,done in 2016 in terms of putting,together a baseline structure for the,partner program and beginning to grow it,but now we're going to take it further,you know we're going to be smarter we're,going to be tighter with this we're,going to move faster so firstly in case,you missed it you would have probably,missed it yesterday but you can watch a,video tooling so we've done an update to,the partner dashboard to make sure that,you can work more effectively with us,from a tech tech perspective you know,the last few months our engineers have,completely rebuilt and modernized the,partner dashboard infrastructure and,made a ton of improvements just to,overall streamline the experience I,think most importantly for this audience,and the services agency audience would,be the ability to work in teams and,having you configure different levels of,access within your own business so that,your teams can work together on the same,project rather than sharing a log in so,it's very key to be able to deliver,projects more effectively so what are we,bringing in terms of the partner program,later in 2017 will be releasing training,packages so training modules that have,been created by our partners for our,partners modules that go from how to,discover Shopify plus clients if you're,that stage of the relationship with us,to getting started with liquid to how to,position the Mobile SDK to Shopify,script to working with the API in app,development so everything that we feel,that you need is a baseline to really,get going with Shopify plus to be able,to sell it effectively and deliver it,effectively as well basically,information that your business needs to,grow with us as a product secondly is,additional partnerships so if you've met,me in person before I tend to say a lot,that Shopify shop five-plus is a very,horizontal product and platform and what,I mean by that is a business of a very,very small entrepreneurs startup,business can work with Shopify all the,way up to business in,hundreds of millions of dollars annual,revenue with Shopify plus and we have a,product which enables businesses to do,that and we need partner networks that,support these different types of,businesses so we will be including,additional partnerships into the program,that cater to this so that speak to,businesses of different sizes and of,different needs so that we are offering,all of the levels of support we can from,the partner perspective to all of the,kinds of businesses that are attracted,to us certainly we have localization in,pods so what we will be doing with the,partner management is ensuring that each,of our partner managers have an,understanding of the geography that they,are working in you know this is a way of,organizing our teams so that they can be,more effective for you so you will still,have your own dedicated partner manager,to your business but they will be,working together in a smaller team to,understand the overall geography of,where they are operating and those,geographies are quite large you know,this isn't just one city this would be,you know half of North America for,example and what that will enable us to,do is have insight into more businesses,and two more technologies into other,things that we are really sharing the,knowledge more effectively internally,and essentially just working smart and,finally which is possibly most,importantly we're going to be bringing,in a business development layer to our,partner management structure so we want,to focus on helping you grow your,business from within the agency or from,when within the solutions company that,you're offering and how are we going to,do that so firstly adding on to what I,just mentioned about having partner,managers work in geographical pods we're,going to be real regionalizing our what,we're going to be calling partner,development managers as well so as a,large organization we have the luxury of,knowledge and data and being able to see,what is happening within different,regions and within different markets and,understanding different merchant,problems understanding where we are,successful and also in turn why we're,not being successful,and there's a partner team we want to be,able to be organized effectively so that,we understand where we can take you as a,business and help you grow from a,business development perspective so,within each of these geographical pods,so we have partner managers we'll also,have a partner development manager and,that partner development manager there,is really to help you grow your business,everything they will be doing is there,in terms of growth so understanding what,are your strengths as an individual,business what are your weaknesses and,what are your ambitions where do you,want to go how can we help you how can,we organize our partner community,effectively so that you aren't,necessarily competing with each other as,much you know we are taking you into new,regions where you can be successful,because what services you offer combined,with our product is solving the problems,that we are seeing in that region and we,also want to take this a step further,and if you are looking to grow your own,business and you be delivering more some,5 plus projects or even look to offer,additional agency services that you're,not offering today we'll be putting,together a team that can help advise and,guide you on that as well so we want to,understand not only who you are but also,where you want to go and also what are,the technologies that you're working,with so that we can make sure that we,can take you to the right place at the,right time so that we can overall be,more successful with each of our,individual partnerships and lastly we,will be introducing a technology,partnership program focused specifically,on Shopify plus so more information of,this will be coming out soon but this,has been initiative led by Jamie Sutton,and effectively just to give you some,baseline information on it you know as,you hear from Shopify a lot you know we,want to deliver the 80% so we want the,partner community deliver to deliver the,top 20 where they really focus on and,it's similar with Plus so we want to be,working with complementary technologies,that deliver or help deliver overall,solutions to our mutual clients so,whether that you know ERP is pins or,Mesa's recommendations etc etc we want,to make sure that we are working with,the right partners within the industries,that we're delivering this overall,solution in terms of support you know,what a lot of what Shopify and some,five-plus are trying to do is really,lower that barrier of entry to the,market so we want to make it as easy as,possible for businesses to work with us,and be successful and we want to do the,same with our technology partners so we,want to make it as difficult as possible,for any potential mutual clients to say,no you know we've made it so easy from,the perspective of the integration is,comprehensive you know we're keeping it,up to date it's turnkey to be able to,work these two technologies or multiple,technologies together but also we want,to make sure that our companies are,understanding each other from these,technology partnerships so understanding,who our mutual clients are and why they,choose to work with both of these,technologies so really creating that,overall support network from Shopify,plus and the complementary technology,that brings a high level of comfort and,a low barrier to entry for any existing,or new customer and finally in marketing,so what's the point of having these,great integrations in these great,support networks of technology partners,if we aren't telling people if we aren't,telling the story and everything that we,are doing with partner marketing on the,agency side will be looking to replicate,with technology partners as well and to,quickly go back to the partner,development team and how we need to,understand who you are as an agency and,what your stack is these technologies,will be part of your stack and we want,to make sure that we are helping you,identify new technologies or maybe you,know pair you up with technologies where,you can go to market together with,Shopify plus and have the highest chance,of success and that brings me to the end,so if you are any existing agency,solutions partner Shopify + partner shop,by + expert please reach out to your,partner manager if you'd like any,further information alternative your,alternative,rather if you are a technology company,watching this and you would like to find,out more about the technology partner,program please email TTP sounds a bit,rude but it means plus technology,program at Shopify comm and we will get,back to you with further information and,I was going to say if you wanted to,speak to me after the event come find me,in one of the evening events but I'm not,there so please find me over email on,LinkedIn or if you find yourself in New,York please feel free to drop by and,we'll get a cup of tea thank you

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