I just got back from the Eloqua Experience show in San Francisco and it was a great show for ReadyTalk. We showcased our integration into Eloqua that helps marketers streamline their webinar processes and increase conversion rates for their sales team. There was a lot of buzz around our booth and great interest our integration since it solves a large pain point for marketers who run webinars.

The attendance at my session also reinforced our perception that marketers are very interested in solving this pain. While it was the last session of the show, the room was packed and there were a lot of questions during my presentation and also quite a few people who came up to me after the session to ask very detailed questions. I was very impressed with their engagement and knowledge of both Eloqua and the webinar process.

While we did not win a Markie Award in the category of Sales Impact it was an honor to be a finalist and to sit up front during the awards ceremony. Joe Payne, the CEO of Eloqua, hosted the event and is very dynamic and entertaining speaker.

I would like to thank Eloqua for such a great event and I am looking forward to next years already!

Today’s post is contributed by Nario Young, who works in the accounting and HR department at ReadyTalk.

ReadyTalk is a company that has built a culture that is warm and welcoming to new employees. We care about employees and want them to fit in right from the beginning.

But for new employees, it can be a  challenging task to learn the names and faces of existing employees. And, because ReadyTalk is growing so quickly, it can be hard for old timers to get to know new employees.

We needed an organizational chart so  we can familiarize with names and faces as we walk by each time.

So we did it, we mapped out all employees and sorted by departments. We cut and pasted and made a few big posters. We planned to add new employees and make major updates every quarter.

It is totally wrong!  As our business is growing rapidly, we had to add lots of people, move people to other departments and take a couple of people off. The chart got messy. We said good bye to the old chart and switched to a magnetic whiteboard. Each employee has his/her own magnet and the departments are color coated. It allows me to easily add new employees and shift things around.

Now, we just have to keep employees from moving pieces.

How does your company keep it’s organizational chart and help people learn names and faces?

For 2011, we set some partnership goals around product integration and the launch of our API. Seems lots of people are interested in integrating webinar data with their critical business systems and so far our partnership goals are right on track.

With the interest in partnerships high, we need to be quick and smart in our decisions. To streamline due diligence the partner marketing team devised a partner profile and a scorecard to rank the prospects and estimate the value of the partnership to ReadyTalk. Most importantly, we recognize that not all opportunities provide good value and classifying our business objectives will help the decision making process. For ReadyTalk we can classify current partner needs as technology and marketing.

So you may be wondering what a partner profile and scorecard consists of. Based on the goals you have established, a clear partner profile and scorecard is easy to create. Below I’ve used marketing partnerships as an example.

Marketing Partners

Set goals. Every organization should define unique goals of their partner marketing program. Is it to generate leads? Build brand? Expand into a new market? Making this choice up front will help define the partner profile. Defining goals will assist in understanding what partnerships are critical to business.

Create a score card for your criteria. Score cards help you evaluate your priorities against what a partner has to offer. Using the profile of your ideal partner, define the desired elements and rank them in order of importance. Build a scale of your choosing. As an example 1-5, with 5 being a required item.

Every business has different needs so your profile will be unique. To start, list the desired criteria, keeping in mind that not all will be viable, so be prepared to live without some of them. Companies that have multiple decision makers on the partner marketing team can have each member rate individually, then review an overall team score.

Consider issues such as:

• Not a competitor but in the same market and selling to the same decision maker
• Similar price point, unless your product is the lead or add-on item
• Complementary products/services
• Define a new market to enter

Define a rank value for criteria. Setting rank value and understanding the score applied is important. There are several ways to do this, be sure and document how you want a score applied.

Example scorecard sample where 5 is the highest ranking:

Take a two step approach to researching your prospects. First, identify prospects with the profile in mind and do preliminary research on the company. Mark the scorecard with the information available to the public. Now you have initially prioritized the list. At this point, determine if you want to go forward and make contact with the prospect. A few conversations will help you learn more about the prospect and if there are synergies.

A great example of a marketing partner for ReadyTalk is cloud based services in the marketing automation systems and in the customer relationship management space where the decision maker is a marketing executive. We can easily build criteria and rank value with this example.

You may be able to see immediately the companies that travel in your circles, if not – contact me and let’s go over options.

Taking a measurable approach to partnerships can help you prioritize your needs and build a strong partnership based on common goals.

The ReadyTalk partner programs are outlined here or you can comment here with questions and your insights into building partnerships.

Tracy focuses on channel and partner marketing at ReadyTalk, building out marketing programs to recruit partners and reinforce engagement with them. When she’s not coming up with marketing plans she likes to compete in canine freestyle Frisbee and ride her Ninja motorcycle.

ReadyTalk recruiting has had a couple of very busy weeks. We are excited to have 2 new engineers on board who joined our team on Monday, October 17. Marina Karpiak is joining our Core Team as a Quality Assurance Engineer, and Mat Branyon will be helping Matt Klich in supporting our entire engineering team as an Application Infrastructure Engineer.

After contributing to the blog for a couple of weeks we realized that we never fully explained the importance of what we do and why we do it. First off, as many of you know the Denver market has become a very competitive place to find the TOP engineering talent. What we have learned is that for the most part, the best employees are already employed. It is our job to first find the top talent, and then share with them what we have going on in the engineering cave here at ReadyTalk. Our job is to make sure that as many people as possible realize what an awesome place this is to work, and the opportunities that await them when they get here…20% time and Labs, Nerd Book Club, Shame Donuts/Fame Donuts, Scotchtoberfest, Friday afternoon Open Arena competitions, beer brewing, Guitar Club, afternoon jogs, office planks, Moscow Mules …and much, much more!

As soon as we catch a candidate’s attention, it is our job to get them in the door. Working for ReadyTalk has made our jobs VERY easy…typically speaking, once they are in the door they are hooked. They want to know how they can get their picture on Famedonuts.com OR be the next winner of the Evil Genius award that is handed out at the end of Labs.

If YOU are interested in learning more about ReadyTalk Engineering please contact me directly at Catherine.harrison@readytalk.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @RTRecruiting to get the inside scoop on what is going on in engineering, along with the most recent job opportunities. We look forward to hearing from you!

Catherine Harrison is part of the ReadyTalk Recruiting Team. (AKA the Beaphins) She has been seeking out the top talent in the industry for 5 years now. Finding the geekiest engineers in the industry to join the ReadyTalk team is her top priority. When she is not on the prowl for Geeks you can find her hiking, rafting, snowboarding, and camping…anything outside!

The world of conferencing continues to change. First, it was bringing small groups of employees across various office locations together on the phone, followed by the need for web conferencing to show others what you were working on.  Now, those groups are no longer small, or limited to your own organization.  The use of audio and web conferencing has grown to much more than a way to cut down on costs, but as a successful way to generate leads through webinars, or train users on your product.  The use cases seem endless, and maybe even complex.  But something that should not be a brainteaser? Pricing.

ReadyTalk understands that our customers want to concentrate on the subject of their meetings, or content of their webinars, instead of the possibility of the unpredictable costs of their audio and web conferencing use.  We want to provide the highest quality, service and reliability, as part of our pricing.  With that expectation in mind, we introduce our five new web and audio subscriptions:

• Web Meeting Pro (25, 150)
• Webinar (500, 1000, 3000)

What’s unique about these? High-quality audio, included with every package.

The Web Meeting Pro subscriptions include unlimited web conferencing and a bundle of included toll and toll-free domestic audio minutes, at a flat monthly fee.

The Webinar subscriptions include unlimited web conferencing AND unlimited Broadcast Audio, enabling participants to stream high-quality audio through their computer speakers. Again, for a flat monthly fee.

So how do you know which subscription is right for you, or your company?

Do you conduct a fair amount of smaller, internal meetings or  present projects to external clients and vendors where high-quality audio is critical?  Then the Web Meeting Pro options are right up your alley.

Are you managing larger webinars for lead generation, online training, etc, more than once a month?  The Webinar subscription options can give you the cost-effective solution you are looking for.

Interested in learning more?  Contact us today to find out more about our new subscription plans!

Beth is a Product Marketing Manager and works with our customers to understand their needs as they relate to event services and our conference center, which is used to setup the details of our clients’ upcoming meetings. Outside of the office, Beth loves to spend time with family and friends, cook, and hit the slopes.