WIN
Business is a battle, and we came here to WIN!
Carrie and Ian Richardson are partners and serial entrepreneurs who specialize in strategic growth and exit planning for SMBs.
Every week, we ask business owners and leaders two important questions:
"What's Important Now?"
"How are you winning?"
Created by entrepreneurs who love strategy, sales and strategic selling, we interview business owners and sales leaders at all stages of growth across multiple industries.
Learn from experts sharing their strategies and the tactics they use to identify and pursue opportunities.
Take away actionable ideas that you can use to help you scale and/or sell your business.
Learn more about Fox and Crow Group at https://foxcrowgroup.com
WIN
Eric Roach and Dropsuite - Winning Through Strategic Partnerships
Winning Through Strategic Partnerships with Eric Roach of Dropsuite
In this episode of the WIN Podcast, host Carrie Richardson sits down with Eric Roach, SVP of Global Sales and Marketing at Dropsuite, to explore how strategic partnerships can supercharge growth.
With PAX8 Beyond on the horizon, Eric shares how Dropsuite leverages major events not just for exposure—but for creating deep, scalable engagement with MSP partners.
You’ll learn how Dropsuite transforms post-event reflections into proactive planning, how they equip their teams for meaningful conversations on the show floor, and why true alignment with vendor partners starts long before the booth setup.
Whether you’re prepping for your next event or evaluating your vendor ecosystem, this conversation will help you make your next move intentionally—and strategically.
Learn more about strategic vendor partnerships in this Fox & Crow Group article.
Carrie Richardson and Ian Richardson host the WIN Podcast - What's Important Now?
Serial entrepreneurs, life partners and business partners, they have successfully exited from multiple businesses (IT, call center, real estate, marketing) and they help other business owners create their own versions of success.
Ian is certified in Eagle Center For Leadership Making A Difference, Paterson StratOp, and LifePlan.
Carrie has helped create and execute successful outbound sales strategies for over 1200 technology-focused businesses including MSPs, manufacturers, distributors and SaaS firms.
Learn more at www.foxcrowgroup.com
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Be a guest on WIN! We host successful entrepreneurs who share advice with other entrepreneurs on how to build, grow or sell a business using examples from their own experience.
Good afternoon everybody. My name is Carrie Richardson and I am your host for the WIN Podcast. With me today is Eric Roach, who is the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing for Drop Suite. Drop Suite's going to be exhibiting at PAX 8 Beyond in June in Denver, and we're asking them some questions about how vendors and MSPs can maximize their ROI when they're attending an event the size of PAX 8 Beyond. Eric, thanks for joining me today.
Eric Roach:Thanks Carrie.
Carrie Richardson:tell me about your previous experience at PAX 8. Beyond. I know Drop Suite's been a vendor there previously.
Eric Roach:Yes, we have. I we've done all three of the PAX 8 events in Denver. each of the events have been fantastic. Last year, did the first, event in Berlin. For the PAX 8 emea Beyond event. This will be our fourth Beyond in total, and we're super excited about how the PAX 8 Beyond community continues to grow. it gives us a great opportunity to be in front of not just hundreds of existing MSPs that we deal bus, do business with daily, but also of course perspective MSPs that we're not doing business with today. we're very excited.
Carrie Richardson:Is there a significant difference between the culture or the community in the EMEA space, or is it a fairly similar experience?
Eric Roach:I think it's similar in terms of how Pax 8 executes the event and how they approach the event and how they are trying to bring value to each of the partners that attend. The biggest difference is it's much smaller in scale as this is the first time they had done it in Berlin. We've already signed up for, the event in Amsterdam coming up, in October. The biggest difference is scale, but it feels very similar in terms of the value we get as a participating vendor, in investing in the show. We participate in many events, globally on an annual basis. the thing that stands out about the Beyond event is certainly the scale. it is just a huge event, and because PAX 8 is such a close partner of ours, it is a great opportunity for us to, get in front of so many of our partners. in terms of the presentations, the individual breakout sessions, the entertainment, it's at the top of the list in terms of the events that we participated on an annual basis.
Carrie Richardson:How far in advance of the event do you begin preparing?
Eric Roach:We kind of start preparing immediately after the previous. This is a big event for us. We think about this event in terms of how we launch new products, how we launch new features, how we launch new programs. And a lot of it has to do with. trying to make that as real time as possible for each of the Beyond events. Once the team goes through a Beyond event, we'll immediately huddle up, we'll talk about what worked, what didn't, and the planning process for how we move forward with the next version starts at that point. We're always collecting information on, what moved the needle, what didn't, in terms of messaging, programs, potentially incentives and spiffs that we may launch in terms of how we scan badges at the booth. Everything gets dissected. We immediately start actioning, on the next year's, event based on what we've learned and, the pivots that we're looking to make.
Carrie Richardson:How much preparation goes into inviting people to visit the booth or hosting events on site?
Eric Roach:Months and months. We have a cross-functional team across marketing, across sales, across management that is planning for months and orchestrating what we want to do. What's the timing? How do we bring the most attention to DropSuite with the audience? We worked really closely with PAX 8 to understand the dynamics of the event this year. We'll work very closely with our partners at PAX 8 just to ensure that what we are planning to deliver is not just gonna meet the mark for Dropsuite, but it's gonna meet the mark for the MSPs. We start planning for the June Beyond events mid January in terms of really fine tuning our messaging and our approach.
Carrie Richardson:do you feel like you've got an advantage being in the PAX 8 marketplace as a vendor at PAX 8?
Eric Roach:PAX 8 is one of our strongest industry partners. we're always collecting feedback on where we can be better from our MSPs on what they're looking for, what moves the needle for them. MSPs have many choices in who they do business with, and it's, important for us to stay in front of what's most important to them. They are at the forefront of evolving end customer requirements that are always changing. it's super dynamic. We wanna make sure we're taking the right approach in how we message to our partners on site whether it be directly from PAX 8 or those partners themselves.
Carrie Richardson:What will you be changing this year based on feedback from previous years?
Eric Roach:We are gonna send a team of 12 or 13 individuals across functions- sales, product, marketing, support, and our executive team. Not only is it important to have good qualified conversations with our MSPs at our booth, but we also want to make sure that we're, we have the resourcing to allocate time to meet one-on-one with partners outside of exhibit time. It's great to have 4 minute conversations with a partner or a prospective partner in the booth. But more importantly, we wanna make sure that the partners that want to meet with us and talk about their business and how we can potentially work together to drive growth for both of our companies. We wanna make sure that we have the right team and titles, at the event to accommodate those meetings. We can address everything that's gonna be on the minds of our partners and prospective partners. That goes up to the executive level. The other thing that we're doing which comes from previous learnings is being able to have demo stations in our booth. We'll have different designated demo stations where we'll be able to walk a partner or a prospective partner through a particular solution. rather than just talk about it, we can say, Hey, would you like to come over and we'll show you what we're talking about. the way that we've invested in our booth this year is to enable different types of conversations on the show floor. I think that comes with the learnings over the last couple years.
Carrie Richardson:are you using portable devices or are they built into the booth? How do you structure it so that you can fit that many people into the booth With partners who are crowded around specific spaces.
Eric Roach:the good thing is we have a super smart team who are experts themselves in figuring out little problems like this. So, how we're configuring our booth is, I believe we have three demo stations. We'll be able to run those demo stations off a laptop, but we have big LCD screens. to accommodate a conversation where perhaps it's three or four partners, in the same conversation. So it's not just let me swivel my laptop around, but we've invested. The money to make sure that we have the right displays to be able to have that kind of a conversation as well as, you know, being at the sponsorship level, we have a larger, footprint in terms of our booth, so we've been able to strategically place where those demo stations are so we're not talking over one another. those are just the little things I think you pick up over the years and trying to accommodate the right conversations as comfortably as possible for our partners.
Carrie Richardson:I think we've known Drop Suite for probably 10 to 12 years now. So when you first started on the event circuit, you definitely did not have a booth that could've fit three large LCD screens. So at what point
Eric Roach:we've definitely grown up over the years for sure. which is exciting. as any vendor out there would attest to, you have to pick your bets on. How big you're gonna go at each of the events. budgets are limited and as we plan the calendar of events for the next year, we have to figure out, where we get the most bang for our buck The PAX 8 Beyond event is typically always at the top of that list because it's just so important to us. drop Suite would not be who we are today without the PAX 8 relationship. six, seven years into that relationship, that still holds true. this is one of our biggest bets Not all events are the same. We're not gonna get the same ROI out of every event. This is one that we typically go all in on for all of those reasons.
Carrie Richardson:So for events like PAX 8 Beyond or the larger events, how are you communicating with prospects prior to the event? how does that differ to how you're going to engage with the clients that you're already doing business with?
Eric Roach:As you can imagine, it's always easier to, communicate and prepare with current pro partners because you're talking to them all the time. So as we have our sellers talking to our partners, they're asking questions like, Hey, who's going to Beyond? You know, can we set up time to either in the booth or, or separately to meet a lot of our partners? We'll, we'll ask questions about, you know, what's on your mind. You know, one partner might have a big idea that they wanna run by us. and so we'll, so our sales reps will navigate, who's the right person for that conversation? This stuff happens, weeks in advance, which is great, because then we can kind of make sure that. We have the right team resource for every conversation, our partner, everything that's top of mind for our partners. You know, sometimes our partners might wanna talk about support or they might want to talk about how do we go drive more leads together. So that would be more of a marketing conversation. we try to get out in front of those conversations ahead of time to make sure we have the right people, scheduled
Carrie Richardson:Sorry about
Eric Roach:There you go.
Carrie Richardson:stop it.
Eric Roach:on the perspective partner side, it's tough because, typically we don't know who we're not. But this is the stuff I typically have to deal with on my side of the call.
Carrie Richardson:Normally she's pretty good, but I think Ian ordered pizza, so the pizza guy is here and that's what's, happening right now. she should calm down in a second.
Eric Roach:no problem.
Carrie Richardson:Pick it up from where she started. Sure, sure.
Eric Roach:that's on the existing partners who we're talking to every day, and we know, when it comes to the, perspective partners, that's a little tough because We don't know who's gonna be there that we don't have a relationship with today. typically we have a pretty healthy funnel of new partners that we're working through to recruit and activate at any given month anyways, we're now in the window of time before the event where we're asking those questions, what industry events are you gonna be at? We would love to connect with you face to face. Oh, you're gonna be at Beyond. Can we set up some time? those conversations are happening, it's just a little more difficult when you don't know, who's gonna be there of the partners you're not working with today.
Carrie Richardson:So what have you done? That's worked really well for Drop Suite over the years. is there swag that people absolutely love that became collectors items, or do you kind of, the holy grail,
Eric Roach:anybody who understands this business, the Holy Grail is what's the hook that you can come up with that's gonna drive great traffic for you? in my experience, the hook really is not the piece of swag. It's you being the right partner for that MSP to talk to at that time. there's something of a relevancy perspective that makes sense for that partner to wanna go seek you out. It's great that you can give them, whatever the tchotchke of the year is, whatever the case is. Those are always nice. But the most meaningful conversations that come to the booth are from partners who have. Thought about who do they want to talk to? who are they potentially looking to work with? And they need to understand more about the solutions, the company, that sort of thing. those are always the best drivers to the booth. it's not the swag, it's the relevancy.
Carrie Richardson:you mentioned that you time releases or new offerings with PAX 8 Beyond. How many partners come up to speak to you to figure out what those things are going to be? Or does it get announced before the event so there's some excitement and people come to the booth? Or does it get announced at the event and people will follow up with you after?
Eric Roach:Yeah, there's, a little bit of everything. It just depends. So for Beyond this year, we've had some product releases and feature releases just in the last. Month. That will be big talking points at the show. now that we're about a month out? those are all things, from a features and functionality perspective that we will talk about that we've already released. we typically. we typically have two big release periods throughout the year. they happen to be around the Beyond events. So we're in that process now. And then we have some other, product releases that will come out in the fall that will probably be very much in concert with, the Amsterdam event in emea.
Carrie Richardson:How do you coordinate those schedules? How do you figure out who's working the coffee shift and who's doing the late night party shift?
Eric Roach:the late night party shift thing always gets figured out on its own. We don't have to do much planning for that one. one thing about Drop Suite that you probably know because you've been working with us for years, is. when we attend an event like this, titles and everything else go out the window, you know, we expect that we're gonna have all of our people in the booth. MSPs were around to have conversations,
Carrie Richardson:I've seen she the booth before,
Eric Roach:yeah, I'll give you a very specific example in a second. the most meaningful time for us, is anytime we can interface with partners. we know that when, an MSP goes to Beyond the schedule is completely packed, They're in sessions. They're in peer-to-peer stuff, they're in at the exhibits. there's not a ton of free time, and this will get us into what's most important to a new, MSP in terms of how they approach Beyond. But what I was gonna say about the booth is we typically have everybody from our CEO to C-level individuals, to our sales or product or support people all in the booth together. Nobody is above scanning a badge. Nobody is above giving a demo. we're all there. it's kind of a beautiful thing about Drop Suite overall, but kind of titles and that stuff goes out the window. We're all about having great interaction with partners and that's why they're there.
Carrie Richardson:And you mentioned that you had some advice for MSPs that were new to PAX 8 Beyond this year.
Eric Roach:Yeah. for partners. specifically MSPs new to an event like Beyond, the most important thing you can do, before the event is to plan. and an an Ms. P probably the three areas that I think any Ms. P would, agree that's most valuable in approaching an event like PAX 8. Beyond. The first is connecting with vendors. That's obviously first and foremost for us, we wanna connect with you, but it's connecting with vendors, not just vendors that you're working with in your portfolio today, but also vendors that you might be targeting. Like I'm hearing things about this particular vendor, I have a gap on my line card. I need to go seek that particular, that particular vendor out to have a conversation about whether there's a fit. the first thing is connecting with vendors. the second is peer-to-peer networking. MSPs, a vendor can tell an Ms. P all day long about how great their solution is and how much money they're gonna make in selling our solution. But at the end of the day, MSPs know that it's the peer-to-peer networking where they can actually sit down and learn from each other. What are you working on? What vendors are you working with that are actually moving the needle for your business in terms of how you, support your customers? It's that peer-to-peer networking It's invaluable. It's great to catch up with friends in the industry that you might see once a year on the conference circuit. But the learnings that happen between MSPs I think is critical for them. And that's, that's a big value in approaching an event last is taking the opportunity to learn. what's important for MSPs is, when they think about their tech stack, what were the considerations five years ago when you built that tech stack are those still the right solutions in terms of how I approach my customers today and tomorrow as they were 3, 4, 5, 4, 5 years ago? What gaps do I have in my line card? it's the greatest gift from an event like this take the moment to reflect on your business. Where you're at in your business, how do you support your customers? The decisions I made 2, 3, 4 years ago, are those still the right decisions for the future? what are the trends? What are the hot technologies I need to think about as I expand my offerings to my customers, it's that point of reflection. that's super important at the end of the day. Is how an MSP is going to get the most out of, their two or three days at Beyond. So I think it all starts with just having a plan. What do I wanna come home with? And then kind of work backwards into how you plan those three days at Beyond.
Carrie Richardson:Actually went to an event early in my career where the host of the event stood on the front of the stage and made everybody write down. The things that they wanted to get from the event. And they said, if you don't get these things from this event, I want you to come see me after the event and ask for your money back. and for me, I got what I wanted from the first keynote, right? I was able to pull the nuggets forward and. it kind of changed our business that was the first time I'd gone to an event and sat through the talks and really thought about how can I apply this to my business? How does this imPax me? How would this imPax my customers? What if I could do this? What if I could change that? It was a very different experience.
Eric Roach:It's about being intentional of what you really wanna accomplish at the end of all of this. for a vendor, think about your goals of the event. sponsoring events like Beyond are not cheap, no matter what level you're coming in. what does success look like? at the end of the day, what am I gonna walk away saying? This was a great investment and is it gonna be, I wanna go find a way to work with 20 new. MSPs I'm not working with today, or it might be, I wanna make sure I connect with the couple hundred partners, the current MSPs that are gonna be there at the event that I'm already working with. It's a great opportunity to connect with them whether you're an MSP or a vendor like Drop Suite. I think it's all about planning and being super intentional about how you wanna spend your time, because the moment you walk into those doors, it's a Gaylord. You're gonna be overwhelmed with options of how you can spend your time. The more intentional and the more you plan, I think the more you're gonna walk away with what you intended to be success for the event.
Carrie Richardson:Is there any advice you've got for somebody who's brand new to the event circuit on the MSP or the vendor side?
Eric Roach:the keynotes are great. I would attend all of the keynotes. sit in those keynotes, and learn about not just what other vendors are doing, but learn about how is PAX 8 evolving and how they support MSPs. There's always big announcements. Whether they be specific to the marketplace or programs or whatever the case is, I would definitely, invest time in, and sitting through those keynotes and taking notes, there's always a lot of value in those. We have a 20 minute breakout session. Those are an opportunity to, again, be intentional about what do I wanna learn, whether it's this facet of cybersecurity this backup or whatever the case is. how do I wanna spend my time because I can't be in four sessions at once. So what's right for my business?
Carrie Richardson:Most MSPs will not have 12 people there.
Eric Roach:The other thing I wanna call out, is, PAX 8 does a really good job about making their executives accessible to all participants, whether they be vendor or on the MSP side. whether it's Rob Rae or Nick Heddy or whoever, there might be. Execs that you want to make contact with, network with, ask questions of, you can be intentional about that as well. There's always just a ton of executives that are more than happy to sit down at any point with MSPs, and I think that's something that, can be planned as well.
Carrie Richardson:I met the chief people officer from PAX 8 on the inaugural event, randomly in an elevator. And I didn't know who they were, I was just chitchatting with them. Later they were at the bar and I was like, Hey, elevator guy. How are you doing? And we talked about something I was trying to do in my business and he was very encouraging. Just like a lovely conversation. He is like, I have to go now. And the person next to me said, do you know who that was? I was like, some guy I met in the elevator a couple hours ago, and they're like, oh, they're in the C-suite for Pax 8. the chief people officer. So don't assume that people are gonna be too busy to talk to you.
Eric Roach:That's a great example of you never know who you're talking to be prepared to talk about your business where you are thriving and where you are struggling. if that particular person couldn't help you, I guarantee they will put you in the right place to have those conversations. so yeah. And that's a perfect example of the make the most out of every conversation. You never know, right.
Carrie Richardson:I think that's a great place to stop today. Eric, thanks so much for joining us on the WIN podcast today. I look forward to seeing you and the rest of the Drop Suite team in Denver and June.
Eric Roach:Thanks, appreciate it.
