# Josh Scott

Josh Scott writes about channel marketing and SMB partner growth, with a focus on helping technology vendors generate demand through their partner networks. Scott's posts discuss why self-serve portals and marketplace listings alone may not change partner behavior, and how automation can help partners reach end customers.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/josh-scott/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-scott
- Topics: artificial-intelligence, b2b-marketing
- Based on 23 dated posts, latest 2026-10-07

## Summary

Most useful for explaining why SMB partner activation stalls and how automation can support partner-led demand.

- Best for: Technology vendors and channel marketing platforms focused on SMB partner engagement or partner-led demand.
- Not for: Paid self-service partner portal endorsements, guaranteed reach, or campaigns aimed directly at SMB owners.
- Check first: Ask for audience demographics, engagement data, rates, media kit, and sponsorship terms.

### Takeaways

- Most SMB partners will never market a vendor, and self-serve portals are the wrong fix.
- Marketplaces transact demand; they do not create customer interest or demand.
- Enterprise playbooks fail for SMB when the partner managers who made them work are removed.

## Main ideas

- **Most SMB partners will never market a vendor, and self-serve portals are the wrong fix**: Scott gives four reasons why, they say, more than 90% of partners never take a vendor to their end users. Most SMB partners are technically focused and have, at best, one person covering all marketing, so vendor activity is the first thing deprioritised. Market development funds go only to a small set of top partners, leaving everyone else excluded. Partners work with as many as 20 vendors, all asking for joint marketing, which produces overload and inaction. And long-tail partners are the group least likely to use a self-service portal. Their conclusion: these partners need proactive marketing support delivered through automation, not reactive enablement that waits for them to act.
- **Shrinking the enterprise playbook into SMB removes the people who made it work**: Scott describes a repeated pattern: when a vendor makes SMB a priority, it takes the enterprise playbook, makes it lighter and self-serve, and pushes the same model, metrics and programmes across the wider partner base. Enterprise motion works, they argue, because partner managers build plans, provide funding and give constant support, and because large partners have the time to act on vendor-specific plans. Remove that human investment and the programme assumes partners will engage on their own. In SMB, where most partners are running flat out and selling what customers already ask for, that assumption fails. Vendors add headcount, enablement and internal alignment while partner behaviour barely shifts.
- **Marketplaces transact demand, they do not create it**: Scott separates marketplace purchasing from growth. Hyperscaler marketplaces have become a primary route to purchase, procurement is simpler and deals close faster, but they argue much of that revenue was already going to happen, just transacted a different way. Marketplaces do not help partners decide what to raise with their end customers or teach those customers what they should be asking for. Demand generation, they say, happens outside the marketplace, and in SMB that is what drives growth.
- **Enablement does not change partner priorities, demand does**: Scott argues that vendors assume revenue will follow once partners are enabled and the offer sits on a marketplace. Partners instead default to what already works: what they sold last week and what customers are already asking for. Being listed simplifies procurement for the partner but does not reorder their priorities. Programmes scale, they say, when customer momentum arrives first—that is, when end customers start conversations about a specific solution rather than when another option is added to a catalogue.
- **'SMB is our fastest growing segment' is not evidence of winning the SMB market**: Scott pushes back on a claim they hear constantly from vendors. More deals, more revenue and more partners can simply reflect a rising market, because a growing market lifts everyone. If demand is not directed, they say, it is shared. Competitive separation comes from shaping both halves of the loop: partners sell what end customers ask for, and end customers ask for what they have already seen or heard. A vendor that shapes neither is growing with the market rather than taking share.
- **The answer Scott promotes: automated, AI-personalised partner demand generation**: Scott's constructive position is that partner-led demand work should be automated and personal. They describe a demand generation engine that uses AI to tailor end-user messaging per partner and is integrated into the marketplace, so a vendor launching a new solution can have hundreds of partners make their end users aware of it and then implement it without a single manual action. The same idea appears in partnership announcements: Check Point MSPs getting free automated digital marketing and AI personalisation, and a Huddly partnership framed around doing more with less. These are vendor and partnership announcements, not independent product tests or measured outcomes; ask for independent evidence before assessing results.
- **Statistics carrying a vendor's own admission**: A recurring move in Scott's posts is to open with third-party figures about partner marketing gaps and then attach a named vendor's response. The numbers are 81% of partners saying they are not getting the marketing support they need, attributed to JSG, and 71% saying demand generation is their number one challenge, attributed to Demand Gen Report. Scott then points to Hewlett Packard Enterprise working with Channext.
- **Meeting MSPs directly, not only vendors, is part of the method**: Scott treats channel events as research, not just promotion. Posts describe attending MSP Global, deliberately steering conversations away from vendors and toward MSPs themselves, asking how they approach marketing and how they are supported, and later summarising what came back. The stated finding is that MSPs need help with marketing and vendors want to help—the premise the rest of the posts build on. Pax8 Beyond posts promote and recap the event, the community and the keynotes, and describe how recently the MSP world entered their orbit.

## Work to read

- [Why most SMB partners never market a vendor: four reasons](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-scott_smbmarketing-channelpartners-channelmarketing-activity-7191426727028424704-u4-M)
- [The enterprise playbook doesn't shrink to fit SMB](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-scott_when-a-vendor-decides-smb-revenue-is-a-priority-activity-7419335890570813440-RShs)
- [Marketplaces move deals, not demand](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-scott_marketplaces-have-changed-how-technology-activity-7414691095261073408-sjBs)
- [Why "SMB is our fastest growing segment" says little](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-scott_smb-is-our-fastest-growing-segment-we-activity-7415300440751566849-e-o0)
- [The partner marketing support gap, in a vendor's own words](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-scott_81-of-partners-say-they-arent-getting-the-activity-7264544886245265409-ukO2)
- [Channext's automated partner demand engine](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-scott_want-to-hear-how-channext-helps-you-accelerate-activity-7453048254117830657-Vzc2)

## Brand relationships

- **Channext** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Huddly** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Check Point Software** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Hewlett Packard Enterprise** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Pax8** (mention)
- **MSP Global** (mention)

## Partnerships

Josh Scott’s posts document partnerships between Channext and other technology vendors, but do not describe a personal sponsorship programme or bookable collaboration packages. The examples are product and channel relationships: Check Point Software joining Channext, and Huddly and Hewlett Packard Enterprise working with Channext. Scott announces them in their own voice, usually linking to the other company’s programme sign-up rather than to terms for working with them directly. The posts publish no rates, deliverables, media kit, audience data, or partner policy for Scott as an individual. A May 2024 post invites readers to comment or send a direct message about marketing support for SMB channel partners. For planning, the visible entry point is a relationship with Channext or one of its vendors. Ask directly about scope, deliverables, pricing, and timing.

## Alternatives

- Lindsay Riggs: Choose Lindsay Riggs when the collaboration is about partner marketing content strategy and partnership health rather than SMB activation mechanics. The March 2025 post sets out four content pillars a vendor has to staff: to-partner content (programme guides, enablement and training material, newsletters, portals, awards, appreciation events); with-partner content (joint value propositions, co-branded solution sheets, case studies, thought leadership, joint webinars); through-partner content (customisable campaigns, email sequences, sales scripts, playbooks, social posts); and for/about-partner content (messaging guides, press releases, executive presentations, sales kickoff material). A channel platform advising vendor customers on what content to build, and for which audience, would get a more developed content taxonomy here than from Josh Scott. The January 2025 post addresses relationship upkeep directly: it warns against treating partners as transactions and recommends checking in before they check out, providing enablement and demand-generation support before asking for pipeline, and replacing a portal graveyard of PDFs with real co-marketing support, streamlined deal registration, and MDF. That addresses the same portal complaint Scott makes, from the content-planning side.
- Manny Rivelo: Choose Manny Rivelo when the collaboration needs a vendor-executive and MSP-community voice rather than a practitioner argument about long-tail partner behaviour. The February 2026 post speaks directly to MSPs, saying SMBs deserve the benefits of AI but should not navigate complexity, risk, or security blind spots alone. It describes investment in unified platforms, security-first approaches, and practical AI use cases that automate repetitive work and strengthen security. The March 2026 post reports from IT Nation Connect Europe in London, where more than 600 IT leaders gathered, and frames the move toward an AI-driven, automated MSP model as the next wave after reactive IT support. A channel platform that wants a keynote-style session on where the MSP market is heading, or event-based content reaching a large partner audience, finds more here than in Scott's post-level arguments. The vendor-to-MSP relationship is the subject, not a side note.
- David Nankervis: Choose David Nankervis when the session needs sales-pipeline mechanics, quota planning, or the MSP security-vendor angle. The October 2026 post works backwards from a $50K quarterly quota at a $500 MRR average deal to show the plan needs about 9 deals, 30 SAOs, 45 SQLs, and 90 MQLs, with MQL-to-close at 10%, SQL-to-close at 20%, and SAO-to-close at 30% against a 40% goal. It advises planning on the number you hit today rather than the goal. A channel platform that wants a recorded session on how partners set and defend a pipeline number, or a co-authored planning resource, gets a finished worked calculation. The June 2026 post adds a vendor-market view: Timus joining CyberFOX to combine SASE, Zero Trust, password management, and privileged access management for MSPs, alongside a note on mentorship and the people involved. A brief about security consolidation, or how an MSP-facing vendor explains a merger to partners, fits this material.

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AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/