Allbound, the only partner sales acceleration software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, packed the West Hall of the Phoenix Convention Center this week with more than 400 digital sales and marketing leaders for its first annual CO:LLABORATE conference ––more than doubling its expected attendance. CO:LLABORATE quickly became the largest gathering of modern-day channel sales and marketing leaders in the world. Keynoted by Robert Herjavec, the two-day conference allowed global businesses to learn and share best practices while networking with their peers in the Channel. 
“Indirect sales channels and partner ecosystems have proven critical to accelerated business growth and profitability, yet collaboration and innovation has lacked in this segment,” said Scott Salkin, founder and CEO of Allbound. “A fundamental shift is taking place in which content, collaboration, culture customer success are being linked directly to profitability and growth, and business leaders are hungry for a new way of doing things. The attendance numbers were proof of that.”
“We need more collaboration and cohesion in indirect sales and initiatives like CO:LLABORATE are key to stimulating that in this industry,” said Tiffani Bova, Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce. “This conference brought people together on both sides of the equation –channel marketers and sales partners ––to have the all-important conversations around collaboration.”
In addition to plans for next year’s conference, Allbound also announced CO:LLABORATE Local, a localized networking community initiative of channel sales and marketing leaders that they plan to bring to cities around the US and Canada in 2017. CO:LLABORATE Local community members can meet monthly to network, share their experiences, and develop great programs and relationships to lead their world in the Channel.
“My hope is that CO:LLABORATE becomes so much more than an annual conference, but truly the heartbeat of the evolving Channel Sales and Marketing industry,” said Scott Salkin, CEO and Founder at Allbound. “We feel a deep responsibility to continue our facilitation of idea exchange and networking amongst the greatest thinkers and doers in the Channel community.”
Keynote speaker, Robert Herjavec, founder and CEO of Herjavec Group and star of ABC’s Emmy Award winning Shark Tank, spoke to the packed house about the challenges and successes he experienced in building a hyper-growth company in the technology channel, and how modern digital media has forever transformed sales and marketing in the high-tech industry.
Other high-caliber speakers at CO:LLABORATE 2016 included Tiffani Bova, Salesforce; Pedro Moya, Google; Mike Weir, LinkedIn; Michelle Hodges, Riverbed; Nick Mehta, Gainsight; Lawrence Coburn, DoubleDutch; Dan Tyre, HubSpot; Mike Guggemos, Insight; Hilary Robertson, Optimizely; and Sangram Vajre, Terminus.
Speakers led discussions centered on strategies and best practices for accelerating growth in channel partner networks. Sessions covered topics on sales, marketing, customer success, SaaS, cloud computing, business intelligence and big data, and other business-to-business (B2B) topics.
For updates on CO:LLABORATE 2017, visit: allbound.com/collaborate.
About Allbound
Allbound, a partner sales acceleration software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution is a cloud-based software that simplifies and accelerates a business’s ability to recruit, onboard, train, measure, and grow indirect sales partners. The innovative software enables collaboration among channel vendors and their partners to improve the performance of their indirect sales channels by automating the delivery of marketing content, sales tools and training at each stage of the pipeline. For more information, visit www.allbound.com.
