Channel Manager: Tech Service Distributor Partnerships

Bland AI is the voice AI platform designed for enterprises with high-volume, complex call center operations. Bland addresses core infrastructure challenges—such as latency, reliability, and handling real-world complexity—that have historically hindered voice AI adoption in business. The company built its voice AI stack in-house and has secured over $100 million in funding from investors like Emergence Capital, Scale Venture Partners, and Y Combinator.

Today, Bland’s platform autonomously manages sophisticated inbound and outbound conversations, including multi-step workflows, authentication, business-rule-based routing, and live data lookups. By owning the stack across transcription, language models, and text-to-speech, Bland ensures reliability, security, and customization tailored to enterprise and regulated-industry needs.

Why This Role Matters

Bland is expanding its channel strategy through Tech Service Distributors (TSDs) and their advisor communities. Partners like Telarus introduce Bland to thousands of trusted technology advisors who guide customers through contact center, customer experience, communications, and AI decisions. The role of the Channel Manager is to transform these relationships into a productive route to market by earning distributor support, activating advisors, generating qualified pipeline, and accelerating partner-sourced opportunities to close.

Role Overview

The objective is to own and grow Bland’s TSD channel by:

• Building executive and field relationships within assigned distributors, starting with Telarus and expanding to additional strategic distributors.
• Recruiting and enabling high-potential advisors to recognize Bland’s use cases, position the platform effectively, and qualify opportunities.
• Generating partner-sourced pipeline through proactive outreach, event follow-ups, and targeted co-selling motions.
• Orchestrating successful co-sell motions from initial introduction through closed revenue and ongoing partner engagement.

Core Responsibilities

• Develop and execute the business plan for assigned TSD partners, ensuring alignment with Bland’s strategic goals.
• Build strong relationships with distributor executives, supplier management, channel managers, solution engineers, marketing teams, and field leaders to increase Bland’s visibility.
• Segment and identify high-potential advisors, creating tailored activation plans to convert awareness into meetings, registered opportunities, and revenue.
• Recruit, onboard, certify, and continuously enable advisors to effectively position Bland’s platform and qualify opportunities.
• Design and execute scalable enablement programs, including webinars, office hours, sales plays, battlecards, case studies, demo sessions, newsletters, and in-person training.
• Plan and execute joint go-to-market campaigns, regional events, advisor meetings, and distributor programs in collaboration with Bland’s marketing and sales teams.
• Create partner-sourced pipeline through proactive advisor outreach, event follow-ups, account mapping, referral campaigns, and targeted co-selling motions.
• Qualify and manage deal registrations, establish clear next steps, and coordinate Bland’s account executives, solution consultants, product specialists, and implementation resources throughout the sales cycle.
• Support advisors in navigating customer discovery, value positioning, demos, proposals, objections, procurement, and handoffs while maintaining trust and deal ownership.
• Maintain accurate pipeline, activity, and forecast data in the CRM, reporting partner performance, conversion rates, risks, and next actions to channel and sales leadership.
• Establish quarterly business reviews and joint success metrics covering enabled advisors, active sellers, introductions, registered opportunities, pipeline, wins, revenue, and time to first deal.
• Represent Bland at TSD conferences, regional meetups, roadshows, and advisor events, ensuring quick and systematic follow-ups to convert engagement into pipeline.
• Capture field feedback on competitive positioning, customer requirements, advisor needs, program friction, and product gaps, translating insights into actionable input for leadership, product, marketing, and operations.
• Help build repeatable channel processes, rules of engagement, enablement assets, incentive programs, and operating rhythms to scale across the broader TSD ecosystem.

Ideal Candidate Profile and Role Requirements

Bland seeks a commercially driven Channel Manager who excels in earning trust within distributor ecosystems and motivating independent advisors to generate qualified opportunities. This individual combines deep relationship-building skills with disciplined pipeline management, communicates technical value in practical business terms, and thrives in a fast-paced environment where the channel playbook is still evolving.

Must-Have Experience

• 5+ years in channel sales, partner management, indirect sales, alliances, or business development within enterprise technology.
• Direct experience working with TSDs, technology advisors, agents, brokers, master agents, or comparable indirect sales ecosystems.
• A proven track record of generating partner-sourced pipeline and closed revenue, not just managing relationships or partner programs.
• Ability to build relationships across distributor leadership, field teams, and individual advisor firms, from executive sponsors to day-to-day sellers.
• Strong enablement and presentation skills to make AI and contact center technology understandable, relevant, and actionable for advisors.
• Disciplined opportunity management, forecasting, follow-up, and CRM hygiene across a broad portfolio of partner relationships and deals.
• Comfort leading co-sell activity with account executives and technical teams while maintaining clear roles, next steps, and partner communication.
• High ownership and bias for action; capable of building structure, programs, and operating cadence without waiting for a fully developed playbook.
• Willingness to travel regularly for distributor meetings, advisor visits, conferences, roadshows, and customer opportunities.

Nice-to-Have Experience

• Established relationships within Telarus or other major TSD and technology-advisor communities.
• Experience selling voice AI, conversational AI, CCaaS, UCaaS, CPaaS, contact center software, customer experience technology, or adjacent cloud solutions.
• Experience developing partner campaigns, incentive programs, certifications, sales plays, and event strategies in partnership with channel marketing.
• Familiarity with enterprise contact center economics, automation use cases, consumption-based software, and ROI-based selling.
• Experience working at a high-growth or early-stage company and helping establish a new channel route to market.
• Executive presence and confidence working with owners of advisor firms, distributor leadership, and enterprise customer stakeholders.

Measures of Success

• Growth in activated advisors and advisors producing qualified opportunities.
• Partner-sourced and partner-influenced pipeline, closed revenue, and conversion rates.
• Speed from advisor onboarding to first qualified opportunity and first closed deal.
• TSD engagement, enablement participation, event productivity, and follow-up execution.
• Forecast accuracy, CRM discipline, and partner satisfaction with Bland’s co-sell support.