Employee Spotlight: Q&A with Sam Blackburn, Partner Sales Manager UK&I at Nasuni

Nasuni caught up with Sam Blackburn, Partner Sales Manager of UK & Ireland, to talk about his role in Nasuni’s international partner drive and what motivates him at work.

Before joining Nasuni, Sam spent over fifteen years in the channel empowering partners to bring cutting-edge data protection and cybersecurity solutions to market. Today, he works closely with value-added resellers, MSPs, and specialist partners, championing Nasuni’s cloud-native edge to grow channel revenue in new-to-Nasuni markets.

Q: Can you introduce yourself and tell me what your role involves?

I’m Sam Blackburn, Partner Sales Manager for the UK and Ireland. My main responsibilities are driving net new and expansion opportunities within the UK and Ireland partner base. My colleague Rav Simak and I have divided up our market so I look after all the value-added resellers, managed service providers, and specialist resellers, and he looks after global system integrators and system integrators.

Q: You joined Nasuni’s UK team earlier this year. What was that experience like?

It was a whirlwind. Nasuni approached me to join in December, I had three interviews within three days over Christmas, and I started in February. I was happy in my old role but I’d been there for four and a half years so I was ready for a new challenge. Nasuni has strong partners but I knew that we’d need to build mindshare, opportunity, and trust within those existing partnerships. We also needed to find revenue streams within new partners to take Nasuni to greater heights. That was an appealing prospect for me.

Going from a hybrid environment to full remote working was a shift. Working remotely can be difficult if you feel isolated, but since I’ve been with Nasuni there’s always been someone at the end of the phone to bounce ideas off, there have been chances to meet up in person, and everybody in the team really gets on — which is always good!

Q: What has the experience of building the brand in the UK and Ireland been like?

What I’m really good at – and what I thrive on – is building things up and taking products to the next level. So it’s exciting to me that we have an established product ready to go that we just need to get out to the market more. Nasuni is really investing in the partner sales team globally to be able to drive that.

At Nasuni we have a “give to get” ethos. That means we give opportunities to partners who will be able to invest back into us and build long-standing relationships. We do that by giving the sellers within these partners the confidence to be disruptive in the market and not just sell the status quo. We want them to feel able to have more consultative conversations and to be a trusted advisor for Nasuni. Because we prioritize high-quality partnerships, we focus on a smaller, more strategic partner landscape.

So far, this strategy is really showing success. We’re getting partners who want to invest in us and who can really champion Nasuni out to the market. Partners have so many different vendors pushing their product as the best in the world so we need to make sure that we differentiate in the market, and I feel that we do.

Q: What do you see as Nasuni’s core differentiators?

One of the main reasons that I came to Nasuni is because we are truly differentiated in the market. There’s nobody else who does what we do at the scale, with the ability, and with the levels of customer service that Nasuni does.

Resellers in the UK today drive off the NPS score, so I push off our NPS score of 89. Once we get customers, we don’t lose them, so I also make a point of our renewal rates. And I talk to partners about our “land and expand” model, because when we start small with a customer, the room for growth expansion is phenomenal. There are accounts I can point to that have seen 60-80% growth over a year. That’s really important for a seller within a partner because it means more revenue, more margin, and more of their targets hit.

Q: We’ve talked about big picture strategy, but what does a typical day look like for you?

It’s different every single day. Today, for instance, I’m out with a partner playing football in Shoreditch to increase our visibility and presence. On other days I’ll really drill down on generating pipeline for our sellers. Or I might have a full day of prospecting different partners. Even within one partner, you still need to identify those people who have sold Nasuni and earned a good margin so they can champion our value to others.

In the short months that I’ve been here, we’re already seeing some wins which will be valuable in the long run. In the very beginning, there’s a lot of going after people, which leads to net new opportunities. Every opportunity that we get is really vital to us so we make sure that we give our partners the best service for them to close it. An oak tree doesn’t grow in a day. After planting the seed, you have to keep watering it and taking care of it.

Q: It sounds like you’re gaining a head of steam in EMEA. What excites you about the response you’re seeing to Nasuni and what the future could hold there?

What really excites me about Nasuni in this space is that there are a lot of legacy vendors out there that are struggling and trying to pivot to a cloud story. But Nasuni doesn’t need to pivot to that cloud story. We were born in the cloud. And because we’ve fully embraced it, we’re ahead of the curve. It’s now our job as the partner sales team to be able to evangelize that message out to our partners.

Q: What do you enjoy doing when you’re not at work?

I’m from England so it won’t shock you to learn that I’m a football fan. I follow Sheffield United and travel to every game to watch them, whether home or away. I’ve been to 49 games this season.

Another thing about me is that I’ve had two kidney transplants, one in 2007 and one in 2017. Because of this, I’m really proud of fundraising for Kidney Research UK. A transplant is not a forever fix, it’s just one part of a long-term treatment. I’m passionate about kidney health and being in the kidney community.

Additionally, our 18-month-old daughter was born three months premature which meant we spent four months in hospital with her. She’s our little miracle. So my daughter, Sheffield United, and kidneys — in that order!

If you’re interested in being a part of Nasuni’s global expansion, check out our recent career opportunities here.