Dr. Petri Salonen Founder & CEO of Tellus International: An international organization providing management services for software- and high-technology companies that want to globalize their business. Tellus International provides an affordable alternative for companies to extend their offerings around the world.
2 years ago, I met Dr. Petri Salonen (usually called as Networking Rebel) at Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference. I was impressed at my first interaction. What impressed me was his tenacity to give and partner with you to make you successful. What make him special and unique are his beliefs and values. He truly empowers people to become great by coaching and mentoring.
In my interview with him, Petri shares his vast experience about mastering Smart Partnership techniques to build global business.
Chaitra : Share something special about yourself that we don’t know.
Petri : People might not know that I have a passion for teaching. My mother is a retired teacher, my sister is a teacher. The more I look at my business, the more I see TELLUS role is to help organizations grow their business and become a coach for organizations to help them grow by doing workshops, seminars or being hired as management consultants etc…
My mantra is really that life is a never ending learning process and we have to get our kids to understand that as well… I have a passion for learning, and I guess my Master’s in Accounting and doctorate in information systems science demonstrates it. Also, my life after that has been to write books. third one in the workings.. second one coming out in May 2010…
Chaitra : Leading global business is your passion, what are reasons behind your passion?
Petri : I come from a small city (60k people) close to the Russian border and already as a young boy, I was looking at the ocean and telling myself that one of these days, I will be doing something in the world. My passion never went away and in 1998 I made a decision to move abroad, leave everything and take my family to the unknown… This is also the foundation for my upcoming book “Boldly into the World- Balancing career and life”.
I love different cultures; I have a built-in interest to learn how people live their lives and how they do business around the world. I feel that most of the business laws and practices are similar, but the cultural differences make it both fun and sometimes challenging.
When I started my company, I wanted the name of the company to be something that means worldwide business… and that is how TELLUS came… TELLUS is latin and means “The Globe”. The funny thing is that most people think it means “Tell Us”
As a Finn, you had to learn languages, and I am native in Finnish and Swedish and have learnt German for 8 years and English since third grade in school.
Chaitra: Online growth is critical to organization success, how did you setup your global business in last 5 years?
Petri : My company was setup as a virtual company five years ago. I made a decision that we would not have a single server on site, everything should be run from the cloud. That is the way it has been since day one. I can be sitting in the Caribbean islands running my business or in my native country Finland without our client knowing about it. I am adding people to the TELLUS brand around the world and it takes us 30 minutes to get somebody into our cloud infrastructure. That is power that we did not have 10 years ago. People can be working from their homes, their offices and this mode also requires specific attitude from the people. The freedom and flexibility we give is endless. You are assigned with results and we do not care how you bring it home or where you do it. I can build TELLUS family easily and add people that have skills to bring to the table.
Chaitra : Smart Partnering is core to your business. Why did you choose this strategy?
Petri : Smart partnering is about admitting that you can’t be good in everything. Smart partnering gives you the flexibility to add resources when you need it and on top of this, they are the best resources that you can have. This model limits your exposure to risks of having people on the bench, this model also helps companies to grow and prosper on their own as well as together. This is the model that I believe in and have always believed in. This model does not work with people that have suspect motivations or are greedy. Partnerships are usually for years, not for short-term.
Chaitra : Can you share few ideas that others can learn to implement Smart partnering?
Petri : I do simple things like:
- By joining IAMCP to learn what P2P means in real true sense.
- Connecting to other companies via social media, and learning how social media works in partnering space.
- Learning by doing.. is my mantra.. Do not expect short-term results in partnering, it is a long-term commitment.
- By reading your book, that includes many of the fine things that you can learn from partnering
Chaitra : How do you see Smart Partnering helping you grow your business in cloud computing
Petri : I see that TELLUS will grow as a company by having its own service in our research side that people will buy into. That is a big for us going forward. I also see that our reselling in cloud services will grow our revenue. We consult ISVs and SIs around the world and more and more of these companies need help in figuring out what to do and this is where TELLUS can be of help. We understand the ecosystem thinking, we understand how to build software solutions and we understand how and ISV works. This is a great educational opportunity for us going forward as I said in the first question.
Chaitra : What do you want people to remember after reading this feature?
Petri : I would hope that they remember TELLUS as an organization that can help ISVs and SIs to figure out what types of opportunities there are in the new world of cloud computing and how these organizations should be thinking about it. I am in fact in the process of working on my third book and it will be about this huge transformation that is taking place. This book will first be a workbook for our ISV seminars that we are doing for ISVs and SIs and then eventually it will turn into a book.
Thank you Petri for incredible insight into Smart Partnering, writing foreword for my book “Partnertweet”and for sharing your wonderful story!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
We heartily agree that partnering – with the right method and partners can leverage value and visibility and cover successful examples here
http://howwepartner.com/